Changes for page Harvard Westlake Engel Aff

Last modified by Administrator on 2017/08/29 03:36

From version < 82.1 >

edited by Evan Engel
on 2017/04/29 16:31

To version < 83.1 >

edited by Evan Engel
on 2017/04/29 16:31

< >

Change comment: There is no comment for this version

Raw
Rendered

Summary

Objects (1 modified, 1 added, 0 removed)
- Caselist.RoundClass[16]
- Caselist.CitesClass[16]

Details

Caselist.RoundClass[16]

EntryDate

@@ -1,1
          +1,1 @@
--2017-04-29 16:31:21.350
++2017-04-29 16:31:21.0

Caselist.CitesClass[16]

Cites

@@ -1,0
          +1,116 @@
++FW
++Standpoint epistemology is the best starting point for moral decisions – other methods exclude some viewpoints, which makes true analysis of reality impossible.  Mills 1
++
++**Edited for ableist language
++Charles Mills, “Ideal Theory” as Ideology, 2005.  NS
++
++The crucial common claim—whether couched in terms of ideology and fetishism, or androcentrism, or white normativity—is that all theorizing, both moral and nonmoral, takes place in an intellectual realm dominated by concepts, assumptions, norms, values, and framing perspectives that reflect the experience and group interests of the privileged group (whether the bourgeoisie, or men, or whites). So a simple empiricism will not work as a cognitive strategy; one has to be self-conscious about the concepts that “spontaneously” occur to one, since many of these concepts will not arise naturally but as the result of social structures and hegemonic ideational patterns. In particular, it will often be the case that dominant concepts will obscure certain crucial realities, blocking them from sight, or naturalizing them, while on the other hand, concepts necessary for accurately mapping these realities will be absent. Whether in terms of concepts of the self, or of humans in general, or in the cartography of the social, it will be necessary to scrutinize the dominant conceptual tools and the way the boundaries are drawn. This is, of course, the burden of standpoint theory—that certain realities tend to be more visible from the perspective of the subordinated than the privileged (Harding 2003). The thesis can be put in a strong and implausible form, but weaker versions do have considerable plausibility, as illustrated by the simple fact that for the most part the crucial conceptual innovation necessary to map nonideal realities has not come from the dominant group. In its ignoring of oppression, ideal theory also ignores the consequences of oppression. If societies are not oppressive, or if in modeling them we can abstract away from oppression and assume moral cognizers of roughly equal skill, then the paradigmatic moral agent can be featureless. No theory is required about the particular group-based obstacles that may block the vision of a particular group. By contrast, nonideal theory recognizes that people will typically be cognitively affected by their social location, so that on both the macro and the more local level, the descriptive concepts arrived at may be misleading. Think of the original challenge Marxist models of capitalism posed to liberalism’s social ontology: the claim that to focus on relations of aparently equal exchange, free and fair, among equal individuals was illusory, since at the level of the relations of production, the real ontology of worker and capitalist manifested a deep structure of constraint that limited proletarian freedom. Think of the innovation of using patriarchy to force people to recognize, and condemn as political and oppressive, rather than natural, apolitical, and unproblematic, male domination of women. Think of the recent resurrection of the concept of white supremacy to map the reality of a white domination that has continued in more subtle forms past the ending of de jure segregation. These are all global, high-level concepts, undeniable abstractions. But they map accurately (at least arguably) crucial realities that differentiate the statuses of the human beings within the systems they describe; so while they abstract, they do not idealize. Or consider conceptual innovation at the more local level: the challenge to the traditional way the public/private distinction was drawn, the concept of sexual harassment. In the first case, a seemingly neutral and innocuous conceptual divide turned out, once it was viewed from the perspective of gender subordination, as contributing to the reproduction of the gender system by its relegation of “women’s issues” to a seemingly apolitical and naturalized space. In the case of sexual harassment, a familiar reality—a staple of cartoons in men’s magazines for years (bosses chasing secretaries around the desk and so on)—was reconceptualized as negative (not something funny, but something morally wrong) and a contributor to making the workplace hostile for women. These realizations, these recognitions, did not spontaneously crystallize out of nowhere; they required conceptual labor, a different map of social reality, a valorization of the distinctive experience of women. As a result of having these concepts as visual aids, we can now see better: our perceptions are no longer ignorant blinded to realities to which we were previously obtuse. In some sense, an ideal observer should have been able to see them—yet they did not, as shown by the nonappearance of these realities in male-dominated philosophical literature.
++
++Implications:
++
++1.  Only non-ideal theory is motivating: groups who have historically been excluded from ideal ethics can’t be compelled to participate in such a system.  That’s a prerequisite to ethics – if people can’t adopt a theory, it has no use.
++
++2.  Non-ideal philosophical discussion is most educationally valuable since it’s always excluded from academia, so it’s a unique insight we should explore.
++
++Thus the standard is minimizing material violence.  Non-ideal theory necessitates consequentialism since instead of following absolute rules that assume an equal playing field, we take proactive steps to rectify current injustice.
++
++This doesn’t deny that some basic principles are key to ethics.  We can recognize overarching themes like equality is good – we just shouldn’t adhere to strict moral rules that assume everyone has equal control over themselves in the status quo.
++
++Prefer the standard - ideal theory destroys practical application of ethics.  Mills 3
++
++Mills, C. W. (2009), Rawls on Race/Race in Rawls. The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 47: 161–184
++
++Now how can this ideal ideal—a society not merely without a past history of racism but without races themselves—serve to adjudicate the merits of competing policies aimed at correcting for a long history of white supremacy manifest in Native American expropriation, African slavery, residential and educational segregation, large differentials in income and huge differentials in wealth, nonwhite underrepresentation in high-prestige occupations and overrepresentation in the prison system, contested national narratives and cultural representations, widespread white evasion and bad faith on issues of their racial privilege, and a corresponding hostile white backlash against (what remains of) those mild corrective measures already implemented? Obviously, it cannot. As Thomas Nagel concedes: “Ideal theory enables you to say when a society is unjust, because it falls short of the ideal. But it does not tell you what to do if, as is almost always the case, you find yourself in an unjust society, and want to correct that injustice” (2003a, 82). Ideal theory represents an unattainable target that would require us to roll back the clock and start over.  