My 100th Debate: A Duty to Rescue

Thanks, JonBonBon, for an excellent start to the debate! I hope this debate will be an enjoyable one for everyone. I will now take some time to rebut Con's case.Con's assumption that empathy is insufficient grounds for a duty is not strictly accurate, as many philosophers, from Emmanuel Levinas to Nel Noddings have asserted that empathy is sufficient grounds. Levinas in particular argues that empathy is the wellspring wherefrom moral impulses arise; that there is no greater moral command placed upon us than to act in accordance with our empathetic feelings. Empathy, after all, often evinces or entails moral sentiment. However, since my arguments are not rooted in empathy, and since my rebuttals will not be either, I will not make a big deal of this, and will now proceed to the nitty-gritty of the debate.-- Moral Responsibility and Clarity --Con suggests that: "for an ethical standard to be useful, it must be able to be understood." She goes on to suggest that a useful standard is one with limits; i.e. it would be foolish to suggest someone in a Kansas City suburb has a duty to rescue someone drowning in a lagoon somewhere in Bangladesh. I agree in large part with Con's analysis here--that assertion, if made seriously, would be utterly laughable. Any moral imperative must be subject to reasonable rules and restrictions. I can, therefore, concur that the duty to rescue ought to be limited, while still contending that the duty to rescue ought to exist. In other words, Con's remarks don't actual seem to negate, they merely attempt to impose qualifications on the affirmative world, but even under said qualifications, I can still affirm. But even so, this debate is about whether there ought to be a duty to rescue, not about to what extent this duty should be applied. So, this conversation itself seems a bit of a red-herring. -- Duty to Oneself --Here, is where I think the meat of my opponent's case lies. She advances the theory of ethical egoism as a means of negating the resolution. I have several objections to this, which I will attempt to go through as methodically as possible.Firstly, Con seems to ground her conception of ethical egoism to the idea of psychological egoism. By this I mean, that she seems to imply because "[e] person has a clear duty to their own self. Self-preservation is the most basic instinct in humans...we can derive that it is a basic fact that it is good to stay alive." It seems that Con is saying that, insofar as human have egoistic or self-interested impulses, we should act on those impulses. There are two problems with Con's analysis: (a) this is fallacious reasoning, and (b) humans are not psychologically egoistic.Regarding (a), what Con is attempting to do is a form of the is/ought fallacy. [1] She is claiming that because something "is" the case, that we "ought" to abide by it; in other words, because we have egoistic impulses, that we ought to follow them. Imagine if I were to say, "the flower is red, therefore it is morally desirable that it is red." The premise does not logically flow into the conclusion, because statements of "what is" are not statements of "what should be." Thus, Con's underlying logic here seems to rely heavily on fallacious logic.Regarding (b), it seems that humans are not actually as egoistic as Con would have us believe. Ethical egoism assumes that people are exclusively self-interested actors, and so morality should reflect this point of view. Yet, if we have moral impulses other than self-interest, then clearly, ethical egoism leaves room for altruistic feeling. This would be an internal contradiction. What is more is that this contradiction bears fruit, as evidenced by mirror neurons, which "activate when we witness other people's actions and emotions, they may play an important role in feelings of empathy." [2] Con even seems to admit that humans have empathetic feelings when she writes, "empathy one might have for one who needs rescuing does not necessitate that there is a moral duty to rescue."Now, I anticipate that Con might reply to me with her earlier comments on empathy, but just because one might not have to act on empathy does not mean that the presence of empathy cannot disprove the reasoning underpinning her version of egoism. This is a delicate but crucial distinction to make.Secondly, Con commits another fallacy--the ipse dixit fallacy, otherwise referred to as the bare assertion fallacy. Con provides very little in the way of logic or evidence to warrant why ethical egoism is a credible theory or to flesh out its internal mechanics. The following excerpt is a good example of this: "according to ethical egoism, each person must act on their own interests. A human's duty is only to his or herself." Con never explains why this claim is true. Even if we buy that humans have a duty to themselves, why is this their ONLY duty? Essentially, what Con is saying: my theory says X, therefore it is true. I would encourage Con to develop her arguments further in subsequent rounds.Thirdly, an egoist would agree that there ought to be a duty to rescue. Therefore, even if you believe in ethical egoism, you should affirm the topic. Now, this may seem like an odd, if not outright contradictory, statement to make--but it is an accurate one.Imagine a state of nature where life is "nasty, brutish, and short." [3] In other words, envisage a world with no government, no order. This is not an appealing state in which to live; it is rational for us to pursue the order, stability, safety, and comfort provided to us by a government. We would set up rules designed to create and environment that protects us from harm and that creates a fair system in which to live because it is in our self-interests to do so. It is not implausible--indeed, it seems incredibly logical--that an egoistic society would want to create a duty to rescue.Consider, "unless one could guarantee in advance that one will not require the help of others as means to ends one could not forgo, it would not be rational to will universal nonbeneficence. It is a fact of our nature as rational beings that we cannot guarantee that we shall always be capable of realizing our ends unaided, as it is a fact of our nature that we need things and skills to pursue our ends...[T]he world of universal nonbeneficence is not a world that it is rational for any human agent to choose.” [4] In simpler terms, egoistic people realize that they will need help eventually, and that they will only get that help if they in turn help others in a tit-for-tat type of arrangement. Thus a duty to rescue is born, even under an ethically egoistic paradigm.SOURCES1 - http://en.wikipedia.org...2 - http://www.dnalc.org...3 - Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan, XIII. 9.4 - Barbara Herman, "Mutual Aid and Respect for Persons," Ethics, Vol. 94, No. 4 (1984), pp. 577-602 [http://www.jstor.org...]