Summary

• Objects (1 modified, 1 added, 0 removed)
  • Caselist.RoundClass[65]
  • Caselist.CitesClass[77]

Details

Caselist.RoundClass[65]

EntryDate

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1		-2017-03-14 17:46:30.552
	1	+2017-03-14 17:46:30.0

Caselist.CitesClass[77]

Cites

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	1	+There were analytics too
	2	+
	3	+Prefer a pragmatic conception of truth – we don’t verify every truth, just use what’s useful for us- takes out personal identity and state of nature arguments- there cant render pragmatic decision. James
	4	+You and I consider the object on the wall to be a “clock.” Although no one of us has seen the hidden works that make it one. We let our notion pass for true without attempting to verify.If truths mean verification-process essentially, ought we then to call such unverified truths as this abortive? No, for they form the overwhelmingly large number of the truths we live by. Indirect as well as direct verifications pass muster. Where circumstantial evidence is sufficient, we can go without eye-witnessing. Just as Wehereassume Japan to exist without ever having been there, because it works to do so.everything we know conspiring with the belief, and nothing interfering, so we assume that thing to be a clock. We use it as a clock, regulating the length of our lecture by it. The verification of the assumption here means its leading to no frustration or contradiction. Verifiability of wheels and weights and pendulum is as good as verification. For one truth-process completed there are a million in our lives that function in this state of nascency.They turn us towards direct verification; lead us into the surroundings of the objects they envisage; and then, if everything runs on harmoniously,We are so surethatverification is possible that we omit it.
	5	+Pragmatism implies utilitarianism. To prove the resolution true, we have to show its general usefulness or practical value as a true statement. Util is the only theory that stems from taking into account the general pragmatic implications of our beliefs.
	6	+5- Consistency requires we extend our own desire for happiness to others. Sayre McCord
	7	+Each person is seen as hasving reason to think that the happiness she enjoys is valuable, and reason to think of others ~-~- given that they are in a parallel situation with respect to the happiness they enjoy ~-~- that each person's happiness is such that there is the same evidence available to each for the value of the happiness that another person enjoys as there is for the value of one's own happiness. If happiness is such that every piece of it is desired by someone, then it seems as if, in taking ourselves to have reason to seeing the bit we value as valuable, we are committed to acknowledging the value of all the rest.
	8	+2nd- Some judgments are irrefutably normative- only revisionary intuitionism meets. Parfit:
	9	+On What Matters V2, 2011 books.google.com/books?isbn=0191613452
	10	+To introduce this argument, I shall sum up some of my claims. (A) There are some irreducibly normative reason-involving truths, some of which are moral truths. (B) Since these truths are not about natural properties, our knowledge of these truths cannot be based on perception, or on evidence provided by empirical facts. (C) Positive substantive normative truths cannot be analytic, in the sense that their truth follows from their meaning. Therefore (D) Our normative beliefs cannot be justified unless we are able to recognize in some other way that these beliefs are true. We do, I believe, have this ability. We have reasons to have certain normative beliefs, and we can respond to these reasons. Normative beliefs can also be self-evident, and intrinsically credible. One such belief is (E) Torturing children merely for fun is wrong. There are similar non-normative beliefs, such as (F) No statement can be both wholly true and wholly false. Since our normative beliefs are neither caused by what we believe, nor based on empirical evidence, we need another word to refer to our way of forming these beliefs. On the view that I have called Intuitionism: We have intuitive abilities to respond to reasons and to recognize some normative truths. Though it is intuitively clear that certain acts are wrong, most of our moral beliefs cannot depend only on such separate intuitions. We must also assess the strength of various conflicting reasons, and the plausibility of various principles and arguments, trying to reach what Rawls calls reflective equilibrium. This kind of intuitively-based reflective thinking is not only, as Scanlon writes, the only defensible best way of making up one’s mind about moral matters . . . it is the only defensible method. We have similar abilities to recognize truths about what is rational, and about what we have reasons to believe, and want, and do. Many recent writers reject such claims. Schiffer, for example, doubts that moral intuitions are worth discussing, and Field and Boghossian call the idea of rational intuition ‘obscurantist’ and ‘a mystery’. But these criticisms are aimed at the view that intuition is a special