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My 101st Debate: Universal Health Care

Thanks again to Uchiha for a stellar debate. C1: THEFT My Framework Con reiterates his attack that "Utilitarianism also rests on an 'a priori moral principle.'" I am not running utilitarianism, and my justifications for cost-benefit analysis don't rest on morality. My framework is not making a moral claim--frankly, I don't care if doing action X is moral (and it might be totally immoral), as long as it promotes benefit, it is something that should be done for objective, factual reasons. I have divorced morality and objectivity, and am using the latter, not the former, to make my case. Con does try to say that I did not successfully complete that divorce, when he writes, "Pro claims that utilitarianism is amoral because it prescribes that which is 'rational' rather than that which is 'moral', but that proves nothing, as all ethical systems claim ultimately derive their moral claims from rationality." But again, Con doesn't seem to understand that I am not arguing for an ethical system. I am not arguing for ethics at all. I am just arguing for a decision-making criterion, which is not necessarily bound to ethics or morality. That is what Con has utterly failed to understand: I am not making moral arguments. All Con has done is repeated his old attacks on my case, but he has not rebutted the fact that if cost-benefit analysis isn't based in morality, I am not being self-contradictory. Therefore, Con's one attack on my framework totally fails. Extend my framework. He cannot make any more attacks on it at this point, as he is not supposed to be defending his case at this time anyway. Con's Framework I will only be defending certain objections, so if I skip one, that's why. I only need to win one of these objections to eliminate Con's framework from consideration, as each one demonstrates self-ownership-based libertarianism's incoherency and/or immorality. 2. Treating People as Property is Morally Problematic Con says that slavery is necessarily forced, and that choosing to sell yourself into slavery is therefore fine because no such coercion would take place. There are several issues with this: (a) Coercion is present. If I choose to sell myself into slavery because my situation is so dire that slavery is the only viable way to escape it, I have been coerced by my circumstances to take an action I would otherwise never even contemplate. The absence of a reasonable alternative negates choice. For instance, if my options were to (a) starve to death and (b) to sell myself into slavery, I haven't been given a meaningful choice, and have been coerced by my circumstances to sell myself to slavery. Now, Con might respond that I could have chosen option (a), but that response raises additional concerns. If I was kidnapped by slave traders, I could probably be defiant enough that they would just kill me rather than sell me, so I have that same choice again: die, or become a slave. Surely, Con is not going to say that I wasn't coerced if I gun was pointed to my head and I was told to do something. Similarly, it is absurd to say I wasn't coerced if that gun was instead starvation. In other words, selling myself into slavery is not necessarily un-coerced, and thus violated self-ownership. (b) Selling myself into slavery, even if it wasn't uncoerced, still invalidates self-ownership. Self-ownership is the idea that we inherently own ourselves and are always our own owners. I cannot give up my self-ownership, because it is innate within me. If I always own myself, than no one else can own me--my right to self-ownership is inviolate, to use Con's term. Therefore, I cannot sell myself into slavery because to do so would be to say that someone else can own me, which they cannot. So, I always own myself. But, what I own, I should be able to sell. This creates a logical contradiction within Con's framework: if I own myself, I can sell myself, but yet, self-ownership says I can't do that. (c) Slavery undermines autonomy. Even if you don't buy (a) or (b), the idea that I can choose to give up so much autonomy seems to undermine the very point of libertarianism. The idea of self-ownership is that it maximizes autonomy, but yet, with slavery, one decision (the choice to sell myself) prevents me from ever making autonomous choices again. That seriously minimizes autonomy, and seems to undermine the very principle on which self-ownership rests. In other words, this example shows how self-ownership cannot achieve its very own objective, and is thus self-defeating. 