Civil Disobedience and Voluntary Punishment

Thanks again to Con. I will now rebut Con's case. I. Subjective MoralityA. RulesMy opponent is effectively making a kritik. Because the resolution asks what "ought" to be done, it is presupposing the existence of morality for the purposes of this round. Arguments from nihilism, for example, seem to move the question from "what is the moral course of action" to the question of "does morality even exist. " The resolution's wording is clearly getting at the former, not the latter. Because kritiks are prohibited by the rules, my opponent's line of argumentation here must be disregarded entirely. The resolution assumes the existence of the kind of morality needed to answer the question it poses. B. Theory1. Talking about the TopicIf, before we could ever answer an ought question, we had to demonstrate that objective morality existed, we would be so constantly bogged down in pre-resolutional topics that we would never actually get to the topic itself. My opponent says that I must show objective morality exists to affirm. Well, I could easily argue a prerequisite to negating is that disobedients and laws exist, so he must show that these things are not just all figments of a mind's imagination. Do you see how this becomes ridiculous pretty quickly? This is not a debate on morality's existence. It is a debate on civil disobedience. If we worry too much about the former issue, we seriously shortchange the latter one. We should not be expected to continually beat out all of these pre-resolutional questions, because it undermines the value of the debate as a mechanism to actually engage with the resolution itself and to learn about the topic at hand.2. FairnessIf I am required to prove objective morality exists and to justify a particular moral theory through which to assess the resolution, I am going to have very little space left to make arguments. Proving and justifying those things is no easy or short task, and I will show that in attempting to do it himself, Con undercovers the issues himself. If I were required to do those things before making my case, I would have no space to make my case. So, clearly, Con's claim that I must do these things to win is unfair and an absurd standard to hold me to. II. Objective MoralityA. FairnessCon merely cites the argument from efficient cause and the metaphysical proof. He does not actually make arguments for them in this debate. This is essentially an unfair attempt to dodge the character limitations imposed on these rounds. If these arguments are integral to his framework, then he ought to present them in the round in his own words or as a quote--as 90% of debaters on this site do. He's not just citing a statistic or noting a fact, he's farming out whole chunks of his argumentation to offsite locations (this is what I meant by him "undercovering" the issues). The links themselves do not make arguments, and forcing me to respond to them functions only as an unfair character-suck (i. e. eats up significantly more of my character to rebut than it eats his to cite). Either he lays these arguments out in full, or the judges should ignore these points altogether. B. Reality1. Is Intent a Reality? It does not seem to follow that the existence of a creator entity implies purposiveness. When a volcano erupts, does it intend to create lava? To say yes would imply that the volcano as conative thoughts, which I doubt Con would claim. It is not beyond our power to conceive of god as a force which gives rise to reality without necessarily intending to do so. Theories of god, like those of Spinoza, for instance, view god as being without intentions [1]. For Con to claim that god's intention to create humans explains why murder is wrong, Con must first prove that god has intentions. He does not.2. Longing for the Simple LifeCon claims that human complexity proves that we were more intended to exist than an ant. This seems to be more an expression of anthropocentric bias than an actual argument. It assumes that god somehow values the beauty of complexity more than the beauty of simplicity. Con has not proven that this is the case, he has only assumed it to be true. Con cannot prove that, because (a) he cannot possibly know god's intend purpose for each creature because he is not god, and (b) sometimes the most unassuming creatures are the most essential. Without earthworms, trees and flowers would not be able to grow. 3. NAP i. Human Flourishing does not entail the non-aggression principle (NAP). The most basic idea of NAP is that force (including violence and coercion) can only be used against those who initiate it; those who did not use force are not proper subjects of force. Taxation is in violation of the NAP because it entails the government initiating force against citizens to extract resources. Yet, taxation has been essential to human flourishing over the years. It is responsible for funding our roads, much of our medical and scientific research, our police forces, our justice system, and much more. Laws which require motorcyclists to wear helmets or drivers to wear seatbelts are similarly violations of NAP, but these laws save lives, keep people healthy, and promote human flourishing as a result. You might even be able to say that requiring parents to care for their children violates NAP to the extent that parents just walking away is not an act of force, but the state imposing mandates is. My opponent also talks about preventing suffering. If I see someone drowning in a pool or starving, can I be mandated by the state to help them? If I can, then the state is aggressing against me, but there is also no system in place to effectively prevent suffering. In other words, Con opines on these grand moral goals (e. g. human flourishing, preventing suffering) that he argues should be the central objectives of morality, but his moral system abjectly fails to achieve these goals and may even be counterproductive to them. In other words, his arguments here are rather nonsensical. Shouldn't our moral theories actually promote our moral objectives? And if not, then how does Con justify the dissonance? Consider also the case of fraud: "fraud is not physical violence. If I tell you that the painting you want to buy is a genuine Renoir, and it's not, I have not physically aggressed against you. But if you buy it, find out it's a fake, and then send the police. .. over to my house to get your money back, then you are aggressing against me. So not only does a prohibition on fraud not follow from the NAP, it is not even compatible with it, since the use of force to prohibit fraud itself constitutes the initiation of physical violence. "[2] ii. Risks "The NAP clearly implies that it's wrong for me to shoot you in the head. But. .. what if I merely run the risk of shooting you by putting one bullet in a six-shot revolver, spinning the cylinder, aiming it at your head, and squeezing the trigger? What if it is not one bullet but five? Of course, almost everything we do imposes some risk of harm on innocent persons. We run this risk when we drive on the highway (what if we suffer a heart attack, or become distracted), or when we fly airplanes over populated areas. Most of us think that some of these risks are justifiable, while others are not, and that the difference between them has something to do with the size and likelihood of the risked harm, the importance of the risky activity, and the availability and cost of less risky activities. But considerations like this carry zero weight in the NAP's absolute prohibition on aggression. That principle seems compatible with only two possible rules: either all risks are permissible (because they are not really aggression until they actually result in a harm), or none are (because they are). " [2] To prohibit all risks would leave us virtually unable to take any action without being immoral, and to allow all risks would clearly endanger human flourishing. iii. Punishment Con says that if X does something moral and they are unjustly threatened with punishment, then they ought to prevent that injustice. Here you can just cross-apply my own arguments on the nature of the law itself--there is no guarantee that civil disobedience is always going to be a moral act, even in response to morally dubious laws or practices. My case goes more in-depth on this issue. Additionally, if you don't accept NAP as a moral theory, then Con cannot necessarily show that X is doing something moral because his metric for illustrating that point is gone. III. Areas of Possible OverlapCon writes, "It is morally wrong to give an unworthy punishment. " The corollary to this claim is that it is not morally wrong to give a worthy punishment. A punishment would seem worthy if it upholding a morally legitimate law. This directly feeds into my case where I talk about the nature of actions as well as how "people should be punished for immoral actions" and how "people ought to follow moral laws. " Given that Con advances NAP as a moral law and claims that people should follow NAP, Con also seems to agree with these claims in principle. Also, even though I don't wade into the quagmire of objective morality in my case, I agree that promoting human flourishing is a moral objective. Given that both Con and I can agree on this point, we now have a mutually recognized mechanism for weighing moral issues in the round. Human flourishing is about individual self-actualization; basic conditions of wellbeing are essential preconditions to having a meaningful opportunity and ability to self-actualize. People who are starving, who are living in a war zone, or who are suffering from illnesses face substantial hurdles to self-actualization. IV. Sources1 - . https://en.wikipedia.org...2 - . https://www.libertarianism.org...Thus, I affirm. Thanks again to Con and to the readers.