James Diao

Utilitarianism AC
I affirm. The resolution is not a truth statement, but a division of ground. The judges role is to weigh topical aff offense against functionally competitive negative offense. First, the offense-defense paradigm upholds fairness by giving both sides equal ground and forcing clash. Second, conflicting claims that impact directly to truth function on independent levels, meaning that they cant be weighed against each other and are therefore irresolvable. According to Rawls1, the Difference Principle holds that social and economic inequalities, for example inequalities of wealth and authority, are just only if they result in compensating benefits for everyone, and in particular for the least advantaged members of society. Or in other words, benefit everyone. If you cant, then prioritize the least advantaged. This is identical to the phrasing of a form of negative utilitarianism. Under this theory, utility is the only moral good, but priority is given to the least well-off. The difference principle functions as a tie-breaker for the distribution of goods when no net benefits can be given. According to Nozick2, entitlement theory is built on three core ideas. (1) A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in acquisition is entitled to that holding; (2) A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in transfer, from someone else entitled to that holding, is entitled to the holding; and (3) No one is entitled to a holding except by (repeated) applications of (1) and (2). This draws a very distinct picture of absolute property rights, where even taxation becomes tantamount to slavery. I value justice, as prescribed by the resolution. Justice is defined as giving each their due. The AC will compare the two theories by checking them off against the rubric of justice. Thus, the standard is consistency with necessary preconditions of justice. Contention 1 explains why justice must be based on consequences. Subpoint A is objectivity Justice must be objective, simply by nature of being a universal guide for action. I must respect others interests as I do my own. Singer3 explains,
The universal aspect of ethics, I suggest, does provide a persuasive, although not conclusive, reason for taking a broadly utilitarian position. My reason for

In accepting that ethical judgments must be made from a universal point of view, I am accepting that my own interests cannot, simply because they are my interests, count more than the interests of anyone else. Thus my very natural concern that my own interests be looked after
suggesting this is as follows.
1 2
3

John Rawls (Professor at Harvard University). A Theory of Justice. Revised ed. Cambridge: Harvard U Press, 1999. Robert Nozick [Political Philosopher at Harvard University] Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 1974 Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, Second Edition, Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 13-14

must, when I think ethically, be extended to the interests of others. This requires me to weigh up all these interests and adopt the course of action most
likely to maximize the interests of those affected.

Consistency demands that we include the interests of all agents into our decision calculus. To disregard them, as Nozick does, is to exclude them as morally insignificant. Subpoint B is the duty of government Justice, when contextualized within the government, must fit into the functions of the state. The government must always be able to take action amidst competing claims. Harries4 explains, But in its context it might also be interpreted as an appreciation of the fundamental point made by Max Weber that, in politics, it is the ethic of responsibility rather than the ethic of absolute ends that is appropriate. While an individual is free to treat human rights as absolute, to be observed whatever the cost, governments must always weigh consequences and the competing claims of other ends. Nozicks system of side constraints under entitlement theory can never meet because it draws nonnegotiable lines that paralyze public policy. Subpoint C is degrees of right. Justice must allow for degrees of right rather than simply binary judgments to allow for a comprehensive system of conduct. Alexander5 explains, In the moral realm, our deontic judgments are usually (always?) binary: an act (or omission) is either morally forbidden or morally permissible. Yet the determination of an acts deontic status frequently turns on the existence of properties that are matters of degree. In what follows I shall give several examples of binary moral judgments that turn
on scalar properties, and I shall claim that these examples should puzzle us. How can the existence of a property to a specific degree demarcate a boundary between an acts being morally forbidden and its not being morally forbidden? Why arent our moral judgments of acts scalar in the way that the properties on which those judgments are based are scalar, so that

acts, like states of affairs, can be morally better or worse rather than [simply] right or

wrong? I conceive of this inquiry as operating primarily within the realm of normative theory. Presumably it will give aid and comfort to consequentialists, who have no trouble mapping their binary categories onto scalar properties. For example, a straightforward act utilitarian, for whom one act out of all possible acts is morally required (and hence permissible) and all others
morally forbidden, can, in theory at least, provide an answer to every one of the puzzles I raise. And, in theory, so can all other types of act and rule consequentialists. They will find nothing of interest here beyond embarrassment for their deontological adversaries.

The deontologists, however, must meet

these challenges of these puzzles. And for them, the puzzles may raise not just normative questions, but questions of moral epistemology and moral ontology. Side constraints can never properly express justice because they cant weigh between violations. Nozick assumes that coercion is always wrong, but has no system for evaluating how some forms of coercion are worse than others. Subpoint D is the nondistiction of act and omission. The act-omission distinction does not exist. The difference is merely semantic since any omission can be rewritten as an action. Rachels6 explains, So what is the difference between causing and allowing? What real difference is marked by those words? The most obvious ways of attempting to draw the distinction [between doing and allowing] wont work. For example, suppose we say it is the difference between action and inaction--when we cause an outcome, we do something, but when we merely allow it to happen, we passively stand by and do nothing. This wont work because, when
4

Owen Harries, editor and founder of National Interest, Senior Fellow at Centre for Independent Studies, Spring 1993/1994, Power and Civilization, The National Interest
5 6

