Tournament: Lexington | Round: 2 | Opponent: Acton-Boxorough IA | Judge: Evan Li
Framework
I affirm.
Moral principles cannot be created independent of human interests –
1 Morals independent of one’s interests cannot give people reasons for acting morally.
David Gauthier, “Why Contractarianism?,” from Peter Vallentyne, ed., Contractarianism and Rational Choice JS
To proceed, I must offer a minimal characterization of the morality that faces a foundational crisis. And this is the morality of justified constraint. From the standpoint of the agent, moral considerations present themselves as constraining his choices and actions, in ways independent of his desires, aims, and interests. Later, I shall add to this characterization, but for the moment it will suffice. For it reveals clearly what is in question – the ground of constraint. This ground seems absent from our present world view. And so we ask, what reason can a person have for recognizing and accepting a constraint that is independent of his desires and interests? He may agree that such a constraint would be morally justified; he would have a reason for accepting it if he had a reason for accepting morality. But what justifies paying attention to morality, rather than dismissing it as an appendage of outworn beliefs? We ask, and seem to find no answer. But before proceeding, we should consider three objections.
2 Disagreement – Externalism assumes that some people have better access to moral facts or are better at determining moral truth without providing a metric of determining what moral fact is — leads to widespread moral disagreement and the exclusion of alternate viewpoints
Markovits 14, Markovits, Julia. Moral reason. Oxford University Press, 2014.Scopa modified by cohn
Relatedly, internalism about reasons seems less presumptive than externalism. We should not assume that some of us have special epistemic access to what matters, especially in the absence of any criterion for making such a judgment. It’s better to start from the assumption, as internalism does, that everyone’s ends are equally worthy of pursuit – and correct this assumption only by appealing to standards that are as uncontroversial as possible. According to externalism about reasons, what matters normatively – that is, what we have reason to do or pursue or protect or respect or promote – does not depend in any fundamental way on what in fact matters to us – that is, what we do do and pursue and protect and respect and promote. Some of us happen to be motivated by what actually matters, and some of us are “wrongly” motivated. But externalists can offer no explanation for this supposed difference in how well we respond to reasons – no explanation of why some of us have the right motivations and some of us the wrong ones – that doesn’t itself appeal to the views about what matters that they’re trying to justify. (They can explain why some people have the right motivations by saying, e.g., that they’re good people, but that assumes the truth of the normative views that are at issue.22) A comparison to the epistemic case helps bring out what is unsatisfactory in the externalist position. We sometimes attribute greater epistemic powers to some people than to others despite not being able to explain why they’re more likely to be right in their beliefs about a certain topic. Chicken-sexing is a popular example of this among philosophers. We think some people are more likely to form true beliefs about the sex of chickens than others even though we can’t explain why they are better at judging the sex of chickens. But in the case of chicken-sexing, we have independent means of determining the truth, and so we have independent verification that chicken-sexers usually get things right. Externalism seems to tells us that some of us are better reasons- sensors than others, but without providing the independent means of determining which of us are in fact more reliably motivated by genuine normative reasons (or even that some of us are).
3 Regress – no universal moral fact exists since we can demand justification for any moral fact infinitely – means any moral principle must stop with an arbitrary preference else there would be no principle at all so externalism collapses.
4 Open Question Argument – Open Question: Its impossible for goodness to be synonymous with an observable natural property like pleasure, since if we ask “is X good”, either A) X is the exact same thing as good, in which case our answer is the meaningless tautology “good is good” or B) X is not the same as goodness.
5 Induction Fails — We cannot confirm claims or causality based on past events because they are always subject to change in the future, all inducts are built on past inductions
6 Egocentric predicament - There is no one true understanding of reality because we each interpret reality slightly differently — this means we must reject truth and falsity all together because they are not universalizable concepts
Each person justifies what actions they take based on their own self-interest – the ability to create preferences and interests is constitutive of being a rational agent.
