Utilitarianism is an unsound ethical system

FRAMEWORK: Con argues that I must utilize a competing ethical system in order to give a legitimate evaluation of utilitarianism's claims as being 'immoral' or 'unjust'. I agree with this assessment; however, I believe I have already been doing that, just without explicitly saying so: thus far, I have been evaluating utilitarianism's claims through the lens of the Non-Aggression Principle. This deontological, rights-based ethical system basically claims that all humans have natural rights such as life, personal liberty, and ownership of their property, and that any action which violates other people's natural rights is immoral. Since this idea of innate human rights is relatively uncontroversial and mostly intuitive, I will leave it up to Con to bring up objections to the NAP's soundness if he wishes to do so. Without further ado, I shall proceed with counter-rebuttals. I concede my Impracticality (C3) and Gang Rape (C4) contentions because Con has quite thoroughly dismantled both of them... (as expected from Raisor, what a guy)R1) Interpersonal Comparisons"This argument is patently incorrect- it is possible to compare interpersonal utility. The comparison of torturing person A or giving person B a delicious meal is simple."I never claimed that it is *impossible* to make interpersonal comparisons of utility; there are, of course, some situations in which a valid comparison of utility can be made because it is clear that one option brings only suffering and the other option brings only pleasure. Such is the example which my opponent has presented. However, when there is both suffering *and* pleasure involved in the consequences of an action (i.e. most actions), then it becomes practically impossible to make objective interpersonal comparisons of utility because there is no way to measure pleasure and suffering and see if one 'outweighs' the other. This is clearly shown in the example of theft I presented."Pro"s argument is actually that epistemic uncertainty can make utility comparisons difficult or in practice impossible. This problem applies to any ethical system- there will always be uncertainty about relevant ethical factors"This is patently false; ethical systems revolving around deontology, such as the NAP, do not suffer from this problem of uncertainty. And even if all ethical systems *do* suffer from this uncertainty, then perhaps all of them are unsound! There is nothing in the resolution prohibiting that; whether or not all ethical systems are unsound has nothing to do with whether or not utilitarianism, specifically, is unsound."Just because I can"t be certain which outcome will maximize utility doesn"t mean that there isn"t a utility maximizing option or that this option is morally superior."My argument isn't that we as humans 'have no way of knowing' what the morally superior option is; rather, my argument is that according to utilitarianism, a morally superior option simply does not exist (in most cases) because there is no objective measure of utility. "In general thievery is contrary to the Happiness Principle, so we adopt the broad rule that theft is wrong. Even if a narrow range of theft cases results in positive utility, the aggregate case justifies treating theft as universally wrong."I have offered a fully elucidated analysis of how both pleasure (for the thief) and suffering (for the victim) are caused by the act of theft, which applies to almost all instances of it, whereas Con has done nothing more than assert that theft is contrary to the so-called "happiness principle". My analysis should clearly take precedence over Con's bare assertion, here, leading to the same conclusion that was arrived at last round: the lack of objective interpersonal utility comparisons makes it impossible for utilitarianism to definitively label clearly unethical acts like theft as such, thus rendering it to be an unsound ethical system. R2) Motivation"Pro offers no justification for why motivation must be morally relevant."This sums up the entirety of Con's rebuttal, here. If I can show that motivation/intent is relevant to the morality of an action, then I will have effectively shown that utilitarianism's disregard for motivation when evaluating an action's moral value renders it to be an unsound ethical system.It is necessary to take motivation into account for the same reason that we cannot consider the "actions" of inanimate objects to be immoral; it would be absolutely ridiculous to look upon a boulder falling on and killing a random pedestrian, and to then call the boulder's action 'immoral'. Why? It's because the boulder did not choose to do what it did, nor did it have any knowledge or control of what it was doing! In precisely the same way, a man accidentally running over a bicyclist with his car is not choosing to commit murder, nor does he have any knowledge or control of what he is doing, as it is a complete accident; thus, it is irrational to call his action "immoral".While motivation/intent might make no difference in many cases (such as the saving-a-child analogy offered by Con), there are a substantial number of situations in which the acting agent is completely devoid of intent (i.e. accidents), and in those cases, the (lack of) motivation/intent must be taken into account.Since utilitarianism fails to do this, it is an unsound ethical theory. R5) Hypothetical Utility Monster"Pro concedes that this hypothetical case is “implausible.” We don’t need to consider a utility monster because it couldn’t exist- odd moral features of fictional realities aren’t an issue for ethical systems."Con seems to have missed the point of the hypothetical... it was merely meant to demonstrate the absurdity of the general utilitarian idea that the majority's pleasure should be a valid reason for the minority to have to sacrifice its own well-being. Blowing it up into the much arger proportions of the Utility Monster hypothetical simply makes it easier to see how unreasonable the entire notion is."Maybe if such a creature existed it WOULD best to give all resources to the monster. The state of bliss required to outweigh the suffering of billions of people and sentient animals is unimaginable- such a creature would be a happiness god."But why should we concern ourselves at all with the happiness of some external entity whose happiness we will never experience? It doesn't benefit us individually at all to grant this Utility Monster its unimaginable bliss at our expense. Why should *anyone* have to sacrifice their own well-being for the sake of someone else's pleasure? There is no good answer, and it represents a gaping hole in utilitarianism's moral framework. R6) Third World Poverty"Is Pro’s argument that we shouldn’t try to ameliorate suffering in third world countries?"No... my argument is that utilitarianism requires an unreasonable and unfeasible solution to the wealth disparity between first world and third world countries. "...the scenario Pro seems to be driving at, a coercive purge of all excess resources, certainly falls outside what utilitarians advocate. The prominent utilitarian Peter Singer argues that people should give 1% of annual income to charity- but maybe that is precisely the terrible conclusion Pro fears."Con doesn't really respond to the reasoning behind my claim that utilitarianism advocates a 'coercive purge of all excess resources' , instead just asserting that to be false and then providing an alternative solution backed up by nothing more than a fallacious appeal to authority (in fact, that just proves my point that not even the most hardcore utilitarians can support the true implications of their unsound ethical system). My original reasoning still stands: since it is obvious that the impoverished would derive much more utility from consuming excess resources than we currently do, and the wealth disparity is an acknowledged moral dilemma, utilitarianism does, indeed, prescribe a coercive purge of all excess resources to the third world to generate maximum utility. This contention remains standing.~ Rights ~"Pro must provide some non-utility justification for property rights and the other rights he has advocated in this debate. He needs to account for how and why humans have these rights, how we know what these rights are, and why this account is superior to the utilitarian account."All ethical systems rest on a few core premises that cannot really be proven and must simply be assumed solely based on our ethical intuitions. For utilitarianism, this idea is reflected in its fundamental assumptions that pleasure is inherently good and ought to be maximized, whereas suffering is inherently bad and ought to be minimized. How can one prove these assumptions? The only way is to appeal to our ethical intuitions and "common sense". For the NAP, that underlying premise is that people have natural rights by extension of their definitive human characteristics such as personal autonomy/dignity, consciousness, and rational faculties. This is a much firmer grounding for the concept of human rights to be based in than utilitarianism because, rather than being dependent on whether or not they result in a net gain for society, they are intertwined into our very existence as human beings. ================In conclusion, I have successfully established the NAP as a valid competing ethical system with which I can evaluate utilitarianism's claims, and, more importantly, have fully defended four reasons to reject utilitarianism as an ethical system,The resolution is affirmed.