I Negate,
The Value is Morality as implied by the evaluative mechanism of the resolution “ought”.
Prefer a deontological interpretation of the resolution:
1. Deontological conceptions of morality are always more clear than other philosophies because
they don’t allow for exceptions. A good consequence is inherently subjective considering that
everybody values different things. Thus, consequentialism provides no means of deciding
between two “good” ends. If one action protects human life, and another protects human
worth, which do we choose?
2. There will never be a magical crystal ball that allows us to determine what the consequences of
our actions will be. If I spin my pen on a table, I will have no idea where it will stop. Thus,
deontology determines what is moral through what we do know.
3. And, Consequentialism leads to a paralysis of action because any action could be construed to
end in disaster.
4. GOVERNMENTS STILL ACT WITH INTENT AND SHOULD BE SUBJECT TO MORAL
CONSTRAINTS
Thomas Donaldson, professor of business and ethics, ETHICS & INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS,
1995, p. 147.
States may not be human individuals, but they often behave with foresight and must be
accountable to certain moral principles. Genocide and torture are not to be weighed up by
states on the scale of future consequences; rather, states simply must not engage in them.
The moral language of deontology may not be sufficient for the moral interpretation of international affairs, but it
turns out to be necessary.
5. Morality precedes all rational decision making.
Bauman1 writes: But the moral crisis of the postmodern habitat requires first and foremost that
politics - whether the politics of the politicians or the policentric, scattered politics which matters all the more for being so elusive
and beyond control _ be an extension and institutionalization of moral responsibility. Genuine moral
issues of the high-tech world are by and large beyond the reach of individuals (who, at best, may singly or severally purchase the
right not to worry about them, or buy a temporary reprieve from suffering the effects of neglect). The effects of technology are longdistance, and so must be the preventive and remedial action. Hans Jonas's 'long-range ethics' makes sense, if at all, only as a political
programme - though given the nature of the postmodern habitat, there is little hope that any political party competing for state
power would be willing, suicidally, to endorse this truth and act upon it. Commenting on Edgar Allan Poe's story of three fishermen
caught in the maelstrom, of whom two died paralysed with fear and doing nothing, but the third survived, having noticed that round
objects are sucked into the abyss less quickly, and promptly jumping into a barrel - Norbert Elias sketched the way in which the exit
from a nonexit situation may be plotted. The survivor, Elias suggests, “began to think more coolly; and by standing back, by
controlling his own fear, by seeing himself as it were from a distance, like a chessman forming a pattern with others -on a board, he
managed to turn his thoughts away from himself to the situation in which he found himself... Symbolically representing in his mind
the structure and direction of the flow of events, he discovered a way of escape. In that situation, the level of self-control and the
level of process-control were ... interdependent and complemen tary.'s” Let us note that Poe's cool and clever fisherman escaped
alone. We do not know how many barrels there were left in the boat. And barrels, after all, have been known since Diogenes to be
the ultimate individual retreats. The question is - and to this question private cunning offers no answer -- to what extent the
techniques of individual survival (techniques by the way, amply provided for all present and future, genuine and putative
maelstroms, by eager-tooblige-and-profit merchants of goods and counsels) can be stretched to-embrace the-collective survival.-The-maelstrom-of the kind we are in - all of us together, and most of us individually - is so frightening because of its tendency to
break down the issue of common survival into a sackful of individual survival issues, and then to take the issue so pulverized off the
political agenda. Can the process be retraced? Can that which has been broken be made whole again? And where to find an
adhesive strong enough to keep it whole? If the successive chapters of this book suggest anything, it is that moral issues cannot be
'resolved', nor the moral life of humanity guaranteed, by the calculating and legislative efforts of reason. Morality
is not safe
in the hands of reason, though this is exactly what spokesmen of reason promise. Reason cannot help the
1
Zygmunt Bauman, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, 1993. Postmodern Ethics pgs. 246-250. http://docs.exdat.com/docs/index149754.html?page=82 accessed 7/19/12
moral self without depriving the self of what makes the self moral: that unfounded, nonrational, un-arguable, no-excuses-given and noncalculable urge to stretch towards the other, to
caress, to be for, to live for, happen what may. Reason is about making correct decisions, while moral responsibility
precedes all thinking about decisions as it does not, and cannot care about any logic which would allow the approval
of an action as correct. Thus, morality can be `rationalized' only at the cost of self-denial and self
attrition.
And, in order to be moral, we cannot use people as means to an end.
Velasquez2 writes: Kant’s second version of the categorical imperative implies that we should not use people as objects, as things whose only function is to satisfy our desires.
Instead, he claims, morality requires that we always give others the opportunity to decide for themselves
whether or not they will join us in our actions. This rules out all forms of deception, force, coercion,
and manipulation. It also rules out all the ways we have of exploiting other people to satisfy our own
desires without their free consent. Moreover, the second version implies that we should promote people’s capacity to choose for themselves. It also implies that
we should strive to develop this capacity in ourselves and in those around us (for example, through education). Again, some examples may clarify what Kant has in mind in this second version.