David Gauthier (2), “Why Contractarianism?,” from Peter Vallentyne, ed., Contractarianism and Rational Choice JS reut cohn
Fortunately, I do not have to defend normative foundationalism. One problem with accepting moral justification as part of our ongoing practice is that, as I have suggested, we no longer accept the world view on which it depends. But perhaps a more immediately pressing problem is that we have, ready to hand, an alternative mode for justifying our choices and actions. In its more austere and, in my view, more defensible form, this is to show that choices and actions maximize the agent’s expected utility, where utility is a measure of considered preference. In its less austere version, this is to show that choices and actions satisfy, not a subjectively defined requirement such as utility, but meet the agent’s objective interests. Since I do not believe that we have objective interests, I shall ignore this latter. But it will not matter. For the idea is clear; we have a mode of justification that does not require the introduction of moral considerations. 11 Let me call this alternative nonmoral mode of justification, neutrally, deliberative justification. Now moral and deliberative justification are directed at the same objects – our choices and actions. What if they conflict? And what do we say to the person who offers a deliberative justification of his choices and actions and refuses to offer any other? We can say, of course, that his behavior lacks moral justification, but this seems to lack any hold, unless he chooses to enter the moral framework. And such entry, he may insist, lacks any deliberative justification, at least for him. If morality perishes, the justificatory enterprise, in relation to choice and action, does not perish with it. Rather, one mode of justification perishes, a mode that, it may seem, now hangs unsupported. But not only unsupported, for it is difficult to deny that deliberative justification is more clearly basic, that it cannot be avoided insofar as we are rational agents, so that if moral justification conflicts with it, morality seems not only unsupported but opposed by what is rationally more fundamental. Deliberative justification relates to our deep sense of self. What distinguishes human beings from other animals, and provides the basis for rationality, is the capacity for semantic representation. You can, as your dog on the whole cannot, represent a state of affairs to yourself, and consider in particular whether or not it is the case, and whether or not you would want it to be the case. You can represent to yourself the contents of your beliefs, and your desires or preferences. But in representing them, you bring them into relation with one another. You represent to yourself that the Blue Jays will win the World Series, and that a National League team will win the World Series, and that the Blue Jays are not a National League team. And in recognizing a conflict among those beliefs, you find rationality thrust upon you. Note that the first two beliefs could be replaced by preferences, with the same effect. Since in representing our preferences we become aware of conflict among them, the step from representation to choice becomes complicated. We must, somehow, bring our conflicting desires and preferences into some sort of coherence. And there is only one plausible candidate for a principle of coherence – a maximizing principle. We order our preferences, in relation to decision and action, so that we may choose in a way that maximizes our expectation of preference fulfillment. And in so doing, we show ourselves to be rational agents, engaged in deliberation and deliberative justification. There is simply nothing else for practical rationality to be. The foundational crisis of morality thus cannot be avoided by pointing to the existence of a practice of justification within the moral framework, and denying that any extramoral foundation is relevant. For an extramoral mode of justification is already present, existing not side by side with moral justification, but in a manner tied to the way in which we unify our beliefs and preferences and so acquire our deep sense of self. We need not suppose that this deliberative justification is itself to be understood foundationally. All that we need suppose is that moral justification does not plausibly survive conflict with it.
Thus, the only functioning ethical theory is contractarianism, where agents create mutual constraints to benefit all parties involved with the expectation that others will adhere to agreements.
