10. While under moral conflict, increasing benefits ought to be preferred to decreasing costs.

This is a debate for the Debate.org/Facebook tournament, Round 4, #10, to be judged by Jayant Tripathy, Danielle Limberg, and Drew Slagle. I wish my opponent luck. First, I'd like to define some key terms. Moral- of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; ethical. Conflict- to come into collision or disagreement; be contradictory, at variance, or in opposition; clash. Increasing- to become larger or greater in quantity. Benefits- Something that promotes or enhances well-being; an advantage. Ought- should. Preferred- to set or hold before or above other persons or things in estimation; like better; choose rather than. In this case, benefits vs. costs. Decreasing- becoming less; to become lesser in quantity. RESOLUTIONAL ANALYSIS: This resolution is asking us to look at a MORAL conflict. Then it asks us which is preferable- lower cost or higher benefit? Judges, you must look at which side is more MORALLY justified and not what is either good for business, makes things easier, etc. I affirm the resolution. I will seek to prove this affirmation through 4 contentions. CONTENTION I: Benefits help more people directly. When we look at morals and cost vs. benefit together, we can clearly see that benefits are preferable, as they help more people. In other words, lowering a cost does not help anyone directly, while raising benefits does. Lower costs simply allow more people to have it. Therefore, under a MORAL circumstance, benefits are clearly preferable. Think about this situation: you see a blind man lying in the road. He appears to be unconscious. It is a pretty busy street. You could either pull him to the sidewalk, or you could call 9-1-1 and wait for them to help him. Obviously, you should pull him to the side of the road. It's the same in this case. It is better to help someone directly and provide the assistance they need than indirectly help them with a ‘middle-man' helper (as in money). I would also like to add that lowering costs does not assure that anyone will even be helped. Because it is indirect, something along the way could limit a person's ability to receive help, while a benefit is treating specific needs. Look at my example: pulling him to the sidewalk would be quick and easy. Calling 9-1-1 takes a long time and there is chance your cell phone could die or you gave them the wrong address. CONTENTION II: This is not cause and effect. Just because benefits are increased, prices and costs do not have to go up also. However, lowering costs cannot lead to higher benefits, as they would have even less money to provide services. Furthermore, lowering costs would REDUCE productivity if anything and would be less morally preferable. CONTENTION III: Benefits help society as a whole. Say a college is contemplating this resolution. If they cut costs, more people would get in. But we must ask ourselves- are these the kids we want? Sure, more people could get degrees, but if they don't do anything with that degree, lowering the cost and allowing them to get in would be useless. Now, say they increase benefits, such as new facilities, new classes, new ‘life-programs', and/or new sports and clubs. The people that are smart enough to get into that college could use the proverbial computer club to be the next Bill Gates. The new Albert Einstein. The next President of the United States. If you take away funding from these students, they will not become these things, and society as a whole will become worse. Examples like these are ridden throughout the world. CONTENTION IV: Benefits have been historically better (examples). Think about the U.S. They are capitalist, and the average cost of health care per capita is $7,600 (http://www.nchc.org...). They are ranked 39th on the World Health Organization's list of quality of care (http://www.photius.com...). Now look at China. They are communist, meaning that they want everyone to have the same amount of money and be equal. They also have a type of universal health care, which seeks to cut costs. Their GDP per capita is around $5,000, and they still rank at 144 in health care. We can clearly see that, in this case and most, cutting costs and taking a hands-off approach simply does not work. It did not improve anything, even the thing it was trying to improve. Now, if China were to improve medical technology, add more specialized doctors, and/or get more health programs (benefits), it would be more like the U.S. and more Chinese people would be saved. Just think about an average nursing home. The more people you let in, the more you must spend. Now you need to buy more workers. A bigger facility. A nicer guest area. You have to focus on so many people, little old Phyllis, a long-time customer, is now not getting the attention she needs. Had there been more benefits, her life could've been extended much longer. In short, it would erupt in chaos. All in all, I have reasonably proved, through several examples, that increasing benefits is morally preferable to lowering costs. Benefits help everyone in the industry, as well as society as a whole. I now patiently await my opponent's rebuttal.