So in a sense it is an ideal with little or no practical worth. What is required is the nonideal (rectificatory) ideal that starts from the reality of these injustices and then seeks some fair means of correcting for them, recognizing that in most cases the original prediscrimination situation (even if it can be intelligibly characterized and stipulated) cannot be restored. Trying to rectify systemic black disadvantage through affirmative action is not the equivalent of not discriminating against blacks, especially when there are no blacks to be discriminated against. Far from being indispensable to the elaboration of nonideal theory, ideal theory would have been revealed to be largely useless for it. But the situation is worse than that. As the example just given illustrates, it is not merely a matter of an ideal with problems of operationalization and relevance, but of an ideal likely to lend itself more readily to retrograde political agendas. If the ideal ideal rather than the rectificatory ideal is to guide us, then a world without races and any kind of distinctiondrawing by race may seem to be an attractive goal. One takes the ideal to be colorblind nondiscrimination, as appropriate for a society beginning from the state of nature, and then—completely ignoring the nonideal history that has given whites a systemic illicit advantage over people of color—conflates together as “discrimination” all attempts to draw racial distinctions for public policy goals, no matter what their motivation, on the grounds that this perpetuates race and invidious differential treatment by race. In the magisterial judgment of Chief Justice John Roberts in the June 2007 Supreme Court decision on the Seattle and Louisville cases where schools were using race as a factor to maintain diversity, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,”6 a statement achieving the remarkable feat of depicting not merely as true, but as tautologically true, the equating of Jim Crow segregation and the attempt to remedy Jim Crow tion! What is ideally called for under ideal circumstances is not, or at least is not necessarily, what is ideally called for under nonideal circumstances. Claiming that all we need to do is to cease (what is here characterized as) discrimination ignores the differential advantages and privileges that have accumulated in the white population because of the past history of discrimination. So the defense in terms of ideal theory is doubly problematic. In the first place, ideal theory was never supposed to be an end in itself, but a means to improving our handling of nonideal matters, and the fact that Rawls and his disciples and commentators have for the most part stayed in the realm of the ideal represents an evasion of the imperative of dealing with what were supposed to be the really pressing issues. And in the second place, it is questionable in any case how useful the ideal ideal in the Rawlsian sense is or ever would have been in assisting this task. So it is not merely that ideal theory has not come to the aid of those dealing with nonideal injustice but that it was unlikely to have been of much help when and if it ever did arrive.
++
++Use consequentialism:
++
++1. Resolving conflicting interests means the state violates rights with every action it takes, so absolute side-constraints are implausible.  Prefer government specific obligations since obligations differ by actor – police officers have a duty to arrest criminals but civilians don’t.
++
++2. Non-natural theories are epistemically inaccessible.  Papineau
++
++David Papineau, “Naturalism”. SEP,2007.(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/)
++
++Moore took this argument to show that moral facts comprise a distinct species of non-natural fact. However, any such non-naturalist view of morality faces immediate difficulties, deriving ultimately from the kind of causal closure thesis discussed above. If all physical effects are due to a limited range of natural causes, and if moral facts lie outside this range, then it follow that moral facts can never make any difference to what happens in the physical world (Harman, 1986). At first sight this may seem tolerable (perhaps moral facts indeed don't have any physical effects). But it has very awkward epistemological consequences. For beings like us, knowledge of the spatiotemporal world is mediated by physical processes involving our sense organs and cognitive systems. If moral facts cannot influence the physical world, then it is hard to see how we can have any knowledge of them.
++
++Consequences are the only values we can experience.  Harris
++
++Sam Harris 2010. CEO Project Reason; PHD UCLA Neuroscience; BA Stanford Philosophy.  The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values.
++
++I believe that we will increasingly understand good and evil, right and wrong, in scientific terms, because moral concerns translate into facts about how our thoughts and behaviors affect the well-being of conscious creatures like ourselves. If there are facts to be known about the well-being of such creatures—and there are—then there must be right and wrong answers to moral questions. Students of philosophy will notice that this commits me to some form of moral realism (viz. moral claims can really be true or false) and some form of consequentialism (viz. the rightness of an act depends on how it impacts the well-being of conscious creatures). While moral realism and consequentialism have both come under pressure in philosophical circles, they have the virtue of corresponding to many of our intuitions about how the world works.  Here is my (consequentialist) starting point: all questions of value (right and wrong, good and evil, etc.) depend upon the possibility of experiencing such value. Without potential consequences at the level of experience—happiness, suffering, joy, despair, etc.—all talk of value is empty. Therefore, to say that an act is morally necessary, or evil, or blameless, is to make (tacit) claims about its consequences in the lives of conscious creatures (whether actual or potential). I am unaware of any interesting exception to this rule. Needless to say, if one is worried about pleasing God or His angels, this assumes that such invisible entities are conscious (in some sense) and cognizant of human behavior. It also generally assumes that it is possible to suffer their wrath or enjoy their approval, either in this world or the world to come. Even within religion, therefore, consequences and conscious states remain the foundation of all values.
++
++3. The causal structure of action is irrelevant, so there’s no intent foresight distinction.  Enoch
++
++Enoch, David (Professor of the Hebrew University at Jerusalem). Intending, Foreseeing, and the State. Legal Theory, Vol. 13, No. 2. 2007
++
++Let us apply this test, then, in order to check whether causal order is morally significant. Think, then, of our agent, deliberating whether to press the button in front of her. We give her information about the states of affairs that will obtain if she does – and if she does not – press it. We tell her, for instance, that if she presses the button certain good effects and also certain bad effects will follow (and that they won’t follow if she doesn’t press the button), and we describe these effects in detail. She then proceeds to ask whether the bad effect is on the causal way to the good effect. Is her question appropriate? Is it more like the question about further effects on people’s well-being or more like the question about the distribution of hairs on someone’s head? To my ears, her question sounds weird, surprising, indicative of rather disturbing facts about her moral character.  Given a full description of the relevant consequences, and without some further (for instance, instrumental) story explaining how the exact causal structure is morally significant, the causal order seems (to me) simply morally irrelevant. If you agree with me that the question about the causal order is inappropriate, you have strong reason to suspect that causal order in general, and in particular the distinction between means and side-effects are simply (intrinsically) morally irrelevant. Let me emphasize here – in case you are not yet convinced – that what is at issue is not any old way in which the causal structure may be normatively relevant. What is at issue – and what the appropriate question test is supposed to help us with finding out – is whether the causal structure is intrinsically morally relevant, whether, in other ways, it is morally relevant regardless of its relations to other factors. So it will be no reply to the line of thought in the previous paragraphs to show that, say, causal-structure facts are correlated with other facts, themselves normatively significant, and can thus serve as reasonably good proxies for them. The question is, rather, whether – holding all other things equal – the causal structure itself makes a moral difference. And here the answer that seems to me overwhelmingly plausible is that it does not.
