Tournament: Voices | Round: 1 | Opponent: Brentwood KR | Judge: Adam Bistagne
The standard is maximizing expected wellbeing.
Robert E. Goodin. Philosopher of Political Theory, Public Policy, and Applied Ethics. Utilitarianism as a Public Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 1995. p. 26-7
The great adventure of utilitarianism as a guide to public conduct is that it avoids gratuitous sacrifices, it ensures as best we are able to ensure in the uncertain world of public policy-making that policies are sensitive to people’s interests or desires or preferences. The great failing of more deontological theories, applied to those realms, is that they fixate upon duties done for the sake of duty rather than for the sake of any good that is done by doing one’s duty. Perhaps it is permissible (perhaps it is even proper) for private individuals in the course of their personal affairs to fetishize duties done for their own sake. It would be a mistake for public officials to do likewise, not least because it is impossible. The fixation on motives makes absolutely no sense in the public realm, and might make precious little sense in the private one even, as Chapter 3 shows. The reason public action is required at all arises from the inability of uncoordinated individual action to achieve certain morally desirable ends. Individuals are rightly excused from pursuing those ends. The inability is real; the excuses, perfectly valid. But libertarians are right in their diagnosis, wrong in their prescription. That is the message of Chapter 2. The same thing that makes those excuses valid at the individual level – the same thing that relieves individuals of responsibility – makes it morally incumbent upon individuals to organize themselves into collective units that are capable of acting where they as isolated individuals are not. When they organize themselves into these collective units, those collective deliberations inevitably take place under very different circumstances and their conclusions inevitably take very different forms. Individuals are morally required to operate in that collective manner, in certain crucial respects. But they are practically circumscribed in how they can operate, in their collective mode. And those special constraints characterizing the public sphere of decision-making give rise to the special circumstances that make utilitarianism peculiarly apt for public policy-making, in ways set out more fully in Chapter 4. Government house utilitarianism thus understood is, I would argue, a uniquely defensible public philosophy.
Second, only impacts and values that exist in the physical world are relevant. Physical realism is the only meaningful ontological theory of being. Williams,
Donald Williams. "Naturalism and the Nature of Things." The Philosophical Review, Vol. 53, No. 5 (Sep., 1944), pp. 417-443. Duke UP. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2181355**
Casting up our accounts to this point, we observe that physical realism is in sum a meaningful, consistent, and essentially confirmable hypothesis. We turn accordingly to assess its credibility a posterior, in relation to the actual evidence, as we should that of a scientific theory or a war communique. We can know forthwith that materialism, granted that metaphysics is confirmable at all, is in principle the most thoroughly confirmable of all world hypotheses. It initiates the most conclusive confirmation or disconfirmation. The ideal aim of systematic knowledge is to disclose the fewest primitive elements into which the diversest objects are analyzable, and the fewest primitive facts, singular and general, from which the behavior of things is deducible. Metaphysics is the most 'scientific' of the sciences because it tries the hardest to explain every kind of fact by one simple principle or simple set of principles. It is the most empirical of sciences (as Peirce reminded us) because, by the same token, a metaphysics is relevant to and confirmable by every item of every experience, whereas every other science is concerned with only a few select and abstract aspects of some experiences, Physical realism is the ideal metaphysics, the veritable paradigm of philosophy, because its category of spatio-temporal pattern best permits analysis of diverse complexity to uniform and ordered simplicities, is most thoroughly numerable, and so most exactly and systematically calculable. Socratic purposes, Platonic ideals, Aristotelian qualities, Plotinian hierarchies-these are surds in comparison with a system de la nature, limned in patterns of action in the ordered dimensions of a spatio-temporal hypersphere
Cass R. Sunstein and Vermeule Adrian ~~~"Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? Acts, Omissions, and Life-Life Tradeoffs. Copyright (c) 2005 The Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University. Stanford Law Review December,2005 58 Stan. L. Rev. 703~~~
The critics of capital punishment have been led astray by uncritically applying the act/omission distinction to a regulatory setting. Their position condemns the "active" infliction of death by governments but does not condemn the "inactive" production of death that comes from the refusal to maintain a system ~~~*720~~~ of capital punishment. The basic problem is that even if this selective condemnation can be justified at the level of individual behavior, it is difficult to defend for governments. n58 A great deal of work has to be done to explain why "inactive," but causal, government decisions should not be part of the moral calculus. Suppose that we endorse the deontological position that it is wrong to take human lives, even if overall welfare is promoted by taking them. Why does the system of capital punishment violate that position, if the failure to impose capital punishment also takes lives? We suggest that the distinction between government acts and omissions, even if conceptually coherent, is not morally relevant to the question of capital punishment. Some governmental actions are morally obligatory, and some governmental omissions are blameworthy. In this setting, we suggest, government is morally obligated to adopt capital punishment and morally at fault if it declines to do so. 