Tournament: Loyola | Round: 3 | Opponent: Syosset AH | Judge: Ishan Rereddy
Moral internalism is true:
1 Disagreement – Externalist theories fail to explain why some agents have the differing motivation for actions – internalism solves by showing how agents’ motivations are dictated by internal desires. Markovitz
Markovits 14, Markovits, Julia. Moral reason. https://philpapers.org/rec/ROCJMM Oxford University Press, 2014.Scopa SHS ZS
Relatedly, internalism about reasons seems less presumptive than externalism. We should not assume
AND
motivated by genuine normative reasons (or even that some of us are).
2 Regress – a priori knowledge is merely an acceptance of an individual’s conception of rationality. Macintyre 81.
Macintyre 81, Alasdair Macintyre, https://undpress.nd.edu/9780268035044/after-virtue/ After Virtue, 1981 SHS ZS
The most influential account of moral reasoning that emerged in response to this critique of
AND
only such authority as it chooses to confer upon them by adopting them.
3 Empirically proven – the competition between competing externalists modes of ethics has been going for centuries. Leiter
Leiter, Brian. “Moral Psychology with Nietzsche.” Oxford University Press. Published 2019 SHS ZS
With respect to very particularized moral disagreements — e.g., about questions of
AND
agreement on any foundational moral principle because of ignorance, irrationality, or partiality
4 Motivation – A. Externalist ethics collapse to internalism because agents will only follow external demands if they are consistent with their internal account of the good. For instance, citizens only follow the law insofar as its consistent with their internal beliefs, even when external value structures are being placed upon them. B. Empirics – there is no factual account of the good since each agent has unique motivation and there is no way to combine these beliefs into a unified ethic.
Thus, the standard is consistency with contractarianism. Agents must engage in the project of mutual self-restraint as to not impede upon the moral authority of others. Stanford.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. “Contractarianism.” https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contractarianism/ Published 18 June 2000 SHS ZS
A brief sketch of the most complete and influential contemporary contractarian theory, David Gauthier’s
AND
and supportive government that will be discussed in the final section becomes possible.
Prefer additionally:
1 Actor specificity – states are not moral entities but derive authority from the contracts that allows them to constrain action. This outweighs on empiricism; states aren’t bound by moral obligations, but they are by their contracts to other entities.
2 Collapses – Contracts takes into account all other ethical theories and allows agents to engage under the index of their own good so long as they don’t violate the constraints of their other. The NC functions as a meta constraint – meaning indicts don’t take it out but they rather prove the truth of a theory under a particular index.
3 Culpability – Only contracts ensure agents are held to their agreements since there is a verifiable basis for judging their actions as wrong as well as a pre-established punishment for breaking it.
Negate: COVID vaccines were created under a IPR regime where the government rewarded their innovation with a patent. Post facto removal of the patent without pharmaceutical permission breaks a contract