Tournament: Harvard | Round: 2 | Opponent: Adam Stone | Judge: Devin Jiang
To clarify the round, I offer the following definitions. According to Oxford Dictionary appropriation is defined as the action of taking something for one's own use. Outer space is defined as the zone 100 kilometers above the planet. Private entities are defined as any person or private group, organization, proprietorship, partnership, trust, cooperative, corporation, or other commercial or nonprofit entity by Cornell Law.
Howell 17 – senior writer at Universe Today and regular contributor to Space.com, Space Exploration Network, the NASA Lunar Science Institute, NASA Astrobiology Magazine and LiveScience. She is also pursuing a Ph.D. in aerospace sciences at the University of North Dakota
Elizabeth, 6/8. "What is Space?" https://www.space.com/24870-what-is-space.html
From the perspective of an Earthling, outer space is a zone that occurs about 100 kilometers (60 miles) above the planet, where there is no appreciable air to breathe or to scatter light. In that area, blue gives way to black because oxygen molecules are not in enough abundance to make the sky blue.
The value I offer for the round is justice, specified by the word "unjust" in the resolution. Justice is defined as "giving each their due." To be moral, actors must be just. According to Meriam Webster, morality is the principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good.
The value criterion I offer for this round is maximizing societal welfare. This requires weighing between different consequences by utilitarianism.
Consequentialism is the most morally just framework for three reasons.
It is intuitive. It establishes that pain is bad, and pleasure is good which are obvious moral intuitions that form the basis of ethical decision-making. This means that it is a prerequisite to any other ethical weighing mechanism.
Joshua D Green PhD 14 – Psych professor @ Harvard
(July 2014, "Beyond Point-and-Shoot Morality: Why Cognitive (Neuro)Science Matters for Ethics" Source Ethics, https://psychology.fas.harvard.edu/files/psych/files/beyond-point-and-shoot-morality.p df?m=1441302794) Coach Eli
In this article I explain why cognitive science !including some neuroscience" matters for normative ethics. First, I describe the dual-process theory of moral judg- ment and briefly summarize the evidence supporting it. Next I describe related experimental research examining influences on intuitive moral judgment. I then describe two ways in which research along these lines can have implications for ethics. I argue that a deeper understanding of moral psychology favors certain forms of consequentialism over other classes of normative moral theory. I close with some brief remarks concerning the bright future of ethics as an interdisci- plinary enterprise. The cognitive science of ethics is booming, thanks in no small part to philosophers.1 Nevertheless, many philosophers wonder whether this, or any, empirical research could have implications for foundational ques- tions in normative ethics. In this article I will explain why cognitive science matters for ethics. More specifically, I will defend the following thesis: Science can advance ethics by revealing the hidden inner workings of our moral judgments, especially the ones we make intuitively. dence in some of our judgments and the ethical theories that are !explicitly or implicitly" based on them. In Section I, I will describe our brains as dual-process systems and in- troduce the camera analog y , the organizing metaphor of this essay and a central idea in my book.2 In Section II, I will describe and present evi- dence for the dual-process theory of moral judgment. In Section III, I will describe related experimental research examining influences on our moral intuitions. In Sections IV and V, I'll describe two routes by which cognitive science can have implications for ethics, and with no illicit is/ oughtbordercrossings.Icalltheseroutesdirect andindirect.InSectionVI, I'll explain why a deeper understanding of moral psychology favors certain forms of consequentialism. I will then close with a few words about the bright future of ethics as an interdisciplinary enterprise. I. THE DUAL-PROCESS BRAIN I own a digital SLR camera that, like many others, operates in two com- plementary modes. First, it has a variety of point-and-shoot automatic settings that are optimized for typical photographic situations !"portrait," "action," "landscape," etc.". I use these most of the time. Occasionally, I get ambitious and put the camera in manual mode, which allows me to adjust all of the camera's settings by hand. This dual-mode design exemplifies an elegant solution to a ubiqui- tous design problem, namely, the trade-off between efficiency and flexi- bility. The automatic settings are highly efficient, but not very flexible, and the reverse is true of the manual mode. Put them together, however, and you get the best of both worlds, provided that you know when to use each mode. The human brain has the same general design.3 First, we humans have a variety of automatic settings—reflexes and intuitions that guide our behavior, many of which are emotional. We may be conscious of such emo- tional responses, but we are generally not conscious of the processes that trigger them. We rely on our automatic settings most of the time, and they generally serve us well.4 Our brains also have a manual mode. It is a general-purpose rea- soning system, specialized for enabling behaviors that serve long! er"- term goals, that is, goals that are not automatically activated by current environmental stimuli or endogenous somatic states.5 The operations