The Non-Aggression Principle Is a Flawed Moral Position

Pro's entire case just begs the question. He repeatedly asserts without justification that secular ethics is about maximizing utility. But why? I've offered arguments against this position while he has offered none for it. Moreover, Pro doesn't even take his own position seriously. He avoids answering the hard questions that utilitarianism raises. He really has no coherent moral philosophy. In general, he thinks maximizing utility is good, but he doesn't like the idea that it's possible rape could positively contribute to human well-being. He starts by arbitrarily decided on emotive grounds what he thinks the moral landscape looks like, and then just jockeys back and forth between different moral theories until they paint the picture he wants. === Con Case === 1. Pro doesn't actually respond to the logical justification for the NAP. Just to be clear, my position is that arguing against the NAP is not just wrong, it's logically incoherent. "Failure to contextualize" is just another way of saying "not wishy washy." This is basically a repeat of Pro's other points in the debate, which I will get to shortly. Flow this argument to the Con side. 2. Regardless of whether or not Pro considers himself an ethical intuitionist, but he is relying completely on the intuitionist approach. He is not relying on moral reasoning -- my approach of formulating a categorical imperative is an example of deriving ethics from reason. In addition to the issue of our moral intuitions being so dependent on context, culture, and the way that various thought experiments are framed, we also need to ask whether or not they are even meaningful. The fact that I react negatively to X and feel warm and fuzzy about Y does not logically entail that X is morally wrong or that Y is morally good. Pro gives no reason to consider moral intuitions truth-apt. At best, this approach can only justify emotivism -- a form of non-cognitivism. === Pro Case === 1. Utilitarian critique A) This doesn't really answer what I said. Pro's argument is still circular unless he can give us a meta-ethical reason to prefer utilitarianism. B) Pro's response to the rape problem doesn't really answer the question. The issue is that if utilitarian philosophers are correct, then the property of maximizing well-being is identical to the property of moral goodness. Even if the odds that gang rape would have a net positive effect on utility are slim, the fact that it's even possible acts as a hard defeater for this identity claim. The issue of killing one healthy person to save five sick people was not meant as a direct attack on utilitarianism, but rather to illustrate the collapse of type-utilitarianism into act utilitarianism, which carries with it so many problems that few philosophers today are willing to defend it. TURN - Pro has literally no way of knowing whether or not shooting fat people will actually maximize utility. Maybe one of the skinny women is two months pregnant with the next Hitler. Maybe some fat man is a brilliant scientist on the verge of a brilliant discovery that would cure cancer. Even if the issue is not as clear cut as in either of these cases, our actions can have massive, fractal-like repercussions. He has no way, really, of even approximating what will have the greatest net positive effect on utility. In fact, regardless of what we do with our lives, none of our actions will have any impact on the grand scheme of things. Eventually, the sun will burn out, life on earth will be extinguished, and the entire universe will succumb to heat death. 2. Appeal to basic necessities A) Pro is just begging the question again; "I think ethics should be utilitarian because utilitarianism is what ethics is." He's also equivocating. He says the purpose of ethics is to make the world a "better" place. But does he mean "better" in a non-specific ethical sense of the term, or in the pragmatic sense of the term? B) My interpretation of the NAP is more or less orthodox. I don't disagree in any significant way with Hans-Hermann Hoppe as he outlines the principle in The Economics and Ethics of Private Property. I don't claim that non-aggression is universally preferable, my position is that it is logically incoherent to argue against it. Refer back to 1A of my constructive. Pro has offered no refutation of this point, flow the argument to Pro. C) Pro is ignoring my counter-argument and further demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what the non-aggressions principle actually entails. The NAP is theory of rights based on property. He can't simultaneous assert that he has a right to save a suicidal man from killing himself and that the suicidal man has a right to defend himself; this view is not logically coherent given the definition of a "right." Further, he is trying to blur the distinction between preferences and morality. If I'm hanging from a balcony outside of Pro's apartment, of course I'm going to break in if that's the only way I can save myself. However, the difference between Pro and myself is that I don't try to maintain that I am actually entitled to use someone else's property for this purpose. 3. The Unjust Society You can't just claim large swathes of unowned land for yourself, you have to acquire it through homesteading. Pro hasn't made any attempt to extend this argument into a general point about libertarian economics, so I think I can safely consider it dropped. 4 & 5. Dropped by Pro. I have to end my round here. I apologize for being overly brief, but I was extremely pressed for time and wrote my case in the space of about an hour. I think I've at least touched on all the main points and I will be back in the last round with a more thorough rebuttal.