David Gauthier (3), “Why Contractarianism?,” from Peter Vallentyne, ed., Contractarianism and Rational Choice JS
I turn then to the third way of resolving morality ’ s foundational crisis. The first step is to embrace deliberative justification, and recognize that morality’s place must be found within, and not outside, its framework. Now this will immediately raise two problems. First of all, it will seem that the attempt to establish any constraint on choice and action, within the framework of a deliberation that aims at the maximal fulfillment of the agent ’ s considered preferences, must prove impossible. But even if this be doubted, it will seem that the attempt to establish a constraint independent of the agent ’ s preferences, within such a framework, verges on lunacy. Nevertheless, this is precisely the task accepted by my third way. And, unlike its predecessors, I believe that it can be successful; indeed, I believe that my recent book, Morals by Agreement , shows how it can succeed. 13 I shall not rehearse at length an argument that is now familiar to at least some readers, and, in any event, can be found in that book. But let me sketch briefly those features of deliberative rationality that enable it to constrain maximizing choice. The key idea is that in many situations, if each person chooses what, given the choices of the others, would maximize her expected utility, then the outcome will be mutually disadvantageous in comparison with some alternative – everyone could do better. 14 Equilibrium, which obtains when each person ’ s action is a best response to the others ’ actions, is incompatible with (Pareto-) optimality, which obtains when no one could do better without someone else doing worse. Given the ubiquity of such situations, each person can see the benefit, to herself, of participating with her fellows in practices requiring each to refrain from the direct endeavor to maximize her own utility, when such mutual restraint is mutually advantageous. No one, of course, can have reason to accept any unilateral constraint on her maximizing behavior; each benefits from, and only from, the constraint accepted by her fellows. But if one benefits more from a constraint on others than one loses by being constrained oneself, one may have reason to accept a practice requiring everyone, including oneself, to exhibit such a constraint. We may represent such a practice as capable of gaining unanimous agreement among rational persons who were choosing the terms on which they would interact with each other. And this agreement is the basis of morality. Consider a simple example of a moral practice that would command rational agreement. Suppose each of us were to assist her fellows only when either she could expect to benefit herself from giving assistance, or she took a direct interest in their well-being. Then, in many situations, persons would not give assistance to others, even though the benefit to the recipient would greatly exceed the cost to the giver, because there would be no provision for the giver to share in the benefit. Everyone would then expect to do better were each to give assistance to her fellows, regardless of her own benefit or interest, whenever the cost of assisting was low and the benefit of receiving assistance considerable. Each would thereby accept a constraint on the direct pursuit of her own concerns, not unilaterally, but given a like acceptance by others. Reflection leads us to recognize that those who belong to groups whose members adhere to such a practice of mutual assistance enjoy benefits in interaction that are denied to others. We may then represent such a practice as rationally acceptable to everyone. This rationale for agreed constraint makes no reference to the content of anyone’s preferences. The argument depends simply on the structure of interaction, on the way in which each person’s endeavor to fulfill her own preferences affects the fulfillment of everyone else. Thus, each person ’ s reason to accept a mutually constraining practice is independent of her particular desires, aims and interests, although not, of course, of the fact that she has such concerns. The idea of a purely rational agent, moved to act by reason alone, is not, I think, an intelligible one. Morality is not to be understood as a constraint arising from reason alone on the fulfillment of nonrational preferences. Rather, a rational agent is one who acts to achieve the maximal fulfillment of her preferences, and morality is a constraint on the manner in which she acts, arising from the effects of interaction with other agents.
Thus, the standard is consistency with mutually agreed upon contracts. Prefer the standard –
1 Actor Specificity – contractarianism is constitutive to the formation of states since a states is always an artificial construction that only exists insofar as a group of people want it to exist in order to restrain their ability to commit wrongdoing – a state is just a contract of mutual self-restraint which means engaging in state action concedes my framework.
2 Promises create obligations by definition.
Searle, John R. (1964). How to derive "ought" from "is". Philosophical Review 73 (1):43-58. JS
What is the relation between (2) and (3) ? I take it that promising is, by definition, an act of placing oneself under an obligation. No analysis of the concept of promising will be complete which does not include the feature of the promiser placing himself under or undertaking or accepting or recognizing an obligation to the promise, to perform some future course of action, normally for the benefit of the promisee. One may be tempted to think that promising can be analyzed in terms of creating expectations in one's hearers, or some such, but a little reflection will show that the crucial distinction between statements of intention on the one hand and promises on the other lies in the nature and degree of commitment or obligation undertaken in promising. I am therefore inclined to say that (2) entails (3) straight off, but I can have no objection if anyone wishes to add-for the purpose of formal neatness- the tautological premise: (2a) All promises are acts of placing oneself under (under- taking) an obligation to do the thing promised. How is (3) related to (4)? If one has placed oneself under an obligation, then, other things being equal, one is under an obligation. That I take it also is a tautology. Of course it is possible for all sorts of things to happen which will release one from obligations one has undertaken and hence the need for the ceteris paribus rider. To get an entailment between (3) and (4) we therefore need a qualifying statement to the effect that:
3 Ought is defined as expressing obligation – proving a legal obligation is sufficient for proving an ought statement independent of morality.
