Opponent: Golden State SJ | Judge: Leah Clark-Villanueva
1AC - India 1NC - Space Col Good Mining Satelites Peace 1AR - All 1NR - All
California Invitational Berkeley Debate
3
Opponent: Amador Valley NG | Judge: Nethmin Liyanage
1AC - India 1NC - DA Mining DA Innovation Case 1AR - ALL 1NR - ALL
California Invitational Berkeley Debate
5
Opponent: Harker MK | Judge: Saketh Kotapati
1AC - India 1NC - ASATs Good Chinese Revisionism 1AR - All 1NR - All
Coppel Classic Swing
Octas
Opponent: Westside SY | Judge: Sriya Subramanian
1AC - India 1NC - DA Mining DA Innovation T-Nebel Disclosure 1AR - ALL 1NR - Disclosure T - Nebel 2AR - Disclosure T-Nebel
NSDA Districts
2
Opponent: McNeil YM | Judge: Ivan Garcia
1AC - India 1NC - Deliberative Democracy DA Racism DA Democracy Case 1AR - FW Racism 1NR - All
National Debate Coachs Association
2
Opponent: Strake JS | Judge: John Sims
1AC - ISS 1NC - T - Outer Space Biz Con DA CP Extend ISS China Politics DA Case 1AR - T Biz Con Case 1NR - All
Westlake TFA Chap Classic
1
Opponent: LC Anderson Millard | Judge: Tanish Bhowmick
1AC - India 1NC - T Appropriation India CP Innovation DA Case 1AR - T DA Case 1NR - All
Westlake TFA Chap Classic
3
Opponent: LC Anderson Sharma | Judge: Nelson Okunlola
1AC - India 1NC - T Appropriation India CP Innovation DA Case 1AR - T DA Case 1NR - All
To modify or delete round reports, edit the associated round.
Cites
Entry
Date
0 - Contact Information
Tournament: 0 - contact info | Round: 1 | Opponent: na | Judge: na 0 -- Contact Information Email: shauryapathania75@gmail.com Phone Number: 512-608-6754
If there's a specific disclosure practice or adaptation you'd like me to make, eg a certain highlighting color, formatting, or font size, please contact me with this information about 10-20 minutes before the round so that I can make that accommodation for you. I'd like to make the round as engageable as I can, but I just want to know what to do before the round.
0 –- Navigation 1 - Theory Interps/ Generics SO - September-October ND - November-December JF - January-February
4/26/22
MA - 1AC - India
Tournament: NSDA Districts | Round: 2 | Opponent: McNeil YM | Judge: Ivan Garcia I value morality. The standard is minimizing material violence. To clarify I defend utilitarianism. 1 Personal identity reductionism is true – if the hemispheres of my brain were transplanted into 2 different people, neither would be me. Parfit 84. Derek Parfit 1984, “Reasons and Persons”, Oxford Paperbacks It is in fact true that one hemisphere is enough. There are many people who have survived, when a stroke or injury puts out of action one of their hemispheres. With his remaining hemisphere, such a person may need to re-learn certain things, such as adult speech, or how to control both hands. But this is possible. In my example I am assuming that, as may be true of certain actual people, both of my hemispheres have the full range of abilities. I could thus survive with either hemisphere, without any need for re-learning.¶ I shall now combine these last two claims. I would survive if my brain was successfully transplanted into my twin's body. And I could survive with only half my brain, the other half having been destroyed. Given these two facts, it seems clear that I would survive if half my brain was successfully transplanted into my twin's body, and the other half was destroyed.¶ What if the other half was not destroyed? This is the case that Wiggins described: that in which a person, like an amoeba, divides.40 To simplify the case, I assume that I am one of three identical triplets. Consider¶ My Division. My body is fatally injured, as are the brains of my two brothers. My brain is divided, and each half is successfully transplanted into the body of one of my brothers. Each of the resulting people believes that he is me, seems to remember living my life, has my character, and is in every other way psychologically continuous with me. And he has a body that is very like mine.¶ This case is likely to remain impossible. Though it is claimed that, in certain people, the two hemispheres may have the same full range of abilities, this claim might be false. I am here assuming that this claim is true when applied to me. I am also assuming that it would be possible to connect a transplanted half-brain with the nerves in its new body. And I am assuming that we could divide, not just the upper hemispheres, but also the lower brain. My first two assumptions may be able to be made true if there is enough progress in neurophysiology. But it seems likely that it would never be possible to divide the lower brain, in a way that did not impair its functioning.¶ Does it matter if, for this reason, this imagined case of complete division will always remain impossible? Given the aims of my discussion, this does not matter. This impossibility is merely technical. The one feature of the case that might be held to be deeply impossible—the division of a person's consciousness into two separate streams—is the feature that has actually happened. It WOULD have been important if this had been impossible, since this might have supported some claim about what we really are. It might have supported the claim that we are indivisible Cartesian Egos. It therefore matters that the division of a person's consciousness is in fact possible. There seems to be no similar connection between a particular view about what we really are and the impossibility of dividing and successfully transplanting the two halves of the lower brain.This impossibility thus provides no ground for refusing to consider the imagined case in which we suppose that this can be done. And considering this case may help us to decide both what we believe ourselves to be, and what in fact we are. As Einstein's example showed, it can be useful to consider impossible thought-experiments.¶ It may help to state, in advance, what I believe this case to show. It provides a further argument against the view that we are separately existing entities. But the main conclusion to be hdrawn is that personal identity is not what matters.¶ It is natural to believe that our identity is what matters. Reconsider the Branch-Line Case, where I have talked to my Replica on Mars, and am about to die. Suppose we believe that I and my Replica are different people. It is then natural to assume that my prospect is almost as bad as ordinary death. In a few days, there will be no one living who will be me. It is natural to assume that this is what matters. In discussing My Division, I shall start by making this assumption.¶ In this case, each half of my brain will be successfully transplanted into the very similar body of one of my two brothers. Both of the resulting people will be fully psychologically continuous with me, as I am now. What happens to me?¶ There are only four possibilities: (1) I do not survive; (2) I survive as one of the two people; (3) I survive as the other; (4) I survive as both.¶ The objection to (1) is this. I would survive if my brain was successfully transplanted. And people have in fact survived with half their brains destroyed. Given these facts, it seems clear that I would survive if half my brain was successfully transplanted, and the other half was destroyed. So how could I fail to survive if the other half was also successfully transplanted? How could a double success be a failure?¶ Consider the next two possibilities. Perhaps one success is the maximum score. Perhaps I shall be one of the two resulting people. The objection here is that, in this case, each half of my brain is exactly similar, and so, to start with, is each resulting person. Given these facts, how can I survive as only one of the two people? What can make me one of them rather than the other?¶ These three possibilities cannot be dismissed as incoherent. We can understand them. But, while we assume that identity is what matters, (1) is not plausible. My Division would not be as bad as death. Nor are (2) and (3) plausible. There remains the fourth possibility: that I survive as both of the resulting people.¶ This possibility might be described in several ways. I might first claim: ‘What we have called “the two resulting people” are not two people. They are one person. I do survive this operation. Its effect is to give me two bodies, and a divided mind.’¶ This claim cannot be dismissed outright. As I argued, we ought to admit as possible that a person could have a divided mind. If this is possible, each half of my divided mind might control its own body. But though this description of the case cannot be rejected as inconceivable, it involves a great distortion in our concept of a person. In my imagined Physics Exam I claimed that this case involved only one person. There were two features of the case that made this plausible. The divided mind was soon reunited, and there was only one body. If a mind was permanently divided, and its halves developed in different ways, it would become less plausible to claim that the case involves only one person. (Remember the actual patient who complained that, when he embraced his wife, his left hand pushed her away.)¶ The case of complete division, where there are also two bodies, seems to be a long way over the borderline. After I have had this operation, the two ‘products’ each have all of the features of a person. They could live at opposite ends of the Earth. Suppose that they have poor memories, and that their appearance changes in different ways. After many years,they might meet again, and fail even to recognise each other. We might have to claim of such a pair, innocently playing tennis: ‘What you see out there is a single person, playing tennis with himself. In each half of his mind he mistakenly believes that he is playing tennis with someone else.’ If we are not yet Reductionists, we believe that there is one true answer to the questionwhether these two tennis-players are a single person. Given what we mean by ‘person’, the answer must be No. It cannot be true that what I believe to be a stranger, standing there behind the net, is in fact another part of myself. That justifies util. Gruzalski 86. Bart Gruzalski 86 UChicago, “Parfit's Impact on Utilitarianism”, Ethics, Vol. 96, No. 4, July 1986. Parfit concludes his discussion of distributive moral principles by claiming that, “when we cease to believe that persons are separately existing entities, the Utilitarian view becomes more plausible. Is the gain in plausibility great, or small? My argument leaves this question open” (p. 342). In contrast, I have argued that the Reductionist View strongly supports the utilitarian account of desert and distributive justice. The argument has two aspects. One is the recognition of the utilitarian emphasis on secondary rules, including principles of distributive justice and policies of desert. These rules, principles, and policies are treated within the utilitarian account as if they have self-standing, whereas in fact they are justified on the principle of utility which alone has self-standing within the utilitarian program. The other aspect of the argument involves the recognition that the utilitarian’s dual treatment of secondary principles dovetails with the dual account of the nature of persons on the Reductionist View: persons exist, yet their existence just involves bodies and interrelated mental and physical events, and a complete description of our lives need not claim that persons exist. Furthermore, a body, brain, and interrelated series of mental and physical events are more fundamental and basic than the person whose existence just consists in them, much as the citizens and the territory are more fundamental and basic than the nation whose existence just consists in them. This corresponds precisely with the utilitarian account, for utilitarianism treats persons as fundamental and separate existents, while grounding this treatment on the impersonal elements of pain, suffering, happiness, and contentment. Because util-itarianism accurately reflects in this way the true nature of persons, it is much more plausible than has been previously recognized. In addition, since many of the current competitors to utilitarianism presuppose that the person is separate from the body, brain, and interrelated mental and physical events, it follows that these views err by being too personal and are therefore implausible. It follows that when we cease to believe that persons are separately existing entities, utilitarianism becomes significantly more plausible than any of its person-centered theoretical competitors. 2 Actor Spec— States must use util. Any other standard dooms the moral theory Goodin 90. Robert Goodin 90, professor of philosophy at the Australian National University college of arts and social sciences, “The Utilitarian Response,” pgs 141-142 RS My larger argument turns on the proposition that there is something special about the situation of public officials that makes utilitarianism more probable for them than private individuals. Before proceeding with the large argument, I must therefore say what it is that makes it so special about public officials and their situations that make it both more necessary and more desirable for them to adopt a more credible form of utilitarianism. Consider, first, the argument from necessity. Public officials are obliged to make their choices under uncertainty, and uncertainty of a very special sort at that. All choices – public and private alike – are made under some degree of uncertainty, of course. But in the nature of things, private individuals will usually have more complete information on the peculiarities of their own circumstances and on the ramifications that alternative possible choices might have for them. Public officials, in contrast, are relatively poorly informed as to the effects that their choices will have on individuals, one by one. What they typically do know are generalities: averages and aggregates. They know what will happen most often to most people as a result of their various possible choices, but that is all. That is enough to allow public policy-makers to use the utilitarian calculus – assuming they want to use it at all – to choose general rules or conduct. 