3. Non-autonomous Humans Con implicitly agrees--by his not rebutting my claim that it would be--that it would be a "disastrous moral conclusion" if babies, the mentally handicapped, and the comatose were denied value. Proceeding from there, I have two defenses for this objection: (a) The slippery slope. If were are going to label some people as having less moral worth than others, we could easily set a precedent for things like, for instance, the holocaust, where Jews, Gays, Blacks, Gypsies, etc. were viewed as less than human. Surely, taking the life of a baby is no worse than taking my life, yet, the point of self-ownership is that autonomy is what gives us moral worth; insofar as I have more autonomy than a baby, it is more wrong to kill me than to kill a baby in Con's world. That's a dangerous precedent to set, esp. when history has shown us how this type of dehumanizing logic has been applied in other historical instances. Even if you don't buy the slippery slope, this would be, as noted earlier, a "disastrous moral conclusion," nonetheless. (b) The implications of Con's argument are rather ridiculous. Con writes, "In the case of babies and the mentally disabled, they do have a limited degree of personal autonomy, and thus do have some basic rights such as the right to life." A dog probably has about just as much autonomy as a baby or someone who is mentally handicapped. In fact, the vast majority of vertebrate animals have that level of autonomy. Therefore, by Con's logic, we would have to extend them all a right to life. What would we eat? How could we euthanize are pets? How could we cull oversized animal populations? A whole slew of problems ensue if we take Con's argument to its logical next step--it's just ridiculous. I seriously doubt Con would agree that a cow or dog has an inviolate, autonomy-based right to life. If that's true, then he cannot extend the right to life, or, frankly, any rights at all to babies and the mentally handicapped. Again, a "disastrous moral conclusion." (c) Con's rebuttal fails to address the real issue. Con talks a lot about how society has unequal rights in the status quo--but, unequal rights doesn't imply unequal moral value. In the status quo, killing a baby will result in the same type of murder charge that killing me will. Sure, a baby cannot take advantage of all of his/her rights, but that doesn't mean that his/her worth is somehow diminished. Con writes earlier, that "[t]o deny that humans have this personal autonomy is to deny that there is anything morally significant about humans." In other words, Con agrees that autonomy and moral worth are linked. Babies aren't autonomous in any meaningful sense of the word; they cannot make rational choices. Certainly this is true of newborns at least. They act on instinct and whim, not rationality. Therefore, Con would be forced, by his own logic, to deny that there is anything morally significant about a baby or a mentally handicapped person. His rebuttals focus on rights, but instead he should've focused on moral worth--he has not shown that babies still have equivalent moral worth to me, and so he cannot escape the "disastrous moral conclusion" that I talked about. 4. Con has not Sufficiently Proven that Natural Rights Exist Con's only real responses to my argument here are that I didn't justify my framework (which I did justify throughout this debate) and that he did justify it. But, all he does is repeat what he already said. And, what he already said is just a bare assertion fallacy. He never justifies why self-ownership only grounds the three specific rights he talks about, and not other rights, like health (why not--health is key to our ability to exercise our self-ownership, and if health is a right, we can turn his framework to affirm UHC). He never explains why self-ownership grounds those few rights he says it grounds; all he says is "from this concept of self-ownership, we can derive all the major natural rights possessed by humans"--that's not logic, that's a bare assertion fallacy. And, he never warrants why these rights are absolute. So, we can dismiss his entire framework for being ipse dixit. Theft I am just going to defend my second justification, because that's all I need to show that this isn't theft. Con says communal obligations may hold true locally, but not nationally. So, Con acknowledges that these type of obligations exist--that's an important first step. The next step is to show their national applicability. The taxes I pay to the federal government could easily be used to subsidize roadways in California, or to pay federal employees in Texas. It is flat out wrong to say that, on a federal level, people are not heavily interconnected and linked. Just because I don't meet them face-to-face doesn't mean that we are not deriving benefit from each other--indeed we are. Thus, our giving up resources for each other is a fair exchange, and legitimates the tax basis of UHC as not being theft. OTHER The economics debate is being addressed on my case, but Con does drop his quality contention. He can't defend it at this point, so it's conceded. VOTING ISSUES 1. Self-Ownership fails, so you should prefer my framework 2. UHC saves lives - I achieve my framework 3. UHC is economically beneficial - I achieve my framework 4. I have more offense - if you buy neither framework, evaluate off of this Thanks!