Glos 69 George E. Glos, The Normative Theory of Law, 11 Wm. and Mary L. Rev. 151 (1969), http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr/vol11/iss1/6. The mutual relation of law and ethics can profitably be investigated only if ethics is understood as a normative science.31 If we compare legal norms with ethical norms, it appears that the contents of ethical norms are in agreement with a given concept or principle, whereas legal norms originate from a certain lawgiver regardless of contents. It follows that legal and ethical norms may be likened to two circles which cover the same area: legal and ethical norms may coincide, and the same norms may at the same time be both a legal and an ethical norm; but there are legal norms the contents of which have no relevance in ethics (norms regulating highway traffic), and there are legal norms which may contradict ethical norms (norms according to which a soldier is bound to fight and kill).
4 Unjust is defined as contrary to existing standards created by laws
Law Dictionary No Date "What is Unjust?" https://thelawdictionary.org/unjust/ Elmer
Contrary to right and justice, or to the enjoyment of his rights by another, or to the standards of conduct furnished by the laws.
Offense
Resolved is defined as firmly determined and I’ll affirm, I’ll defend the whole rez (Resolved: The appropriation of outer space by private entities is unjust.).
The Outer Space Treaty affirms – “national appropriation” in Article 2 applies to all entities under a national sovereign – that’s the best legal meaning and most coherent.
Kurt Taylor, Fictions of the Final Frontier: Why the United States SPACE Act of 2015 Is Illegal, 33 Emory Int'l L. Rev. 653 2019 https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/eilr/vol33/iss4/6 JS
The broad text in Article II of the Outer Space Treaty provides an ordinary and unambiguous meaning free from absurdity.90 The language of Article II is short: “outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”91 At first glance, the language clearly intends to bar ownership over all aspects of outer space, with the only wrinkle of confusion being the meaning of “national appropriation.” Stephen Gorove, a space law expert, has suggested it is better to first define appropriation before determining how “national” modifies the term.92 Broadly, appropriation is “the taking of property for one’s own or exclusive use with a sense of permanence.”93 In this regard, appropriation is of a “national” character when it is by an entity under the sovereignty of the state from which they come or represent.94 Even though Article II uses the “national” language, its ordinary meaning is most closely linked to all sovereignties and the individuals and entities that attain property rights under the authority of a sovereign. A separate insight of classic legal realism logically lends itself to the same conclusion. For an individual to hold property rights in something, the government must legally recognize the property rights.95 The language of Article II bars governments from recognizing property interests in outer space for themselves. Because individuals and private entities cannot hold property rights in something without recognition from a sovereign that it will protect their rights, a correct interpretation of the language of Article II should bar the ability of private entities and individuals to appropriate rights over celestial resources as well. If a state recognizes a property right held by an individual over a celestial body or resource, such recognition would constitute a form of national appropriation because it is essentially “a de facto exclusion of other states and their nationals” to that body or resource.96 The text of Article II naturally leads to the conclusion that its non-appropriation language is binding on all actors— state and private.
This is in line with the spirit of the treaty.
Kurt Taylor, Fictions of the Final Frontier: Why the United States SPACE Act of 2015 Is Illegal, 33 Emory Int'l L. Rev. 653 2019 (2) https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/eilr/vol33/iss4/6 JS
There exists a direct counter-argument that Article II of the Outer Space Treaty does not apply to private actors at all, only to state actors.150 This argument rests primarily on the idea that a treaty is a kind of contract between states that benefits their citizens but does not directly bind their citizens to international obligations.151 However, the purpose behind the drafting of the Treaty in the first place most logically stands for the conclusion that ensuring safety and ecological standards in outer space has always been important.152 Allowing a loophole for private actors to essentially do whatever they want with celestial resources and planetary bodies goes directly against the core purpose of having such a treaty in the first place.