To treat a person as a means is to
use the person to achieve my personal interests. In effect, this second version says that we should treat people only as
they freely and knowingly consent to be treated, not merely as a means to my own goal. Kant would say that it is
For Kant, to respect a person as an end is to respect her capacity to freely and knowingly choose for herself what she will do.
wrong to force or to manipulate a person into doing something because in manipulating or forcing a person I am failing to treat the person as she has freely and knowingly consented to be
treated.
Thus, the Criterion is Valuing People as Ends
No social entity can coerce a person for the greater good, due to side-constraints set
by morality
Robert Nozick, Professor of Philosophy at Harvard, 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia.
Side constraints express the inviolability of other persons. But why may not one violate persons for the greater social
good? Individually, we each sometimes choose to undergo some pain or sacrifice for a greater benefit or to avoid a greater harm: we go to the
dentist to avoid worse suffering later; we do some unpleasant work for its results; some persons diet to improve their health or looks; some
save money to support themselves when they are older. In each case, some cost is borne for the sake of the greater overall good. Why not,
similarly, hold that some persons have to bear some costs that benefit other persons more, for the sake of the overall social good? But there
is no social entity with a good that undergoes some sacrifice for its own good. There are only
individual people, different individual people, with their own individual lives. Using one of these people for
the benefit of others, uses him and benefits the others. Nothing more. What happens is that something is
done to him for the sake of others. Talk of an overall social good covers this up. (Intentionally?) To use a
person in this way does not sufficiently respect and take account of the fact that he is a separate
person,' that his is the only life he has. He does not get some overbalancing good from his sacrifice, and no one is entitled
to force this upon him least of all a state or government that claims his allegiance (as
other individuals do not) and that therefore scrupulously must be neutral between its citizens.
Individual liberty is the overriding moral imperative and cannot be
sacrificed even for National Security
Nock (Christopher John, “Equal Freedom and Unequal Property: A Critique of Nozick’s Libertarian Case” p. 677-678 Published by: Canadian
Political Science Association Vol. 25, No. 4, Dec., 1992 http://www.jstor.org.hal.weber.edu:2200/stable/3229683?
seq=2&Search=yes&searchText=nozick&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dnozick%26acc%3Don%26wc
%3Don&prevSearch=&item=9&ttl=7228&returnArticleService=showFullText&resultsServiceName=null)
2
Manuel Velasquez, Moral philosopher Mar. 6, 2007. Philosophy: A Text With Readings pg. 485
Nozick, however, insists that, if
we are to preserve the sanctity of individual liberty, utilitarian
considerations must not be allowed to influence the nature of the property relations. This
view stems from his commitment to the classical liberal principle of equal liberty, which maintains that all sane adult
individuals have the right to govern their own lives as they see fit, provided that each
respects the equal right of all others to do the same. For Nozick, this libertarian principle
must operate as an overriding moral imperative which demands that people be treated as
the final arbiters of their own desires/value-preferences/interests. It is on the basis of this principle that he holds
that individuals have created for themselves private and exclusive entitlement to certain
properties in land and other means of production. The dictates of liberty require that they
be left free to dispose of these properties as they will, without regard for wider socioeconomic concerns. As such, for Nozick, inviolable capitalist property rights are a necessary
corollary of the free society.
Violations of privacy are the basis for governmental totalitarianism- the German
Democratic Republic proves.
Ron Watson, Department of Political Science, Washington University., “The Ethics of Domestic Government Spying” March 2013¶
http://rewatson.wustl.edu/The%20Ethics%20of%20Domestic%20Government%20Spying.pdf
Although states can hardly do without spies if they wish to remain secure, there is, of¶ course, a darker, more sinister picture of government
spying. This darker picture is one of¶ the
government using spying to control every aspect of people's lives,
compelling them to¶ act and think only in ways sanctioned by the state. Nowhere is this picture
painted more¶ vividly than in Orwell's 1984. Winston, the protagonist, remarks:¶ There was of course no way of
knowing whether you were being watched at any¶ given moment. How often, or on what system, the
Thought Police plugged in on¶ any wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched
everybody¶ all the time . . . You had to live { did live, from habit that became instinct { in the¶
assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness,¶ every movement
scrutinized. (Orwell 2007, 3)¶ This darker picture of spying cannot be dismissed as unrealistic, merely a
dystopian night-¶ mare. States have often controlled and continue to control their citizens with
spying.¶ Nowhere was this kind of control more complete than in the German Democratic Republic¶
(GDR) during the Cold War, however. Historian Hubertus Knabe summarizes the control¶ exacted by the GDR's secret
police (Stasi) as follows: \Precisely the hidden, but for every¶ citizen tangible omni-presence of the Stasi, damaged
the very basic conditions for individual¶ and societal creativity and development: sense of one's self,
trust, spontaneity." (Bruce¶ 2010, 12)
Thus I negate!