Res: It is morally permissible to kill one innocent person to save the lives of more innocent people

To my esteemed opponent. I thank you for this wonderful topic, and hope that by debating, we might better understand why the greater good should outweigh individual good. Value: You give the value of morality. In a debate such as this, I view that as a legitimate value. But you do fail to define what morality is. And if that is going to be our value, then we might as well tell the judges what they are looking for. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, morality is defined as "The quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct. " This is most definitely not an abusive definition in any way. It will fit the need of both our intentions. Now for the criterion. What most people don't understand when either doing an LD style debate or judging an LD style debate, is what value and criterion are. So for those of you who are confused, allow me to clarify. A criterion is what a judge should vote on in the round. Whoever provides for the most amount of whatever the criterion may be (If you need an example, I just finished a round called "In a democratic society, felons should retain the right to vote. ) The value is used to access that criterion. In the round that I specified, my value was equality, and my criterion was democracy. This means that I had to provide the most amount of democracy by providing equality. The same goes here. My opponent says that whoever provides for the most [Individual Liberty] by way of morality should win this round. I disagree with my opponents criterion. The reason I disagree is because this slants the debate towards his/her side. My opponent is arguing for the individual, and I am arguing for the greater good. So by limiting it to the individual, it makes my standpoint extremely disadvantaged. So I offer the counter criterion of greater good. The reason you should accept my criterion over his, is because the resolution talks about how the individual should be valued over the "mob. " This should mean that he/she is arguing that by saving one person, more good is caused then by saving multiple. I am arguing that saving multiple people is better than saving one. So the criterion of greater good is beneficial for both, and doesn't create a disadvantage for either sid of the debate. Now for definitions. I agree with all of them. But I do have a disagreement on observation 2. Morals are not derived from the government. This means that the agent of action does not have to involve a higher power. I can have my own morals that are dissimilar from my governments. So it doesn't involve a higher power at all, rather, an individual sense of morality. My opponent says that a vigilante for the agent of action would not be permissible, but doesn't say why it is this way. I say that the resolution doesn't specify a higher institution, therefore the agent of action could be a vigilante, or a higher power. Either one would still fall under the resolution. "To save the lives" implies that we are saving them from death. An energy crisis doesn't threaten people's lives. The same logic would apply to my opponent's definition of kill since that uses the word life. It involves death, so does the resolution. You can't hold myself to a different standard then my opponent. It is unfair. So we are arguing about saving their physical lives from death. My opponent's contention one is all focused towards this higher power doing the action. While I agree this would be bad, the resolution doesn't specify higher power, therefore my opponent's argument is moot. Now for my own arguments. The life of one person cannot be measured by money or worth. Killing one person although reprehensible is still going to be better than letting multiple people die. In the movie spiderman, he is given the choice to save mary jane, or a tram full of people. He ends up saving both, but this is the dillemma we are staring down today. While the life of one person is important, the lives of multiple people are that much more important. No one wants to kill the one person as that is morally reprehensible. But by letting that one live, multiple people are going to die. Both are morally reprehensible. There comes a time when we must choose between the lesser of two evils (John McCain and Barrack Obama). When this decision comes whatever is going to cause the least amount of evil and the most amount of good should win. By saving multiple people, you allow for those people to live, for their families to have joy, etc. .. This only affects one person and one person's family on the other side. The most good is caused by choosing to kill one person to save the lives of multiple people. While they both are morally reprehensible, killing multiple people is worse than killing one. The genocide in Darfur is worse than Jeffrey Dommer's killing spree. The least amount of people killed, the better.