3 Ethical frameworks must be theoretically legitimate. All frameworks are functionally topicality interpretations of the word ought so they must theoretically justified. Prefer – ground – both debaters are guaranteed access to ground – Aff gets plans and advantages, while Neg gets disads and counterplans. Additionally, anything can function as an impact as long as an external benefit is articulated, so all your offense applies. B topic lit – most debate education comes from debating the topic, o/w phil edu – we can learn about phil in books but clash is unqiue to debate 4 Pleasure and pain are the starting point for moral reasoning—they’re our most baseline desires and the only things that explain the intrinsic value of objects or actions Moen 16, Ole Martin (PhD, Research Fellow in Philosophy at University of Oslo). "An Argument for Hedonism." Journal of Value Inquiry 50.2 (2016): 267. Let us start by observing, empirically, thata widely shared judgment about intrinsic valueand disvalue is that pleasure is intrinsically valuable and pain is intrinsically disvaluable. On virtually any proposed list of intrinsic values and disvalues (we will look at some of them below), pleasure is included among the intrinsic values and pain among the intrinsic disvalues. This inclusion makes intuitive sense, moreover, for there is something undeniably good about the way pleasure feels and something undeniably bad about the way pain feels, and neither the goodness of pleasure nor the badness of pain seems to be exhausted by the further effects that these experiences might have. “Pleasure” and “pain”are hereunderstood inclusively, as encompassing anything hedonically positive and anything hedonically negative. 2 The special value statuses of pleasure and pain are manifested in how we treat these experiences in our everyday reasoning about values. If you tell me that you are heading for the convenience store,I might ask: “What for?” This is a reasonable question, for when you go to the convenience store you usually do so, not merely for the sake of going to the convenience store, but for the sake of achieving something further that you deem to be valuable. You might answer, for example: “To buy soda.” This answer makes sense, for soda is a nice thing and you can get it at the convenience store. I might further inquire, however: “What is buying the soda good for?” This further question can also be a reasonable one, for it need not be obvious why you want the soda. You might answer: “Well, I want it for the pleasure of drinking it.” If I then proceed by asking “But what is the pleasure of drinking the soda good for?” the discussion is likely to reach an awkward end.The reason is that the pleasure is not good for anything further; it is simply that for which going to the convenience store and buying the soda is good. 3 As Aristotle observes: “We never aska manwhat hisend is in being pleased, because we assume that pleasure is choice worthy in itself.”4 Presumably, a similar story can be told in the case of pains, for if someone says “This is painful!” we never respond by asking: “And why is that a problem?” We take for granted that if something is painful, we have a sufficient explanation of why it is bad. If we are onto something in our everyday reasoning about values, it seems thatpleasure and pain are both places where we reach the end of the line in matters of value. Although pleasure and pain thus seem to be good candidates for intrinsic value and disvalue, several objections have been raised against this suggestion: (1) that pleasure and pain have instrumental but not intrinsic value/disvalue; (2) that pleasure and pain gain their value/disvalue derivatively, in virtue of satisfying/frustrating our desires; (3) that there is a subset of pleasures that are not intrinsically valuable (so-called “evil pleasures”) and a subset of pains that are not intrinsically disvaluable (so-called “noble pains”), and (4) that pain asymbolia, masochism, and practices such as wiggling a loose tooth render it implausible that pain is intrinsically disvaluable. I shall argue that these objections fail. Though it is, of course, an open question whether other objections to P1 might be more successful, I shall assume that if (1)–(4) fail, we are justified in believing that P1 is true itself a paragon of freedom—there will always be some agents able to interfere substantially with one’s choices. The effective level of protection one enjoys, and hence one’s actual degree of freedom, will vary according to multiple factors: how powerful one is, how powerful individuals in one’s vicinity are, how frequent police patrols are, and so on. Now, we saw above that what makes a slave unfree on Pettit’s view is the fact that his master has the power to interfere arbitrarily with his choices; in other words, what makes the slave unfree is the power relation that obtains between his master and him. The difficulty is that, in light of the facts I just mentioned, there is no reason to think that this power relation will be unique. A similar relation could obtain between the master and someone other than the slave: absent perfect state control, the master may very well have enough power to interfere in the lives of countless individuals. Yet it would be wrong to infer that these individuals lack freedom in the way the slave does; if they lack anything, it seems to be security. A problematic power relation can also obtain between the slave and someone other than the master, since there may be citizens who are more powerful than the master and who can therefore interfere with the slave’s choices at their discretion. Once again, it would be wrong to infer that these individuals make the slave unfree in the same way that the master does. Something appears to be missing from Pettit’s view. If I live in a particularly nasty part of town, then it may turn out that, when all the relevant factors are taken into account, I am just as vulnerable to outside interference as are the slaves in the royal palace, yet it does not follow that our conditions are equivalent from the point of view of freedom. As a matter of fact, we may be equally vulnerable to outside interference, but as a matter of right, our standings could not be more different. I have legal recourse against anyone who interferes with my freedom; the recourse may not be very effective—presumably it is not, if my overall vulnerability to outside interference is comparable to that of a slave— but I still have full legal standing.68 By contrast, the slave lacks legal recourse against the interventions of one specific individual: his master. It is that fact, on a Kantian view—a fact about the legal relation in which a slave stands to his master—that sets slaves apart from freemen. The point may appear trivial, but it does get something right: whereas one cannot identify a power relation that obtains uniquely between a slave and his master, the legal relation between them is undeniably unique. A master’s right to interfere with respect to his slave does not extend to freemen, regardless of how vulnerable they might be as a matter of fact, and citizens other than the master do not have the right to order the slave around, regardless of how powerful they might be. This suggests that Kant is correct in thinking that the ideal of freedom is essentially linked to a person’s having full legal standing. More specifically, he is correct in holding that the importance of rights is not exhausted by their contribution to the level of protection that an individual enjoys, as it must be on an instrumental view like Pettit’s. Although it does matter that rights be enforced with reasonable effectiveness, the sheer fact that one has adequate legal rights is essential to one’s standing as a free citizen. In this respect, Kant stays faithful to the idea that freedom is primarily a matter of standing—a standing that the freeman has and that the slave lacks. Pettit himself frequently insists on the idea, but he fails to do it justice when he claims that freedom is simply a matter of being adequately (and reliably) shielded against the strength of others. As Kant recognizes, the standing of a free citizen is a more complex matter than that. One could perhaps worry that the idea of legal standing is something of a red herring here—that it must ultimately be reducible to a complex network of power relations and, hence, that the position I attribute to Kant differs only nominally from Pettit’s. That seems to me doubtful. Viewing legal standing as essential to freedom makes sense only if our conception of the former includes conceptions of what constitutes a fully adequate scheme of legal rights, appropriate legal recourse, justified punishment, and so on. Only if one believes that these notions all boil down to power relations will Kant’s position appear similar to Pettit’s. On any other view—and certainly that includes most views recently defended by philosophers—the notion of legal standing will outstrip the power relations that ground Pettit’s theory. 5 Util is a lexical pre-requisite to any other framework-threats to bodily security and life preclude the ability for moral actors to effectively utilize and act upon other moral theories since they are in a constant state of crisis that inhibit the ideal moral conditions which other theories presuppose – so, util comes first and my offense outweighs theirs under their own framework. 6 No intent-foresight distinction — if we foresee a consequence, then it becomes part of our deliberation which makes it intrinsic to our action since we intend it to happen. 7 Only consequentialism explains degrees of wrongness—if I break a promise to meet up for lunch, that is not as bad as breaking a promise to take a dying person to the hospital. Only the consequences of breaking the promise explain why the second one is much worse than the first. 8 No act-omission distinction – We are responsible for intentional omissions because we actively choose not to act—we intend and act upon omissions. 9 (AGAINST Ks) You have an ethical responsibility to stop extinction—human beings are ends in themselves—extinction outweighs ontology Michelis, 17—University of Turin (Angela, “The roots of human responsibility,” Rev. Filos., Aurora, Curitiba, v. 29, n. 46, p. 307-333, jan./abr. 2017, dml) The common elements making both phenomena paradigmatic and original are retraceable, according to Jonas, through the concepts of “totality”, “continuity” and “future” in relation to the existence and happiness of human beings. Human beings, like all other living beings, are ends in themselves; however, only human beings are able to carry out strategies which safeguard their being ends in themselves. Therefore,their very capacity for action implies an objective obligation in the form of external responsibility. For these reasons they can be defined as moral beings; that is, as capable of carrying out morally responsible or morally irresponsible behaviours33. Jonas reaffirms in any case that the archetype of every responsibility is that of human beings for human beings, in which the subject-object connection in the relationship of responsibility is irrefutable, and through this the responsibility for every living thing becomes clear. The totality of responsibility may be characterized by the paradigmatic examples of parents and of the statesman, which combine as the opposite poles of the greatest particularity and the greatest generality. In particular, the educational sphere demonstrates how the responsibility of parents and of the State are related, and how the private and public spheres integrate reciprocally, encompassing all aspects of the life of human beings. As Jonas describes, the education of the child includes socialization, beginning with speech and progressing with the transmission of the entire code of societal convictions and norms, through whose appropriation the individual becomes a member of the wider community. The private opens itself essentially to the public and includes it in its own completeness as belonging to the being of the person. In other words, the ‘citizen’ is an immanent aim of education, thus a part of parental responsibility, and this not only by force of the state’s enjoining it. From the other side, just as the parents educate their children ‘for the state’ (if for much more as well), so does the state assume responsibility for the education of the young. The earliest phase is left in most societies to the home, but everything after that comes under the supervision, regulation, and aid of the state – so that one can speak of a public ‘educational policy’.34 The continuity of responsibility depends on its own very nature since, for example, neither the care of parents nor the care of the government can cease, as they must respond to the ever new needs of life, which is rooted in the past and moves towards the future. Of course, political responsibility is greater in both temporal directions in relation to the greater duration of the historical community with respect to individual existence. Responsibility is projected beyond the present and today’s care into the future, despite life’s unpredictability; therefore,responsibility must have the function of making possible more than determining the present. Jonas writes: The object’s self-owned futurity is the truest futural aspect of the responsibility, which thus makes itself the guardian of the very source of that irksome unpredictability in the fruits of its labors. Its highest fulfillment, which it must be able to dare, is its abdication before the right of the never anticipated, which emerges as the outcome of its care … In the light of such self-transcending width, it becomes apparent that responsibility as such is nothing else but the moral complement to the ontological constitution of our temporality35. Thus, every total responsibility, such as that of a parent or that of statesman or stateswoman – beyond its specific and important duties – is always also the preservation of the future possibility of responsible actions and of politics itself. Jonas affirms that by means of the difficult journey through the various regions of responsibility, he also found the answer to the question that at the beginning seemed to represent “the critical point of moral theory”: how to transform the will into the “ought”. The transition is mediated by the phenomenon of power in its uniquely human sense, in which causal force joins with knowledge and freedom. ... Only in man is power emancipated from the whole through knowledge and arbitrary will and only in man can it become fatal to him and to itself, his capacity is his fate, and it increasingly becomes the general fate. In him, therefore, and in him alone, there arises out of the willing itself the ‘ought’ as the self-control of his consciously exercised power36. Human beings, as an epiphenomenon of nature capable of determining for itself the aims of actions and to carry them out autonomously, have reached even within nature the point at which their own self-destruction is possible. This imposes upon them the duty to pay special attention to not destroying, through irresponsible use, what exists, what has come about, and all the other living things, which are somehow in their power. Therefore, it is clear that, at the present time, human power not only requires the union of will and obligation, but also undeniably places responsibility at the centre of morality. Ethics and politics are necessarily interwoven, and Hans Jonas – in a situation where survival is threatened, of emergency, owing to the exponential development of technological power, and in the conviction that human beings cannot adapt themselves to everything – declares: “For the moment, all work on the ‘true’ man must stand back behind the bare saving of its precondition, namely,the existence of humankind in a sufficient natural environment”37. Responsible politics turns towards the future with the consciousness that it must guarantee the very possibility of responsible action and the existence of future generations, as well as the right to life of the world. It urges a limitation of technological development and the pursuit of a moderate and equitable use of resources. 