Resolved: In a democratic society, felons ought to retain the right to vote

I decided to run a burdens neg since I'll be turning most of the aff in my next speech. Are we actually doing any sort of timing? If so, what sort of times are we using? Note that I have to give the longest speech next round, since I'll be covering everything in the AC and in the 1AR. I don't think they're particularly necessary, since we're really just answering things now that both of the constructives are up. Just let me know next round. And sorry for the possible difficulties in reading the case. I don't think this site offers sufficient formatting options. Anyways... I negate. Ought must solely pose a moral question (used to express duty or moral obligation)(1) since definitions of desirability denoting benefits are always relative to their societal contexts, a limitation not implicit within the resolution. Additionally any action can have infinitely many ends and affect everything else, which is why the empirical world is inherently unpredictable. Thus only a moral evaluation of ought is a coherent interpretation. The resolution questions an "ought" statement or a statement concerning moral desirability in the context of rights claims. This assumes the possibility of objectively evaluating such claims. Disproving such an assumption would disprove the statement as a whole, since the claim would be resting on nonfactual premises. The conflict involves an "ought" evaluation as well as "rights claims" within a democratic society. Thus we can clarify the implicit affirmative burden to first prove: That there is an Objective way to Resolve Competing Ought Claims or Moral values. The AC must assess individual virtues and values within a warranted comparative framework beforehand in order to justify retaining the right to vote. Affirming the text of the resolution also entails establishing the claim of voting rights, so her second burden is to Ensure that rights have Inherent Grounding within Individuals, meaning that voting rights must be innate within people to validate the act of retaining that right. Failure to meet both burdens means you negate automatically because a resolutional assumption was disproved and the statement rendered false. This functions like any other case that challenges the truth-value of the resolution. The burden of proving a statement is simply clarified into specific parts. Section 1 contends that moral and value claims can never be justified on the comparative framework level. William Wainwright (2) explains: "Consider the ream of moral values and the realm of aesthetic values... Most of us would think that moral values trump aesthetic values in cases of conflict. [But] It isn't obvious that there is a common scale of value on which moral and aesthetic values can be compared and weighed, however or a more inclusive and ultimate realm of value, which contains both [aesthetic and moral values]." The aesthetics versus the moral metaphysics puts the AC in a double bind, either: A)The aesthetic value is prioritized, in which case what ought to be reduces to mere individual preference which cannot be weighed against each other. OR B)The metaphysical divine command trumps, which reduces ought to an unjustifiable premise. Alasdair MacIntyre 1 (3) articulates the A subpoint of the double bind: "The notion of human happiness is not a unitary, simple notion and cannot provide us with a criterion for making our key choices. If someone suggests to us, in the spirit of Bentham and Mill, that we should guide our own choices by the prospects of our own future pleasure or happiness, the appropriate retort is to enquire: ‘But which pleasure, which happiness ought to guide me?' For there are too many kinds of enjoyable activities, too many different modes in which happiness is achieved. The pleasure of drinking is not the pleasure of swimming at the beach and the swimming and drinking are merely only two modes for achieving the same end state. For different pleasures and different happinesses are to a large degree incommensurable: there are no scales of quality or quantity on which to weigh them. Consequently appeal to the criteria of pleasure will not tell me whether to drink or swim and appeal to those of happiness cannot decide for me between the life of a monk and that of a soldier." Since such preferences cannot be weighed as aesthetics derive their values from arbitrary preference, the AC fails the burden of providing an objective framework for assessing value claims regarding what ought to be. MacIntyre 2 explains the regression of moral justification. "An agent can only justify a particular judgment by referring to some universal rule from which it may be logically derived, and can only justify that rule in turn by deriving it from some more general rule or principle; but on this view since every chain of reasoning must be finite, such a process of justificatory reasoning must always terminate with the assertion of some rule or principle for which no further reason can be given." Appeals to higher moral goods lie in the unjustifiable realm of metaphysics therefore fail the test of objectivity. This functions temporally prior to the AC since his case fallacious presumes a coherent evaluation of the valued good. Section 2 articulates the lack of inherent grounding of rights claims. American Heritage defines a right as a certain due or a claim one has. To be justly entitled to something requires a sovereign willing of the act since that's how one establishes responsibility for the result. Accordingly, there is no inherent claim to anything as our actions are prescribed without consent. Charles Taylor (4) writes: "Initially at least such `constitutive' values are given not chosen. The individual is born into a particular family, a particular community, a particular culture, with no power of choice in the matter. The self is formed and develops within the frameworks of understandings and values, allegiances and identifications, which membership of these groups involves. Identity is created in and through such frameworks. The individual cannot reject them without in effect denying its own identity and turning itself against itself. In that sense such frameworks [and] are `inescapable'." Additionally, since voting requires forms of registration, there is no inherent claim to the right. Thus there is no just dessert in the first place meaning the AC fails the assumption of proving a legitimate holding or claim to rights. Since the affirmative has clearly failed to meet both of his burdens, you negate. 1. ought. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 2. Religion and Morality. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2005. 252 pgs. 3. After Virtue. University of Notre Dame Press. 1981. 4. Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity Cambridge University Press, 1992