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. n61 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. To be sure, a system of punishments that only weakly deters homicide, relative to other feasible punishments, does not quite authorize homicide, but that system is not properly characterized as an omission, and little turns on whether it can be so characterized. Suppose, for example, that government fails to characterize certain actions - say, sexual harassment - as tortious or violative of civil rights law and that it therefore permits employers to harass employees as they choose or to discharge employees for failing to submit to sexual harassment. It would be unhelpful to characterize the result as a product of governmental "inaction." If employers are permitted to discharge employees for refusing to submit to sexual harassment, it is because the law is allocating certain entitlements to employers rather than employees. Or consider the context of ordinary torts. When Homeowner B sues Factory A over air pollution, a decision not to rule for Homeowner B is not a form of inaction: it is the allocation to Factory A of a property right to pollute. In such cases, an apparent government omission is an action simply because it is an allocation of legal rights. Any decision that allocates such rights, by creating entitlements ~~~*722~~~ and prohibitions, is not inaction at all.
It’s the core of the international nuclear power topic lit and avoids the link to the space col disad
Aftergood 91 (Steven, Aftergood is a senior research analyst at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C, "Nuclear Power in Space," June 1991, http://www.calpoly.edu/~~~~dhafemei/SciAm'June'1991'NuclearPowerSpace.pdf)
In addition, nuclear power in space has in general been a source of international tension because of its role in Soviet and American military space programs. As a result, organizations of both Soviet and American scientists (of which we are members) have proposed banning the use of nuclear power in Earth orbit. Such a ban would reduce the risks associated with nuclear power in space, while permitting its use in those deep-space missions for which nuclear power is essential.
Herrington ’16 (Rebecca Harrington, Mar. 10, 2016, "Dozens of dead nuclear reactors are floating in space, and they'll eventually hit the earth," http://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-powered-satellites-space-2016-3 ~| SP)
At the height of our adoration of atomic energy, space agencies experimented with launching nuclear-powered spacecraft into orbit around the earth. It makes sense if you think about it. Radioactive materials, like uranium-235, can power a tiny satellite for years. They're more reliable than batteries and provide more energy than solar panels. But back then, space-faring nations weren't as concerned with radioactive waste. Nuclear disasters like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl hadn't happened yet, and now we're much more worried about radiation exposure. That's why the last nuclear-powered satellite, launched by the Soviet Union, blasted into orbit in 1988. More than 30 different nuclear-reactor-powered satellites still orbit the earth. The US launched only one while the USSR launched all the rest. Those nuclear reactors are similar to the ones in nuclear power plants on the ground. Uranium-235 undergoes fission, where its nucleus splits, giving off energy. This energy can be converted into electricity to power satellite instruments, or your house. America's uranium-fueled SNAP-10A entered into an orbit of 575 miles above the earth in 1965. It operated for 43 days before it stopped responding. It's now in a slow trajectory to hit the ground in about 3,000 years. By then, hopefully, its radioactive cargo will be mostly harmless. But if any of these nuclear-reactor-powered satellites collide with another object in space, or suddenly crash to the ground, they could release radioactivity. The Soviet Union had a few such mishaps since it launched all those nuclear satellites. In 1978, its spy satellite, Kosmos 954, crashed into the Northwest Territories, scattering radioactivity across almost 48,000 square miles. The USSR had to pay Canada $10 million for the damage. Cosmos 954'debris Debris from the Soviet Union's Kosmos 954 when it crashed into Canada in 1978.Wikimedia Commons And in 1995, NASA scientists found a cloud of liquid, radioactive sodium and potassium coolant in orbit. The space agency eventually figured out that it came from the Soviet satellite Kosmos 1900. Something else in space crashed into it, causing the nuclear reactor to leak. The cloud of radioactive fluids is still floating up there, and space agencies continue to monitor it. The good news is that all of these dead nuclear-reactor-powered satellites are in orbits higher than 430 miles. There's barely any air molecules at that height to slow down the satellites, so it should take them hundreds or thousands of years to wind their way back to the earth — at which point much of their radioactive contents will have significantly decayed. But NASA and Roscosmos, Russia's space agency, are reportedly looking into building nuclear engines again. This time, they want to build hyperefficient rockets that might one day take humans to Mars. If this sounds like science-fiction, it's not. NASA built several perfectly functional nuclear rocket engines from 1955 through 1973. Here's one called NERVA being test-fired in the desert: Those programs ended abruptly, however, because of environmental and budget concerns. It remains to be seen if NASA or Roscosmos can keep funding, public support, and safety moving in its favor.