9 (Against NCs) Extinction comes first under any framework. Pummer 15 Theron, Junior Research Fellow in Philosophy at St. Anne's College, University of Oxford. “Moral Agreement on Saving the World” Practical Ethics, University of Oxford. May 18, 2015 AT There appears to be lot of disagreement in moral philosophy. Whether these many apparent disagreements are deep and irresolvable, I believe there is at least one thing it is reasonable to agree on right now, whatever general moral view we adopt: that it is very important to reduce the risk that all intelligent beings on this planet are eliminated by an enormous catastrophe, such as a nuclear war. How we might in fact try to reduce such existential risks is discussed elsewhere. My claim here is only that we – whether we’re consequentialists, deontologists, or virtue ethicists – should all agree that we should try to save the world. According to consequentialism, we should maximize the good, where this is taken to be the goodness, from an impartial perspective, of outcomes. Clearly one thing that makes an outcome good is that the people in it are doing well. There is little disagreement here. If the happiness or well-being of possible future people is just as important as that of people who already exist, and if they would have good lives, it is not hard to see how reducing existential risk is easily the most important thing in the whole world. This is for the familiar reason that there are so many people who could exist in the future – there are trillions upon trillions… upon trillions. There are so many possible future people that reducing existential risk is arguably the most important thing in the world, even if the well-being of these possible people were given only 0.001 as much weight as that of existing people. Even on a wholly person-affecting view – according to which there’s nothing (apart from effects on existing people) to be said in favor of creating happy people – the case for reducing existential risk is very strong. As noted in this seminal paper,this case is strengthened by the fact that there’s a good chance that many existing people will, with the aid of life-extension technology, live very long and very high quality lives. You might think what I have just argued applies to consequentialists only. There is a tendency to assume that, if an argument appeals to consequentialist considerations (the goodness of outcomes), it is irrelevant to non-consequentialists. But that is a huge mistake. Non-consequentialism is the view that there’s more that determines rightness than the goodness of consequences or outcomes; it is not the view that the latter don’t matter. Even John Rawls wrote, “All ethical doctrines worth our attention take consequences into account in judging rightness. One which did not would simply be irrational, crazy.” Minimally plausible versions of deontology and virtue ethics must be concerned in part with promoting the good, from an impartial point of view. They’d thus imply very strong reasons to reduce existential risk, at least when this doesn’t significantly involve doing harm to others or damaging one’s character. What’s even more surprising, perhaps, is that even if our own good (or that of those near and dear to us) has much greater weight than goodness from the impartial “point of view of the universe,” indeed even if the latter is entirely morally irrelevant, we may nonetheless have very strong reasons to reduce existential risk. Even egoism, the view that each agent should maximize her own good, might imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk. It will depend, among other things, on what one’s own good consists in. If well-being consisted in pleasure only, it is somewhat harder to argue that egoism would imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk – perhaps we could argue that one would maximize her expected hedonic well-being by funding life extension technology or by having herself cryogenically frozen at the time of her bodily death as well as giving money to reduce existential risk (so that there is a world for her to live in!). I am not sure, however, how strong the reasons to do this would be. But views which imply that, if I don’t care about other people, I have no or very little reason to help them are not even minimally plausible views (in addition to hedonistic egoism, I here have in mind views that imply that one has no reason to perform an act unless one actually desires to do that act). To be minimally plausible, egoism will need to be paired with a more sophisticated account of well-being. To see this, it is enough to consider, as Plato did, the possibility of a ring of invisibility – suppose that, while wearing it, Ayn could derive some pleasure by helping the poor, but instead could derive just a bit more by severely harming them. Hedonistic egoism would absurdly imply she should do the latter. To avoid this implication, egoists would need to build something like the meaningfulness of a life into well-being, in some robust way, where this would to a significant extent be a function of other-regarding concerns (see chapter 12 of this classic intro to ethics). But once these elements are included, we can (roughly, as above) argue that this sort of egoism will imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk. Add to all of this Samuel Scheffler’s recent intriguing arguments (quick podcast version available here) that most of what makes our lives go well would be undermined if there were no future generations of intelligent persons. On his view, my life would contain vastly less well-being if (say) a year after my death the world came to an end. So obviously if Scheffler were right I’d have very strong reason to reduce existential risk. We should also take into account moral uncertainty. What is it reasonable for one to do, when one is uncertain not (only) about the empirical facts, but also about the moral facts? I’ve just argued that there’s agreement among minimally plausible ethical views that we have strong reason to reduce existential risk – not only consequentialists, but also deontologists, virtue ethicists, and sophisticated egoists should agree. But even those (hedonistic egoists) who disagree should have a significant level of confidence that they are mistaken, and that one of the above views is correct. Even if they were 90 sure that their view is the correct one (and 10 sure that one of these other ones is correct),they would have pretty strong reason, from the standpoint of moral uncertainty, to reduce existential risk. Perhaps most disturbingly still, even if we are only 1 sure that the well-being of possible future people matters, it is at least arguable that, from the standpoint of moral uncertainty, reducing existential risk is the most important thing in the world. Again, this is largely for the reason that there are so many people who could exist in the future – there are trillions upon trillions… upon trillions. (For more on this and other related issues, see this excellent dissertation). Of course, it is uncertain whether these untold trillions would, in general, have good lives. It’s possible they’ll be miserable. It is enough for my claim that there is moral agreement in the relevant sense if, at least given certain empirical claims about what future lives would most likely be like, all minimally plausible moral views would converge on the conclusion that we should try to save the world. While there are some non-crazy views that place significantly greater moral weight on avoiding suffering than on promoting happiness, for reasons others have offered (and for independent reasons I won’t get into here unless requested to), they nonetheless seem to be fairly implausible views. And even if things did not go well for our ancestors, I am optimistic that they will overall go fantastically well for our descendants, if we allow them to. I suspect that most of us alive today – at least those of us not suffering from extreme illness or poverty – have lives that are well worth living, and that things will continue to improve. Derek Parfit, whose work has emphasized future generations as well as agreement in ethics, described our situation clearly and accurately: “We live during the hinge of history. Given the scientific and technological discoveries of the last two centuries, the world has never changed as fast. We shall soon have even greater powers to transform, not only our surroundings, but ourselves and our successors. If we act wisely in the next few centuries, humanity will survive its most dangerous and decisive period. Our descendants could, if necessary, go elsewhere, spreading through this galaxy….Our descendants might, I believe, make the further future very good. But that good future may also depend in part on us. If our selfish recklessness ends human history, we would be acting very wrongly.” (From chapter 36 of On What Matters) 10 Science proves non util ethics are impossible. Greene 10 – Joshua, Associate Professor of Social science in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University (The Secret Joke of Kant’s Soul published in Moral Psychology: Historical and Contemporary Readings, accessed: www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/lchang/material/Evolutionary/Developmental/Greene-KantSoul.pdf) What turn-of-the-millennium science is telling us is that human moral judgment is not a pristine rational enterprise, that our moral judgments are driven by a hodgepodge of emotional dispositions, which themselves were shaped by a hodgepodge of evolutionary forces, both biological and cultural. Because of this, it is exceedingly unlikely that there is any rationally coherent normative moral theory that can accommodate our moral intuitions. Moreover, anyone who claims to have such a theory, or even part of one, almost certainly doesn't. Instead, what that person probably has is a moral rationalization. It seems then, that we have somehow crossed the infamous "is"-"ought" divide. How did this happen? Didn't Hume (Hume, 1978) and Moore (Moore, 1966) warn us against trying to derive an "ought" from and "is?" How did we go from descriptive scientific theories concerning moral psychology to skepticism about a whole class of normative moral theories? The answer is that we did not, as Hume and Moore anticipated, attempt to derive an "ought" from and "is." That is, our method has been inductive rather than deductive. We have inferred on the basis of the available evidence that the phenomenon of rationalist deontological philosophy is best explained as a rationalization of evolved emotional intuition (Harman, 1977). Missing the Deontological Point I suspect thatrationalist deontologists will remain unmoved by the arguments presented here. Instead, I suspect,they will insist that I have simply misunderstood what Kant and like-minded deontologists are all about. Deontology, they will say, isn't about this intuition or that intuition. It's not defined by its normative differences with consequentialism. Rather, deontology is about taking humanity seriously. Above all else, it's about respect for persons. It's about treating others as fellow rational creatures rather than as mere objects, about acting for reasons rational beings can share. And so on (Korsgaard, 1996a; Korsgaard, 1996b). This is, no doubt, how many deontologists see deontology. But this insider's view, as I've suggested, may be misleading. The problem, more specifically, is that it defines deontology in terms of values that are not distinctively deontological, though they may appear to be from the inside. Consider the following analogy with religion. When one asks a religious person to explain the essence of his religion, one often gets an answer like this: "It's about love, really. It's about looking out for other people, looking beyond oneself. It's about community, being part of something larger than oneself." This sort of answer accurately captures the phenomenology of many people's religion, but it's nevertheless inadequate for distinguishing religion from other things. This is because many, if not most, non-religious people aspire to love deeply, look out for other people, avoid self-absorption, have a sense of a community, and be connected to things larger than themselves. In other words, secular humanists and atheists can assent to most of what many religious people think religion is all about. From a secular humanist's point of view, in contrast, what's distinctive about religion is its commitment to the existence of supernatural entities as well as formal religious institutions and doctrines. And they're right. These things really do distinguish religious from non-religious practices, though they may appear to be secondary to many people operating from within a religious point of view. In the same way, I believe that most ofthe standard deontological/Kantian self-characterizatons fail to distinguish deontology from other approaches to ethics. (See also Kagan (Kagan, 1997, pp. 70-78.) on the difficulty of defining deontology.) It seems to me that consequentialists, as much as anyone else, have respect for persons, are against treating people as mere objects, wish to act for reasons that rational creatures can share, etc. A consequentialist respects other persons, and refrains from treating them as mere objects, by counting every person's well-being in the decision-making process. Likewise, a consequentialist attempts to act according to reasons that rational creatures can share by acting according to principles that give equal weight to everyone's interests, i.e. that are impartial. This is not to say that consequentialists and deontologists don't differ. They do. It's just that the real differences may not be what deontologists often take them to be. What, then, distinguishes deontology from other kinds of moral thought? A good strategy for answering this question is to start with concrete disagreements between deontologists and others (such as consequentialists) and then work backward in search of deeper principles. This is what I've attempted to do with the trolley and footbridge cases, and other instances in which deontologists and consequentialists disagree. If you ask a deontologically-minded person why it's wrong to push someone in front of speeding trolley in order to save five others, you will get characteristically deontological answers. Some will be tautological: "Because it's murder!"Others will be more sophisticated: "The ends don't justify the means." "You have to respect people's rights." But, as we know,these answers don't really explain anything, because if you give the same people (on different occasions)the trolley case or the loop case (See above),they'll make the opposite judgment, even though their initial explanation concerning the footbridge case applies equally well to one or both of these cases. Talk about rights, respect for persons, and reasons we can share are natural attempts to explain, in "cognitive" terms, what we feel when we find ourselves having emotionally driven intuitions that are odds with the cold calculus of consequentialism. Although these explanations are inevitably incomplete,there seems to be "something deeply right" about them because they give voice to powerful moral emotions. But, as with many religious people's accounts of what's essential to religion, they don't really explain what's distinctive about the philosophy in question. 