++
++No intent foresight distinction justifies consequentialism since there is no distinction between status quo and future violations.  Enoch
++
++Enoch, David (Professor of the Hebrew University at Jerusalem). Intending, Foreseeing, and the State. Legal Theory, Vol. 13, No. 2. 2007
++
++In order to see that this is nevertheless so, think of an example of a deontological constraint, say a constraint against lying. Now think of the well-known type of case, in which the way to minimize constraint violations is to violate that very constraint. So we are to imagine a situation in which, for some reason, if I lie now fewer lies will be told (this one included) than if I don’t lie now. If we want to justify the judgment that at least sometimes a constraint is not to be violated even in order to minimize constraint- violations, then we had better morally distinguish between the relation between me and my action and the lying (right now) on the one hand, and the relation between me and my action and future lyings on the other. Otherwise, if no such moral distinction is to be made, then by not lying now, thereby causing (or allowing) many more future lyings, I am responsible for all those future lyings, and so I am acting wrongly. And, of course, in order to distinguish between the relation between me and my lying right now and me and future lyings, the intending-foreseeing distinction, or perhaps some closely related distinction, is needed.  Should we, then, say that at least sometimes we shouldn’t violate a constraint even in order to minimize constraint-violations? Well, I don’t think that deontologists, as a matter of logical necessity, have to say this.  Depending on the details of one’s conception of the good, it is entirely possible that there are actions we should at least sometimes not perform even when performing them will maximize the good, and that nevertheless we should also violate a constraint whenever doing so will minimize constraint-violations.  But – as I think all deontologists agree – such a way out, though perhaps logically sound, is morally unsound.  It seems inconsistent if not with deontology itself at least with the philosophical and moral motivations underlying deontology. And if so, absent the distinction between intending and foreseeing, or some other distinction that could distinguish between my relation to my lying now and my relation to (my or others’) future lyings, consequentialism is hard to resist.
++
++
++4. No intent foresight distinction.  Aune 66
++
++Bruce Aune. Intention and Foresight. The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 63, No. 20, American Philosophical Association Eastern Division Sixty-Third Annual Meeting (Oct. 27, 1966), pp. 652-654. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2024263.
++
++In his discussion of this last example, and indeed in several other passages in his paper, Kenny apparently assumes that any- one who intends to bring about certain consequences of an act thereby views those consequences as an end to which the intended act is a means. I shall argue that this assumption is mistaken. My contention will be that, although very often one does a thing in order to bring about its foreseen consequences, this is not true of every case in which one intends the consequences of one's act. If, for example, a man intends to do A but then sees that an unfortunate consequence C will result, she will generally be forced to choose between doing A (good) and bringing about C (bad) or not doing A (bad) and not bringing about C (good). If, after weighing the matter, she inclines to the former alternative and decides to do A anyway, she will thereby intend to bring about C as well- at least as part of a total situation that, while not ideal, is better than the envisaged alternative.
++
++Government can’t use intents to evaluate action since 1. They have multiple people with different intents since everyone wants different things for different reasons. 2. Governments never actually intend actions; they just authorize private action. When government “kills” someone all it does is authorize an individual to kill.
++
++5. Even if governments have side constraints, there’s no act-omission distinction for them.  Sunstein and Vermule 05
++
++Sunstein and Vermule 5 (Cass Prof of law at Harvard and Adrian Prof of law at Harvard “Is capital punishment morally required? The relevance of life-life tradeoffs” Chicago Public Law and Legal Theory, 2005, MG)
++
++In our view, any effort to distinguish between acts and omissions goes wrong by overlooking the distinctive features of government as a moral agent. If correct, this point has broad implications for criminal and civil law. Whatever the general status of the act/omission distinction as a matter of moral philosophy, 59 the distinction is least impressive when applied to government, because the most plausible underlying considerations do not apply to official actors. 60 The most fundamental point is that, unlike individuals, governments always and necessarily face a choice between or among possible policies for regulating third parties. The distinction between acts and omissions may not be intelligible in this context, and even if it is, the distinction does not make a morally relevant difference. Most generally, government is in the business of creating permissions and prohibitions. When it explicitly or implicitly authorizes private action, it is not omitting to do anything or refusing to act. 61 Moreover, the distinction between authorized and unauthorized private action—for example, private killing— becomes obscure when the government formally forbids private action but chooses a set of policy instruments that do not adequately or fully discourage it.
++
++Omissions include agency – they are willed inaction.  Fletcher
++
++Fletcher 94 (Copyright (c) 1994 The Trustees of The University of Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania Law Review MAY, 1994, 142 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1443, SYMPOSIUM: ACT and CRIME: ACT and OMISSION: ON THE MORAL IRRELEVANCE OF BODILY MOVEMENTS, GEORGE P. FLETCHER) “This sloppy thinking…or willed nonmotion.”
++
++
++This sloppy thinking is drawn together by a play on the word "act." The act requirement speaks to the critical importance of human agency in our theory of moral and legal responsibility. But whatever the act/omission distinction is about, it is not about the problem of human agency.  Agency is built into the standard example of the bystander who lets the child drown. The example would not even be interesting unless we assumed that the bystander chose to remain motionless and that  she had an unrestrained option to intervene and rescue the child. Moore has gone one step further than the organization thesis of the Kadish/Schulhofer casebook. He claims that punishing omissions is a problem precisely because we have the act requirement. "Omissions," he writes, "are the absence of any willed bodily movements. Actions are "willed bodily movements" n5 and omissions are the opposite; they are "literally nothing at all." n6 Well, Moore does not quite mean that someone who is asleep does not omit to rescue. Dead men who do "literally nothing at all" do not omit. To repeat the point made above, the only kind of omitting that is interesting is the kind in which human agency is expressed. When there is a solid challenge to agency in the context of "positive acts" (for example, hypnotism, somnambulism), the same grounds would undermine agency in omissions. What Moore must mean, therefore, is that omissions are the willed absence of bodily movements, or willed nonmotion.