Larry Alexander, Scalar Properties, Binary Judgments, Journal of Applied Philosophy 25 (2008). James Rachels. Killing and Letting Die. Encyclopedia of Ethics, 2nd Edition. http://www.jamesrachels.org/killing.pdf

we allow something to happen, we do perform at least one act: the act of allowing it to happen. The problem is that the distinction between doing something and not doing something is relative to the specification of what is or is not done-- if I allow someone to die, I do not save him, but I do let him die. It is tempting to say the difference between action and inaction is the
difference between moving ones body and not moving ones body; but that does not help: when we allow something to happen, we are typically moving our bodies in all sorts of ways. If

by [choosing the option of] running away, I may be moving my body very rapidly. For example, if I see a baby drowning but still choose to walk away, I have made clear my intention of the babys death just as surely as if I had placed it there myself. Entitlement theory makes the claim that rights are purely negative, which is fallacious because it assumes this difference. Subpoint E is rational decision-making Neuro-imaging shows that consequentialism is the most rational moral theory. Professor Joshua Greene7 of Harvard writes,
I allow you to die

To summarize, peoples moral judgments appear to be products of at least two different kinds of psychological processes. First, both

brain imaging and reaction-time data suggest that there are prepotent negative emotional responses that drive people to disapprove of the personally harmful actions proposed in cases like the footbridge and crying baby dilemmas. These responses are characteristic of deontology, but not of consequentialism. Second, further brain imaging results suggest that
cognitive psychological processes can compete with the aforementioned emotional processes, driving people to approve of personally harmful moral

The parts of the brain that exhibit increased activity when people make characteristically consequentialist judgments are those that are most closely associated with higher cognitive functions such as executive control (Koechlin et al., 2003; Miller and Cohen, 2001), complex planning ( Koechlin, Basso, Pietrini, Panzer, & Grafman, 1999), deductive and inductive reasoning (Goel & Dolan, 2004), taking the long view in economic decision making (McClure, Laibson, Loewenstein, & Cohen., 2004), and so on. Subpoint F is epistemology Happiness is objectively good. Its denial is epistemologically impossible. Nagel8 writes, [pleasure and pain] are at least good or bad for us, if anything is. What seems to be going on here is that we cannot from an objective standpoint withhold a certain kind of endorsement of the most direct and immediate subjective value judgments we make concerning the contents of our own consciousness. We regard ourselves as too close to those things to be mistaken in our immediate, nonideological evaluative impressions. No objective view we can attain could possibly overrule our subjective authority in such
violations, primarily when there is a strong consequentialist rationale for doing so, as in the crying baby case.

Greene, J. D. (2007). The secret joke of Kant's soul, in Moral Psychology, Vol. 3: The Neuroscience of Morality: Emotion, Disease, and Development, W. Sinnott-Armstrong, Ed., MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
8

Thomas Nagel, The View From Nowhere, HUP, 1986: 156-168.

Contention 2 proves why ends-based theories must prioritize the least advantaged. Subpoint A is the economic law of diminishing marginal utility This tells us that helping the least well off in society tends to be the best application of limited resources. A single unit of resource, i.e. a dollar, is far more valuable to those who barely have any, than to those who make 6 digit incomes. Thus, we maximize utility when helping the least well off. Subpoint B is the hedonistic treadmill This theory in psychology tells us that the happiness of individuals tends to remain constant after basic needs are met. Professor Frederick9 at Yale notes, It is widely assumed that material circumstances strongly affect human happiness. However, as the example of the poor little rich girl suggests, objective outcomes and happiness are not perfectly correlated. Indeed, many studies suggest that they are hardly correlated at all. For example, given a week, winners of lotteries do not report themselves as being much
happier than other people, and those who were paralyzed in an accident do not report themselves as being much less happy. Similarly, as nations get wealthier, the reported wellbeing of

The lack of evidence for a relation between objective circumstances and reported well-being has given rise to the concept of a hedonic treadmill, on which humans happiness remains stationary, despite efforts or interventions to advance it. This is empirically true. Happiness levels off dramatically after basic needs are met, and peaks at around $75,000 a year. Princeton professors Deaton and Kahneman10 explain, Peoples life evaluations rise steadily with income, but the reported quality of emotional daily experience levels off at a certain income level, according to a new study by two Princeton University professors, published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Angus Deaton, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of International
its citizens does not increase. Affairs and Professor of Economics and International Affairs, and Daniel Kahneman, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs

over 450,000 responses to a daily survey of 1,000 randomly selected U.S. residents and found that while life evaluation rose steadily with annual income, [it] the quality of the respondents everyday experiences did not improve beyond approximately $75,000 a year. Societys resources best maximize happiness when they are prioritized to those who dont have enough to meet the basic requisites of a decent life. Subpoint C is moral appeals The suffering of the least advantaged creates a moral plea that justifies prioritization. Philosophy Professor Popper11 explains, In my opinion, human suffering makes a direct moral appeal, namely, the appeal for help, while there is no similar appeal to increase the happiness of a man who is doing well anyway. Justice must respect these appeals because they constitute asymmetrical claims that justify tilting the scale in their favor
(Emeritus), analyzed

Shane Frederick (Professor at Yale University) Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology New York: Russell Sage. 1999. http://knowledge.sagepub.com/view/socialpsychology/n252.xml
10

Angus Deaton (Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics and International Affairs) and Daniel Kahneman (Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs), Incomes Influence on Happiness, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. August 2010 http://wws.princeton.edu/news/Income_Happiness/
11

Karl Popper, Professor of Philosophy, The Open Society and its Enemies, 1952, p. 570-1.