11 Substitutability—only util explains necessary enablers. Sinnott-Armstrong 92 Walter, professor of practical ethics. “An Argument for Consequentialism” Dartmouth College Philosophical Perspectives. 1992. recut aaditG A moral reason to do an act is consequential if and only if the reason depends only on the consequences of either doing the act or not doing the act. For example, a moral reason not to hit someone is that this will hurt her or him. A moral reason to turn your car to the left might be that, if you do not do so, you will run over and kill someone. A moral reason to feed a starving child is that the child will lose important mental or physical abilities if you do not feed it. All such reasons are consequential reasons. All other moral reasons are non-consequential. Thus, a moral reason to do an act is non-consequential if and only if the reason depends even partly on some property that the act has independently of its consequences. For example, an act can be a lie regardless of what happens as a result of the lie (since some lies are not believed), and some moral theories claim that that property of being a lie provides amoral reason not to tell a lie regardless of the consequences of this lie. Similarly, the fact that an act fulfills a promise is often seen as a moral reason to do the act, even though the act has that property of fulfilling a promise independently ofits consequences. All such moral reasons are non-consequential. In order to avoid so many negations, I will also call them 'deontological'. This distinction would not make sense if we did not restrict the notion of consequences. If I promise to mow the lawn, then one consequence of my mowing might seem to be that my promise is fulfilled. One way to avoid this problem is to specify that the consequences of an act must be distinct from the act itself. My act of fulfilling my promise and my act of mowing are not distinct, because they are done by the same bodily movements.10 Thus, my fulfilling my promise is not a consequence of my mowing. A consequence of an act need not be later in time than the act, since causation can be simultaneous, but the consequence must at least be different from the act. Even with this clarification, it is still hard to classify some moral reasons as consequential or deontological,11 but I will stick to examples that are clear. In accordance with this distinction between kinds of moral reasons, I can now distinguish different kinds of moral theories. I will say that a moral theory is consequentialist if and only if it implies that all basic moral reasons are consequential. A moral theory is then non-consequentialist or deontological if it includes any basic moral reasons which are not consequential. 5. Against Deontology So defined, the class of deontological moral theories is very large and diverse. This makes it hard to say anything in general about it. Nonetheless, I will argue that no deontological moral theory can explain why moral substitutability holds. My argument applies to all deontological theories because it depends only on what is common to them all, namely, the claim that some basic moral reasons are not consequential. Some deontological theories allow very many weighty moral reasons that are consequential, and these theories might be able to explain why moral substitutability holds for some of their moral reasons: the consequential ones. But even these theories cannot explain why moral substitutability holds for all moral reasons, including the non-consequential reasons that make the theory deontological. The failure of deontological moral theories to explain moral substitutability in the very cases that make them deontological is a reason to reject all deontological moral theories. I cannot discuss every deontological moral theory, so I will discuss only a few paradigm examples and show why they cannot explain moral substitutability. After this, I will argue that similar problems are bound to arise for all other deontological theories by their very nature. The simplest deontological theory is the pluralistic intuitionism of Prichard and Ross. Ross writes that, when someone promises to do something, 'This we consider obligatory in its own nature, just because it is a fulfillment of a promise, and not because of its consequences.'12 Such deontologists claim in effect that, if I promise to mow the grass, there is a moral reason for me to mow the grass, and this moral reason is constituted by the fact that mowing the grass fulfills my promise. This reason exists regardless of the consequences of mowing the grass, even though it might be overridden by certain bad consequences. However, if this is why I have a moral reason to mow the grass, then, even if I cannot mow the grass without starting my mower, and starting the mower would enable me to mow the grass, it still would not follow that I have any moral reason to start my mower, since I did not promise to start my mower, and starting my mower does not fulfill my promise. Thus, a moral theory cannot explain moral substitutability if it claims that properties like this provide moral reasons. 12 Extinction First – a Forecloses future improvement – we can never improve society because our impact is irreversible b Turns suffering – mass death causes suffering because people can’t get access to resources and basic necessities c Moral uncertainty – if we’re unsure about which interpretation of the world is true – we ought to preserve the world to keep debating about it 3 Extinction First – a Forecloses future improvement – we can never improve society because our impact is irreversible b Turns suffering – mass death causes suffering because people can’t get access to resources and basic necessities c Moral uncertainty – if we’re unsure about which interpretation of the world is true – we ought to preserve the world to keep debating about it 1AC – plan Plan text : In the republic of India, a free press should prioritize objectivity over advocacy. Express News Service 98 Express News Service is a subset of Indian Express. Nov 18 1998 Indian Express “Journalists should strive for objectivity”https:indianexpress.com/article/news-archive/journalists-should-strive-for-objectivity/lite/ aaditg *solvency advocate SURAT, Nov 18: Journalists should constantly strive for objectivity and always stick to the truth. This was stated by senior journalist and noted litterateur Bhagwati Kumar Sharma, while speaking at `Media Discussion’ organised by the District Information department for students of the Journalism faculty of the South Gujarat University at the University campus on Wednesday. Entitled `National Issues and the Role of Media’, speakers spoke on a number of topics and problems faced by the country at present. During the discussion, Sharma stressed on the causes and origin of a number of major burning issues and how journalism could be used to solve these. Commenting on the credibility of news, the senior journalist who has spent about 50 years in the profession, told the aspiring journalists that one must beware the pitfalls while in the field. He added that a feeling for welfare of the society along with a deep sense of responsibility were essential in everyone aspiring to be in the field, though he regretted the decline in sincerity and values among the journalistic fraternity in the past few years. Acting vice-chancellor of the university R N Shelat, in his speech said that the aspiring journalists could take up issues like illiteracy, health, unemployment, poverty and do whatever possible to help in solving these national problems. Also speaking on the occasion, Daksha Vamdatt, head of Journalism and English Literature departments in the SGU strongly criticised vulgarity being portrayed through the print and electronic media and said that journalists ought to be very careful as they influenced a large number of readers and viewers. Kalpana Rao, a lecturer at the journalism department said that students should rather focus on developmental journalism than sensationalising news. She sharply criticised the role of newspapers in creating “communally sensitive situations” by printing provocative stories. Earlier Deputy Information Director Narhari Barot cited examples of social themes being taken up by journalism students of Ahmedabad. The vote of thanks was offered by Assistant Information Director Cecil Christie. Definitionally objective news rejects and deters fake news Kovach and Rosenstiel., 1 (Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel., Bill Kovach, a 1989 Nieman Fellow, was curator of the Nieman Foundation from 1989 to 2000. He is the co-author of “The Elements of Journalism.”, Tom Rosenstiel is executive director of the American Press Institute and co-author of “The Elements of Journalism.”, 6-15-2001, accessed on 2-19-2022, Nieman Reports, "The Essence of Journalism Is a Discipline of Verification | Nieman Reports", https://niemanreports.org/articles/the-essence-of-journalism-is-a-discipline-of-verification/) “In the end, the discipline of verification is what separates journalism from entertainment, propaganda, fiction, or art…. Journalism alone is focused first on getting what happened down right…. Perhaps because the discipline of verification is so personal and so haphazardly communicated, it is also part of one of the great confusions of journalism— the concept of objectivity. The original meaning of this idea is now thoroughly misunderstood, and by and large lost. When the concept originally evolved, it was not meant to imply that journalists were free of bias. Quite the contrary…. Objectivity called for journalists to develop a consistent method of testing information—a transparent approach to evidence—precisely so that personal and cultural biases would not undermine the accuracy of their work…. In the original concept, in other words, the method is objective, not the journalist. The key was in the discipline of the craft, not the aim. The point has some important implications. One is that the impartial voice employed by many news organizations, that familiar, supposedly neutral style of newswriting, is not a fundamental principle of journalism. Rather, it is an often helpful device news organizations use to highlight that they are trying to produce something obtained by objective methods. The second implication is that this neutral voice, without a discipline of verification, creates a veneer covering something hollow. Journalists who select sources to express what is really their own point of view, and then use the neutral voice to make it seem objective, are engaged in a form of deception. This damages the credibility of the whole profession by making it seem unprincipled, dishonest, and biased. This is an important caution in an age when the standards of the press are so in doubt…. A more conscious discipline of verification is the best antidote to the old journalism of verification being overrun by a new journalism of assertion, and it would provide citizens with a basis for relying on journalistic accounts. 1.Never add anything that was not there. 2.Never deceive the audience. 3.Be transparent about your methods and motives. 4.Rely on your own original reporting. 5.Exercise humility. …we began to see a core set of concepts that form the foundation of the discipline of verification…. The willingness of the journalist to be transparent about what he or she has done is at the heart of establishing that the journalist is concerned with the truth…. Too much journalism fails to say anything about methods, motives, and sources.” Objective news increases democracy and brings awareness to rise of Hindu nationalism Stockman 2/1 Ms. Stockman is a member of the editorial board. 