Professional Documents
Culture Documents
As commonly understood today, autonomy is the capacity for self-determination. Being autonomous, however, is not the same as
being respected as an autonomous agent. When one respects a person’s capacity for self-
determination they acknowledge[s] the worth of that individual[s] as an independent
agent[s]. To respect an autonomous agent is to acknowledge[s] that
person’s right to make choices and take action based on that person’s own values and
belief system. The principle of respect for autonomy implies that one should be free from
coercion in deciding to act, and that others are obligated to protect confidentiality, respect privacy, and tell the
truth. The principle of respect for autonomy, however, does not imply that one must cooperate with another’s actions in order to
respect that individual’s autonomy.
Although it is the last in the listing of the principles that under pin the society of peoples, the duty of assistance is
very important to Rawl’s internationalism. As stated in the earlier part of this work, it is the only principle that shows that the
society of peoples owes anything at all to the distant other in the sense of positive action to bring the peoples in the burdened
societies out of their problems. Laudable as this principle might have otherwise been, its central defect lies in the
supererogatory implication. The principle grants a duty that does not morally
obligate society of peoples to help the distant needy in those burdened societies. What it allows
to get to those needy peoples is just humanitarian services. Thus, the recipients of the assistance from the society of peoples are
deprived of any moral right to make a morally binding demand on the society of people if they fail to fulfill this duty of assistance.
Next, when we praise people it is because they go above and beyond, i.e.
if someone jumps on a grenade, that would result in a lot of praise, as
nobody expects someone to do this. This means that actions that result in
praise are supererogatory.
Of course we ought to do what we judge to be good, and of course we ought to do it because of its
goodness. The model here is one of recognition, drawn without fundamental alteration from the case of belief. Certainly we
ought to exercise our autonomous judgment about what to believe, but
just as certainly we ought to believe what we judge to be true, independently of
anything about ourselves. In the theoretical case, our thoughts are necessarily directed towards objects beyond ourselves, and so
the role of our will must be to subordinate itself to our best judgments about the nature of the object.
Ana Iltis, Center for Health Care Ethics, Saint Louis University, 03
(http://proquest.umi.com.ezproxy.whitman.edu:2048/pqdweb?index=0&did=575822021&SrchMod
e=1&sid=1&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1310274871&clientId=
48453)
The multiplicity of autonomous selves do not sustain a single standard of morality. MacIntyre argues that we possess “the
fragments of a conceptual scheme… We possess indeed simulacra of morality, we continue to use many of
the key expressions. But we have – very largely if not entirely – lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality.”
The most striking feature of contemporary moral debates is “that they apparently can find no terminus. There seems to
be no rational way of securing moral agreement in our culture,” The ongoing
debate concerning the morality of immorality of abortion is a clear example of this lack of agreement or spectrum of views. There
are significant disputes concerning the moral and legal permissibility of abortion A successful account of
moral integrity and moral responsibility, therefore, cannot be universal
but must be situated in a particular context. Absent a universal
understanding of morality, no single sense of moral obligation is
available. There appears to be no framework within which we may justifiably assert that all individuals are morally obligated
in particular ways beyond a limited set of side constraints we may recognize as universal. It nevertheless is the case that we
routinely wish to attribute moral obligations to individuals and to understand the moral obligations particular persons bear. We may
understand particular individuals as having particular obligations only with an appreciation of their moral characters and moral
integrity. Moral character allows us to attribute moral obligations, and moral integrity is the mechanism by which we can evaluate
the extent to which they satisfy the obligations.
First) Each person has a different view of values and what constitutes
moral action. Only individual morality exists. Thus, the concept of
universal morality is an illusion, so saying that every individual has the
same moral obligation to act in the face of injustice makes no sense.
A) The aff tells everyone what is just and what is unjust which is
oppressive, and is a clear violation of autonomy, as individuals are
not allowed to judge what is just and unjust. But it also forces them
to act on ideals that may not be theirs, which is oppressive.
- Also even if the aff is not forcing people to act it is
pressuring them to act, as people will be pressured by
society as others will be doing it and people will view
them as bad people if they don’t. OR
B) The aff allows each person to decide what is injustice and what
isn’t, which is subjective. Everyone deciding what injustice is,
causes chaos, because there is no room for compromise under the
aff, and that will create crisis. For example, if one group of people
believe that gun control is unjust and the other believes guns are
unjust, it will surely lead to chaos.
Neg cross-ex strat
2NR Strat
Autonomy framework
In developing his thoughts about ‘the obligation to assist’, Peter Singer separates preventing evil from promoting good and contends
‘if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral
importance, we ought, morally, to do it’. Slote argues that ‘one has an obligation to prevent serious
evil or harm when one can do so without seriously interfering with one’s
life plans or style and without doing any wrongs of commission’.
- This standard does not make an actual stance on when people are
responsible, rather it is just saying people are responsible.
- It does not have any weighing mechanism, which is very is a reason
to not accept it.
AT: Deontology
experiencing the collective pain of ten people. Util fails to respect the
inherent value of each human being, if slavery produced more good than
cannot calculate how good it is, meaning under this framework all actions
are permissible. Because all actions are permissible that means slavery
- i.e. if one had to murder someone in order to have a kid that would
be immoral, but kids cost a lot of money, and that money could
have gone to saving a life, thus it would be immoral to have a kid.
Triggers permissibility, because no actions are allowed.
- AT; to this. Not mutually exclusive, there is a line, you can still do
things and donate and help out, just doesn’t have to be this
extreme.
- Only need to act against a few injustices
First, my opponent proposed no definitions for the
following words, so you have to use the following
definitions to evaluate the round.
Entertainism (“Movies and Its Deep Impact on Society: An Issue No One Talks
About.” Entertainism, Entertainism, 2018, entertainism.com/movies-their-impact-on-
society.)
If not consciously, it leaves its traces in our psyche. Since we consider actors
as superiors and almost have god-like devotion for them,
whatever they do affects us as well. We try to emulate them and
behave like them. We emulate their newest fashion trends, the way they
speak, and the lifestyles they lead, both on and off-screen. We are interested in finding
out which celeb is dating who, and what all they are up to in their personal and private