The Social Contract and Moral Obligations

Thanks, Kasmic!OVERVIEWI'll kick topicality to save character space. This does not grant Pro any positive offense as his points here don't actually affirm.PRO's CASEClarificationI'll kick this, too. Again: my kicking this argument does not grant Pro any positive offense as his points here don't actually affirm.Obligations1. Pro writes: "If you agree to do something it is then your duty to do it. That is synonymous with being obliged to do it." Again, this is a bare assertion fallacy. If I am a hitman, and I agree to kill someone, most people would argue that the agreement does not produce moral obligations. I cannot be morally obligated to act immorally. Surely, the wrongful nature of the agreement negates the agreement's ability to convey moral obligations. So, just because something is an agreement is not enough to prove that it creates obligations. This links in to something I noted last round: "If the social contract is immoral or unethical, it is not a valid source of moral authority, and thus cannot be the source of valid moral obligations." Additionally, if I agree to do something, it may be morally good of me to do that, but it is not always obligatory. If I agree to go get frozen yogurt with my friends tomorrow, is it something I am "bound" to do, or is it something that it would be good of me to do? If I failed to show up, my friends might be annoyed and they might say that I shouldn't have missed it, but they would hardly suggest I acted immorally by failing to come. That alone suggests that I was not obliged to attend, as to fail to fulfill a moral obligation is to act immorally. So, again, Pro has not made the case that agreements equate to moral obligations.2. Pro says that fulfilling legal obligations is "conforming to a standard of right behavior," so legal obligations are moral obligations. In this debate, we have used the Constitution as an example of a legitimately constituted social contract, meaning it was validly created. Yet, this Constitution legalized slavery, and laws were passed under that Constitution which required free states to return runaway slaves. these laws were Constitutional at the time. Is it "conforming to right behavior" to recognize people as 3/5ths of a person or to return free men to a situation of oppression? The answer is "no." Legal obligations are of law, not morality. Therefore, Pro needs to explain why the social contract produces not just legal obligations, but also moral obligations. Pro fails to do that. Again, he just blindly assumes that the social contract produces moral obligations.Obligations are Weighted2. Pro says that the hitman does have a duty to to kill, but that this obligation is overridden by the "moral weight to not murder." Even if it is overridden, it's an extreme claim to say that the hitman has a moral obligation to kill an innocent person. Also, there is an internal paradox in what Pro's remark. Moral obligations are things we must do to be moral. If I am morally bound to do X, the morality categorically demands of me that I do X; I am not given any other choice if I wish to obey morality...that is what "obligatory" means. So, Pro is saying that the hitman, by having a moral obligation, can only act morally if he kills the innocent person, but would also be immoral for doing so. That's a contradiction. Pro then writes: "Surely my opponent would agree that on balance agreeing to contract makes keeping that contract [moral]." No, I would not agree with that. First, the topic is not an "on balance" topic. Secondly, I would concur that agreeing to a social contract produces legal obligations, but not moral ones. Thirdly, a social contract can only produce valid obligations (of any kind) if it was legitimately constituted, meaning that it has the true consent of the people under it. Fourthly, Pro must defend that social contract duties are moral, he cannot just assume that is true because contractual duties are usually moral.3. Con says that there is an "underpinned morality that must be respected." This strongly implies that Pro agrees "that governments have equal obligations towards all [citizens]." Pro also contend that stronger relationships produce stronger obligations. Finally, Pro drops that some citizens can be closer to the government than others. This creates a contradiction, as his relationship argument suggests that governments have stronger obligations to some citizens than others, but the social contract suggests that the government has equal duties to all citizens. Sure, the topic we are debating is whether governments have stronger duties to citizens as compared to non-citizens, but that doesn't mean we cannot consider the implications of Pro's logic to determine how his points mesh. Pro's arguments contradict; thus, they cannot coexist and they are not valid together.4. Pro writes: "My statement that you cannot choose where you are born is to imply that your familial relationship