2/1/2022 “What an All-Women News Network in India Shows Us About Democracy” NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/01/opinion/all-women-newspaper-india.htmlaaditg It started out as a literacy project. Dalit women, formerly known as untouchables, hand-wrote a newsletter about issues that mattered to them: Broken water pumps. Unpaved roads. Known rapists walking free. In 2002 they started a newspaper that covered everything from illegal mining to murders. Perhaps because Dalits make up about 20 percent of the population of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, some government officials started paying attention. Roads got paved. Toilets got built. Hospitals got stocked with medicines. “Almost every month, our reporting brings justice to people,” Kavita Devi, the paper’s editor in chief, told me in an email originally written in Hindi. Today the paper, Khabar Lahariya, whose name in Hindi means “news waves,” is a digital-first rural news network with its own talk shows and nearly 550,000 subscribers on YouTube. The publication ran up against the many familiar hurdles that can make news gathering as difficult as it is essential to the success of democracy. Reporters were intimidated and belittled. It was hard to get taken seriously in a country where media giants often hire high-caste men from big cities who kowtow to the party in office. The powerful don’t like pushback. And for a group of women who were viewed as powerless by virtue of their gender and caste, the power of the press was their only option. Democracy, their story shows us, requires not just courage and hard work but also constant vigilance and ingenuity in the face of change. The story of how newly literate rural women became investigative journalists is chronicled in a new documentary, “Writing With Fire,” which made the Academy Awards shortlist this year. If it wins, it will make history as the first film about India directed by Indians to receive an Oscar. It will also give a boost to democracy’s unsung champions at a time when democratic norms are under threat around the world. The movie opens with Meera, the chief reporter, interviewing a woman who recounts being raped in her home on six separate occasions in a single month. The woman’s husband tried to file a complaint, but police officers refused to take it. In the film, Meera walks into the police station and demands an explanation. “Journalism is the essence of democracy,” she says afterward. “When citizens demand their rights, it is us journalists who can take their demands to the government.” The married team that made the film, Sushmit Ghosh and Rintu Thomas, who are not Dalit, began shooting footage in 2016, the year Khabar Lahariya’s reporters made the leap to digital news. In the film, women, some of whom don’t have electricity in their homes, unwrap boxes of brand-new cellphones gingerly, like bricks of dynamite. By the end of the film, Meera and her colleagues are pushing through crowds at political rallies with their cellphone cameras rolling. Although the staff members are from marginalized groups — Dalits, tribal people and the so-called backward castes — they don’t see themselves as part of any political movement. First and foremost, they are reporters who claim objectivity and independence as core values. “A lot of people say: ‘Where do you think they get this crazy courage from? Is it that they have nothing to lose?’” Ms. Thomas told me. “I don’t see it like that. Each one of them is so aware of how rare it was to have had access to education and how much it means to people whose voice they have become. They know that if they don’t show up reporting that story, nobody else will.” Editors’ Picks? One Couple Made Their Choice in the San Fernando Valley. “Writing With Fire” is a road map of sorts for how to stand up for democracy even in the face of great danger. In 2017, Yogi Adityanath, a Hindu monk who once announced that he was preparing for a religious war, took the helm as chief minister in Uttar Pradesh. Members of the Hindu Youth Brigade, an organization he founded, brandished swords in the streets, vowing to protect Hindus and punish Muslims. Khabar Lahariya’s reporters created a game plan for how to cover the rise of Hindu nationalism. They tread carefully, assigning only the most experienced reporters. In the film, Meera interviews a leader of the Hindu Youth Brigade and gets him to explain his vision for the country. “My absolute priority is to protect our holy cows,” he tells her. Meera doesn’t have to add commentary to display the truth: In a place where women must beg for protection from rape, aspiring politicians were making a name for themselves by pledging to protect cows. Some high-caste journalists expressed shock at how quickly the political culture in India turned. In a matter of just a few years, people once considered extremists were suddenly running large swaths of the country. But reporters at Khabar Lahariya saw it coming. “They seem to know how to respond to the times we are in,” Mr. Ghosh said. Indian democracy is declining Biswas 21 Soutik is a correspondent in India. He has covered elections in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, the tsunami in India and Sri Lanka in 2005, and militancy in Kashmir. Before joining the BBC, he worked in Indian newspapers and magazines. BBC “'Electoral autocracy': The downgrading of India's democracy”https:www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56393944 aaditg *modi governance
democracy index *freedom house Earlier this month, in its annual report on global political rights and liberties, US-based non-profit Freedom House downgraded India from a free democracy to a "partially free democracy". Last week, Sweden-based V-Dem Institute was harsher in its latest report on democracy. Itsaid India had become an "electoral autocracy". And last month, India, described as a "flawed democracy",slipped two places to 53rd position in the latest Democracy Index published by The Economist Intelligence Unit. The rankings blame Mr Modi and his Hindu nationalist BJP government for the backsliding of democracy. Under Mr Modi's watch, they say, there has been increased pressure on human rights groups, intimidation of journalists and activists, and a spate of attacks, especially against Muslims. This, they add, has led to a deterioration of political and civil liberties in the country. Freedom House said civil liberties have been in decline since Mr Modi came to power in 2014, and that India's "fall from the upper ranks of free nations" could have a more damaging effect on the world's democratic standards. Many viewed the 2019 election as a referendum on Mr Modi (L) who won a landslide IMAGE SOURCE,AFP Image caption, Mr Modi won a landslide election in 2019 V-Dem said the "diminishing of freedom of expression, the media, and civil society have gone the furthest" during Mr Modi's rule, and that far as censorship goes India was "as autocratic as Pakistan and worse than its neighbours Bangladesh and Nepal". And The Democracy Index said the "democratic backsliding" by authorities and "crackdowns" on civil liberties had led to a decline in India's rankings. Mr Modi's policies, it said, had "fomented anti-Muslim feeling and religious strife and damaged the political fabric of the country". How has India's government reacted? Not surprisingly, the flurry of downgrades have riled Mr Modi's government and cast a shadow on the global image of India's democracy. Why journalists in India are under attack The jailed Indian activist linked to Greta Thunberg Jailed and 'tortured' for trying to report a rape On the Freedom House report, the foreign ministry said that India had "robust institutions and well established democratic practices" and did not "need sermons especially from those who cannot get their basics right." The political judgements of the report were "inaccurate and distorted", it said. In parliament, the chairman of the upper house, Venkaiah Naidu, did not allow an opposition MP to pose a question related to the V-Dem report saying: "All countries which are commenting on India should first look inward and then comment on India." At the weekend, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar came out with the strongest denunciation of these reports. A resident passes by a burnt house after communal violence in northeast Delhi last week over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), at Shiv Viihar, on March 5, 2020 IMAGE SOURCE,HINDUSTAN TIMES Image caption, The freedom report criticised the government's response to protests against a controversial citizenship bill "You use the dichotomy of democracy and autocracy. You want the truthful answer…it is called hypocrisy. Because you have a set of self-appointed custodians of the world, who find it very difficult to stomach that somebody in India is not looking for their approval, is not willing to play the game they want to be played," Mr Jaishankar told a news network. "So they invent their rules, their parameters, they pass their judgements and then make out as though this is some kind of global exercise". Current Indian news cripples democracy because of lack of objectivity: fake news, mob lynchings Sharma 20 Mahak Sharma is working in content and documentation in a women-oriented project. I believe that knowledge is power, and should be used for the upliftment of the society. Chai is life! Animals are love, more so cats! Cats have it all - admiration, an endless sleep and company only when they want it. “Opinion: Journalism, The Crumbling Pillar Of Indian Democracy” YKA https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2020/04/journalism-the-crumbling-pillar-of-indian-democracy/ aaditg *defines india as a democracy *solvency bc the end explains why recognizing it can fix problems In these extraordinary times of a global pandemic which has quite literally spread across every nook and corner of the world, from the small island states of Papua New Guinea to the military superpower United States of America, the world and people are filled with a sense of disquietude, making it difficult for all of us to cope with this precariousness. Therefore,many of us consider it wise to rely on news channels, newspapers, online news portals, websites, etc. to stay alert and aware of the disease and its consequences. But the sad state of Indian journalism which is reduced to a ‘Whatsapp University’ has created it difficult for the citizens to count on the Indian media for legitimate information and a sense of security. Lately, it has become a gargantuan task to differentiate between ‘fake’ news and ‘legit’ news, and the onus lies on the viewers and consumers of the news. Amount of ‘fake news’ has increased exponentially, so much so that different media outlets were created to deal with the ‘menace of fake news’. India recently witnessed another lynching where three people (two of them were sadhus) were killed by a mob of over 100 men in Palghar, Maharashtra. The lynching and the angry mob were incited on mistaken identity where they considered the three men to be involved in child kidnapping. The recent ‘panel discussion’ which turned into a shouting match by the panelists and the moderator on ‘Palgtghar Lynching’ completely baffled me. There were ‘news anchors’ who quoted wrong information, and turned themselves into a chest-thumping, liberal-hating,Hindu-loving and anti-opposition puppets, and used communally-charged language and hate speech in a secular, multi-ethnic, and a multi-religious country like India. It is not as if this is the first time that I have seen a mockery being made of journalism but this is definitely the time when I began to forget what journalism stands for, why we need it, what consists of good journalism, and how salient it is for the functioning of a democracy. I began to look at the history of Journalism and understand it, but let us first define what journalism means. “Journalism is collation and distribution of news in print and non-print forms. The essence of the definition lies in the three inevitable cornerstones of journalism – objectivity and truth, autonomy and neutrality, and responsibility and management.” An Overview Print journalism dates back to 17th Century Germany, but the practice of the distribution of news was practiced in the Roman era in 59 B.C. where it was recorded in Acta Diurna through which news was hung in the city center every day for the consumption of the people. In this day and age of capitalism and Information Technology, commercialization of journalism and the abundance of fake and unreliable information are some of the predominant issues eroding the industry in India. The principle of ‘objectivity‘ is one of the foremost lessons in journalism, and it was considered of prime importance by Lichtenberg (1996:225) especially in liberal democracies. The term ‘objectivity’ is a comprehensive term and implies a ‘rational’ perspective on any given situation, and Westerstahl’s model defines it to include several components like truth, facts, and impartiality as well. Objectivity and truth are always considered at the top of the journalistic ethos. In addition, autonomy and neutrality have become equally important to reiterate the first principle of objectivity and truth. If a media house is not autonomous, it would eventually end up losing objectivity for either political or commercial gains. In light of these events, neutrality and autonomy became two very important pillars of the industry. Commercialization along with political pressures has threatened the freedom and autonomy of the industry in this era of capitalism. While these threats were non-existent during the nascent stage of the industry, there was immense political pressure which prevented newspapers or journalists from reporting on parliamentary actions, criticism of the king/government/ruler, and any form of rebellious speech or language. It was with the onset and dissemination of the enlightenment principles of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity that the industry became much more autonomous and free of the political shackles. Today,freedom is one of the inevitable prerequisites for practicing serious and substantial journalism. Over the last 5 centuries, journalism has become a medium to change the world, a medium to share knowledge, ideas, and has played an extraordinary role in revolutions and movements across the world. To rejig our memories, it is important we understand journalism through the most effective outcomes that have been achieved in different parts of the world where journalism challenged and even changed the status quo. History And National Movements Clipping of The Hindu Patriot Historically, journalism has played a prominent role in revolutions, movements, and mass mobilization of people against injustice. Revolutions and mobilization of people are based on an ‘ideology’ which comes from an unbiased assessment of the power centers, therefore, communication of information and ideas becomes the core; and journalism becomes an effective way to disseminate information. The role of press and journalism in India’s freedom struggle dates back to 1857 when Payam-e-Azadi was published in Hindi and Urdu, compelling and calling people to fight against the British in the first war of independence. This was confiscated by the British, but the role of press and journalism had just begun in the larger struggle for freedom. Hindu Patriot, first published in 1853, by Girish Chandra Ghosh became a way of mobilizing people against the hostile policies of the British. One of the plays published under Harish Chandra Mukherjee in 1861 called Neel Darpan highlighted the predicament of the farmers and urged them to stop growing crops for the white traders; this led to the formation of Neel Commission by the British. Several Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, and Marathi newspapers faced trials and convictions for exposing the abuses of the British Empire in the Indian sub-continent while they informed people about the rampant abuse of power by the British. The popularity of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev can be attributed to the information that was published in different journals and newspapers during their trial, where their ideas and the injustice was being highlighted through journalism. Likewise, newspapers played an indispensable role in African and Asian countries during the colonial period, fuelling ideas and information among the people, and often questioning the colonial authorities. Also read: From Gauri Lankesh To Shujaat Bukhari, Our Journalists Continue To Pay A Heavy Price Speaking Truth To Power Hannah Dreier receiving the Pulitzer Prize.