The plan mandates removal of these satellites, which solves.
Ford ’16 (Jason Ford, 13th May 2016, "Strathclyde space scientists to develop systems to remove satellites from orbit," https://www.theengineer.co.uk/strathclyde-space-scientists-to-develop-systems-to-remove-satellites-from-orbit/ ~| SP)
The team has been awarded some €116,700 of EU funding as part of the two-year TeSeR (Technology for Self-Removal of Spacecraft) programme that is being led by Airbus Defence and Space. According to NASA, over 500,000 pieces of space debris – made up of items including non-functioning spacecraft and abandoned launch vehicle stages – are currently being tracked as they orbit Earth at speeds of up to 17,500mph. With a total of €2.8m in funding from the Horizon 2020 programme, TeSeR will carry out initial research for the development of a prototype of a cost-efficient but highly reliable removal module. Dr Malcolm Macdonald, director of the Strathclyde-based Scottish Centre of Excellence in Satellite Applications explained via email that parts of large spacecraft can survive re-entry and need to be de-orbited more carefully than small satellites that burn up in the atmosphere. "So large spacecraft may require a propulsion based system, while small spacecraft may be able to use something else," he said, adding that the programme will prioritise solutions for sub-500kg spacecraft that operate in low-Earth orbit; the category that would need a non-propulsion based system. An additional element to the project is to investigate any future platform’s function as a removal back up in the event of loss of control of the spacecraft. Macdonald added that the most efficient means of removing a functional spacecraft is to use its own propulsion system, and that for the for the equivalent amount of fuel (or less) it would be challenging to develop a new system that duplicates this function. "However, anomalies happen and spacecraft fail before the end of life, in this case even if the propellant tank is full it is of no use if you can’t command the spacecraft to use it," he said. "In such a case it is desirable to have a fail-safe system that can, in-effect, remove the otherwise dead spacecraft. Such a fail-safe system will have a mass – and cost – impact on the spacecraft but it could be argued that by not installing such a system you would be at fault following a debris event involving your spacecraft." Macdonald said the project will seek to develop at least one, but up to three, of the identified modular concepts to a prototype stage. "As it is a modular system the idea is that it should be able to have, say, a propellant module that is swappable – on the ground and before launch – with, say, a solar sail or drag augmentation device, and so forth," he said. "Such decisions would then be made on the basis of the spacecraft the device was being attached to." Partners in the project are: Aalborg University; Beazley Furlonge; D-orbit; GOMspace; HTG (Hyperschall Techologie Göttigen); PHS Space; Universität der Bundeswehr München; University of Surrey; Weber-Steinhaus and Smith. The University of Glasgow is also participating on a sub-contract to Strathclyde.
Nuclear power in space leads to space weapons—inevitable consequence and hidden motive for nuclear space programs. Grossman ‘03
Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, February 5 2003, "Nukes-in-Space in Columbia's Wake", http://www.space4peace.org/articles/columbiaswake.htm**
Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, warns that the process of manufacturing space nuclear power systems has had human health costs from the process of manufacturing and building more "will lead to significant numbers of workers and communities being contaminated." He says: "Serious questions need to be asked: Where will they test the nuclear rocket? How much will it cost? What would be the impacts of a launch accident? These nuclearization of space plans are getting dangerous and out of control." Also, Gagnon sees a military connection, describing the use of nuclear power in space as "the foot in the door, the Trojan horse, for the militarization of space." Space weapons sought by the military—space-based lasers, hypervelocity guns and particle beams—would require large amounts of power which the military sees as coming from on-board nuclear power systems, thus the close cooperation between the Pentagon and NASA in space nuclear efforts. Dr. Dave Webb, who had been a scientist in the British space program and is now principal lecturer at the United Kingdom's Leeds Metropolitan University’s School of Engineering, and is also Global Network secretary, says, "Star Wars projects like the Space-Based Laser require significant sources of power and it is very useful for the U.S. government to be able to bury some of the costs for the development work in ‘civilian’ or ‘dual use’ programs." This week, the Global Network was leading protests at the 11th Annual Symposium on Space Nuclear Power and Propulsion in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The gathering, organized by the University of New Mexico’s Institute for Nuclear Space Power Studies, drew NASA, nuclear industry, academic, government and military space nuclear proponents. Said Gagnon from New Mexico: "We’re not saying there shouldn’t be any space program. It’s a question of what kind of seed do we carry with us out into space."