of this system are typically conscious, experienced as voluntary, and often experienced as effortful. Our manual mode allows us to formulate be- havioral plans based on detailed and explicit knowledge of the situations we face, along with explicit general knowledge about the world and how it works. Manual mode allows us to guide our behavior using explicit rules and to think explicitly about how the world works. In short, manual mode thinking is the kind of thinking that we think of as "thinking."6 The way our brains handle the efficiency/flexibility tradeoff is nicely illustrated by our navigation of the familiar tension between now and later. We have automatic settings that urge us to consume or acquire valuable resources, such as calorie-rich food and money, whenever they are avail- able. This is very efficient because it is generally adaptive to acquire valu- able resources. At the same time, we humans have the capacity to think explicitly about whether our long-term goals are served by immediate consumption/acquisition, along with the capacity to regulate our behav- ior accordingly. In other words, we can delay gratification, choosing, for example, a slimmer waistline in three months over chocolate cake right now. This is a dual-process phenomenon. If, for example, our manual mode capacity is occupied by a distracting memory task, our automatic settings gain the advantage, and we are more likely to choose chocolate cake over fruit salad.7 Recent brain imaging studies reveal the underlying neural dynamics.8 Brain regions such as the ventral striatum and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex !VMPFC" produce the automatic response favoring now and enable this response to influence behavior. Other brain regions, most notably the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex !DLPFC", enable the controlled response that sometimes favors later, depending on the situational details. We see the dual-process brain at work in other domains, for example, in the cog- nitive control of negative reactions to members of racial out-groups and sad scenes.9 In these cases among others, the amygdala, an ancient mam- malian brain structure with direct connections to the VMPFC, plays a crit- ical role in automatic responding, while the DLPFC plays a central role in coordinating manual mode thinking and responding. Before moving on, it's worth highlighting three ways in which the camera analogy may mislead. First, while a camera must be in one mode or another, the waking human brain's automatic settings are always on. Second, a camera's dual modes can function independently of each other, but in animals there is an asymmetrical dependence. One can have auto- matic settings without a manual mode, as in most animals, but not the reverse. Finally, automatic settings need not be "innate" or "hardwired." They can be acquired or modified through cultural learning !as in prej- udicial responses to racial out-groups" and through individual experi- ences !as in classical conditioning".
It allows us to determine degrees of wrongness. For example, breaking a promise to take your dying mom to the hospital is worse than breaking a promise to meet a friend at a party. Although the actions of breaking a promise are the same, the consequences of one have much higher severity than the other, which can only be determined through a framework of utilitarianism.
It is actor specific, because the resolution states that the one who decides recognizing the appropriation of outer space is the government, and government always prioritizes maximizing general welfare of their nation, operating under a utilitarian basis, which is why my value criterion of maximizing societal welfare should be preferred.
CONT 1: Research and Development
Claim: Allowing private entities to use outer space will increase research and development.
Subpoint A: The private sector is efficient and inexpensive.
MarcThiessen., 6-1-2020, "Opinion," Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/01/spacexs-success-is-one-small-step-man-one-giant-leap-capitalism/
If you want to see the difference between what government andprivate enterprise can do, consider: It took a private company tog~a~ve us the first space vehicle with touch-screen controls instead of antiquated knobs and buttons. It took a private company to give usa capsule that can fly entirely autonomously from launch to landing — including docking — without any participation by its human crew. It also took a private company to invent ~and~ a reusable rocketthat can not only take off but land as well. When the Apollo 11 crew reached the moon on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong declared "the Eagle has landed." On Saturday,SpaceX was able to declare that the Falcon had landed when its rocket settled down on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean — ready to be used again .
That last development will save the taxpayers incredible amounts of money. The cost to NASAfor launching a man into space on the space shuttle orbiter was $170 million per seat, compared with just $60 million to $67 million on the Dragon capsule. The cost for the space shuttle to send a kilogram of cargo into tospace was $54,500; with the ~Space X~ Falcon rocket, the cost is just $2,720— a decrease of 95 percent.And while the space shuttle cost $27.4 billion to develop, the Crew Dragon was designed and built for just $1.7 billion — making itthe lowest-cost spacecraft developed in six decades. SpaceX did it in six years.— far faster than the time it took to develop the space shuttle.
The private sector does it better, cheaper, faster and more efficiently than government.