||Credits: The Pulitzer Prizes Journalism, in essence, implies distributing information and news but the freedom provided to journalists and media in a country reflects the democratic nature of the political system. In a democracy where people can hold their government and administration accountable, the onus placed on journalism is tremendous. It becomes an institution that keeps a check on the government practices and ensures public good, justice, equality, and freedom for its citizenry. Journalism is as diverse as the circumstances that exist in our world, and it is difficult to compartmentalize them in a few separate categories. But these are some primary classification based on methodology and outcome—investigative, citizen, news, reviews, and columns, etc. Investigative journalism is considered to be one of the risky endeavours that only a few daredevils could engage in, as it often involves under-cover agents and working in conflict zones or hostile environments. Hannah Dreier is one such journalist known for her exceptional courage and investigative reports. She won a Pulitzer for covering three case studies of two school students and a mother who were charged and deported back to their country of origin without any due process of law. Xenophobia and the lack of justice and freedom for immigrants is the central theme in these stories throwing light on how the presence of police officials in schools infringes on the human rights of immigrant children, who are looked at with suspicion. The account presents how a few harmless activities are enough to profile a student as belonging to MS-13 without any concrete evidence or facts. There is another investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas working with Al Jazeera, who hails from West African country Ghana. He has conducted undercover operations exposing corruption in the judiciary, sports, and ritual killing of children by witch doctors in rural Ghana, among other operations. Journalism And Democracy Journalism and media play an imperative role in maintaining the social fabric and the political system of a country. It does engage in advocacy, protection of rights of the downtrodden and powerless, uncovering illegal practices; and ultimately speaking truth to power. The powerful institutions in the society like the parliament, legislature, corporates, the film industry, and several other institutions and industries that run in the country often disregard the rights and liberties of the powerless; and this is where journalism and media come in. They fill in the gaps and hold all institutions (government and private) working in the country accountable.Democracy, as it exists in most countries, is a representative form of democracy instead of a direct democracy—under which the people of a nation elect their own representatives to fulfill their demands and objectives by ensuring sound governance and administration. This indirect democracy provides power to the people once in every four or five years, and therefore, the citizens lose their control over the government. In addition, the parliamentary bills and paperwork is highly complicated, full of jargon, and often cumbersome to go through for a citizen—then what is it that remains as an effective point of check (apart from judiciary and parliament)? Journalism becomes the third eye of the citizens; it is what enables them to exercise some amount of effective control over the actions of the government; this function is performed by informing the citizens. It is also performed in several cases by engaging in effective and rational discussions on decisions taken by the regime in power, and constructively criticizing the actions when necessary with evidence, facts, and insightful research. This is how it becomes the fourth and invisible pillar of democracy when it stays true to its principles. Also read:Why Was Kashmiri Photojournalist Masrat Zahra Booked Under UA(P)A? While these are examples of great journalism, reiterating the true value of effective journalism, to understand the news reportage on Palghar Lynching, it becomes critical to understand the larger trend of Indian TV journalism where several news media houses often rely on fake information/unverified sources to attract people and create unscrupulous and exaggerated reports. Below are some of the fake stories that were covered by Indian news channels but were later reported as ‘fake’ by Alt-News (a fact-checking news organization): “Republic TV reported that the Jama Masjid has not paid electricity bills to the tune of four crores which was later reported as ‘fake’. The channel deleted the Tweet without posting any tweet or video apologizing to the Imam who was mocked at for owning luxurious cars and not paying electricity.” “In a piece of more ridiculous and bizarre news, Aaj Tak reported that Saudi men can eat their wives when they are hungry. It was earlier picked up by Aaj Tak from India Today’s Hindi Channel, but Aaj Tak way to go!” “A Times Now news anchor spent his time and energy by shouting on top of his lungs over an image that was photoshopped. This image comes straight out of the ‘Whatsapp University’.” “A known news anchor on Zee News, known to rely on Whatsapp University more often than anyone else, spent one entire show on highlighting a conspiracy theory that was plagiarised from a Facebook Page.He started the show by talking about ‘land-jihad’ which was in relation to a recent bill passed by the government, and later went on to include education, love, finance, and films and music jihad among many other jihads.” In several instances, media outlets become lapdogs instead of watchdogs for the government and act as propaganda machines for the central government. The compartmentalization of news channels and newspapers into different ideological camps, and the stifling of the ideals and principles of journalism does not create aware citizens but a misled population. Some of the infamous outcomes for ‘bad journalism’ are the experience of Rwanda and the Radio Mille Collines which instigated hatred between Hutu and Tutsi population of Rwanda, resulting in the largest genocide to take place in the world. Likewise, the colonial press in Algeria during colonization created a conflict of identity for the Algerian people, as it acted as proxy propaganda machinery of the French colonizers. Fake news, whether propagated by Facebook posts or Whatsapp texts, has led to mob-lynching, communal hatred, and caste rivalries, especially in small towns and rural areas of India. Siddharth Varadarajan, founder of The Wire Even during this global pandemic, the irresponsible and communally-coloured reportage by several Indian news channels led to the widespread circulation of fake videos. These news channels held the entire Muslim community responsible for the spike in the cases, and turned COVID-19 into a communal issue instead of focussing on the medical crisis at hand. While television channels and news anchors have stooped to the lowest levels of journalism in terms of quality of content—it is the social media channels and YouTubers that are providing more and more reliable and well-researched content. Akash Banerjee, Dhruv Rathee, The Print, The Wire, Caravan, NDTV, etc. are autonomous institutions or in some cases individuals/teams that are managing to hold the flag of Indian journalism amidst the dwindling voices of sanity in the Indian news channels. It is for the citizens to realize the positive and negative impact of journalism within their society. Therefore, it is the Indian viewers who can determine the direction of Indian journalism; if they give in to the communal and hatred filled cacophony of several over the top news anchors with sub-standard reporting and news distribution, or are they looking for hard-hitting, rational, and objective reporting with sound research and writing. They are the decision-makers because ‘Radio Rwanda’ is soon to become ‘TV India’, given the increasing instances of fomenting of communal hatred. India democracy is key to sustain and predict the state of US democracy Blank 21 (Jonah Blank is an American author, journalist and foreign policy expert, specializing in the culture, history and affairs of the Indian subcontinent. Blank earned a PhD in 1998 from Harvard University, and joined the staff of U.S. News and World Report, as well as writing for The New Yorker and Foreign Affairs. But Blank decided to leave the magazine to work actively to influence the foreign policy of the U.S. government on Near Eastern affairs, becoming the policy advisor on South Asia/Near East policy to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He currently works as a Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation.4 6-10-2021, "India’s Democracy Is the World’s Problem," Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/06/g7-india-narendra-modi-democracy/61914 4/, Accessed 2-11-2022)AY When the G7 group of rich democracies assembles this weekend in southwest England, it will discuss issues including COVID-19, taxes, and climate change. One item overhanging the formal agenda, however, will be the global deterioration of democracy itself, and the nation on which this question may hinge won’t be any of the hosts, but a guest invited to this year’s confab: India. Democracy’s fate there may determine its fate throughout the world. At the moment, the signs aren’t looking good—and that should be a flashing-red warning beacon for the rest of us. Why is India the hinge point? The most obvious answer is the optics:When propagandists in Beijing describe democracy as a Western ideal unsuited to non-Western peoples, having a standard-bearer from the formerly colonized rather than the former colonizers is vital. But India’s importance goes far beyond narrative. The world’s most successful democracies are mostly small, wealthy, and homogenous. Any list you might consult will highlight nations such as Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway. The Economist Intelligence Unit gives all of the top 10 spots in its annual Democracy Index to rich Western nations—most of which have populations smaller than that of Maryland. But these nations look nothing like the places where the mass of humanity lives.Of the world’s 10 most populous nations, only the United States and India are long-established democracies. Two (China and Russia) are undisguised autocracies, and the other six can be charitably described as “democracies in progress.” That a political system works for Iceland—which has 341,000 residents, almost all of them practically relatives—means little to Brazil, Indonesia, or Nigeria.A real proof of concept can be found only in a nation that is big, low-income, and abundantly diverse—in ethnicity, language, religion, and every other way a society can be divided. That’s India. If democracy can make it there, it can make it anywhere. Until recently, democracy clearly could make it there. Upon gaining independence in 1947, India established a parliamentary system and enacted a liberal, far-reaching constitution. Its sole deviation from the democratic path was a period of “Emergency” (1975 to 1977), which stemmed more from then–Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s paranoia than any challenge to her party’s rule. With this and several other notable exceptions (periods of insurgency in Kashmir and Punjab, too-frequent local injustices against marginalized communities),rule of law has done better in India than in most other nations. But India’s democracy has seen worrisome erosion. On The Economist’s list, the country has slid from No. 35 in 2006 to No. 53 today. And the ways in which democracy is being undermined there provide a wake-up call to those watching from afar—including in the United States. At the root of the backsliding, in India as elsewhere, is a rejection of the core democratic principle that all citizens are equal. India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) champions Hindutva, an ideology that privileges the Hindu majority over religious minorities. First articulated a century ago, Hindutva has grown from a fringe movement into the focus of national politics. Its immediate target has been the country’s Muslims, who represent 14 percent of the population. If India transforms itself from a secular democracy (as is mandated by its constitution) into an avowedly Hindu nation, 276 million non-Hindus will become second-class citizens. Sectarian tensions flared throughout the BJP’s rise to power, and the flames were often fanned by the party itself. In 2014, Narendra Modi supplanted a generation of soft-edged figures and led the party to electoral victory. Although the only previous BJP prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had downplayed Hindutva in favor of less divisive center-right policies, Modi has made it the centerpiece of his governing strategy. The first illiberal thrust was launched not against the hardware of democracy (the electoral system) but the software that enables it to operate—that is, an apolitical judiciary, a free press, and other elements of civil society. India’s judicial system has bent to the wishes of politicians since 2014. In the early years of Modi’s premiership, Uttar Pradesh, India’s biggest state, whose population is larger than all but four of the world’s nations, saw dozens of murderous attacks on Muslims by Hindu mobs, who accused their victims (in almost all cases falsely) of cow slaughter. The BJP sided with the killers: When the party won state elections in 2017, it appointed as chief minister a firebrand Hindu cleric who had promoted this vigilante action. Since then, the state’s judicial system has declined to punish most of the offenders—and the nation’s Supreme Court has contented itself with issuing only tsk-tsks. Likewise, attacks on India’s press have grown brazen. Of the past decade’s 405 cases filed against journalists under a colonial-era sedition law, all but a few have been registered since Modi took office. The Caravan, an outlet known for its dogged investigation of the BJP, has been singled out for special harassment. Less than a month ago, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram acceded to government demands to block some journalists’ posts. The bans are under review by the platforms, but they have achieved their purpose. Many feisty Indian journalists now choose their words carefully. Weakening these civil-society foundations enabled the next stage of Modi’s program: the use of democracy’s mechanisms to