Jan/Feb LD Resolution

First: Before any other evaluation of the resolution we must evaluate the effects on human ontology that the resolution has. Michael Campbell writes: The relevance of ontology to all other kinds of thinking is fundamental and inescapable. For one cannot say anything about anything that is, without always already having made assumptions about the is. Any mode of thought always already carries an ontology sequested within it. What this ontological turn does to other- regional – modes of thought is to challenge the ontology within which they operate. The implications of that review demand[s] a reappraisal as fundamental as the reappraisal ontology has demanded of philosophy. This means that ontology is going to come first because be for we make assumptions that we are humans and can act in moral ways we must first understand what it means to be human I contend that acting on the basis of minimizing suffering via killing those who cause suffering is wrong because suffering is needed in order to understand human fatality of the ontological mode of being. Eugene Long explains the way humans exist: We exist in the present involved in the heritage of what has been. However, we also exist in the future that is coming towards us. Our being is such that in the present we recollect the past and anticipate the future. Our transcending or becoming, however, comes up against many boundaries along the way which set limits to our transcending or becoming. One of the most significant boundaries is found in suffering. Suffering stands over against our transcending, our acting. the process of becoming in which we act to realize some state of affairs that we desire and through which we find meaning in existence, the experience of suffering appears to be the opposite of activity. It is a boundary, a tragic element in human experience which sets limits to our process of becoming and raises the question of the meaning of human existence. Suffering may bring us up against our finiteness and may clear our being in the world of the gods of self-deification. Suffering may be accommodated into our human becoming. For example, that although we would not have sought suffering we are better persons for having undergone the experience of suffering Thus, the way in which humans exist is through the experience of suffering in order to know the distinction between gods and humans. This allows for human becoming and transcendence to happen. Long 2 explains why suffering is needed: Suffering is necessary to a greater good or that it will be transformed or overcome in the future by a greater good. Rather, persons are called not only to condemn such evil and suffer with those who suffer, but also to assume responsibility for working for new possibilities for good. Human suffering on this account is at one and the same time an experience of emptiness or nullity and the giving or loving of Being, the on-going creative activity or providence of divine reality. Perhaps one might say that the giving, the calling of beings to their fullest being in relation to others is the essence of divine reality, that divine reality is in this giving. In this giving of Being in reaction to the suffering of beings in the world. suffering allows prospering over future problems; the on-going creative activity of the divine reality, which allows people to come to their fullest being This proves that suffering is a necessary part of human existence in order to find solidarity with others and confront our finiteness as human beings. The suffering of others calls us to question who we are what actions we take as human meaning that it is necessary to understand the true function of being a human. Additionally, confronting notions of death and suffering is how individuals conceptualize good and bad and this confrontation is the only reason why life has value Strauss explains: Dasein is the term to speak of individual human consciousness and is Unique among entities in that it puts Being itself- Death, in turn, puts the whole of Dasein's own being at stake. In part, this is because death is "nonrelational," which is to say that no one else can represent me or stand in for me at my inevitable demise. Dying is something that I must do for myself. I am therefore alone in the face of my death, and that mortal isolation informs me of my separation from others, makes me aware of my finitude in relation to them. The for me less masses of humanity in general, the indeterminate and unattributed they of "They say..."goes on and on, but I do not. Death lays claim to it as an individual. The non-relational character of death, as understood in anticipation, individualizes Dasein down to itself.” Death, by separating me off as finite, makes. Me capable of being a whole to myself, and I actually do become whole to myself through my attitude toward that death. it is that a privative limit can structure experience into subjectivity and existence into a life. One's relation to death is either authentic or inauthentic. In the latter case a person tries to forget that he is finite and must die by imagining that he is the same as the indeterminate They. Authentic anticipation turns out to be the possibility of understanding one's own most and utter most potentiality-for- Being-that is to say, the possibility of authentic existence. The ontological constitution of such existence must be made visible by setting forth the concrete structure of anticipation of death. The structure of our relation to death makes our authentic individual existence apparent to us as a whole, and it is, consequently, through anticipating death that we authentically exist as whole individuals. Second, this "owning" creates its owner, since it puts the totality of finite Dasein at issue. I am an owner in so far as death "lays claim" in so far as I am owned, in turn, by my death: it is only mine, but I only am. Thus it is necessary to confront death in order to find meaning in life Next, Strauss would deny the right of the victim to kill the abuser because we are to confront death not actually die. This is true because when we die we don’t have the ability to confront and understand our most potential-of-being because we would no longer be. This means that if the AC defends the abuser killing the victim every time then they link into the harms. Also, I do not advocate that we advance suffering, but let the suffering in the world flow naturally and avoid trying to minimize it so any arguments about me justifying another holocaust or promoting extinction won’t link. Further, suffering is not something with a brightline i.e we have never undergone enough suffering, it is always static because if it weren’t then we would slowly be able to lose the ability to suffer which doesn’t make sense because even people who have suffered through insane torture or crazy diseases will always have the ability to suffer more And, they are going to stand up and say they know what it is like to suffer just by watching other people suffering however this is false for two reasons A) The warrants in Long assume that it is the experience of suffering that calls into question what it means to be and to find meaning in existence and B) The warrants in Strauss are clear on the fact that it is the confrontation of death that only I can do for myself and it helps me realize my finitude in relation with others which would function just by watching someone confront death because that would only increase the false idea that we are in some relation to others. Finally, this negates for 2 reasons A) I meet the inherent resolutional burden that the neg has to prove a prohibition because I show why it’s bad to kill the abuser and B) This case turns the AC because insofar as they are reducing suffering and functionally ruining value to life. And value to life is important because without it morality becomes irrelevant. Rebuttals shall come in my next round.