++
++6.  Psychological evidence proves we don’t identify with our future selves.  Continuous personal identity doesn’t exist.  Opar 14
++
++Opar 14 (Alisa Opar is the articles editor at Audubon magazine; cites Hal Hershfield, an assistant professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business; and Emily Pronin, a psychologist at Princeton) “Why We Procrastinate” Nautilus January 2014
++
++The British philosopher Derek Parfit espoused a severely reductionist view of personal identity in his seminal book, Reasons and Persons: It does not exist, at least not in the way we usually consider it. We humans, Parfit argued, are not a consistent identity moving through time, but a chain of successive selves, each tangentially linked to, and yet distinct from, the previous and subsequent ones. The boy who begins to smoke despite knowing that he may suffer from the habit decades later should not be judged harshly: “This boy does not identify with his future self,” Parfit wrote. “His attitude towards this future self is in some ways like his attitude to other people.” Parfit’s view was controversial even among philosophers. But psychologists are beginning to understand that it may accurately describe our attitudes towards our own decision-making: It turns out that we see our future selves as strangers. Though we will inevitably share their fates, the people we will become in a decade, quarter century, or more, are unknown to us. This impedes our ability to make good choices on their—which of course is our own—behalf. That bright, shiny New Year’s resolution? If you feel perfectly justified in breaking it, it may be because it feels like it was a promise someone else made. “It’s kind of a weird notion,” says Hal Hershfield, an assistant professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. “On a psychological and emotional level we really consider that future self as if it’s another person.” Using fMRI, Hershfield and colleagues studied brain activity changes when people imagine their future and consider their present. They homed in on two areas of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex and the rostral anterior cingulate cortex, which are more active when a subject thinks about himself than when he thinks of someone else. They found these same areas were more strongly activated when subjects thought of themselves today, than of themselves in the future. Their future self “felt” like somebody else. In fact, their neural activity when they described themselves in a decade was similar to that when they described Matt Damon or Natalie Portman. And subjects whose brain activity changed the most when they spoke about their future selves were the least likely to favor large long-term financial gains over small immediate ones. Emily Pronin, a psychologist at Princeton, has come to similar conclusions in her research. In a 2008 study, Pronin and her team told college students that they were taking part in an experiment on disgust that required drinking a concoction made of ketchup and soy sauce. The more they, their future selves, or other students consumed, they were told, the greater the benefit to science. Students who were told they’d have to down the distasteful quaff that day committed to consuming two tablespoons. But those that were committing their future selves (the following semester) or other students to participate agreed to guzzle an average of half a cup. We think of our future selves, says Pronin, like we think of others: in the third person. The disconnect between our present and time-shifted selves has real implications for how we make decisions. We might choose to procrastinate, and let some other version of our self deal with problems or chores. Or, as in the case of Parfit’s smoking boy, we can focus on that version of our self that derives pleasure, and ignore the one that pays the price. But if procrastination or irresponsibility can derive from a poor connection to your future self, strengthening this connection may prove to be an effective remedy. This is exactly the tactic that some researchers are taking. Anne Wilson, a psychologist at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada, has manipulated people’s perception of time by presenting participants with timelines scaled to make an upcoming event, such as a paper due date, seem either very close or far off. “Using a longer timeline makes people feel more connected to their future selves,” says Wilson. That, in turn, spurred students to finish their assignment earlier, saving their end-of-semester self the stress of banging it out at the last minute. We think of our future selves, says Pronin, like we think of others: in the third person. Hershfield has taken a more high-tech approach. Inspired by the use of images to spur charitable donations, he and colleagues took subjects into a virtual reality room and asked them to look into a mirror. The subjects saw either their current self, or a digitally aged image of themselves (see the figure, Digital Old Age). When they exited the room, they were asked how they’d spend $1,000. Those exposed to the aged photo said they’d put twice as much into a retirement account as those who saw themselves unaged. This might be important news for parts of the finance industry. Insurance giant Allianz is funding a pilot project in the midwest in which Hershfield’s team will show state employees their aged faces when they make pension allocations. Merrill Edge, the online discount unit of Bank of America Merrill Lynch, has taken this approach online, with a service called Face Retirement. Each decade-jumping image is accompanied by startling cost-of-living projections and suggestions to invest in your golden years. Hershfield is currently investigating whether morphed images can help people lose weight. Of course, the way we treat our future self is not necessarily negative: Since we think of our future self as someone else, our own decision making reflects how we treat other people. Where Parfit’s smoking boy endangers the health of his future self with nary a thought, others might act differently. “The thing is, we make sacrifices for people all the time,” says Hershfield. “In relationships, in marriages.” The silver lining of our dissociation from our future self, then, is that it is another reason to practice being good to others. One of them might be you.
++
++
++Adv 1 – Democracy
++Free speech is crucial to democracy – it allows self-formation, innovation and allows anyone to participate in politics. Any regulation result in a domino effect that spills over into destruction of the right. Glaser 92
++Steven R. Glaser, Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones, but Words Can Never Hurt Me: Regulating Speech on University Campuses, 76 Marq. L. Rev. 265 (1992). EE
++
