It is morally permissible to kill one innocent person to save the lives of many innocent people.

Hello everyone, I've seen this debate a lot, and decided that I would attempt it too. Thanks to my opponent for the debate, and let the debate begin! First, I want to put forth my own definition from Merriam Webster: Moral: 1 a: of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior : ethical b: expressing or teaching a conception of right behavior c: conforming to a standard of right behavior d: sanctioned by or operative on one's conscience or ethical judgment e: capable of right and wrong action Permissible: that may be permitted. Together, one can safely assume that that morally permissible actually means that it is not forbidden by moral standards to do a certain act. Therefore, applied to this debate, we can say that killing one innocent person is not forbidden by moral standards to save the lives of many people. I'm fine with the rest of your definitions. MY ANALYSIS OF THE TOPIC: My opponent is given the burden of proving that it is indeed ok to kill one person according to moral standards, if in doing so I save the lives of many more people. I have been given the burden of proving that it is not ok to kill one innocent person according to moral standards, even if in doing so I save the lives of many more people. My Value: Morality Moral laws are either upheld or broken. There is no gray area. Even if you break a moral law for a good purpose, the act of breaking the moral law is wrong. Criteria: If the pro of this debate violates morality, then I win, if they do not, they win. I think that it will be easier if I state my contentions first and then refute my opponents points: Contention 1. Killing is a immoral act, and unjustifiable. We are depriving an innocent person who has done nothing to deserve death of life. If we were to do that, we would be committing an immoral act. It is therefore not moral to kill an innocent person, whatever the reason. Contention 2. We are changing our system of morality to justify horrible acts of murder. The pro side of this case is arguing in favor of a change in morality where it is acceptable to kill. That is wrong, because it puts us in a mentality saying that killing to save others is ok. Who gets to determine whether or not to kill to save? Also, you could justify a number of horrific acts, by justifying them by saying that we would save others. We could justify killing one innocent person becasue they are a suspected terrorist, and they are supposedly planning a bomb. However, we could have no evidence, but we could still justify it because we are saving the lives of many innocent people. Killing that innocent "terrorist" is better than not killing that innocent "terrorist", even if that "terrorist has not done anything. We could justify killing me, just beause I "might" be planning something. We would be able to justify that act because we could claim that we are saving more people by killing me. We could justify horrible acts of murder, just because we can claim that we are saving the lives of more people. Ok, so those are my main 2 contentions, and I'll refute my opponent now. 1. Positive results. You claim that the ends justify the means. By killing one person, we save more people. However, that is a bad mentality. See my contention 2 for more on that. So you could claim that killing, an immoral act, is ok, as long as we save others. That is the wrong mentality, since that could lead us on a road to destruction. We could justify horrible acts by extension, like waterboarding and other forms of toture, just to save some other people. A. Just becasue more lives are saved, it does not justify killing. Also, you are defiling the victims right to life. B. Why does happiness justify killing? Happiness does not justify killing, because killing is wrong, no matter what. C. This claim is coming from Utilitarianism, but in this debate, you must justify killing. You have done so by saying that many people's lives is worth more than one person. However, again, that is a kill to save mentality, which will only lead us on a road to destruction. Also, my opponent has not provided any context for this act, so I'm assuming there is none, and he is just arguing for killing one innocent person to save the lives of many more no matter what. He has not said any context. Therefore, I can only assume there is none. Thank you