quasi-perceptual faculty. That is not the view that I am defending here. When I use the word ‘intuitive’, I mean what Boghossian means when he describes one of his claims as ‘intuitively plausible’ and ‘intuitively quite clear’. Intuitionism can also be challenged with claims about disagreement. When Boghossian denies that beliefs can be intrinsically credible, or self-evident, he points out that (G) different people might find conflicting beliefs self-evident. If we claim that we have some ability, however, it is no objection that we might have lacked this ability. Different people might have conflicting visual experiences, which were like dreams and hallucinations, and were not a source of knowledge. But that is not in fact true. Different people’s visual experiences seldom conflict, and believing what we seem to see is a fairly reliable way of reaching the truth. It may be similarly true that, after careful reflection, different people would seldom find conflicting beliefs self-evident. Believing what seems self- evident, after such reflection, may be another fairly reliable way of reaching the truth. When Schiffer argues that there are no moral truths, he claims that (H) even in ideal conditions, when everyone knows the relevant facts and is reasoning equally well, we and others could rationally disagree about any moral question. For example, Schiffer claims that, though we could rationally believe that (E) torturing children merely for fun is wrong, it would be equally rational to reject this belief. This claim assumes that we cannot have decisive reasons to have our moral beliefs. If we had such reasons to believe (E), it would not be equally rational either to have or to reject this belief. What Schiffer calls his error theory might be true, since we might never have decisive reasons to have any moral belief. But Schiffer cannot support this theory by claiming that we and others could rationally disagree about any moral question, since this claim assumes that we have no such reasons. Nor could we reject Schiffer’s theory merely by claiming that we and others could not rationally disagree. When we are trying to decide whether we have decisive reasons to have certain beliefs, we cannot usefully appeal to claims about whether, when considering these beliefs, we and others could rationally disagree.
	11	+That implies consequentialism. Sinnot-Armstrong:
	12	+Walter Sinnott-Armstrong http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/
	13	+Consequentialism also might be supported by an inference to the best explanation of our moral intuitions. This argument might surprise those who think of consequentialism as counterintuitive, but in fact consequentialists can explain many moral intuitions that trouble deontological theories. Moderate deontologists, for example, often judge that it is morally wrong to kill one person to save five but not morally wrong to kill one person to save a million. They never specify the line between what is morally wrong and what is not morally wrong, and it is hard to imagine any non-arbitrary way for deontologists to justify a cutoff point. In contrast, consequentialists can simply say that the line belongs wherever the benefits outweigh the costs (including any bad side effects). If consequentialists can better explain more common moral intuitions, then consequentialism might have more explanatory coherence overall, despite being counterintuitive in some cases. (Compare Sidgwick 1907, Book IV, Chap. III.) And even if act consequentialists cannot argue in this way, it still might work for rule consequentialists (such as Hooker 2000).
	14	+Third, brain studies prove that there’s no such thing as personal identity. Parfit:
	15	+Some recent medical cases provide striking evidence in favour of the Reductionist View. Human beings have a lower brain and two upper hemispheres, which are connected by a bundle of fibres. In treating a few people with severe epilepsy, surgeons have cut these fibres. The aim was to reduce the severity of epileptic fits, by confining their causes to a single hemisphere. This aim was achieved. But the operations had another unintended consequence. The effect, in the words of one surgeon, was the creation of ‘two separate spheres of consciousness.’ This effect was revealed by various psychological tests. These made use of two facts. We control our right arms with our left hemispheres, and vice versa. And what is in the right halves of our visual fields we see with our left hemispheres, and vice versa. When someone’s hemispheres have been disconnected, psychologists can thus present to this person two different written questions in the two halves of his visual field, and can receive two different answers written by this person’s two hands.
	16	+In the absence of personal identity, only end states matter. Shoemaker:
	17	+Extreme reductionism might lend support to utilitarianism in the following way. Many people claim that we are justified in maximizing the good in our own lives, but not justified in maximizing the good across sets of lives, simply because each of us is a single, deeply unified person, unified by the further fact of identity, whereas there is no such corresponding unity across sets of lives. But if the only justification for the different treatment of individual lives and sets of lives is the further fact, and this fact is undermined by the truth of reductionism, then nothing justifies this different treatment. There are no deeply unified subjects of experience. What remains are merely the experiences themselves, and so any ethical theory distinguishing between individual lives and sets of lives is mistaken. If the deep, further fact is missing, then there are no unities. The morally significant units should then be the states people are in at particular times, and an ethical theory that focused on them and attempted to improve their quality, whatever their location, would be the most plausible. Utilitarianism is just such a theory.
	18	+I contend that util negates
	19	+a) only collectives have value so sacrificing some rights in order to maximize wellbeing is inconsistent with that right being valuable b) util concerns what is best to do in specific circumstances; stable rights claims can never accommodate that
	20	+Independently, resource allocation kills any obligation to a right-especially true of a major cost like housing
	21	+Heard, Human Rights: Chimeras in Sheep's Clothing? © Andrew Heard, 1997 THE CHALLENGES OF UTILITARIANISM AND RELATIVISM http://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/417/util.html
	22	+Human rights are usually said to be inalienable and universal, and some even believe that they are absolute. Such attributes are necessary in order for human rights to protect all humans at all times. A prime motivation for rights in general is to ensure that no-one is subject to unbridled calculations of utility, so that a minority do not suffer so that a greater number enjoy some benefit. If anything is to stand in the way of governments or societies sacrificing individual or minority interests in favour of the collective, it is the bulwark of human rights. Similarly, human rights are argued to be universal and apply across political, religious, and cultural divides. It is tempting in a liberal society such as Canada's to view human rights as both universal and inalienable. After all, so much of our political debate is built upon these suppositions that we take their reach for granted. However, these qualities of human rights may not stand up under the light of probing scrutiny. Human rights are particularly vulnerable to challenges from both utilitarianism and cultural relativism. These challenges relate to the nature of human rights, the choice of benefits that are said to be a matter of human rights, as well as the delivery of these benefits. Further problems emerge when one moves from the abstract right of an individual, to trying to assess the specific benefits any one individual is entitled to in relation to all others trying to exercise the same particular right, but the situation becomes even more complex when the issue involves balancing competing rights or balancing the good of individuals against the good of their community. At one level rights are those claims which protect individuals from being subjected to calculations of pure utility. The promotion of the greatest happiness for the greatest number cannot justify some violation of an individual's welfare, if that individual has a right to the benefit in question. The most basic utilitarian critique of human rights lies in the assertion that resources are scarce in any society, and especially limited in some. This scarcity inevitably leads to utilitarian calculations to allocate those resources in a way that will maximize the greatest good. In the end, it is argued, all the benefits listed as human rights, even life itself, are subject to the promotion of the greatest good within a society. As such an individual's benefits claimed as a human right may be compromised, diluted, or even completely denied in specific situations where that right has to be weighed against the claim of another individual or of society as a whole. This critique is not necessarily normative, in the sense that this should be the case, but may also stem from the observation that this is how societies do and will function. The utilitarian critique raises the question whether human rights are either absolute or inalienable. By inalienable, I mean that individuals cannot surrender control over their right to another's discretionary authority. The ultimate authority to make the most important choices with respect to exercising that right cannot rest with someone else - either the state, another individual, or some entity - but must be able to be reclaimed and exercised by the individual whose right is at stake. By absolute, I mean that the right in question cannot be totally denied. This is best seen in rights that pose dichotomous choices, (such as the right to life's "do you die or live?"), where the benefit is either provided completely or denied completely. (1) It is difficult to argue that a right is absolute if the benefits it imparts can be enjoyed by degree - liberty is a classic example of a right that permits relative increases and decreases