Civil Disobedience and Voluntary Punishment

Thanks, Pro, for your conclusion round. Here are my rebuttals to Round 4: Framework: Pro entirely misunderstands morality. He argues that he wants to use 'human flourishing' as his measurement to morality. 'Human flourishing' is not the measurement, it is the value we need to have some measurement for. Depending on the objective moral system you use, human flourishing will look completely differently. My opponent continually ignored his need to set forth his moral standard, and demonstrated his ignorance towards objective moral systems. If my opponent wants to make moral claims about reality, he needs to understand what the different moral systems are (i. e. utilitarianism, consequentialism, divine command theory, virtue ethics, etc. ) and he needs to understand that there exists different political theories for society (equality by means of redistribution, justice by means of voluntary actions, etc. ). All of his arguments are inherently invalid as he assumes his position that disobedience is wrong by arguing in circularity that disobedience is wrong. Moral Intent Pro argued, “No one in their right mind would argue that the holocaust served the interests in human flourishing. ” This statement is the prime example of my opponent's inability to argue outside of circles and continual appeal to arguments from emotion. He isn't able to demonstrate why Hitler was wrong, instead he can only state that he beliefs it is obviously wrong, and states that people who agree with his beliefs should also find it wrong. There are moral theories that put intent as the measuring tool. If this is correct, and Hitler intended to do well for human flourishing, then he didn't do anything wrong, according to this moral paradigm. My opponent never put forth his own moral paradigm and he never demonstrated how virtue theory is unsound. If my opponent is unable to argue how Hitler was immoral, how can his argument stand that people ought to be punished for breaking ambiguous laws? Again, Pro demonstrates his ignorance towards moral frameworks. Belief and fact are two different things. However, under some moral frameworks, as long as someone is intending to do something moral, then that intention is all that matters. Outcomes are irrelevant. Me and my opponent may both agree that this objective moral theory is unsound, but my opponent did nothing to disprove this theory, other than stating it's wrong because he can't see how it could be right. My opponent also argued that allowing Hitler to go free clearly goes against the interests of a peaceful society. Again, he merely is arguing from emotions and circular reasoning. It actually isn't clear that Hitler shouldn't have gone free. What if Hitler was correct that the Jews were a disdain to his society, and removing them would have allowed his society to flourish more efficiently. As I argued in my round 4, I suspected that my opponent was a consequentialist. So, if Hitler exterminating the Jews would have led to his society flourishing better, than my opponent's own moral model proves that Hitler was moral. The Nature of Action Pro stated, “A law is morally dubious if “a reasonable person, operating within established cultural conventions (i. e. not fringe), could question” it as moral. ” Every society is built up by reasonable people who come to different moral conclusions. Given the wide spectrum of moral theories, yes, any law that is passed can justifiably be understood as morally dubious. Even with torturing infants- some societies practice child sacrifice. They have beliefs of gods that protect their land, they sacrifice children and the gods provide them with good harvest seasons. Their beliefs are as valid as my opponent's consequentialist beliefs in that anything is justifiable as long as the consequences are good. So, given the logic by my opponent, any morally dubious law has the ability to be right or wrong. My opponent argued it is obvious (again, using circular reasoning), that we ought to err on the side of abiding by laws, particularly when the risk of not doing so is a social breakdown (and argument that my opponent never demonstrated to be the case, and something I refuted in the last round). However, it is not obvious that we ought to err on the side of doing the law. Committing an evil act is worse than neglecting to do the right thing. A person is punished more severely for intentional murder than they are for negligent homicide. Or, for another example, imagine that there is an item of food on the table. It has an equal possibility of being healthy for you, or having poison in it that could kill you. Even though they have equal possibilities, it is better to err on the side of caution, and neglect to eat the food, in order to survive. So, yes, according to the logic of my opponent, completely derived to rational conclusions, then all laws are potentially moral and immoral, and we ought to err on the side of neglect. My opponent's logic demonstrates that his resolution is false. Law, Order, and Democracy Pro again has misconstrued my arguments. I never stated that we ought not to look at the consequences of an action to understand the morality of it. When looking at morality, it is important to look at everything- the intention of the agent, the categorical imperatives, and the consequences that could occur. The issue with consequentialism is that it ONLY cares about the consequences, and anything can be justifiable so long as you get the result you want. My opponent stated, “Con is saying, 'well. .. it miigggghhtttt happen,' with absolutely no evidence or logical argumentation to warrant the assumption. ” Aside from the sarcastic and improper rhetoric, I did provide logical argumentation to warrant the assumption. Some political theories put forth liberty as its primary principle. If people start protesting morally dubious laws, it would limit the amount of laws, thus leading towards a more minimal state. My argument was not stating that this would definitely happen, merely that it is possible it could happen. The same is true from my opponent- they argued that if people disobeyed dubious laws it would lead to the breakdown of society. This claim is equally as possible. My opponent didn't present any hard claims showing that this was necessarily the case, so I did the same- I showed an option that was equally as possible. He claims that history has shown us that protests in democracies do not lead to minimal states. This claim is very debatable. Protests can lead to less restrictive government policies- just look at womens' rights, gay rights, and the lgtb communities. My opponent also argued that a minimal state is not conducive to human flourishing, again, by means of circular reasoning. He also argued that, because people that protest morally dubious laws aren't doing so for the sake of restricting government, means that it won't lead to that conclusion. This is obviously false. I might intend to do something for one reason, and that action could lead to outcomes that I didn't intend. Again, Pro misrepresents me and falsely quotes me with me saying, “consequences don't matter”. I didn't say this and I don't push that belief forward. I do say that only consequences don't matter, because everything has to be taken into account- consequences, intentions, and categorical imperatives. Civil Disobedience Itself Right, I conceded that accepting punishment may provide some benefits. However, we must remember the resolution- that people ought to accept punishment. This concession is not that people ought to accept punishment, but that they may if they choose to, meaning they have the equal moral right to reject punishment. This concession does nothing to help my opponent's case- as I stated before, this case is entirely irrelevant. Conclusions Pro and I did not agree on a framework. Human flourishing is not a framework- it is the thing we are actually debating. Pro never provided a moral framework, making all of his claims inherently invalid. Even without that, the claims that he did make were entirely self contradictory, circular, and emotional. I provided a moral framework for my position, and off of that I derived the principle of non-aggression. My arguments were valid and sound, showing that if people disobey a morally dubious law that does violate the NAP, they have the moral right to resist punishment.