OST not mentioning private entities flows aff – accepted legal interpretation means this proves lack of intent to exclude private entities.
Kurt Taylor, Fictions of the Final Frontier: Why the United States SPACE Act of 2015 Is Illegal, 33 Emory Int'l L. Rev. 653 2019 (3) https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/eilr/vol33/iss4/6 JS
Expressio unius est exclusion alterius is a widely accepted international canon of interpretation.127 It states that when interpreting international materials, one should presume things not mentioned were excluded by deliberate choice, not inadvertence.128 Defined as “a canon of construction holding that to express or include one thing implies the exclusion of the other, or of the alternative,”129 the canon can theoretically be applied to support the conclusion that the Outer Space Treaty does indeed prohibit the appropriation of celestial resources by both state and private actors. At the time of the Treaty’s drafting, in the 1960s, only state actors were interested in outer space endeavors; it was far beyond the realm of possibility for the drafters to even imagine the technological advancements and privatization of space interests that have since occurred. Through the treaty, the drafters were speaking only to the audience to whom it would apply: sovereigns. If the drafters intended for private actors to be governed differently, expressio unius could be applied negatively to support that they would have explicitly addressed this in the Treaty.130 Because Article II of the Treaty addresses a specific issue (non-appropriation of celestial resources and bodies) within the context of every actor to which it applied at the time of its drafting (state actors only), the canon should apply to say if the drafters wanted any interested entity to be excluded from the Treaty’s non-appropriation effect, they would have expressly stated so in the text, thus drastically altering its literal interpretation.
Underview
1– The ROB is to vote for the debater who proves the truth or falsity of the resolution – anything else moots 6 minutes of the aff since it’s predicated on proving the truth of the rez – prefer it:
Five dictionaries define to negate as to deny the truth of and affirm as to prove true which means the sole judge obligation is to vote on the resolution’s truth or falsity. This outweighs on common usage – it is abundantly clear that our roles are verified, meaning that only truth testing is jurisdictional.
Ground- truth testing allows for the more ground than any other ROB since it allows for a literal infinite amount of arguments on a range of argumentation style giving the most breadth and depth of topic and phil ed
Circularity- debate is a question of truth or falsity, and the aff advocacy is the focus of every round- all arguments against this concede it’s validity, since it’s premised on your own argument being true
2– Grant me 1ar theory otherwise the NC can read 7 minutes of abuse and then I cant check and lose
DTD on theory to deter future abuse and set the best norms- dta incentivizes strategic concessions that don’t rectify any abuse
No 2nr RVIs cuz a 6 minute 2nr sandbagging RVIs makes the 2ar impossible to win, disincentivizing countering abuse.
No new 2NR paradigm issues or theory because you can make whole new arguments with 6 minutes forcing me to respond in only half the time creating a 6:3 skew, and can be solved by reading in the 1N
Fairness is a voter – it’s a prerequisite to evaluation of the round as debate’s a competitive activity, which require the better debater win, but that’s impossible when there’s a skew against us
3– Affirm if I win offense to a counterinterp
Timeskew – 6 Minute 2NR with collapse to whatever I undercover means that you can win theory and substance, but I need to go for both in half the time and split it between the 2 layers.
Reciprocity – you get T and theory so I should get theory and an RVI to make the burden reciprocal.
4– Permissibility flows aff –
a) Negation by contradiction – Both P and not P cannot be true simultaneously, which means proving not P is false proves P true, meaning lack of sufficient reason for not P justifies P
b) Permissibility is sufficient to prove an “ought” statement under the framework of sufficient reason.