++The First Amendment has long occupied a special place in American society 7 as one of the most fundamental and strongly held liberties United States citizens enjoy."8 The ability of American citizens to freely communicate opinions and ideas is frequently considered to be a cornerstone of America's liberal democracy.19 The main purpose of the First Amendment is to preserve democracy by allowing citizens to decide what kind of life they wish to lead.2 " Thomas Emerson, in his seminal work on the First Amendment, enumerates four benefits freedom of expression provides for society.21 First, free speech ensures individual self-fulfillment by assisting the development of the individual character.22 "The first amendment may be viewed as a recognition of the overriding importance of developing the uniquely human abilities to think, reason, and appreciate."23 Second, free expression leads to the continual advancement of knowledge and the discovery of truth.24 To make fully informed and intelligent decisions, people must consider and analyze all sides of an issue no matter how unacceptable a particular opinion may be considered.25 Third, free expression allows all elements of society to participate in the decision-making process. 26 Large groups of people otherwise unable to actively participate in the political process are able to contribute by expressing their cares and concerns. 27 Finally, free expression maintains the "precarious balance between healthy cleavage and necessary consensus."' 28 Although a group's idea may be defeated, the group is more likely to accept the decision because it had the opportunity to present and support its position with the strongest available arguments.29 The "marketplace of ideas" doctrine that free and open discussion promotes knowledge and the discovery of truth has long been used to support freedom of speech, and encompasses many of the benefits Emerson feels free speech provides to society."0 Justice Holmes expressed these beliefs in his well-known dissent in Abrams v. United States while discussing the value of free speech in the marketplace of ideas: The ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideasthat the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out.31 The underlying basis of the "marketplace of ideas" doctrine is that free speech allows full and fair consideration of all opinions.3 2 Total freedom of speech fosters rich public debate,33 promoting the discovery of truth by allowing all viable options to be advanced.34 In order to nurture healthy debate and discussion, the marketplace of ideas assumes that there can be no "false" ideas.3 5 Freedom of speech will not be limited merely because an idea may be considered wrong or offensive by some. 6 We have no way of knowing what the right results are in advance. Ideas that were once accepted as truth we now reject. Because our ideas about what we want as a society are changing and emergent, we cannot say that certain ideas are unacceptable. New ideas often meet opposition, and we have seen new ideas, including major advances in civil rights, eventually become the majority position. We have no basis for distinguishing good from bad ideas, and the only logical choice is to protect all ideas.37 Under the "marketplace of ideas" doctrine, full discussion and analysis of an opinion by exposing it to opposition is the proper method to address "wrong" opinions;3 " unilaterally branding ideas as unacceptable is not appropriate. This method of discovering the truth is based upon the principle of equality; all speech must be granted a hearing regardless of the specific views of the speaker because all opinions are seen as equal in the eyes of the law.3 9 If the idea can withstand rigorous analysis and debate by its opponents it will survive, while opprobrious opinions will be discredited by exposing the inherent problems and inconsistencies of the opinion. The offensiveness of any particular opinion should not alter its treatment in the marketplace of ideas-it should be forced to stand or fall on its own. This is especially true when considering the fact that discussion and analysis tend to strengthen ideas. If an opinion is subject to scrutiny, the holder of that opinion will attempt to construct answers to anticipated challenges.' This self-examination forces the holder to address the weak points of the opinion before being attacked by the opposition. If no opposition exists, the weak premises of opinions need not be addressed and stagnation will occur. B. The Dangers of Regulation Regulating any type of speech poses tremendous dangers by threatening every benefit provided by freedom of expression.41 Limiting freedom of speech leads to intellectual pacifism, a "sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind," and the possibility that today's alleged falsehoods, which may be the solutions of tomorrow, will be destroyed.42 The individual personality is seriously violated by any restriction of speech.43 Restricting free speech necessarily diminishes the overall quality of society because of the important role free speech plays in the development of individual character. The ability to freely communicate feelings mandates vigilant protection of all speech playing a valuable part in personal development; regulation risks retarding that vital development.' The regulation of speech in any manner or degree can lead to the standardization of opinions and ideas.4 " Groups in positions of power will be able to perpetuate their own authority by banning the expression of views attacking the status quo.46 Democracy cannot survive when certain groups of people control expression. Certain ideas will be prevented from entering society-wide discussion, depriving the world of valuable new ideas.47 Homogeneity in thought will lead to intellectual stagnation. Only by enduring the availability of all options can society feel confident that the best solution is chosen. Although many people argue that we should be able to regulate speech that the majority of society finds unacceptable, they fail to recognize the dangers of the "domino effect": "Admitting one exception will lead to another, and yet another, until those in power are free to stifle opposition in the name of protecting democratic ideals."48 Regulating racist or derogatory speech will begin the treacherous slide down the slippery slope of censorship. Soon, we may not be able to speak out against those in power; a situation similar to the one prompting the adoption of the First Amendment.
++
++Public universities are uniquely key. Nimick 06
++(Virinia J, SCHOOLHOUSE ROCKED: HOSTY V. CARTER AND THE CASE AGAINST HAZELWOOD  Journal of Law and Policy Volume 14 Issue 2 SCIENCE FOR JUDGES VI: Techniques for Evidence-Based Medicine)
++The federal courts have long held that public schools serve as “the cradle of our democracy,”2 and have recognized the special status of public schools resulting from the particular educational mission with which they are entrusted.3 Unlike any other governmental body, our public schools are charged with two potentially incompatible tasks: encouraging independent thought and cultivating the “marketplace of ideas”4 while, at the same time, instilling the values necessary to create productive members of society.5 With this in mind, public colleges and universities across the country have, for the most part, broadly embraced the First Amendment.6 There are times, however, when the free expression rights embodied in the First Amendment clash with administrative attempts to limit student speech. One such conflict arose in the fall of 2000 at Governors State University when school administrators required student journalists to obtain official approval before publishing the school’s student-run paper.7
++
++Democracy solves existential impacts. Halperin 11
++(Morton H., Senior Advisor – Open Society Institute and Senior Vice President of the Center for American Progress, “Unconventional Wisdom – Democracy is Still Worth Fighting For”, Foreign Policy, January / February, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/02/unconventional_wisdom?page=0,11)
