Food Security

Thanks, Romanii! I will now rebut Con's case.CON's CASEA. Self-Ownership Con contends that all human beings have self-ownership (SO) and that this leads to property rights over ourselves and the products of our labor. I will endeavor to show that SO is a flawed paradigm.1. SO is an impoverished understanding of human moral worth.A view that is wholly focused on rational autonomy misses the importance of suffering in understanding human dignity. Con talks about "deterministic robots" not deserving rights, but it would seem that a robot can (or could conceivably) make rational, autonomous choices. For instance, a robot is in development which "will be completely autonomous and should be able to help with everything from fetching tools to...engineering tasks." [1] It will have "artificial intelligence allowing it to learn by example and respond to its surroundings. Once trained in a series of basic tasks the robot should be able to increase its own intelligence and act independently." If Robots are capable of such advanced autonomous action and rational capacity, why do we not accord them rights? Also, if rational autonomy is the wellspring of rights and dignity, how does Con justify protecting children and the disabled? Part of the answers to these questions comes from an analysis of suffering. Humans are capable of a unique kind of emotional and physical experience that differentiates us from other entities, like robots. Suffering has a uniquely moral dimension, because we almost universally recognize it to be wrong to inflict, particularly without purpose. Justice involves giving each their due, and no one seems to be due needless suffering; in fact, we seem to be due reasonable protections against it. Because suffering distinguishes us from tables and robots, and because inflicting it needlessly is a degradation of our moral sphere as human beings, a better understanding of dignity is one that incorporates both rational autonomy and suffering.2. Being reliant on property rights to ground freedom is dangerous.Suppose that freedom is the absence of coercion, or, as Kant frames it, being independent of another's will. "If we take this definition of freedom then the amount of freedom a person has is the extent to which they can act without being coerced to do (or not to do) something against their will. In a libertarian society you cannot (legitimately) do anything with another's property if they don't want you to, so your only guaranteed freedom is determined by the amount of property you have. This has the consequence that someone with no property has no guaranteed freedom, and that the more property you have, the greater your guaranteed freedom. In other words, a distribution of property is a distribution of freedom, as the libertarians themselves define it. Thus...the libertarians are saying that the best way of promoting freedom is to allow some people to have more of it than others, even when this leads to some having very little or even none." [2]3. Vulnerable Groups require special consideration.Children and the disabled are often unable to care for themselves. Because they cannot care for themselves--because they are vulnerable--society needs to take on additional responsibilities in caring for these groups, unless we want to allow them to be victims of abuse and suffering. Food security is one essential way society should care for these individuals, since they are unable to earn food on their own through traditional SO mechanisms.4. SO is Arbitrary.Our ability to exercise our SO is contingent on other factors, including the environment in which we live. People in squalid conditions with no education, for instance, are no able to exercise their SO in the same way as I am, for example. This is through no fault of their own: education and other resources may just be unavailable to them. A just society would not condemn people to such unequal opportunities based on the happenstance of birth. Con writes: " I should also be granted ownership over the material property which I have rightfully acquired, since my actions are an extension of my person." But, the inequalities of birth were not acquired by any action I took. How is it just to arbitrarily assign (dis)advantages to individuals? Ultimately, justice cannot be based on the arbitrary, because then it would have no moral rhyme or reason. Thus, everyone should be entitled to minimum standards of living to ensure basic equality of opportunity.5. People as PropertyProperty, by its very nature, can be bought, sold, and bartered. Thus, if I own myself, I can sell myself. SO, however, contends that we are inherently our inalienable owners. This results in an obvious contradiction: if I own myself, I can sell myself, but yet, self-ownership says I can't do that. Besides the contradiction, 2 more impacts re: "people as property." Firstly, the possibility that I could sell myself (thus losing autonomy) poses a real risk to the goal of SO, which is to protect a person's autonomy. Secondly, viewing people as property dehumanizes them--it leads us to conceive of them as "things" not "people," which degrades their dignity.B. Positive RightsCon talks about how only negative rights can be derived from SO, and how the resolution requires a positive right. I will now address this.1. Con is playing a semantics game. Virtually any right can be phrased in a negative or positive fashion, and this is certainly true of the resolution. I could say that "just governments ought to provide food security" or I could say that "just governments ought not to allow people to starve." The latter obliges the government to do something, the former obliges the government to not do something, but both have the same impact. In other words, there is no real difference between the two kinds of rights; it is more of a word-game.2. There is an active rights violation going on. A just government "ought not to kill" people, according to Con's philosophy. By denying food to starving people, a government is causing their death. Starvation here is the weapon, and the government is wielding it against innocent victims, violating their right to not be killed.3. Absolute rules fail.Con writes: "the only moral obligation in existence is to not infringe on the rights of other individuals." Con also says: "the only justifiable use of tax revenues is to protect citizens' rights from being violated." Let's employ this logic for a moment in this hypothetical: suppose a just government is under attack from another unjust/oppressive nation, and it is trying to muster a defense. Suppose I have a piece of land (my justly acquired property), that is located in a key strategic location vital for the defense of the nation. Suppose also that I am unwilling to allow the government on my land. The just government is now put in an untenable situation: either it violates my negative rights to my property or it is negligent in upholding its obligation of providing for the national defense (which jeopardizes the SO and safety of many others). Put differently, we could say that moral system with such rigid rule structures fail for a variety of reasons, but primarily because they lead to unresolvable or contradictory situations. Absolutist "moral systems...provide no clear way to resolve conflicts between moral duties. A deontological moral system should include both a moral duty not to lie and one to keep others from harm, for example, but…how is a person to choose between those two moral duties? A popular response to this is to simply choose the 'lesser of two evils,' but that means relying on which of the two has the least evil consequences and, therefore, the moral choice is being made on a [ends-based] rather than a deontological basis." [3] In the quotes above, Con asserts that it is (a) unjust to violate peoples' property rights and (b) that the government must protect people's rights. Mustering a defense is essential to protect people's rights from being violated, but to muster a defense, it must violate the property rights of someone. Thus, the just government has reached a logical impasse for which the system Con proposes has no resolution.4. NAP has an All-or-Nothing Approach to Risk."[W]hat 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...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). And neither of these seems sensible." [4]C. Other1. Con talked about nihilism. Notice in the rule 6 that this kind of argument is prohibited. If Con goes for the nihilism impact, he is essentially kritiking the topic.2. Con wrote: "Denying SO results in a performative contradiction because simply the act of denying it (via speaking/typing) requires you to exercise your faculty of SO." This is false. I can have autonomy without claiming property rights over myself. For instance, a robot may be able to make autonomous decisions, but it is not its own property. We could also say that a 16 year old may be able to make autonomous decisions, but is not a self-owner, as they certainly has others would can exert control over them. No contradiction exists.3. Con talks about tax revenue. This is a contradiction. If he believe that incomes (as extensions of my labor) are my property, allowing the government to tax is a violation of SO because it violates my property rights. SOURCES1 - http://tinyurl.com...2 - http://tinyurl.com...3 - http://tinyurl.com...4 - http://tinyurl.com...