Individuals have a moral obligation to assist those in need

I value morality. Morality isn’t truth functional with independently competing truth claims but is instead based in rules of interaction that guide our decisions. Our decisions come from self-interest and intending to recognize desired ends. Mercer: MARK MERCER. IN DEFENCE OF WEAK PSYCHOLOGICAL EGOISM. Erkenntnis 55: 217–237, 2001. “To understand what another has done is … to have a … description of the action he has performed, one that reveals it to be intentional, … to know an agent’s reason for performing … action involves understanding his motivation in doing it. … It is not enough, … to understand what a person who intentionally sips from a saucer of mud has done … An interpreter has also to comprehend what in desiring to sip from a saucer of mud was attractive to him. … \ One way is to connect that piece of behaviour to one or more of the strange agent’s self-regarding ends. If we can see in sipping from a saucer of mud a way of maintaining self-respect, or even a way to delight in the taste of mud, we can understand the desire the agent had to sip from a saucer of mud. We need not connect his self-regarding end to an intention to realize that end in or through his action; we need only … connect it to an expectation of realizing it. ” Thus, whenever we ask questions of justice, the basis behind acting just or unjust grounded in whether or not something is in our self-interest. This is the only theory that is consistent with how people actually think. Mercer 2: MARK MERCER. IN DEFENCE OF WEAK PSYCHOLOGICAL EGOISM. Erkenntnis 55: 217–237, 2001. “weak … egoism is the doctrine that all actions are performed in expectation of realizing self-regarding ends. … egoism is the doctrine that behind any action whatever that an agent performs intentionally, ultimately there lies the agent’s expectation of realizing one or more of her self-regarding ends, an expectation without which the agent would not have performed the action. … if an agent does not expect to forestall his own unhappiness or to promote his self-image, … , in … performing an action … then that agent will not intentionally perform an action of that type. … often we take … some other self-regarding end, not as a consequence … but directly as part of engaging in that activity, … To enjoy tennis is to take pleasure in playing tennis, and not, … to attain experiences of pleasure through playing tennis. ” So, we are moral in intending to further our own self-interest. I don’t deny that there are decisions that are to benefit those external to the self but we are motivated to take those acts in trying to recognize self-benefiting ends. Thus my criterion is realizing self-regarding ends. First: People aren’t required to help others because we can choose if we want to help but we aren’t required or obligated. Kalin: Jesse Kalin. Two Kinds of Moral Reasoning: Ethical Egoism as a Moral Theory. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Nov. , 1975), pp. 323-356 “If I can be established, then so can I since a person's self-interest consists in those wants and desires most important to him as deter-mined by his own informed preferential valuation. There is no restric-tion on what a person can want or have an interest in. His wants may be selfish, confined to his own pleasure and advancement, or they may be nonselfish, directed toward the pleasure and well-being of another, … The ethical egoist may have an interest in the welfare of others, but if he does, it is only because that other has some special connection with his wants and desires, such as being loved. Only in virtue of this connec-tion can another's wants and desires provide reasons for acting “Now, lets respond to my opponent's arguments. Oh wait. .. he didn't provide any. .. even though round one explicitly says he should start in round one. .. This means he has a) no kind of framework to evaluate the debate and b) no arguments to affirm the resolution.