Res: It is morally permissible to kill one innocent person to save the lives of more innocent people

To my esteemed opponent. I thank you for this wonderful debate. It has been challenging, and extremely fun. I wish you luck in your last speech, and will now begin. You are first in correct with your analysis on criterion. Value is how you access your criterion. A criterion is a standard that has been set. You set the standard that your value must access. The criterion is the weighing mechanism, or how the judges should vote. My first argument here, is that you contradict yourself. You say that you allow individuals to to be in accord with standards of right or good conduct. But as you have said both in your first speech, and also in this one, you say that it isn't the individual that is an agent of action. Rather, it is a higher power. So you don't allow for an individual to be in accord with standards of right and good conduct. You allow for a higher power to be in accord with standards of right or good conduct. You also defined higher power as a government. A government, isn't only one person. So you are not meeting your own definition of how you should win. This automatically means you should lose. My second argument, is that your criterion isn't the best in this round. The reason judges should vote on my criterion, is because it doesn't slant the debate towards one person's side. I clearly told you how my criterion allows for both sides to be equal. My oponent doesn't access my criterion. I don't only use logic to prove mine. You are advocating one person not dying, while more die. You are claiming that you are solving for mass death, but you are advocating the saving of one person. If there is mass death according to you, then there would be even more death without it. Each situation of one person dying would be to save the lives of many more. This means that if many people die according to my argumentation, even more would have been saved if that multitude didn't die. This means that no matter what the situation, I am always solving for the greatest good. As soon as I win the argument about a vigilante being able to take the life, which I clearly am, then you have to take into account that individual's sense of morality. Each individual has their own sense, not everyone submits to the standard of society. This means that you can't claim access to the value. I on the other hand can. If each individual has their own sense of morality, then it is moral for that individual to claim the life of one person to save the lives of more people. Thus I have completely affirmed the resolution. Permissably doesn't automatically mean it is from a higher power. As an adult, I have the ability to allow myself to do certain actions. My mother doesn't tell me not to eat with my fingers. I am my authority even if it means I am breaking the law. It is still permissable for me, because I have ultimate control over my actions. This means that I can evalutate the resolution based on internal morality. Each individual has their own sense of morality, therefore an individual sense of morality is what is guiding the vigilante making the choice. It isn't impossible to evaluate the resolution because the judge does have to determine that the resolution is moral to an individual. That is the only way this can be seen. You can't ask the judge to completely eliminate what is true in this world. You can't argue from a hypothetical standpoint. The truth of this world is that people have their own morality, so the judge can interpret the resolution (especially since I've proven this point) to mean an individual's sense of morality. The judge should still vote on the best argumentation, whether they believe with me or you. The judges vote on the resolution, not outside of it. This means that the judge is bound to stay within the parameters of the debate. In this instance, I am winning. The reason the affirmative should win this round, is because an individual DOES have an individual sense of morality. Both sides can't win, and this argument is moot because it involves the realm outside of this debate round. The judge votes on what is in the debate round, not what is outside of it (or at least they should.) The resolution specifies the lives of people. This means that no matter how it happens, people are going to die. Even if it is by way of energy crisis, their physical lives are at stake. This means that the judge has to vote on people dying. I have easily shown how my opponent can't meet the burden of his own criterion, or my own. I have shown you how saving more people's lives causes the greater good to be done. All of this proves that I should win this round. My opponent has failed to access his own criterion, and clearly can't claim that he causes the greatest good. I do thank you for this debate, and I hope that this continues in the way it has been. It has been extremely competitive, and is an awesome debate. Good luck in the next round.