The Following Character is Immoral and Undeserving of Respect.

First, consider the definition of "respect" again - ""Esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability" - My opponent begins his argument with an egregious error: >> "In my opponents own definition it says "...a sense of worth or excellence of a person, [or] a personal quality or ability...". The question then becomes, what has this person done, or what quality does this person have that makes him useful or important?" For some reason, my opponent equates worth and excellence with usefulness and importance. This is of course more semantic nonsense, the same weaseling argument my opponent tried in the first round. Like there, it shall have no bearing on the second round, for even a third grader can tell that worth and excellence are NOT equivalent to usefulness and importance. My opponent's argument follows as such: 1. If this character is important, he has worth. 2. If this character has worth, he deserves respect. 3. This character is important. ------------------------------------------------------ :. This character deserves respect. However, this is clearly flawed in that things or people that are important do not necessarily have positive worth. The Holocaust was an important event, but nobody considers it to have worth that one would ESTEEM it for. It makes no sense to garner respect from a negative worth or negative esteem (if such a concept is even coherent)... Thus, the rest of his argument on importance is a red herring, unless he can prove that the importance of this character generates any sort of esteem or positive worth. Furthermore, my opponent's entire argument about justice is also a complete red herring, a waste of characters. Justice has no bearing on this debate, as we are not talking about punishing this character for his wrongs, only judging the merit of these actions. **************************************** Responses: >> "THE ABOVE ARGUMENTS PROVE THAT THE CHARACHTER IS IMPORTANT, WHICH BY DEFINITION PROVES HE IS "WORTH"" The American Heritage dictionary defines worth as "The quality that renders something desirable, useful, or valuable." I see nothing desirable, useful, or valuable in this character's brand of importance. In fact, this character's sadistic lack of morality seems to render him worth-LESS. >> "His being a human and the fact that he has not given up certain rights, according to Locke's policy show merits of respect." Re-read Locke - he holds that when one violates the social contract, one is removed from it. He no longer HAS rights to give up. Furthermore, basic rights (which he no longer has anyway) merit justice, not respect. One respects (VERB) rights VIA justice. We're talking about respect (NOUN), which is not connected to basic rights. >> "Lack of restraining from doing something is doing it, or would allow doing it, which means that not respecting by the verb form of respect would allow doing worse things." This doesn't even make sense (in context of lack of respect not being DIS-respect, but neutral). Again, we're not talking about the verb respect - we're talking about the noun. You can't deserve a verb. That's like saying "Billy deserves run." >> "My point is that there are far worse things than just killing him and not respecting him would allow those things. I do not concede I simply believe that he deserves nothing worse than justice." Again, the justness of any proposed punishment has no bearing at all on whether or not he deserves respect. Red herring. >> "...His prominence is irrefutable." Satan's prominence is irrefutable - does Satan deserve respect then? He does by your argument.... >> "This proves that he has considerable influence." Satan has considerable influence... He deserves respect by your argument... >> "he is a person, albeit a bad person he is a person none the less. No one doesn't matter. If you don't believe me consider this; the Catholic church and the Jewish disapprove of suicide because they believe that everyone is important and everyone is on earth for a reason." "A bad person..." I submit this is another form of concession. Furthermore, the beliefs of religious groups are immaterial to this debate. >> "Why are they given special treatment? The reason is that they are important. Maybe not by definition, but in lay terms they certainly are." My opponent seems to want to use "definitions" and "lay terms" where they suit him best instead of sticking to what something MEANS. ********************************* Since my opponent seems so keen on definitions, let us examine the original definition of respect yet again, and also the pertinent definitions of its components... Respect - "Esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability." (Dictionary.com). Esteem - "Favorable regard." (American Heritage). Quality - "Character with respect to fineness, or grade of excellence." (Dictionary.com). Ability - "Power or capacity to do or act." (Dictionary.com). Worth - "The quality that renders something desirable, useful, or valuable." (American Heritage). As one can see, the definition of respect clearly implies some sort of positive quality that merits esteem as a function of its desirability, usefulness, or value. Do any of these character's actions merit esteem or have desirability, usefulness, or value? Of course not - it is laughable to think so. **************************************** Conclusion: Throughout this debate, my opponent has spouted nothing but semantic nonsense, basically amounting to "If we adopt a bizarre or incorrect understanding of respect, this character merits some." Obviously, this is not a very good argument. The one vaguely sensical argument my opponent makes is that if you understand respect to mean "A sense for the worth of a person," then this person deserves respect if he has worth. However, when considering the worth of this character, the only conclusion is that his actions detract from his net worth, earning him DIS-respect, and not respect. I ask the readers again if any of the following actions merit esteem, desirability, usefulness, or value: 1. He kills babies and small children. 2. He wishes others to stone those who ridicule him. 3. He considers homosexuals to be deserving of death. 4. He condones slavery. 5. He encourages war and genocide. 6. He practices unjust retribution. 7. He occasionally lies. 8. He destroys lives on a whim. 9. He tempts and leads people to commit wrongs. 10. He likes social unrest and the destruction of families. Obviously, none of these actions merit respect in any sense of the term. They are heinously immoral actions, and would seem to merit DIS-respect. This character is immoral and undeserving of respect. AFFIRMED.