Targeted Kiling is a morally permissible foreign policy tool

I specifically said no rebuttals in round one. My opponent is dancing around the point, and misunderstanding my value framework. A government has to uphold national security. A government has to act legitimately. This doesn't make morality "constantly change. " When a government is upholding national security/safety of its people, it is acting legitimate. It is acting morally. And on his African American point, nowhere do I say that what is and isn't accepted by a govt can't changed. That is a prime example of where it has changed. But that didn't promote national security. This does. More on value framework, this is an LD debate. Refer to the comments section: my opponent is aware of this. He never provides a value or criterion. We don't a: know what his value is (what to vote on and why his arguments matter) or b: how his value is achieved. I provide both of these in a way appropriate for evaluating a government's actions. Are they legitimate or not by promoting national security as the highest value? Basically what he is trying to use here can be summed up in a few words: "morality does not exist" or "morality cannot be evaluated" or "a concept of morality is impossible" (note how he says "without morality, we cannot call something morally permissible", so yes, he is saying that morality doesn't exist) Voters, I plead of you. Morality is a fundamental part of our culture. According to what my opponent is saying, if a mother were to beat her baby because it wouldn't stop crying, he would not call it immoral. Moreover, if a student found the answers to a test sitting on the ground and turned them in without looking at them, my opponent would not call that moral. Clearly, this doesn't make sense. It is important to recognize what are and what are not moral actions in our society, or we lose part of what makes us humans. Emotional holding humans! I provided definitions of morality. Extend those. Or use your common sense. Judging morality is pretty inherent to 99.9% of humans (with the exception of maybe serial killers) This is very important: Note how the resolution says morally permissible. It does not simply say moral. We've already talked about what morally or morality means. But what does permissible mean? Well, permissible means able to be permitted or able to be allowed. Even if we buy his argument (which we really shouldn't) that morality is subject to change, the pro side still wins! This is because under most interpretations/viewpoints if not all (probably all), the criterion I have provided for what constitutes a morally acceptable action for a government is fulfilled here. Because in the long run targeted killing is in the interest of national security/safety of the acting govt. 's people. An analogy for what permissible means, and what we really have to ask ourselves: We would say it is morally permissible for me to drink a glass of water. But we wouldn't say I was acting morally. My burden (although it would be great to do so, and I don't disagree with this) isn't to prove that it is moral. Rather, however morally permissible, allowed by moral standards as a tool in the toolbox. Moving on, my opponent was questioning in the comments sections (where cross ex is allowed), and he brought up an excellent question. (great job! ) He asked basically "What if the attacks increase" (while lethality decreases. ) We have to understand something here. Understand that backlash is something we shouldn't be surprised at. Of course, if you kill a strong leader, backlash is something that will either a. happen because of intensified emotions or b. be harder due to weakening in the organization. Either way a few things are true. 1. targeted killings, by their very nature, claim far fewer civilian lives than the alternatives of ground operations or massive bombing campaigns. It is still the preferred method and better than the weak or more dangerous alternatives! 2. Overall Lethality decreasing outweighs (potential, not even proven) short term increased attacks. 3. This is key to the fighting terrorism. I would like to quote American Magazine, addressing the very argument my opponent was making about increased backlash temporarily: "[my opponent is] attacking a straw man: the notion that wiping out senior terrorist leadership will end the attacks once and for all, without provoking retaliation. Not even the most vigorous supporters of the targeted killing policy espouse such a radical position; nobody expects the enemy to roll over. But degrading its leadership by thinning out its uppermost ranks unquestionably disrupts its strategy, sometimes decisively so. " read more: . http://www.american.com.... Since I still have many characters left, I will now move on to refute his logic behind morality not existing. First of all, just because what society does changes over time, doesn't mean morality does as well. Using his own example, slavery was never moral. If people called it moral, they were wrong. And there were people who were right, and knew that it wasn't moral. For example, my neighbor can be a serial killer and say that he/she is moral or morally permissible. He can even get a gang of buddies to join him. That doesn't make him right. Just like feeding people to lions or sending people to the guillotine for nearly no reason was never morally permissible, despite the fact that it happened. Targeted killing, as previously explained however, is morally permissible for a government to do. Second, he questions the objectivity of morality. What we have to understand here is that morality (whether or not we as humans have a full accurate understanding of it, especially in the past) is guided by a few universal principles. This is why when I say that cheating on your spouse or something like that is immoral, no one will seriously question me. If you would like more on this, I would cite Marc Hauser of Harvard University: Morality is even a tool that is biologically inherited to consolidate a society. From a multidisciplinary perspective, which includes neurobiology, psychology, anthropology and linguistics, Hauser defends the existence of a set of universal moral principles that govern our decisions and judgements when it comes to distinguishing between good and bad. A children's game with a set of simple rules, developed by Quim de Marimon, Psychologist and Director of Praxistudy, demonstrates the fundamental moral principles that Hauser studies. Read and watch the video here: . http://www.sciencenetworks.org.... If there was no morality, our planet would be run amuck. Humans clearly contain some sort of moral judgement capabilities, otherwise nothing would prevent us from constantly committing immoral actions that work in our favor. An example would be looking all over test answers before turning it in. The person presented with that will either a. not do it, because that know it's immoral. or b. do it, and still know realize it was immoral. Either way, the moral understanding is still there. We are also given free will to pick our own path of following it. (Some people would call this good versus evil and what determines your fate in front of God. ) **Voters, If you read nothing else, here are my main responses to his case** 1. Understand that just because what we may label moral and immoral over time may change, does not mean that morality is actually changing. Slavery was never moral, regardless of human perception. Same thing with the guillotine frenzy and feeding people to lions, etc. We need to evaluate morality to try to arrive at some kind of truth. 2. Morality is guided by universal principles. 3. He never talks about why Targeted killing is immoral, but rather how it isn't moral. Basically, amoral. remember this.