• CON

    Her prior claim is a restatement of a facet of the...

    The United States Government ought to provide Universal Healthcare for its Citizens

    Hullo chaps. My opponent tries to introduce her own definitions in the second round, after I have. This is mighty poor form and I reject on grounds of poor sportsmanship and their utter redundancy. My opponent is correct that the value of the debate is morality. She then makes a ridiculous and unsupported leap to the contention that the criterion is "therefore" utilitarianism. In order for the "therefore" to be valid, it must follow on from what she is saying. Her prior claim is a restatement of a facet of the resolution, and does not justify why utilitarianism is a valid form criterion of morality or why I should accept it as solving the inherent is-ought problem of the resolution. I would typically be lenient on this matter and bother to respond to her arguments on a superficial level whilst requesting justification for her assertions if I had not made it explicit in my acceptance that this is the line of argument I would be taking. As I only have to demonstrate the resolution to not be affirmed my counter argument is thus; 1) There is no objective morality It logically follows that if there is no objective morality that no-one "ought" to do anything, as both our definitions have established a moral basis for the term. No reason to believe or accept an objective morality has been given. On this basis the default position Her prior claim is a restatement of a facet of the resolution, and does not justify why utilitarianism is a valid form criterion of morality or why I should accept it as solving the inherent is-ought problem of the resolution. I would typically be lenient on this matter and bother to respond to her arguments on a superficial level whilst requesting justification for her assertions if I had not made it explicit in my acceptance that this is the line of argument I would be taking. As I only have to demonstrate the resolution to not be affirmed my counter argument is thus; 1) There is no objective morality It logically follows that if there is no objective morality that no-one "ought" to do anything, as both our definitions have established a moral basis for the term. No reason to believe or accept an objective morality has been given. On this basis the default position should be scepticism. Or rather that, since the burden of proof is on my opponent, she must demonstrate the existence of morality before any moral claim of any body should be considered. Hence, by default, in the absence of argumentation, the resolution is unsupported. Fortunately my position only requires me to negate my opponents arguments, so even if she does demonstrate a reason to accept an objective morality, I won"t be hampered by limited opportunity to introduce significant new arguments. Thus the resolution is unsupported and my burden is fulfilled.