Resolution: Ulilitarianism is a superior moral theory to Kantianism.

(Please know my font won't process for some reason. )Thank you Con, I really enjoyed this debate. Truly my opponent has misrepresented my analogy and then attempted to show how it contradicts my position. Hold up farm boy, no need to start building those straw men. I was saying(clearly) that Ethics is scientific in nature and that Utilitarianism is just a theory within ethics. All theories within Science operate on a mathematical basis with inclusion of observable phenomena. There is no reason to suggest that the pure math world is more real then the Science based ethics world. To start out with a set of truth is against philosophy, ethics, and skepticism. We develop ethical theories to tell us what right not the other way around or else there would no point in developing ethical theories in the first place. We would already know what was right and wrong without the theory. Why the ‘Drop’ Carries through While my opponent may seem to think all of my arguments for believing Utilitarianism are simply “You want to help people, right? ” this is simply not the case. The example told us examine parts of our daily lives and asked us to evaluate the way we make decisions compared to Utilitarianism. The bunch of things asked about intuitively wrong things and intuitively right things and asked us to see whether Utilitarianism had the advantage. The first one asked us whether or not we should adopt a policy that leads to a better situation or a worse one. Most of these were neither implicitly nor explicitly addressed. Simply wanting to help people isn’t the reasons I advocated for. His response that why Utilitarianism fails only implicitly addresses one of the arguments. But nonetheless, he didn’t directly respond therefore, voters should count this as a drop. Why Utilitarianism Succeeds The problem my opponents first accusation is that it is simply not true. I conceded the practical usage of Utilitarianism, as I mentioned. I also mention that it invalidates the judgment argument, because I specifically pretense it with that I was obviously agreeing our judgment was flawed. One only has to read my second round post to note that Utilitarianism isn’t for use in daily life for practical reasons. On Con, he would say I was so generous to concede the entire argument however, I clear was arguing against the notion. As I mentioned countless times, the practical concerns don’t invalidate the theoretical implications and this theory holds up against some kind of notion that seemingly intuitive problems invalidate Utilitarianism. People are naturally bad at estimating things therefore individuals shouldn’t take the time to do a utilitarian calculation. Furthermore, Con had a misleading objection, his initial objection was the Utilitarianism is too subjective to work because of our poor judgment; he has led it into an intuitive argument against Utilitarianism. Notice how he clearly talks about people thinking something is good and then goes into our judgment being flawed. This is why the Cognitive bias is important, it doesn’t affect a real utilitarian calculation which would necessarily be correct because no bias would be included in such a calculation. Estimating things wouldn’t be necessary because the amount of happiness would be predetermined. Unfortunately for my opponent even if we accept my opponent’s criticism, utilitarianism can be adapted (ideal utilitarianism or rule utilitarianism) to avoid this objection regarding Hedonism applied to the society. However, his criticism is simply false anyway. Surely happiness and pleasure is not the same thing. Moore even points out the illegitimacy of deriving the conclusion that pleasure ought to be desired from the fact that men do desire it. Pleasure is also comparatively hard to define than happiness (well-being). Utilitarianism would consider the entirety of society’s happiness, in the long term and the short term. Therefore Hedonism and Utilitarianism are not morally equal, regardless of their commonalities. My opponent continues to make his new morally intuitive argument by saying that it’s just obviously wrong. He hasn’t given us a reason why it is wrong besides his own moral presumptions. But further my opponent equivocates actual with expected consequences. Especially consequences in which are uncertain (i. e. eternal salvation). It should be mentioned the people killed wouldn’t get Eternal salvation via Islam so the example in of itself is flawed. My opponent still hasn’t explained why if this objection applies to Utilitarianism it doesn’t apply to Kantianism as well, therefore if voters accept my opponents criticism, it naturally follows that Kantianism has the same problem (since he has fundamentally dropped this). Why Kant Fails My opponent attempts to make the argument that the maxims don’t contradict because if one says its wrong then it’s wrong plain and simple. This is not what Kant said and I think Kant understands his own theory. If you can justify the categorical imperative via one of the maxims then the action is hence permissible. Anyone who would say otherwise doesn’t understand Kantianism. Just because the theory doesn’t ‘fit’ my opponents preconceived notions doesn’t mean we can change its structure. My opponent claims the “destroy your enemies” would be the universal form of “destroy Islam haters” however, he gives no reason for this. He brings up an analogy but gives us no reason to think they are analogous. However, I will argue against this notion anyway. While it isn’t possible for everyone to always kill an individual such myself, it certainly possible that they could always kill a certain type of person, such as Islam hater. Another reason why this is mistaken, not all people are enemies of Islam haters, therefore we can invision this is a universal law, especially because they are not equivalent terms. Rebuttals My opponent has misrepresented my case by saying Utilitarianism can make decisions (refer to Why Utilitarianism Succeeds). Unfortunately my opponent is correct that Kantianism isn’t metaethics but simply because it is not one type of ethics doesn’t make it the other. My opponent says that permissible and morally good are the same. However, this is clearly not the case. For example, in Kantianism we can go get Ice cream and this would be permissible. However, unless we are doing it for some higher moral goal it conveys no moral worth, yet it is permissible. The problem is that Kantianism doesn’t really tell us what is morally good. Or the moral right thing to do in any given situation, my opponent my claim it tells us what to be motivated by, but it never tells us what action to do. Therefore permissible actions are indistinguishable from morally good actions. The theory fails as normative. My opponent attacks my example by misidentifying the problem and fundamentally ignoring the question I posed, because it’s a question Kantianism cannot answer. This example that illustrated my former point is only furthered by my opponent’s disregard for the starving children in the example and specifically what can the man do? What should he do? Not what should he not do. My opponent has contradicted Kantian theory by saying that “helping kids for no reason doesn’t negate that I did good”. Under Kantian theory, unless one has the motivation(or reason) of doing good for the sake of good then the action therefore has no moral value. My opponent has implicitly conceded a consequentialist view here. Furthermore, he fails to address why any other motivation ought not have value besides morality. Why happiness ought to have no value? Because under Kantianism only morality has value, except this is circular.