Hanser, An agent who has ian nsufficient reason for doing what he does need not on that account be acting morally impermissibly. So let us say that an agent acts morally permissibly if and only if his action embodies a practical inference whose premises’ justifying force, if any, is not successfully undermined or defeated by any moral considerations. Let us call such practical inferences “permissible.” An agent acts permissibly, then, if and only if his action embodies a permissible practical inference.6 (For the sake of simplicity I shall sometimes, in what follows, revert to the preliminary formulation of the view, omitting the qualification about moral considerations.) Returning to the observation with which this section began, we can see that the inferential account easily explains why permissibility judgments cannot have mere occurrences as their objects. The power to act is a rational power: it is the power to do things for reasons. According to the inferential account, acting permissibly is a matter of not going astray (in a certain way) in one’s exercise of this power. It is a matter, roughly speaking, of basing one’s practical conclusions on adequate reasons. Adverbial permissibility judgments thus evaluate actions qua exercises of agency and not merely qua physical occurrences. What of actions performed for no reason, assuming for the moment that such actions are possible? We can think of an agent who acts for no reason as drawing draws a practical conclusion on the basis of no premises at all. If there is a moral reason for him not to act as he does, then the (nonexistent) justifying force of his premises is defeated by a moral consideration, and so he acts impermissibly. If there are no moral reasons for him not to act as he does, then the (nonexistent) justifying force of his premises is not defeated by any moral considerations, and so he acts permissibly. Even if there are actions performed for no reason, then, this needn’t be seen as a fatal blow to the inferential account. A few further clarifications are in order before we move on. An agent may pursue multiple, independent ends in performing a single action, and even when he has but one final end, some of his means to that end will themselves function as subordinate ends. The practical inference embodied by an action, then, should be taken to encompass a complex inferential chain, not just a single inferential step. Furthermore, even when an agent does explicitly rehearse a chain of inferential steps prior to acting, he does not typically rehearse the inference embodied by his action all the way down to its ultimate conclusion. Suppose an agent explicitly reasons, “I can w by xing; so let me x; I can x by fing; so let me f.” If fing is something he already knows how to do, this is where his reasoning will stop. But when it comes to acting, he won’t “just” f. He’ll f in some particular way—with his right hand, say, and with a certain amount of force. Most likely, the agent will be unable fully to conceptualize his manner of fing. He will be able to specify it only demonstratively—his ultimate conclusion, were he explicitly to think it, would be something like, “so I’ll f like this” (as he moves his right hand in a certain way). The conclusion of the practical inference must be taken to include more than the mere “so let me f” if the inferential account of permissibility is to be plausible. Suppose an agent consciously reasons, “I can protect the baby from the cold draft by closing this door; so let me close this door.” He then closes the door quite forcefully—forcefully enough to awaken the baby. Assuming that he could easily have closed the door quietly, it is arguable that he acted impermissibly. The inferential account would be unable to capture this if the inference embodied by his action were to encompass no more than what the agent explicitly thought, for there was no reason why he shouldn’t close the door. What he had a decisive reason not to do was close the door so forcefully. The inferential account of permissibility must not be confused with the superficially similar view that an agent acts permissibly if and only if he acts from a morally admirable motive, such as universal benevolence or respect for the moral law. The inferential account does not even imply that an agent acts impermissibly if he acts from a morally discreditable motive, such as malice or greed. What matters is not the moral status of the agent’s reason for acting, considered on its own, but the justificatory relation between that reason and that for which it is a reason. What matters is whether the agent’s reason for acting is sufficient to justify him in doing what he does. Suppose an agent rescues a drowning swimmer because he expects a reward. He may not act virtuously, and his action may lack moral worth, but he acts permissibly. A more admirable reason for saving the swimmer’s life was available, and a more admirable agent would have availed himself of it, but the agent’s actual reason nonetheless provided him with sufficient justification for doing what he did. Finally, note that the inferential account makes a purely formal claim, in the following sense: while it links the notion of acting permissibly to that of an agent’s acting for a reason sufficient to justify him in doing what he does, it says nothing substantive about what constitutes a successful justification. On this issue it is, I think, quite properly silen