undermine democracy’s core. In 2019, Modi returned to office with an absolute parliamentary majority. Shortly after, he abrogated the special status written into the constitution for Jammu and Kashmir (India’s sole Muslim-majority state). Protests in Kashmir were met with a months-long clampdown. Modi followed up with actions that officially and unofficially advantaged Hindus over Muslims nationwide. Demonstrations against these moves peaked in December 2019, and were extinguished only by a COVID-19 lockdown three months later. All of these moves would have been anathema to the drafters of India’s constitution. Yet all were within the technical limits of the law, and none has been seriously challenged in the nation’s now-quiescent courts. The fecklessness of opposition parties made the BJP’s task easier, but the tools were provided by the governing system itself: The BJP has never earned anything close to a majority of the popular vote, but because of India’s first-past-the-post electoral system, its lock on power is firm. In 2019, 37.4 percent of the vote (the BJP’s highest total ever) translated into 55.8 percent of the seats in Parliament. Gyan Prakash, a scholar of the Emergency, sees the greatest threat to democracy in this “shadow legality”: the use of lawfare to subvert the foundation of constitutional government. And he sees India’s example as having global implications. “Modi is part of a much larger phenomenon,” he told me. “This is a project to mobilize all state institutions, and change India’s democratic and plural politics and culture.” Do constitutional questions matter to a farmer scraping by on $4 a day (the national average)? They should. As the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen once noted, “No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy.” India is now facing its most serious natural disaster since independence, in the coronavirus pandemic. Even by official figures (which significantly undercount the victims), India is the world’s coronavirus epicenter: 29 million sickened, more than 350,000 dead, and no end in sight. A great many of these cases were preventable. Modi’s response to the pandemic has swung from oppressive lockdown to maskless political rallies and the encouragement of a super-spreader Hindu pilgrimage with 9 million attendees. A political system in which the government could be held accountable might have yielded a different outcome. All of this may sound familiar to American ears. President Donald Trump labeled the press the “enemy of the people” and attempted to intimidate sitting judges. A critical mass of the Republican Party is at least as motivated by white grievance as the BJP base is by Hindutva. And laws recently passed in Georgia and proposed elsewhere would let partisan state officials rather than voters determine elections. This might be technically in accord with the Constitution, but would be at odds with—well, democracy. Perhaps the most dangerous threat of all is complacency. Whether doomscrolling Twitter or ignoring politics completely, most Americans share a baseline confidence that democracy will endure. But will it? American democracy isn’t nearly as deeply rooted as we like to believe. Half of the population (that is: the female half) weren’t generally permitted to vote until 1920. Black Americans in Jim Crow states (that is, most of them) had to wait nearly another half century. If measured by universal suffrage, how long has America been a true democracy? For less time than the Rolling Stones have been touring. This is why Americans should be paying close attention to the politics of India. The U.S. is not Iceland; it’s huge, diverse, and tough to govern. Only one other country with comparable size and complexity has given democracy a sustained, multigenerational shot. If the system fails in India, it can certainly fail closer to home. Democracy solves climate change but we need an increase in pace of action Casas-Zamora 21 Dr. Kevin Casas-Zamora is the Secretary-General of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), with over 25 years of experience in democratic governance as a researcher, analyst, educator, consultant and public official. Here he discusses the role that democracy plays in mitigating climate change. 06/29/2021 Why democracy is the key ingredient to battling climate change” https://www.euronews.com/green/2021/06/29/why-democracy-is-the-key-ingredient-to-battling-climat e-change aaditg The recent court rulings tell us a lot, not just about the powerful assets that democracy can deploy in the struggle against climate change, but also the long-term robustness of the case for democracy as a political system. Democracies are under pressure from populism, disinformation, inequality and voter frustration, according to the Global State of Democracy report from the intergovernmental organisation International (IDEA). They are also afflicted by a crisis of self-confidence. Fairly or not, the current pandemic has helped cement a narrative portraying liberal democracies as lumbering and too divided to cope with big challenges, while extolling the presumed ability of authoritarian systems to act decisively. Andre Penner/AP2011 Deforestation in the Brazilian AmazonAndre Penner/AP2011 ‘Extremists and populists on the rise’: Why the EU needs a green prosecutor What are the vices to democracy? This narrative is not concocted out of thin air. Democracies do suffer from vices when it comes to slow-burning crises like global warming. Voters and politicians have short attention spans. Balances of power mean reforms can be held hostage to obstinate US Senators or oil lobbyists. Science can play second fiddle to voters if it entails higher taxes - France’s yellow vest protests, sparked by fuel price rises, are a case in point. And yet, despite all this, the facts are clear - 9 out of the 10 top performers in the 2021 Climate Change Performance Index are democracies. Sweden tops the list of 57 countries. China is 30th. The reasons for this are not hard to fathom. Democracies allow for the free flow of information that enables policy makers to debate and find solutions, and for civil society to mobilise. It is no coincidence that youth campaignerGreta Thunberg helped spark a global movement from a lone street demonstration in Sweden, one of the world’s top performing democracies. It is no coincidence that youth campaigner Greta Thunberg helped spark a global movement from a lone street demonstration in Sweden, one of the world’s top performing democracies.Democracies are more effective against climate change for the same reasons that they don’t experience famines, as Nobel Laureate Indian economistAmartya Sen suggested long ago - because in allowing freedom of expression, a vibrant civil society, regular elections and the workings of checks and balances, they increase the likelihood that crises will be met and destructive policies corrected. Democracy is not simply elections - it is the often chaotic workings of myriad institutions and groups as well as a culture of open debate, where climate reform is nudged along by courts, free media, parliaments, and public protests. Democracy’s most powerful weapon against the challenges of this century is its ability to self-correct. And then there is the capacity of democratic systems to forge the social consensus required for long-term transformations to be sustainable. We know this story - participatory decision-making may be slower than executive decrees, but almost always yields outcomes that are more legitimate and accepted by society, and hence more durable. Canva Democracy is a key ingredient to fighting climate changeCanva This is vital for climate change. Decarbonisation is not something governments do by fiat, though act they must - it is something societies as a whole must do by conviction. Consumer habits will need to change, from reducing air travel to adjusting diets. Trillions of dollars will have to be invested in transforming the sources of energy that fuel economies.New social contracts will have to be devised so that the burden of these fiscal bills can be equitably shared. There is no guarantee that democracies will succeed in building the consensus needed to save our species, but their odds are better than those of any other political arrangement. Could decarbonising our cities be the answer to climate change? Kids are disappointed in grownups’ ‘un-green’ ways: Here are their plans for a cleaner future Democratic governance could slow down climate change This is, however, the key question – while it is clear that the attributes of democracy are potentially superior to deal with climate change, it is much less clear that they will be actually deployed with the celerity required. This is, precisely, what courts are doing in Germany and elsewhere - they are moving forward the deadlines that political systems and societies must meet if our species is to avoid disaster. Those deadlines are tight – a few decades, at most. But courts alone won’t do the trick.Democratic governments, parliaments, and political leaders must also dramatically increase the pace of their actions. This is why it is so vital to connect the discussion of climate change with debates on the quality of democratic governance.We must distill, disseminate, and design the institutions and practices that are more likely to allow democracies to build consensus, distribute burdens and make decisions effectively to meet the climate crisis. Experimenting with new forms of political deliberation, like citizens’ assemblies, enlarging the representation of young people by lowering the voting age and adopting some of the bargaining practices between industries, workers and governments that have been so instrumental in building consensusin Northern Europe - this is the stuff democratic governance agendas should be made of in the climate crisis era. The alternative to democracy is violent civil wars, ethnic cleansing, and genocide---the best research confirms Cortright 13, David Cortright is the director of Policy Studies at the Kroc Institute for Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Fourth Freedom Forum, and author of 17 books, Kristen Wall is a Researcher and Analyst at the Kroc Institute, Conor Seyle is Associate Director of One Earth Future, Governance, Democracy, and Peace How State Capacity and Regime Type Influence the Prospects of War and Peace, http://oneearthfuture.org/sites/oneearthfuture.org/files//documents/publications/Cortright-Seyle-Wall-Paper.pdf The classic statement of Kantian peace theory applies to interstate conflict and focuses on dyadic relations between states. This leaves out the most common form of armed violence in the world today, civil conflicts and one-sided violence within states. In recent years, researchers have found evidence that the democratic peace phenomenon applies within states as well as between them. Regime type matters not only externally but internally.Mature democratic governments are not only less likely to wage war on each other, they also experience fewer armed uprisings and major civil wars and are more reluctant to use armed violence againsttheir own citizens. As the studies below indicate, the evidence of a democratic peace phenomenon within states is strong and compelling. Walter observes a direct relationship between levels of democracy and the likelihood of internal armed conflict. In her examination of the problem of war recurrence, she finds that countries characterized by open political systems and economic well-being—i.e., developed democracies— have a much lower probability of renewed civil war than autocratic countries with low levels of economic development.91 Walter measures the degree of political openness and democratic ‘voice’ by using Polity and Freedom House indicators. High scores on these indices correlate directly with a reduced risk of civil war. She notes, as other scholars have observed, that major civil wars do not occur in mature democratic states. She concludes: It may be that liberal democracies are really the only types of regimes that can truly insulate themselves from violent internal challenges. This suggests that citizens who are able to express their preferences about alternative policies and leaders, who are guaranteed civil liberties in their daily lives and in acts of political participation, are less likely to become soldiers. Offering citizens a real outlet fortheir concerns and having a governmentthat is open to democratic change considerably reduces the likelihood of a civil war.92 Civil conflicts within mature democracies are not only less frequent but also less lethal. Bethany Lacina assesses the severity of civil conflicts by measuring casualty levels according to several variables: regime type, state capacity, ethnic and religious diversity, and the impact of foreign military intervention. She findsthat the political characteristics of a regime correlate significantly with differing casualty levels and are the strongest predictor of conflict severity. Democratic governments experience much lower casualty levels during civil conflict than autocratic states. Lacina’s analysis finds that civil wars occurring within democratic states have less than half the battle deaths of conflicts in non-democracies.93 State-sponsored violence against civilians is also less likely to occur in democracies than in autocracies. In his important book, Death by Government, Rudolph Rummel assembles mind numbing data and numerous examples demonstrating the myriad ways governments kill their citizens—directly through genocide and mass terror and indirectly through starvation and repression. He finds a stark contrast between the behavior of autocracies and democracies. Autocratic governments readily “slaughter their people by the tens of millions; in contrast, many democracies can barely bring themselves to execute even serial murderers.”94 Through statistical analysis, Rummel showsthat genocidal killing is directly associated with the absence of democracy, holding constant other variables such as regime type, ethnic diversity, economic development level, population density, and culture.95 The lack of democracy is the most significant indicator of the likelihood of mass repression again the civilian population. As Rummel documents the appalling litany of governments murdering their own people, he is unequivocal about what he considers the necessary remedy—“The solution is democracy. The course of action is to foster freedom.”95 BarbaraHarff’sresearch on genocidal violence comes to similar conclusions. She examines 126 cases of internal war and regime collapse between 1955 and 1997 to identify the factors that led to genocidal violence in 35 of these cases. Her results match the findings of other studies. Autocratic regimes facing