Murder is Objectively Immoral

P1: Morality is Objective. Famous continues to insist that I need to provide a meta ethical system as it is, as he claims, a “contingency” for normative ethics. He further implies that it cannot be said what is moral, until morality is shown to exist. In retrospect, I have within this debate provided such an argument. I qualified or proved utilitarianism via John Stuart Mill’s proof. I have shown solid reasoning that desire exists and that the ultimate desire is happiness. As I have in addition explained that an actions morality is determined in “proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.”(1) We see then by moral we mean happiness, and proof of its existence is that all desire happiness. Thus based on my opponents reasoning, I have shown both that morality exists and how to determine what is moral. My opponent subtly misunderstands Utilitarianism when he says I fail to show why the action that is most likely to promote happiness is the morally right action. Morality is conforming to the rules of right conduct; that is synonymous as to say, morality is doing what is most desired. What else could it be!? Happiness is the universal desire. Clearly this demonstrates that the moral action is that which tends to promote the greatest happiness. As a final rebuttal to my first premise, Famous argues that according to psychology, murder can make a person feel good and thus according to utility is moral. This is obviously false. I demonstrated in this debate that utility is weighed via the greatest happiness principle. I further defined this principle in Jeremy Bentham’s words; “that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question.” This means, that utility looks not at the individual who murdered, rather the whole “party” whose interest is in question. This includes the victim, family, and society at large. Thus, the individual’s happiness is weighed and measured, but is only a drop in the bucket. In addition, I have also demonstrated that there is a distinction between quality and quantity of pleasures. Thus the pleasure that one may feel while committing murder is a lower pleasure and when weighed against all of society, less in quantity. P2: murder is immoral My opponent claims that I am shifting my advocacy by pushing Rule Utilitarianism. This is not true at all, Rule Utilitarian’s are a subset of Utilitarian’s. Everything I have suggested and argued for is accepted by all Utilitarian’s. To say I have shifted advocacy is like suggesting that someone explaining Christianity who then moves to share a Methodists viewpoint is shifting advocacy. Surely not, I am merely honing in on a particular viewpoint. Rule Utility deems murder immoral as a rule. This is not shifting advocacy as my reasoning given for this addition fits the framework presented. It simply adds the truth that “our knowledge of human behavior shows that there are many cases in which general rules or practices are more likely to promote good effects than simply telling people to do whatever they think is best in each individual case.”(4) Famous continues with his example of Alam Khan stating that I have oversimplified the story. Remember how morality is determined… let us apply our understanding of utilitarianism and the greatest happiness principle once again to murder. It is very clear that murder is “wrong as it tend(s) to produce the reverse of happiness.”(1) Nor could it be said of murder to be “likely produce the most happiness overall.”(3) Thus we see, Murder is immoral. Utilitarianism is based on what is “likely,” or what “tends to” promote happiness. Surely Famous is not suggesting that murder fits this criteria? Conclusion Thanks to famous for an interesting and thought provoking debate. I have demonstrated that Morality is Objective and that murder is immoral. It follows logically that Murder is objectively immoral. The resolution is Affirmed! Sources (1) http://www.utilitarianism.com... (2) http://plato.stanford.edu... (3) http://www.ucs.mun.ca... (4) http://www.debate.org...