The Rich Have a Moral Obligation to Donate to the Poor - *Fall Tier Tournament - Round 1*

INTRODUCTION My opponent has built a case based on logcal fallacies and gut feelings. I understand that sounds harsh and I'll get to that later, but it's true. I've built my case on no assumption other than pleasure is good and pain is bad, and used that as the root my moral philosophy grows from. This root is justified by showing how value is both derived from and couldn't exist without life. The only tool we have for determining right or wrong from childhood is in our pain and pleasure. We don't determine right or wrong based on other people's feelings of pain and pleasure it's merely our own. My argument is that the rich are not morally obligated to give to the less fortunate based on this system of determining right or wrong which is the only logical system proposed in this debate. Most rich people didn't get that way by finding pleasure in flushing their money down the toilet which is basically what giving it to the poor is. Before I go any further I want to show how my opponent's words actually bury him in slant the debate wildly in my favor. He isn't argue that humans should strive to be better than our nature. He has said human beings should go with what is in our nature, and that what is in our nature is in fact what is best for the species. Quotes from Geogeer round 2; "I contend that we are morally obligated to do that which is keeping with our nature. " I've shown that the most natural, the most primal, the earliest indicators of right and wrong for a human is in our feelings of pain and pleasure. If we are morally obligated to do what is within our nature as my opponent suggests than the most natural thing to do is base our moral judgements on the pain or pleasure we'll receive as a result of our actions. This means we aren't obligated to give a dime to the poor regardless of our economic status. "That which is in keeping with our nature will ultimately provide the best outcome for our species" Even if my opponent wants to argue for some sort of altruistic based system of morality, he admits that basing our morals on what's natural will lead to the best outcome for society. So based on his own altruistic standards, I still win this debate. "Thus fundamentally speaking that which is moral is a true expression of the nature of ourselves. " There is no more rational and natural way to propose a system of ethics than what I've proposed. At least not one that's been mentioned in this debate. Based on my opponent's own words about what a moral system should be based on, I should hands down win this debate. Make no mistake Geogeer didn't make a mistake when advocating for the system of morality that is in keeping with our nature. He immediately comes out in round 3 expressly stating that's what his whole case is based off of. "My contention was and continues to be that those actions and philosophies that are in keeping with our true nature (and thus moral) will provide the greatest outcomes for the species. " He reaffirms his contention. He had a chace to retreat in round 3 but fails. He's based his case on what's natural being what's best as far as morality is concerned. The next round is final and will be too late to go back on it. Now let me move on to show the assumptions and other logical fallacies my opponent's case is built upon. COMPASSION "The fundamental building block of humanity is the family. [1][2] And this fundamental unit illustrates compassion at play. All work as they are able at the various stages of life and all require aid at various stages of life. " My opponent is talking about compassion but what is compassion? Well according to Merriam-Webster its; "sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it" . http://www.merriam-webster.com... Now why in the world would we want to alleviate the pain or distress that people we love are facing? Not to be captain obvious here, but it hurts us to see people we love in pain so we decide to do something about it. This whole section about compassion is merely an extension of my case. Morality should be decided by our own pain and pleasure, what Geogeer does in this section is actually to show this pain pleasure dynamic at work and argue that morality should be based on compassion. What my opponent fails to see is that compassion isn't good just because we have that emotion, but instead is good because the emotion is a manifestation of our natural moral desire to alleviate our own pain by helping a loved one. Compassion is just a tool in our tool box to help us achieve our own moral ends. It's great that it benefits people we love but it's not something that we should base morality off of instead it is a tool to manifest our moral desires. "This concept of care and devotion between all members breaks down as people become further removed from familial settings. As such, people tend to have less empathy for a stranger than they do for a friend or family member. " What my opponent doesn't realize he's making my case for me. This compassion breaks down when it comes to strangers because we don't love strangers. We could care less about them. It's NATURAL for this compassion to go away when it comes to strangers because we don't love them so being aware of their suffering causes us no pain. This depletion of compassion is a direct result of our moral compass that happens to be our feelings of pain and pleasure. As I said before, compassion is a manifestation of our moral desires which come from an attempt to alleviate our internal pain. When there is a lack of compassion it's because that tool belonging to our moral compass as defined by me isn't necessary. If compassion is reserved mainly for family members which my opponent seems to agree with than we shouldn't use compassion as a premise for why we should give money to the poor. HISTORY I can pretty much sum up my opponent's whole section on history by saying it is a logical fallacy known as appeal to tradition. . http://www.logicallyfallacious.com... He's basically saying that our culture is based on the Judea-Christian tradition of helping the needy, so we should continue to do so. This isn't so much an argument as it is a lack of an argument. Doing something some way because other people did isn't a good reason. If Judea-Christian culture was to jump off of a bridge would you do it? Besides this being a logical fallacy I have 3 other issues with it. The first issue is that it's actually yet another argument he presents that works better with my case than it works for his own. we see from his arguments that social norms decided that taking care of the needy was pointless or immoral back in the time of the Roman empire. We see that Christianity came on the scene later on down the road and changed these social norms. This is not an argument that supports my opponent's contention that morality should come from nature. The only argument I can think he's trying to make is that giving to the poor benefits society as a whole, but he's not only failed to show it in fact does benefit society but he as failed to show us why we should be held to these moral standards. why we should care about society as a whole. My last problem with this portion of his argument in this section, is this; " Ultimately, this is an additional form of enforced charity upon the wealthy as this is where the government receives a significant portion of its tax revenue. " I don't think my opponent is trying to get tricky with the definitions of words, but just in case I have to bring this up. Early in round 2 he defined donations as charity and compassion. Here is that quote; "What does it mean to donate? It means to give or to be charitable and to show compassion. " My opponent is in fact wrong to donate means to give. . http://www.merriam-webster.com... The words charitable and compassion won't be found in most if any dictionary as a description of the word donate. Donating can be a form of charity and an act of compassion, but it doesn't have to be. My opponent seems to be saying or hinting around at the fact that paying taxes is donating. I would hope he wouldn't attempt such an argument. However, if he does just know this debate is not about tax policy. It's obviously about voluntary donations. NATUAL LAW I'm not even sure of why my opponent labels this section natural law. He never get's around to explaining why anything in his natural law section is natural, he does mention this concept of greater good but doesn't base this moral system that assumes actions should be based on the greater good on anything at all other than I guess he expects the voters to assume that the greater good is the highest moral value, but I've shown since birth that humans value pleasure so this higher good really doesn't factor in. As far as the other stuff is concerned my opponent never clarifies how they are related to nature or even bothers to explain natural law in any comprehensible way. CONCLUSION AN MISC. My opponent has failed to win this debate by his own standards whih I've quoted. He also just assumes compassion towards strangers is better for humanity not that it matters because he's failed to show that "The Greater good" is a solid basis for a system of ethics. Even by my opponent's own moral framework he has failed to show how donating a million bucks to a charity, and remember several charities have some high paid CEOs would be more beneficial than taking a million dollars and building low income housing which cold provide homes to several hundred poor people? He's failed to show why making somebody dependant on the charity of others is better than forcing them to get on their feet. What do they say "better to teach a man to fish than to give him one". Anyway.