Morality is overall a good thing.

For my closing statement, I will begin by addressing my own case, then my opponent's case, and I will conclude with voting issues. My opponent believes that because I claim that morals determine "right" and "wrong" for oneself, and quality of life refers to both individuals and societies, then morals do not improve the quality of life. However, I merely stated that since it is impossible to satisfy everyone, morality "guides people in the right direction" to making the right choices (see my Round 2 statement). Quality of life is defined, as my opponent stated, as a term to "evaluate the general well-being of individuals and societies. " Notice that both individuals and societies are involved in this definition. Morality allows people to choose what is right for themselves, as well as what is best for a portion of their society. Not all actions will be able to satisfy everyone, I repeat, since there will always be people who disagree. However, if one looks at the improvements caused by morality in comparison, including the effects on the individual performing the moral action, and the people that are positively affected, to the negative effects, meaning the negatively affected people- we can see that morality attempts to satisfy more people by giving them principles of right conduct. This debate is not questioning whether or not morality is always right or always wrong. We are determining whether or not morality is overall a good thing. And overall, morality helps ensure that more people are satisfied with the choices that are made because they give people a fundamental doctrine of principles to follow in order to make better choices. Therefore, morality is overall good. My opponent states that I ignored his alternate cause to the "good" actions caused by humans, and therefore, the argument that states that "if we were to eliminate morals and fundamental principles altogether, what we would be left with is no basis for deciding which choice to make" is invalid. However, as I pointed out in Round 2, my opponent's alternate cause to "good" actions is, in fact, morality. My opponent stated that an individual will first do what is in his or her best interest, and then what is best for society, in an evolutionary pathway. I would like to point out that this system of determining what is in your best interest and your society's best interest is a system of fundamental principles of right conduct, and therefore is morality, which comes to show that whether you look at it from the Pro's perspective or the Con's perspective, morality is the cause of "good" actions. I would now like to move on to my opponent's case. My opponent claims that violence is the effect of conflicting interpretations of what "good" and "bad" is. I agree that violence can be caused by conflicting interpretations of good and bad, but I would like to point out the fact that in the absence of morality, violence would be much more prominent. This is because morals, as I have previously stated, guide us in the right direction to making correct choices. It is not a perfect system, because there is no perfect system. Violence is going to occur whether morals exist or do not exist. However, it will exist in smaller quantities with morality, because with fundamental principles of "right" and "wrong", even if they conflict with other peoples' ideals, people are more likely to make choices that satisfy a greater amount of people. My opponent argues that his argument about an evolutionary pathway is not morality, but merely instinct. However, I would like to point out that moral codes are fundamentally based upon instinct and the emotions we feel[1]. He states that actions are not inherently "good" or "bad", but just helping or hindering society. I would like to point out that helping society is "good" because it does not cause detriment, and hindering society in this instance is "bad", because, based on definition, it does cause detriment. "Good" and "bad" have already been established to be subjective terms, but they still exist. Finally, I conclude with voting issues.