Ethics of Mass Effect #1 - The Rachni

Apparently I just enjoy waiting for the very last second to do things. I'm refuting his arguments then defending mine, then giving you an overview of why I'm still winning the round. Overview:The debate is effectively a deontology vs. Utilitarianism debate. The vast majority of his contentions rely on us evaluating the round under a utilitarian framework in order to believe that they are true. This means that if I'm giving you plenty of reason to reject utilitiarianism, then you reject his arguments wholesail. This is doubly true because the vast majority of his refutations are predicated on accepting util in the first place. So if I'm giving you reason to reject utilitarianism, he loses virutally all offense in the round. Utilitarianism:His entire argument is predicated around the idea that we ought to be looking for the greatest good for the greatest number of people and looking for the best ends of the situation. There's a lot of reasons you reject this view:First, Util is incoherent since it is impossible to know which end is truly an end, and not merely an internal link to another impact. We can’t certainly know that a nuclear war won’t cause aliens to come give us fantastic technology, bettering everyone’s lives, so acting on perceived ends is insufficient. Further, it paralyzes actions since we can never stop calculating the infinite variables that would determine what ends are good, making it self-effacing since it cannot bring about good ends at all.Second, in util there can never be 0% credence that a proposition is true and if someone makes a promise with unimaginably large benefits, soceity would have to take that action, even though they have no reason to believe that they would follow through. Since utility functions are unbounded, anyone who describes a big enough impact will always have their will carried out, making consequentialism self-effacing. Third, on this resolution specifically, util is impossible. The resolution asks us to make a decision within that moment without knowing what the consequences are. This means that if we're evaluating the resolution under util, the resolution becomes impossible to actually evaluate because we can never know what the impacts of the action would be. Fourth, Aggregation is nonsensical since combining disparate experiences is impossible. Ten headaches don’t become one migraine as there is no actor capable of experiencing the collective pain of ten people. Rather, moral theories must recognize individuals’ subjective claims, which doesn’t require that we minimize suffering since my happiness is only valuable for my sake - we can’t weigh between 2 individuals’ interests.Fifth, we as human being are physically unable to aggregate harms, meaning we are physically unable to use util. Yudkowsky[1]: "'I am deeply moved if I see one man suffering and would risk my life for him. Then I talk impersonally about the possible pulverization of our big cities, with a hundred million dead. I am unable to multiple one man's suffering by a hundred million.' Human emotions take place within an analog brain. The human brain cannot release enough neurotransmitters to feel emotion a thousand times as strong as the grief of one funeral. A prospective risk going from 10,000,000 deaths to 100,000,000 deaths does not multiply by ten the strength of our determination to stop it. It adds one more zero on paper for our eyes to glaze over, an effect so small that one must usually jump several orders of magnitude to detect the difference experimentally." All of these responses are reasons for why utilitarianism is an impossible standard for us to actually use in this debate. This means you prefer deontology as it actually applies and allows us to make decisions in the scope of the resolution, making it the best framework to use to evaluate the round. But sixth, aggregation prevents the moral status of persons. Kamm[2]: "Suppose it was the case that I could kill the one to stop five from being killed ... it would mean that all of us were useable in a certain way ...one measure of people's worth is what we judge is permissible to do tot them. It is true that the five will be mistreated if I don't harm the one in order to stop their mistreatment. But they will be still the kind of beings who are inviolable insofar as it is wrong to harm them in a certain way even in order to realise the greater good of minimising that type of harm. If it were permissible to kill the one to save the others, no one (the one or the five) would have the status of a highly inviolable being." This has two impacts on the round: a) it destroys the value of life and living since using one for the benefit of a majority implicates everyone as useable in some way, which destroys any kind of inherent value that there is in living, and b) it means you prefer deontology over util because even if we can use the Rachni queen to possibly prevent some future war, we still have to respect the fact that by being alive grants us certain inviolable rights (i.e. the right not to be killed), which only deontology does. This means that my framework precedes his framework, meaning we have to fulfill my framework before we can look to his. But seventh, even if we do look to utilitarianism as the framework to follow, affirming meets it. By eliminating a race from having any kind of impact on the calculus of the future at all, you eliminate not only the entire possibility of a Rachni future, which is a potentially infinite amount of suffering you would cause among the Rachni who would've lived but now have no possibility of a chance to live, but you close the door on a chance for them to positively benefit the galaxy, which removes the possibility of an infinite amount of happiness from being experienced. This means that even if we look to util, util would say to spare the Queen. Substance:There's a few things that need to be clarified right here right now.1) I do not advocate for or defend the actions of the Krogan during the Rachni Wars. I view the near destruction of the Rachni race as just as horrible as the negative position is in terms of genocide of a race.2) That, in the context of this decision, THE RACHNI ARE OF ZERO THREAT TO THE GALAXY. One queen is pitiful compared to the entire combined might of a galaxy. There's zero harmful consequences to letting her live as she poses zero threat. 3) The entire premise of Con's case is ridiculous. Eliminating something that could potentially be threatening to our safety before it harms us to prevent that harm from possibly ever occuring is nonsensical. We don't outlaw all cars from being used because we could possibly get into an accident with them and possibly hurt other people.4) There's no reason not to believe the Rachni Queen when she states her desire for peace because a) she wasn't alive during the Rachni Wars. She didn't experience any of the influencing that forced the Rachni to war, nor did she experience any animosity that would push her to possibly avenging her fallen kin. All she literally wants is to not die and to live by herself as her race is inclined to do, and b) she has control of the entire race. As the only queen in existence, she would have direct hive mind control over all Rachni created, meaning her control would guarantee no other Rachni Wars from occuring. And, trust the cultural desire for isolation as it wasn't the Rachni who insigated the Rachni wars, rather the Salarians intruding on Rachni territory that started the Rachni Wars. The Rachni had all of eternity to expand outward, but didn't until the Salarians prodded them to defend themselves. This shows that if we don't prod them, they won't prod us. Conclusion:The entirety of my opponent's responses are predicated on the fact that we accept util as the framework to evaluate the round under. I'm throughoughly rejecting the concept of util, so you look to deontology. Deontology clearly shows that killing the Rachni queen is wrong, as he's made no effort to reject this concept. This means that if you buy my framework, you affirm.Moreover, I'm making arguments that show that even under util, we'd still affirm. This means that regardless of who's framework you buy, you affirm the resolution.Sources:[1] - https://intelligence.org...[2] - http://records.viu.ca...