++As the United States struggles to wind down two wars and recover from a humbling financial crisis, realism is enjoying a renaissance. Afghanistan and Iraq bear scant resemblance to the democracies we were promised. The Treasury is broke. And America has a president, Barack Obama, who once compared his foreign-policy philosophy to the realism of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: "There's serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain," Obama said during his 2008 campaign. "And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things." But one can take such words of wisdom to the extreme-as realists like former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and writer Robert Kaplan sometimes do, arguing that the United States can't afford the risks inherent in supporting democracy and human rights around the world. Others, such as cultural historian Jacques Barzun, go even further, saying that America can't export democracy at all, "because it is not an ideology but a wayward historical development." Taken too far, such realist absolutism can be just as dangerous, and wrong, as neoconservative hubris. For there is one thing the neocons get right: As I argue in The Democracy Advantage, democratic governments are more likely than autocratic regimes to engage in conduct that advances U.S. interests and avoids situations that pose a threat to peace and security. Democratic states are more likely to develop and to avoid famines and economic collapse. They are also less likely to become failed states or suffer a civil war. Democratic states are also more likely to cooperate in dealing with security issues, such as terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. As the bloody aftermath of the Iraq invasion painfully shows, democracy cannot be imposed from the outside by force or coercion. It must come from the people of a nation working to get on the path of democracy and then adopting the policies necessary to remain on that path. But we should be careful about overlearning the lessons of Iraq. In fact, the outside world can make an enormous difference in whether such efforts succeed. There are numerous examples-starting with Spain and Portugal and spreading to Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia-in which the struggle to establish democracy and advance human rights received critical support from multilateral bodies, including the United Nations, as well as from regional organizations, democratic governments, and private groups. It is very much in America's interest to provide such assistance now to new democracies, such as Indonesia, Liberia, and Nepal, and to stand with those advocating democracy in countries such as Belarus, Burma, and China. It will still be true that the United States will sometimes need to work with a nondemocratic regime to secure an immediate objective, such as use of a military base to support the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, or in the case of Russia, to sign an arms-control treaty. None of that, however, should come at the expense of speaking out in support of those struggling for their rights. Nor should we doubt that America would be more secure if they succeed.
++
++Specifically, free expression within democracy is crucial to preventing and controlling infectious disease. Ruger 05
++Jennifer Prah, “Democracy and health”. Harvard University, PhD, Health Policy. Yale University, MSL, Law. Oxford University, MSc, Comparative Social Research. Tufts University, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, MA, International Relations. EE
++
++A fourth lesson lies in the deleterious social impact of violations in individual rights to freedom of assembly, association, and expression. The ability to exercise these rights enables citizens to organize interest groups to advocate for rights, respect, and resources. These rights, coupled with the ability to have free and full access to (and to share) information creates conditions under which effective advocacy can take place. Experience with the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the US demonstrates, for example, the power of advocacy groups (people living with HIV/AIDS in particular) in obtaining rights, resources, and greater dignity. Grassroots organizing by members of civil society (grassroots NGOs, for example) can have a positive effect on individuals’ health by improving access to, and the quality of, health care and residential services for people living with HIV/AIDS. Such assistance is critically needed in the fight against HIV/AIDS in China, especially in the delivery of public health services to poor, rural populations involving both Chinese and foreign NGOs.40 A final key lesson from SARS and the 1958–1961 famine rests in the absolutely essential role of free, uncensored information, including the ability to voice complaints and opposition to government practices and policies and to shed light on corruption. The SARS-famine case studies highlight the Chinese government’s history of censorship and restrictions on freedom of the press. To combat HIV/AIDS and prevent it from becoming a full-scale epidemic, the Chinese government must permit both domestic and foreign journalists to report on the disease without any restrictions. Early indications suggest that the government is taking steps to address these restrictions better. Democratic institutions and practices can affect human development in multiple ways, including population health and well-being. The absence of democracy, in particular, can have deleterious affects on health, as the 1958–1961 Chinese famine and the 2003 SARS outbreak demonstrate. These case studies highlight factors that are essential for preventing a full-scale HIV/AIDS epidemic in China: new and better standards of public accountability; an international imperative to cooperate globally to ensure health; freely available information, especially about disease prevention, control, and treatment; protection of individual rights and freedom of assembly, association and expression; and the ability to voice complaints and opposition. By instituting these rights in a timely fashion, China may be able to contain the HIV/AIDS epidemic before it loses millions of its citizens to yet another public health tragedy.
++
++Diseases causes extinction. DUJS 09
++Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science, “Human Extinction: The Uncertainty of Our Fate” May 22, 2009 EE
++RIP Homo sapiens A pandemic will kill off all humans. In the past, humans have indeed fallen victim to viruses. Perhaps the best-known case was the bubonic plague that killed up to one third of the European population in the mid-14th century (7). While vaccines have been developed for the plague and some other infectious diseases, new viral strains are constantly emerging — a process that maintains the possibility of a pandemic-facilitated human extinction. Some surveyed students mentioned AIDS as a potential pandemic-causing virus. It is true that scientists have been unable thus far to find a sustainable cure for AIDS, mainly due to HIV’s rapid and constant evolution. Specifically, two factors account for the virus’s abnormally high mutation rate: 1. HIV’s use of reverse transcriptase, which does not have a proof-reading mechanism, and 2. the lack of an error-correction mechanism in HIV DNA polymerase (8). Luckily, though, there are certain characteristics of HIV that make it a poor candidate for a large-scale global infection: HIV can lie dormant in the human body for years without manifesting itself, and AIDS itself does not kill directly, but rather through the weakening of the immune system. However, for more easily transmitted viruses such as influenza, the evolution of new strains could prove far more consequential. The simultaneous occurrence of antigenic drift (point mutations that lead to new strains) and antigenic shift (the inter-species transfer of disease) in the influenza virus could produce a new version of influenza for which scientists may not immediately find a cure. Since influenza can spread quickly, this lag time could potentially lead to a “global influenza pandemic,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (9). The most recent scare of this variety came in 1918 when bird flu managed to kill over 50 million people around the world in what is sometimes referred to as the Spanish flu pandemic. Perhaps even more frightening is the fact that only 25 mutations were required to convert the original viral strain — which could only infect birds — into a human-viable strain (10).