is inherent." If you cannot choose, then how is it not arbitrary or random? This isn't a strawman; it's a simple logical extrapolation. Arbitrariness is inherent in familial relationships. Just to repeat: "an arbitrary reason is not a good reason." Since I was thrust into my familial relationship in an arbitrary way, why do I have any obligation towards my family? Pro hasn't furnished a good reason why I have such an obligation, so we have to assume that there is no good reason. If that's the case, then me arbitrarily being born within the US is not enough to justify me having an obligation to the US. 5. Pro exhibits the appeal to nature fallacy. Why is the familial contract good because it is natural? Not all that is natural is good, so naturalness is not evidence of goodness. But, Pro never disagrees that familial obligations are unchosen; in fact, this is something he embraces, writing: "[a]ll [non-familial relationships] are entered into unnaturally that is to say by choice." First, Pro says that "the social contract is an extension of the natural and familial contract." If the social contract is extending an non-chosen relationship, then isn't Pro suggesting that the social contract is unchosen? This statement just seems to contradict everything else Pro is saying. Secondly, nothing Pro said seems to rebut the earlier claim I made: "The social contract is built on...consent...Yet, Pro also suggest that I have obligations to which I did not consent...Consequently, Pro is both saying that obligations must...be grounded in consent (to reject coercion) but may also be grounded in non-consensual ways. That's just nonsensical." This whole point is basically dropped. If Pro is going to make philosophical arguments, he must ensure they jive together; if they contradict, then they cannot be used in tandem.ScarcityPro asks, "Does my opponent feel that a mother has no moral obligation to her newborn child, or that a father has no obligation to his offspring?" First, this is a false analogy. The example in question was one of a contract, not a familial relationship. The former is chosen, the latter is unchosen. The question, therefore, should not be, do I have an obligation to X because X is family, but do I have an obligation to X because I am under a contract with X. The family scenario is just a red herring. Secondly, filial obligations are not always moral. It would be immoral for a sibling to save their brother or sister if, by doing so, they could cost the lives of many others. So, we cannot just assume filial = moral. Finally, nothing Pro say's here address my claim that his case is a non-sequitur. As I wrote: "What is missing from this logic is any explanation of how or why having 'a contract with my sibling' (P1) gets him to the point of me being 'morally bound to help my sibling' (C1)...[T]he nature of the contract is never actually explained, and the link to morality is never drawn."CONCLUSIONPro's CaseThe following is an outline of Pro's case (with voting issues that rebut each premise); if I can defeat any one link in Pro's chain, I can negate:P1. Citizens agree to a social contract, creating a relationship (VI1)P2. Closer relationships produce stronger obligations (VI2)P3. Contractual obligations are moral (VI3; VI4)P4. Citizens are closer to the government than non-citizens via the social contractC1. Governments have superior moral duties to citizensVoting IssuesVI1. There is no true consent or agreement Implied consent is invalid for all the reasons I noted earlier. Explicit consent doesn't really exist in social contracts; I never actually gave my consent to the Constitution. It was just assumed that I did. And, as noted earlier: "I may never consent to the contract because I may never get the [amendments] I want." Pro drops the hereditary consent is invalid. Social contracts are legitimately constituted. VI2. The Fallacy of Relationships All of Pro's arguments for relationships producing duties are either bare assertions or contradictory. V13. Contracts =/= Moral Pro has failed to warrant why contracts = moral obligations. His points are just a non-sequitur, and his reasoning is largely unwarranted. He just assumes that the obligations are moral. V14. The Feminist Critique Pro says, "To accept his argument is to expect me to prove that social contracts create perfect governments." This only rebuts my P1B and P1C, not P2. As I said: "The critique is against the idea of volition itself--that the social contract goes about deriving its moral legitimacy in the wrong way. That moral legitimacy better comes from dependency than agreement." Pro is non-responsive to the actual critique. Pro himself says that families have non-voluntary obligations. If that's true and the feminist point holds, then dependency rather than agreement should be the source of moral authority. That negates the social contract, which draws its moral authority from its contractual nature. Please, Vote Con! Thank you!