Individuals Ought to Help Those in Need

Thanks again to Romanii! Due to some time constraints on his part, I have agreed to post my opening arguments within a few hours of him accepting the debate. I will attempt to offer several, independently functioning reasons to affirm today's resolution. Here we go!First off, let's define "Moral" as: "of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior." [1] CONTENTION ONE: The Duty to Rescue"The issue [of the need to rescue] is whether such a duty places too great a burden on personal freedom or presents insurmountable administrative difficulties...There are, however, flaws in this argument. First, the distinction between acts of commission and those of omission is often meaningless. To use a grim example, most would agree that a mother who intentionally starves her healthy child should not be dealt with...any differently than the mother who intentionally poisons her child. Surely, no one would argue that the first mother is less morally culpable simply because starvation is an act of omission." [2] In both of the examples, a person is knowingly permitting someone else to die"the result is the same, regardless of the method. Therefore, culpability remains the same in either case.So, let's explore this idea a bit more:P1: There is no substantive difference between Commission and OmissionP1: Immoral Acts of Commission should be PreventedP3: Immoral Acts of Omission should be PreventedAssuming the above to be true, we can make the argument that individuals ought to help those in need. If a robbery (an act of commission) ought to be stopped, then surely not calling 911 when you see a robbery occurring (an act of omission) is wrong. If we agree that it is the right thing to do to stop a robbery, which I am sure even Con can consent to, then we agree that the converse, not stopping a robbery, would be the wrong thing to do.Ultimately then, when people are in need of rescue, passersby ought to intervene.CONTENTION TWO: Levinasian EthicsSub-point A: Human relation is essential to ethics"Levinas's descriptions show that "in the beginning was the human relation." The primacy of relation explains why it is that human beings are interested in the questions of ethics at all"To situate first philosophy in the face-to-face encounter is to choose to begin philosophy"with" the prime condition for human communication." [3] "Sympathy [is] the glue that affectively binds others to oneself and, by implication, binds a community of ethical individuals together...Hume asserts that "the minds of men are mirrors to one another, not only because they reflect each other"s emotions, but also because those rays of passions, sentiments and opinions may be often reverberated and decay away by insensible degree."" [4]Simply put, human interaction, and the feeling of sympathy, are the basis of morality in society. That were human solitary and never to interact, a moral code would be unnecessary, and thus never evolve. By the same token, were humans unable to feel sympathy, then even with interaction, humanity would not operate by moral values. Consider a society without sympathy but with all other human emotions--it rivals Hobbes's State of Nature in terms of the suffering present. Look at more advanced animal societies for more clues as to this. Apes and elephants, for example, exhibit sympathy and therefore cooperate on a moral, rather than simply instinctual or coldly rational basis. A sociopath, a person without empathy or sympathy, is what life would be like sans this emotion: an amoral society.Sub-point B: Human Relation as it impacts the Consciousness"For Levinas, an "I" lives out its embodied existence according to modalities. It consumes the fruits of the world. It enjoys and suffers from the natural elements. It constructs shelters and dwellings. It carries on the social and economic transactions of its daily life. Yet, no event is as affectively disruptive for a consciousness holding sway in its world than the encounter with another person. In this encounter (even if it later becomes competitive or instrumental), the "I" first experiences itself as called and liable to account for itself. It responds. The "I"'s response is as if to a nebulous command. Nothing says that the other gave a de facto command. The command or summons is part of the intrinsic relationality. With the response comes the beginning of language as dialogue. The origin of language, for Levinas, is always response"a responding-to-another, that is, to her summons. Dialogue arises ultimately through that response. Herein lie the roots of intersubjectivity as lived immediacy...Suffice it to say that first philosophy is responsibility that unfolds into dialogical sociality." [3]Sub-point C: Human relation provides a moral impulse to redress injusticeThis "intersubjective experience, as it comes to light, proves "ethical" in the simple sense that an "I" discovers its own particularity when it is singled out by the gaze of the other. This gaze is interrogative and imperative. It says "do not kill me." It also implores the "I", who eludes it only with difficulty, although this request may have actually no discursive content. This command and supplication occurs because human faces impact us as affective moments or, what Levinas calls "interruptions". The face of the other is firstly expressiveness. It could be compared to a force." As Levinas himself states, "The infinity that is available in the face is the source of the ethical power of the Other in making an unconditional demand on the individual to be regarded and treated ethically as under an obligation without limitation or qualification. Receptivity to the Other occurs in the embodiment of the Other"s transcendence in the face. The face plays a central role in announcing the Other. The Other, in turn, commands responsibility. The obligation and ethical demands that the Other imposes on the individual are apparent to merest inspection in the face of another human being." [3]CONTENTION THREE: Utilitarianism"If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it. By "without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance" I mean without causing anything else comparably bad to happen, or doing something that is wrong in itself, or failing to promote some moral good, comparable in significance to the bad thing that we can prevent." [5]We can uphold this standard using typical utilitarian logic. 1. Pleasure is a moral criterion. Consider, pain is almost always a bad thing. We are not just hardwired to avoid pain, but to seek out happiness. We therefore act in such a way as to maximize happiness and minimize pain. Similarly, in society, the collective seeks to maximize its happiness. In other words, members of society seek to create rules that create aggregate happiness. A government that creates aggregate pain, such as Suharto's regime in Indonesia or Pol Pot's in Cambodia, is seen as immoral and illegitimate. These norms quickly evolve into standards of right conduct, i.e. morals. Therefore, we as individuals and as members of society, operate under moral systems designed to bring about general utility. As a result, refusing to render assistance when their is no cost to you is maximizing unhappiness and disutility, and is immoral. To be clear, let's restate:2. If Pleasure is a moral criterion, then maximizing pleasure, as a group, is the moral thing to do. Conversely, maximizing pain is the immoral thing to do.3. Helping people at no cost to you maximizes pleasure, and is therefore morally desirable.Syllogistic Clarification:P1. Maximizing Pleasure is Morally DesirableP2: Helping people at no cost to oneself maximizes pleasureP3: Helping people at no cost to oneself is morally desirableSOURCES1 - http://www.merriam-webster.com...2 - Silver, Jay, 1981, [Vanderbilt University], excerpted from work done in pursuit of his J.D.3 - http://plato.stanford.edu...4 - http://www.iep.utm.edu...5 - http://www.utilitarianism.net...I apologize for the brevity of my remarks and for any formatting errors. I need to get this done very quickly, as per my arrangement with Romanii. I look forward to a great debate!