++
++Diseases outbreaks disproportionately affect marginalized groups.  Walks 15
++
++Walks 15 — Dr. Ivan Walks Former Chief Health Oficer of Washington D.C. Served as incident commander during 2001 anthrax attack “Irresponsible Anti-Vax Politics Could Transfer the Risks of Disease to Communities of Color.” The Root. February 4, 2015.
++
++As the Center for American Progress’ Sam Fulwood III aptly pointed out in his recent analysis of the impact of the economic downturn in communities of color, there’s an old saying that also applies when we’re talking about health outcomes: “When white folks catch a cold, black folks catch pneumonia.” And with the concerns of urban communities already less heard and less addressed in general, it’s crucial that science and data dictate vaccination policy—not politics. So when our leaders make misguided and misinformed statements outside their space of expertise, it can undermine medical professionals who are trying to save lives. Of course, that may not be the first thing on the minds of Republican presidential aspirants like Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who made irresponsible assertions this week that it’s OK for parents to choose to ignore the science when it comes to decisions about the vaccination of their children. While Christie quickly backpedaled on his statements after a firestorm of public criticism, Paul—who is a physician—doubled down, stating that vaccines were to blame for “profound mental disorders” such as autism. This is simply not true. These scientifically baseless assertions can lead to profoundly dangerous public health policy, particularly in communities of color. The ramifications for many African Americans and other minority groups are greater than for those who have better access to quality health care—as has been shown—even as the Affordable Care Act takes shape. These concerns are primary in densely populated urban centers or metropolitan areas, where communities of color are disproportionately concentrated. As The Guardian’s health editor Sarah Boseley correctly points out, infectious diseases “spread horrifyingly fast in cities.” This was one major reason why, during my time as chief health officer of Washington, D.C., we instituted an ambitious citywide emergency school immunization campaign in 2002 upon finding 21,000 public school students who had not been vaccinated to meet established standards. This was considered one of the largest immunization drives in U.S. history, and within just eight weeks we experienced a 99 percent success rate. There was no conversation about choice, simply a conversation about how we could best protect the nearly 600,000 residents in the nation’s capital and the tens of millions of people from across the world who visit each year. And at that time we were extremely sensitive about contagions and the spread of lethal infections, especially in the immediate wake of managing the country’s first bioterrorism attack. What’s significant to note here is that we did this in a city that had, at the time, a majority-black population (more than 56 percent) and a public school population that is overwhelmingly African American. In describing these communities, we frequently use the term “underserved.” But in reality, communities of color in highly populated metro areas are highly underresourced. This makes these communities much more vulnerable to major epidemics, including measles. The need for surge capacity and an adequate emergency health care response is critical. Measles is actually much more contagious than another disease that recently grabbed headlines, Ebola. Which makes the current political “debate” peculiar. Elected officials like Christie didn’t hesitate to quarantine medical staff returning from fighting the disease in West Africa but appear somewhat nonchalant about fast-infecting measles. More alarming, and what some political leaders won’t say, is that diseases like measles will spread faster in cities. That will put people of color, especially African Americans, in the direct line of epidemiological fire, since nearly 20 of the largest cities in 13 states have black populations of 50 percent or higher. The last major outbreak of measles in the United States erupted less than 25 years ago. More than 56,000 Americans were infected, including 11,000 nationwide who were hospitalized and, sadly, 123 reported fatalities. And as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention later found, a disproportionate share of those infected were “inner-city, American Indian, Hispanic, non-Hispanic black and low-income children aged five years or younger who had not been vaccinated.” In fact, the CDC discovered that “racial/ethnic minority children were at three to 16 times greater risk for measles than were non-Hispanic white children.” This risk disparity is of particular concern to public health professionals and planners, and it was a main driver behind the federal government’s creation of the Childhood Immunization Initiative in 1993. For those who advocate for “choice,” it’s not an urban issue, but it is an example of mostly more affluent individuals imposing their preference on underresourced and vulnerable populations of color—which means, ultimately, that they are transferring the risk.
++
++
++
++Independently, absolute free speech is a gateway to every other impact. D’Souza 96
++(Frances, Prof. Anthropology Oxford, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/hearings/19960425/droi/freedom_en.htm?textMode=on)
++
++In the absence of freedom of expression which includes a free and independent media, it is impossible to protect other rights, including the right to life. Once governments are able to draw a cloak of secrecy over their actions and to remain unaccountable for their actions then massive human rights violations can, and do, take place. For this reason alone the right to freedom of expression, specifically protected in the major international human rights treaties, must be considered to be a primary right. It is significant that one of the first indications of a government's intention to depart from democratic principles is the ever increasing control of information by means of gagging the media, and preventing the freeflow of information from abroad. At one end of the spectrum there are supposedly minor infringements of this fundamental right which occur daily in Western democracies and would include abuse of national security laws to prevent the publication of information which might be embarrassing to a given government: at the other end of the scale are the regimes of terror which employ the most brutal moves to suppress opposition, information and even the freedom to exercise religious beliefs. It has been argued, and will undoubtedly be discussed at this Hearing, that in the absence of free speech and an independent media, it is relatively easy for governments to capture, as it were, the media and to fashion them into instruments of propaganda, for the promotion of ethnic conflict, war and genocide. 2. Enshrining the right to freedom of expression The right to freedom of expression is formally protected in the major international treaties including the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In addition, it is enshrined in many national constitutions throughout the world, although this does not always guarantee its protection. Furthermore, freedom of expression is, amongst other human rights, upheld, even for those countries which are not signatories to the above international treaties through the concept of customary law which essentially requires that all states respect the human rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by virtue of the widespread or customary respect which has been built up in the post World War II years. 