in its possession and exercise. Analysis becomes problematic since most rights are arguably entitlements to benefits that are exercised by increments. Thus, it becomes impossible to assert that all human rights are absolute. Nevertheless, one can suggest that at least one right is absolute, or at least should be if human rights are to have any substantive meaning taken collectively. The right to life is one such example, for no other human right can be relevant if life can be taken from an individual; the possession or enjoyment of all other human rights hinge on an individual being alive. Various examples illustrate the utilitarian foundation we eventually land against, but perhaps the most basic right, that to life, raises dilemmas for human rights theory if it cannot be shown to be absolute. A starting assumption for a right to life that is absolute lies in arguing that innocent lives must be protected if human life has any value to be protected through human rights. Indeed, Alan Gewirth has argued that there must be at least one absolute right: "all innocent persons have an absolute right not to be made the intended victims of a homicidal project". (2) If human rights cannot protect an innocent life from utilitarian calculations then one must question the force of these 'rights'. Gewirth portrays his argument with the example of an innocent mother held hostage by terrorists, who tell her son that they will detonate a nuclear explosion in a city if he does not kill his mother. According to Gewirth, the mother still has her right to life which the son must not violate. The son's duty and moral culpability lies solely in his own direct actions. The principle of intervening action means that the terrorists would be solely responsible for any deaths from their threatened explosion, since the son cannot be completely certain that the terrorists would carry out their threat. For Gewirth, his example of an absolute right stands the test. The son must not weigh the life of his mother against the lives of the city's population, because the other lives are not his responsibility. Gewirth's example, however, does not provide a scenario that fully tests the right of an innocent to life. Utilitarian calculations on taking or sparing lives seem unavoidable in other situations. There is the classic case of a runaway trolley that can only be steered on two paths, one of which will run over one person and the other will run over five others. In that instance, the trolley driver would aim for the single individual. But this case is a highly unsatisfactory example, since the driver has no choice but to kill someone and would try to spare as many lives as possible. A more germane illustration is found in a SWAT team's arrival on a scene where a gunman is holding an innocent hostage as a shield with one arm while shooting into a crowd with the other. Should the police fire immediately to stop the gunman's killings, even if the hostage would likely be shot at the same time? Or, should the police allow the gunman to continue shooting while they manoeuvre to a vantage point where they can shoot the gunman without harm to the hostage? In this instance, the principle of intervening action invoked by Gewirth would mean that the police are not responsible for the deaths caused by the gunman. Their direct duty is not to kill an innocent person themselves. They have a choice to kill the gunman and the hostage, or to wait and kill just the gunman. The police may even have the choice to simply wait until the gunman runs out of bullets and then tackle him without killing anyone themselves. Because they have the choice, they should not shoot the hostage just to stop the gunman killing others. However, many people simply would not agree with this approach. It may well be tragic, but justified nevertheless, for the police to shoot the hostage and gunman immediately rather than letting even more people be killed by the gunman. In this scenario, a utilitarian calculation to save several lives would outweigh the one innocent life. Thus, not even an innocent person's right to life appears absolute. Whether there is an inalienable right to life, safe from the utilitarian needs of the state, is tested most sorely in times of war; but it is also as germane in times of peace. Considerable debate rages over the conscription of citizens to defend the state or pursue the state's interests abroad, but the right to life can be just as endangered for those citizens who voluntarily join the state's

EntryDate

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	1	+2017-03-14 17:46:34.43

Judge

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	1	+Laurence, Arun, Mconway

Opponent

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	1	+Richard Cook

ParentRound

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	1	+65

Round

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	1	+Quarters

Team

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	1	+North Crowley Reed Neg

Title

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	1	+5- Util NC

Tournament

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	1	+TFA