Human life should be preserved as much as possible

My opponent has said that different definitions of "proof" should be used based on whether the context is inside or outside a courtroom. Inside the courtroom, Pro accepts the definition of ""The establishment of a fact by the use of evidence." Outside the courtroom, Pro has accepted the definition of proof as requiring "almost absolute knowledge of a situation." This distinction is acceptable to me and I will continue the argument using these definitions. Specifically, I will argue that my 'reasonable belief' standard still has superior solvency compared to Pro's proof standard, even with the revised definitions. To do so I will first cede the courtroom debate, as it is not relevant to my argument. Now we have moved to discussion of cases outside the courtroom. Before progressing further, I would remind the voters that the voting issue is which standard is more likely to reach the goal of preserving the most human lives. This is the sole criteria for voting, as I have agreed with Pro that "Life should ALWAYS be preserved UNLESS that preservation of an individual is going to cost more human lives." The converse of this proposition is that lives should not be preserved if that preservation will cost more human lives. In the context Pro has placed this in, death penalty cases and "killing someone yourself", "lives should not be preserved" means not only letting individuals die, but taking an active role in those deaths. I will use three approaches to make my argument: lifeboat ethics, domestic abuse cases, and the invasion of Poland. Lifeboat ethics: Lifeboat ethics was a term coined by Garrett Hardin in an article discussing global carrying capacity [1], but the metaphor will serve in this argument as well. Imagine that a ship has sunk, and that a single lifeboat was launched prior to the sinking. In this lifeboat are 50 people. They have no information about when (or if) rescue will arrive. There is room for 10 more people in the lifeboat, but taking more will exceed the safety margins of the boat design and incur an unquantifiable risk of swamping. Those in the lifeboat now have to make a choice. How many, if any, swimmers should they take on board? Under Pro's standard requiring "almost absolute knowledge", the lifeboat must be filled with as many swimmers as possible before they are almost absolutely sure that one more would result in the boat sinking. The problem is obvious, the boat in this situation is much more likely to sink and kill everyone than in a scenario where ten or less swimmers were taken on board. Under the reasonable belief standard, the problem is avoided. It is reasonable to believe that taking on swimmers beyond the safety margins of the lifeboat would kill everyone, even lacking almost absolute knowledge of the fact. This means that it is more likely that they would survive and maximize the preservation of human life, meaning that the reasonable belief standard is superior in achieving that goal. Domestic abuse: If you are a woman with a child whose husband displays all the traits of a spouse killer [2], there is no way to reach a standard of almost absolute knowledge that he will try to kill you. Even though you know that if you leave him that is the time he is most likely to kill you [3], even though you know there is a trend towards murder-suicides in such cases which include the children [4], even though you know that if you make it out "half of the homicides of female spouses and partners were committed by men after separation from batterers[5]", you still can't approach absolute knowledge. In fact, the chances are, you've been abused before. Are you really going to be able to tell that THIS time the beating will end with you dead, or will you survive to get hauled to the ER again? Is he going to take it out on your kid when he's done with you? Approaching absolute knowledge is impossible here, but it's certainly possible to develop a reasonable belief that your life and the life of your child is in danger and that killing your abuser would preserve your two lives at the cost of his one. As a standard, almost absolute knowledge doesn't preserve the mother and child, but reasonable belief does. Poland: Consider the history of the German invasion of Poland in 1939 [6]. Hitler's strategy was to make peace with Britain and France after capturing Poland. This failed as Britain was willing to declare war and France didn't have to act alone. However, if were are to look at this from the standpoint of our competing standards, Britain and France could only have done so under a reasonable belief standard, not a almost absolute knowledge standard. While Hitler's history of lies and aggression were strong evidence that his territorial expansion would continue until stopped and that he presented a threat to millions of human lives, it did not approach the standard of absolute knowledge that he posed such a threat. Only a reasonable belief was justified. In fact, if England and France had acted on such a reasonable belief after Hitler's occupation of Czechoslovakia, it is possible that worst parts of WWII could have been avoided, preserving many more millions of lives. Summation: From the lifeboat example we see that an absolute knowledge standard can cause risk to rise and cause a threat to life preservation. From the domestic abuse argument we see that sometimes we have to trust to reasonable beliefs of individuals as almost absolute knowledge can't respond to threats as a reasonable standard can. From the Poland argument we see that responding to a reasonable belief without waiting to approach absolute knowledge can save millions of lives, clearly showing that this is the best standard for acting to preserve life. [1]http://www.garretthardinsociety.org... [2]http://abcnews.go.com... [3]http://emedicine.medscape.com... [4]http://d.yimg.com... [5]http://www.aardvarc.org... [6]http://www.bbc.co.uk...