3. Is free speech absolute? While it is generally accepted that freedom of expression is, and remains the cornerstone of democracy, there are permitted restrictions encoded within the international treaties which in turn allow for a degree of interpretation of how free free speech should be. Thus, unlike the American First Amendment Rights which allow few, if any, checks on free speech or on the independence of the media, the international treaties are concerned that there should be a balance between competing rights: for example, limiting free speech or media freedom where it impinges on the individual's right to privacy; where free speech causes insult or injury to the rights and reputation of another; where speech is construed as incitement to violence or hatred, or where free speech would create a public disturbance. Given that these permitted restrictions are necessarily broad, the limits of free speech are consistently tested in national law courts and, perhaps even more importantly, in the regional courts such as the European Commission and Court of Human Rights. In recent years several landmark cases have helped to define more closely what restrictions may be imposed by government and under what circumstances. In particular, it has been emphasised by the European Court that any restriction must comply with a three-part test which requires that any such restriction should first of all be prescribed by law, and thus not arbitrarily imposed: proportionate to the legitimate aims pursued, and demonstrably necessary in a democratic society in order to protect the individual and/or the state. 4. Who censors what? Despite the rather strict rules which apply to restrictions on free speech that governments may wish to impose, many justifications are nevertheless sought by governments to suppress information which is inimical to their policies or their interests. These justifications include arguments in defence of national and/or state security, the public interst, including the need to protect public morals and public order and perfectly understandable attempts to prevent racism, violence, sexism, religious intolerance and damage to the indi-vidual's reputation or privacy. The mechanisms employed by governments to restrict the freeflow of information are almost endless and range from subtle economic pressures and devious methods of undermining political opponents and the independent media to the enactment of restrictive press laws and an insist-ence on licensing journalists and eventually to the illegal detention, torture and disappearances of journalists and others associated with the expression of independent views. 5. Examples of censorship To some the right to free speech may appear to be one of the fringe human rights, especially when compared to such violations as torture and extra-judicial killings. It is also sometimes difficult to dissuade the general public that censorship, generally assumed to be something to do with banning obscene books or magazines, is no bad thing! It requires a recognition of some of the fundamental principles of democracy to understand why censorship is so immensely dangerous. The conditon of democracy is that people are able to make choices about a wide variety of issues which affect their lives, including what they wish to see, read, hear or discuss. While this may seem a somewhat luxurious distinction preoccupying, perhaps, wealthy Western democracies, it is a comparatively short distance between government censorship of an offensive book to the silencing of political dissidents. And the distance between such silencing and the use of violence to suppress a growing political philosophy which a government finds inconvenient is even shorter. Censorship tends to have small beginnings and to grow rapidly. Allowing a government to have the power to deny people information, however trivial, not only sets in place laws and procedures which can and will be used by those in authority against those with less authority, but it also denies people the information which they must have in order to monitor their governments actions and to ensure accountability. There have been dramatic and terrible examples of the role that censorship has played in international politics in the last few years: to name but a few, the extent to which the media in the republics of former Yugoslavia were manipulated by government for purposes of propaganda; the violent role played by the government associated radio in Rwanda which incited citizens to kill each other in the name of ethnic purity and the continuing threat of murder issued by the Islamic Republic of Iran against a citizen of another country for having written a book which displeased them. 6. The link between poverty, war and denial of free speech There are undoubted connections between access to information, or rather the lack of it, and war, as indeed there are between poverty, the right to freedom of expression and development. One can argue that democracy aims to increase participation in political and other decision-making at all levels. In this sense democracy empowers people. The poor are denied access to information on decisions which deeply affect their lives, are thus powerless and have no voice; the poor are not able to have influence over their own lives, let alone other aspect of society. Because of this essential powerlessness, the poor are unable to influence the ruling elite in whose interests it may be to initiate conflict and wars in order to consolidate their own power and position. Of the 126 developing countries listed in the 1993 Human Development Report, war was ongoing in 30 countries and severe civil conflict in a further 33 countries. Of the total 63 countries in conflict, 55 are towards the bottom scale of the human development index which is an indicator of poverty. There seems to be no doubt that there is a clear association between poverty and war. It is reasonably safe to assume that the vast majority of people do not ever welcome war. They are normally coerced, more often than not by propaganda, into fear, extreme nationalist sentiments and war by their governments. If the majority of people had a democratic voice they would undoubtedly object to war. But voices are silenced. Thus, the freedom to express one's views and to challenge government decisions and to insist upon political rather than violent solutions, are necessary aspects of democracy which can, and do, avert war. Government sponsored propaganda in Rwanda, as in former Yugoslavia, succeeded because there weren't the means to challenge it. One has therefore to conclude that it is impossible for a particular government to wage war in the absence of a compliant media willing to indulge in government propaganda. This is because the government needs civilians to fight wars for them and also because the media is needed to re-inforce government policies and intentions at every turn.

EntryDate

...	...	@@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
	1	+2017-04-29 16:31:22.989

Judge

...	...	@@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
	1	+Paras Kumar

Opponent

...	...	@@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
	1	+Valley TG

ParentRound

...	...	@@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
	1	+16

Round

...	...	@@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
	1	+2

Team

...	...	@@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
	1	+Harvard Westlake Engel Aff

Title

...	...	@@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
	1	+JAN-FEB - AC - Disease

Tournament

...	...	@@ -1,0 +1,1 @@
	1	+TOC

Changes for page Harvard Westlake Engel Aff

Summary

Details

Quick Links

Schools