Gagnon 3 (Bruce, "Nuclear Power In Space And The Impact On Earth's Ecosystem," 1/27/03, http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nuclearspace-03b.html)
Critics of NASA have long stated that in addition to potential health concerns from radiation exposure, the NASA space nukes initiative represents the Bush administration's covert move to develop power systems for space-based weapons such as lasers on satellites. The military has often stated that their planned lasers in space will require enormous power projection capability and that nuclear reactors in orbit are the only practical way of providing such power. The Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space maintains that just like missile defense is a Trojan horse for the Pentagon's real agenda for control and domination of space, NASA's nuclear rocket is a Trojan horse for the militarization of space.
Mitchell, 01 – Associate Professor of Communication and Director of Debate at the University of Pittsburgh (Dr. Gordon, ISIS Briefing on Ballistic Missile Defence, "Missile Defence: Trans-Atlantic Diplomacy at a Crossroads", No. 6 July, http://www.isisuk.demon.co.uk/0811/isis/uk/bmd/no6.html)**
A buildup of space weapons might begin with noble intentions of 'peace through strength' deterrence, but this rationale glosses over the tendency that '… the presence of space weapons…will result in the increased likelihood of their use'.33 This drift toward usage is strengthened by a strategic fact elucidated by Frank Barnaby: when it comes to arming the heavens, 'anti-ballistic missiles and anti-satellite warfare technologies go hand-in-hand'.34 The interlocking nature of offense and defense in military space technology stems from the inherent 'dual capability' of spaceborne weapon components. As Marc Vidricaire, Delegation of Canada to the UN Conference on Disarmament, explains: 'If you want to intercept something in space, you could use the same capability to target something on land'. 35 To the extent that ballistic missile interceptors based in space can knock out enemy missiles in mid-flight, such interceptors can also be used as orbiting 'Death Stars', capable of sending munitions hurtling through the Earth's atmosphere. The dizzying speed of space warfare would introduce intense 'use or lose' pressure into strategic calculations, with the spectre of split-second attacks creating incentives to rig orbiting Death Stars with automated 'hair trigger' devices. In theory, this automation would enhance survivability of vulnerable space weapon platforms. However, by taking the decision to commit violence out of human hands and endowing computers with authority to make war, military planners could sow insidious seeds of accidental conflict. Yale sociologist Charles Perrow has analyzed 'complexly interactive, tightly coupled' industrial systems such as space weapons, which have many sophisticated components that all depend on each other's flawless performance. According to Perrow, this interlocking complexity makes it impossible to foresee all the different ways such systems could fail. As Perrow explains, '~~~t~~~he odd term "normal accident" is meant to signal that, given the system characteristics, multiple and unexpected interactions of failures are inevitable'.36 Deployment of space weapons with pre-delegated authority to fire death rays or unleash killer projectiles would likely make war itself inevitable, given the susceptibility of such systems to 'normal accidents'. It is chilling to contemplate the possible effects of a space war. According to retired Lt. Col. Robert M. Bowman, 'even a tiny projectile reentering from space strikes the earth with such high velocity that it can do enormous damage — even more than would be done by a nuclear weapon of the same size!'. 37 In the same Star Wars technology touted as a quintessential tool of peace, defence analyst David Langford sees one of the most destabilizing offensive weapons ever conceived: 'One imagines dead cities of microwave-grilled people'.38 Given this unique potential for destruction, it is not hard to imagine that any nation subjected to space weapon attack would retaliate with maximum force, including use of nuclear, biological, and/or chemical weapons. An accidental war sparked by a computer glitch in space could plunge the world into the most destructive military conflict ever seen.