Tim Fernholz July 29, 2021 covers space, the economy and geopolitics for Quartz. He is the author of "Rocket Billionaires: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and the New Space Race."
NASA saved at least $548 million, and perhaps more, thanks to just one contract with Elon Musk's SpaceX.
In 2019, NASA's inspector general sounded out the possibilities (pdf), and wasn't bullish on any of them, particularly on price: Even accounting for the fact that the SLS could get the probe to Jupiter faster (saving money spent on the program back home), the system would cost about $726 million. Two other rockets available for purchase, the United Launch Alliance's Delta IV and the Falcon Heavy, w~as~ forecast to cost $450 million each.
The deal NASA eventually made with SpaceX for the Falcon Heavy, however, will cost just $178 million. The drop in cost is directly traceable to SpaceX's approach to designing reusable rockets, and to the partnership NASA struck with Musk's space firm in its early days.
Think about that: In just two years, the price of launching a space probe fell by 75; it's less than the cost of the rocket that launched the latest Mars rover last year. This will enable NASA to direct more resources to other science programs (as well as getting the SLS off the ground).
Maanas Sharma, 9-7-2021, "The Space Review: The privatized frontier: the ethical implications and role of private companies in space exploration," No Publication, https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4238/1
Another key matter to note is restricted capitalism in space "could also be our salvation." ~11~ Private space exploration could reap increased access to resources and other benefits that can be used to solve the very problems on Earth that critics of capitalism identify. Since governments offset some of their projects to private companies, government agencies can focus on altruistic projects that otherwise would not fit in the budget before and do not have the immediate commercial use that private companies look for. Scott Hubbard, an adjunct professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University, discusses how "this strategy allows the space agency to continue 'exploring the fringe where there really is no business case'" but still has important impacts on people down on Earth.
Indeed, this idea is a particularly powerful one when considering the ideal future of private companies in space exploration. Though there is no one set way governments will interact with companies, the consensus is that they must radically reimagine their main purpose as the role of private space exploration continues to grow. As governments utilize services from private space companies, "~i~nstead of being bogged down by the routine application of old research, NASA can prioritize their limited budget to work more on research of other unknowns and development of new long-term space travel technologies."~13~ According to the Council on Foreign Relations, such technologies have far-reaching benefits on Earth as well. Past developments obviously include communications satellites, by themselves a massive benefit to society, but also "refinements in artificial hearts; improved mammograms; and laser eye surgery… thermoelectric coolers for microchips; high-temperature lubricants; and a means for mass-producing carbon nanotubes, a material with significant engineering potential; ~and h~ousehold products."~2~ Agencies like NASA are the only actors able to pursue the next game-changing missions, "where the profit motive is not as evident and where the barriers to entry are still too high for the private sector to really make a compelling business case."~8~ These technologies have revolutionized millions, if not billions, of lives, demonstrating the remarkable benefits of space exploration. It follows then that it is net ethical to prioritize these benefits.
People are pushing for space debris removal, and private entities are the only ones who can answer the call.
Sandra Erwin — January 5, 2022
SpaceWERX is running a program called Orbital Prime that is soliciting proposals from private businesses and academic institutions on technologies that could be used to deal with the growing problem of space debris.
Teams can win Phase 1 awards of $250,000 and Phase 2 awards of $1.5 million. If any are selected for an in-space demonstration, the government will fund a share of the cost.
Thompson said the Space Force wants to see these technologies succeed so it can buy debris-removal services from the private sector.
The growth of space debris is a mounting challenge for governments and the commercial space sector as these objects can collide with satellites or space stations inhabited by humans. The Space Force currently tracks more than 40,000 objects in space, only about 5,000 of which are active satellites. The approximately 35,000 debris objects tracked are about the size of a fist or larger, Thompson said. But according to conservative estimates, "there are at least 10 times as many smaller objects in orbit that we cannot reliably track. And yet those smaller bits of debris pose as much or greater risk to our satellites as the larger pieces."
This congestion endangers the long term sustainability of the space domain, said Thompson. "It demands action and provides an opportunity for partnership in the search for innovative solutions to recycle, reuse or remove these objects."
Private entities are motivated to explore space and provide new technologies, which solves for the current issues of space debris and congestion. Space debris harms the ozone and increases probability of space collision. Private entities have incentive to clean and protect space, and they can solve for space debris quicker and more efficiently than the government.
Subsidies – motive for profit
Must clean space for further exploration – in order to get all the benefits of space exploration, we must prevent debris interference with private technology in space.
Private entities will solve for space debris because we understand the impacts, and allowing for space debris to continue to float around will only cause more damage.