state failure are three and a half times more likely to experience genocidal violence than democratic regimes facing such failure.97 She finds that genocidal violence is more likely in regimes that advocate exclusionary ideologies, an approach that is rare in mature democratic states. Harff observes that the lowest levels of mass killing occur in states with a high degree of economic interdependence, which is characteristic of mature democratic regimes.98 Her conclusion is that states are less likely to employ genocidal violence when they have inclusive democratic systems and trade extensively with other countries. As Steven Pinker notes, these findings fit well with the Kantian triad of democracy, cosmopolitanism and trade— “another trifecta” for liberal peace theory.99 Democratic governance stops nuclear transition wars with Russia and China AND drives global technological innovation---extinction. Kolodziej ’17 Edward; May 19; Emeritus Research Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; EUC Paper Series, “Challenges to the Democratic Project for Governing Globalization,” https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/96620/Kolodziej Introduction 5.19.17.pdf?sequence=2andisAllowed=y The Rise of a Global Society Let me first sketch the global democratic project for global governance as a point of reference. We must first recognize that globalization has given rise to a global society for the first time in the evolution of the human species. We are now stuck with each other; seven and half billion people today — nine to ten by 2050: allsuper connected and interdependent. In greater or lesser measure, humans are mutually dependent on each other in the pursuit of their most salient values, interests, needs, and preferences — concerns about personal, community, and nationalsecurity, sustainable economic growth, protection ofthe environment, the equitable distribution of the globe’s material wealth, human rights, and even the validation of their personal and social identities by others. Global warming is a metaphor of this morphological social change in the human condition. All humans are implicated in this looming Anthropogenic-induced disaster — the exhausts of billions of automobiles, the methane released in fracking for natural gas, outdated U.S. coal-fired power plants and newly constructed ones in China. Even the poor farmer burning charcoal to warm his dinner is complicit. Since interdependence surrounds, ensnares, and binds us as a human society, the dilemma confronting the world’s diverse and divided populations is evident: the expanding scope as well asthe deepening, accumulating, and thickening interdependencies of globalization urge global government. Butthe Kantian ideal of universal governance is beyond the reach of the world’s disparate peoples. They are profoundly divided by religion, culture, language, tribal, ethnic and national loyalties as well as by class, social status, race, gender, and sexual orientation. How have the democracies responded to this dilemma? How have they attempted to reconcile the growing interdependence of the world’s disputing peoples and need for global governance? What do we mean by the governance of a human society? A working, legitimate government of a human society requires simultaneous responses to three competing imperatives: Order, Welfare, and Legitimacy. While the forms of these OWL imperatives have differed radically over the course of human societal evolution,these constraints remain predicable of all human societies if they are to replicate themselves and flourish over time. The OWL imperatives are no less applicable to a global society. 1.Orderrefers to a society’s investment of awesome material powerin an individual or body to arbitrate and resolve value, interest, and preference conflicts, which cannot be otherwise resolved by non-violent means — the Hobbesian problematic. 2. The Welfare imperative refers to the necessity of humans to eat, drink, clothe, and shelterthemselves and to pursue the full-range of their seemingly limitless acquisitive appetites. Responses to the Welfare imperative, like that of Order, constitute a distinct form of governing power and authority with its own decisional processes and actors principally associated either with the Welfare or the Order imperative. Hence we have the Marxian-Adam Smith problematic. 3. Legitimacy is no less a form of governing power and authority, independent of the Order and Welfare imperatives. Either by choice, socialization, or coerced acquiescence, populations acknowledge a regime’s governing authority and their obligation to submitto its rule. Here arises the Rousseaunian problematic. The government of a human society emerges then as an evolving, precarious balance and compromise of the ceaseless struggle of these competing OWL power domains for ascendancy of one of these imperatives over the others. It is against the backdrop of these OWL imperatives — Order, Welfare, and Legitimacy — that we are brought to the democratic project for global governance. The Democratic Project For Order, open societies constructed the global democratic state and, in alliance, the democratic global-state system. Collectively these initiatives led to the creation of the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and the European Union to implement the democratic project’s system of global governance. The democratic global state assumed all of the functions of the Hobbesian Westphalian security state — but a lot more. The global state became a Trading, Banking, Market, and Entrepreneurial state. To these functions were added those of the Science, Technology and the Economic Growth state. How else would we be able to enjoy the Internet, cell phones and iPhones, or miracle cures? These are the products of the iron triangle of the global democratic state, academic and non-profitresearch centers, and corporations. It is a myth that the Market System did allthis alone. Fueled by increasing material wealth, the democratic global state was afforded the means to become the Safety Net state, providing education, health, social security, leisure and recreation for its population. And as the global state’s power expanded across this broad and enlarging spectrum of functions and roles, the global state was also constrained by the social compacts of the democracies to be bound by popular rule. The ironic result of the expansion of the global state’s power and social functions and its obligation to accede to popular will was a Security state and global state-system that vastly outperformed its principal authoritarian rivals in the Cold War. So much briefly is the democratic project’s response to the Order imperative. Now let’s look at the democratic project’s response to the Welfare imperative. The democracies institutionalized Adam Smith’s vision of a global Market System. The Market System trucks and barters, Smith’s understanding of what it means to be human. But it does a lot more. The Market System facilitates and fosters the free movement of people, goods and services, capital, ideas, values, scientific discoveries, and best technological practices. Created is a vibrant global civil society oblivious to state boundaries. What we now experience is De Tocqueville’s Democracy in America on global steroids. As for the imperative of Legitimacy, the social compacts of the democracies affirmed Rousseau’s conjecture that all humans are free and therefore equal. Applied to elections each citizen has one vote. Democratic regimes are also obliged to submit to the rule of law, to conduct free and fair elections, to honor majority rule while protecting minority rights, and to promote human rights at home and abroad. The Authoritarian Threat to the Democratic Project The democratic project for global governance is now at risk. Let’s start with the challenges posed by authoritarian regimes, with Russia and China in the lead. Both Russia and China would rest global governance on Big Power spheres of influence. Both would assume hegemonic status in theirrespective regions, asserting their versions of the Monroe Doctrine. Their regional hegemony would then leverage their claim to be global Big Powers. Moscow and Beijing would then have an equal say with the United States and the West in sharing and shaping global governance. The Russo-Chinese global system of Order would ascribe to Russia and China governing privileges not accorded to the states both aspire to dominate. Moscow and Beijing would enjoy unconditional recognition of their state sovereignty, territorial integrity, and non-interference in their domestic affairs, but they would reserve to themselves the right to intervene in the domestic and foreign affairs of the states and peoples under their tutelage in pursuit of their hegemonic interests. President Putin has announced that Russia’s imperialism encompassesthe millions of Russians living in the formerrepublics of the Soviet Union. Russia contends that Ukraine and Belarus also fall under Moscow’s purported claim to historical sovereignty over these states. Forceful re-absorption of Crimea and control over eastern Ukraine are viewed by President Putin as Russia’s historical inheritances. Self-determination is not extended to these states or to other states and peoples of the former Soviet Union. Moscow rejects their right to freely align, say, with the European Union or, god forbid, with NATO. In contrast to the democratic project, universal in its reach,the Russo-Chinese conception of a stable global order rests on more tenuous and conflict-prone ethno-national foundations. Russia’s proclaimed enemies are the United States and the European Union. Any means that undermines the unity of these entities is viewed by Moscow as a gain. The endgame is a poly-anarchical interstate system, potentially as war-prone as the Eurocentric system before and after World War I, but now populated by states with nuclear weapons. Global politics becomes a zero-sum game. Moscow has no compunctions about corrupting the electoral processes of democratic states, conducting threatening military exercises along NATO’s east border, or violating the more than 30-year old treaty to ban the deployment of Intermediate-Range missile launchers, capable of firing nuclear weapons. Nothing less than the dissolution of the democratic project is Moscow’s solution for global Order. China also seeks a revision of the global Order. It declares sovereignty over the South China Sea. Rejected is The Hague Tribunal’s dismissal of this claim. Beijing continues to build artificial islands as military bases in the region to assertits control over these troubled waters. If it could have its way, China would decide which states and their naval vessels, notably those of the United States, would have access to the South China Sea. Where Moscow and Beijing depart sharply are in their contrasting responses to the Welfare imperative. Moscow has no solution other than to use its oil and gas resources asinstruments of coercive diplomacy and to weaken or dismantle existing Western alliances and international economic institutions. China can ill-afford the dismantling of the global market system. In his address to the Davos gathering in January of this year, Chinese President Xi asserted that “any attempt to cut off the flow of capital, technologies, products, industries and people between economies, and channel the waters in the ocean back into isolated lakes and creeks is simply not possible.” Adam Smith could not have said it better. Both Moscow and Beijing have been particularly assiduous to legitimate their regimes. President Putin’s case for legitimacy is much broader and deeper than a pure appeal to Russian nationalism. He stresses the spiritual and cultural unity of Russianspeaking populations spread across the states of the post-Soviet space. A central core of that unity is the Russian Orthodox Church, a key prop of the regime. Reviled is Western secularism, portrayed as corrupt and decadent, viewed by Putin as an existential threat to the Russian World. The Chinese regime, secular and atheistic, can hardly rely on religion to legitimate the regime. Beijing principally rests its legitimacy on its record of economic development and nationalism. The regime’s success in raising the economic standards of hundreds of millions of Chinese reinforces its claim to legitimacy in two ways. On the one hand, the Communist Party can rightly claim to have raised hundreds of millions of Chinese from poverty within a generation. On the other hand, the Communist Party insists that its model of economic growth, what critics scorn as crony capitalism, is superior to the unfettered, market-driven model of the West. Hence capitalism with Chinese characteristics is more effective and legitimate than the Western alternative. Where Moscow and Beijing do converge is in fashioning their responses to the Legitimacy imperative. They repudiate Western liberal democracy. Both reject criticisms of their human rights abuses as interventions into their domestic affairs. Dissidents are harassed, incarcerated, or, in some instances, assassinated. Journalists are co-opted, selfcensored, silenced, or imprisoned. Social media is state controlled. Both the Putin regime and the Chinese Communist Party monopolize the public narratives evaluating governmental policy. Transparency and accountability are hostage to governmental secrecy. Civil society has few effective avenues to criticize governmental actions. Moscow adds an ironic twist to these controls in manipulating national elections to produce an elected authoritarian regime. Whether either of these authoritarian responses to the Legitimacy imperative will survive remains to be seen. Beijing’s use of economic performance and nationalism to underwrite its legitimacy is a double-edged sword. If economic performance falters, then legitimacy suffers. Whether top-down nationalism will always control nationalism from the bottom-up is also problematic. In resting legitimacy on nationalism, dubious historical claims, and crypto-religious beliefs, Moscow is spared Beijing’s economic performance test. That said, there is room for skepticism that in the long-run Russians will exchange lower standards of living for corrupt rule in pursuit of an elusive Russian mission antagonistic to the West. The implosion of the Soviet Union, due in no small part to its retarded economic and technological development, suggests that the patience of the Russian people has limits. Demonstrations in March 2017 against state corruption in 82 Russian cities, led largely by Russian youth, reveal these limits. They are an ominous omen for the future of the Putin kleptocracy. Meanwhile, neither Russia nor China offers much to solve the Legitimacy imperative of global governance