Now note that these things may protect and benefit the...
The death penalty should exist
I don't have a lot of time for this debate. So I guess that I will provide some quick rebuttals for the debate before I have to go for the weekend. My sources were also in the comments section since I would end up not having enough characters for it, but that's besides the point. I will be refuting my opponent's case in a different order than how she presented her case as there is a large portion of her case that is ironically covered by my own case. Contention 1: Bipartisan Approval and role of the government. P1.The Government should only act to enforce the imperatives of Perfect Duties. P2.Universal health care does not meet the standard of a Perfect Duty. C1: Thus, the Government should not act to enforce universal health care. ""Kant's first formulation of the CI states that you are to “act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law... Perfect duties come in the form ‘One mustnever (or always) φ to the fullest extent possible in C’, while imperfect duties, since they enjoin the pursuit of an end, come in the form ‘One must sometimes and to some extent φ in C’" [1] According to the above we see that Kant establishes two duties of that of the government; Perfect Duties and Imperfect Duties. Perfect Duties are those things of which the government must provide to ensure that the government and that society is fully functional. What are these things you may ask? These things are the simple things ensured under that of the Social Contract that you give up for a Civilized Society (not to kill, rape, steal, etc...). These things are indeed key as we can see that this ensures that of a Minarchy at the minimum. What that means is that the Government is to ensure that the people are safe. Everything else falls into that of the Imperfect Duties. Now note that these things may protect and benefit the public, we can see that if they're not of the Social Contract like ideals that they automatically fall into this category and SHOULD NOT be carried out by the government, but by Private entities. “Any action is right if it can coexist with everyone's freedom in accordance with a universal law, or if on its maxim the freedom of choice of each can coexist with everyone's freedom in accordance with a universal law” [2] We can see that if the government intervenes on the behalf on the people to infringe on that of an Imperfect duty that they would undermining humanity to achieve their due ends. We can see and must ensure that the Imperfect Duties are carried out by the Private Entites as things like people's health and Private debt is something that is to be delt with by the individual NOT the government. [3] Many usually confuse Kant’s principles for that of John Locke’s Social Contract theory. This theory is escentially a mutual agreement between individuals to give up the “right to be violent” and there is thus a civilized society. The main reason that Kant’s argument falls under the statehood status is that under an individual premise it would be impossible to have certain actions carried out by the government or privately as this would invalidate the entirety of having a government. We can see that the role of government is that of a Minarchy where the government provides basic protection of the citizens and ensure’s their rights and protects the public for killing each other. If we look to Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan we can see that the role of the government mirrors that of Kant's and Locke's by showing that the government must protect the people and if they didn't then people would be in, "continued fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man [was] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” [4] This is done by getting those who endanger society away and in some cases, the death penalty. Now yes I do concede that the death penalty is declining in popularity we have no choice but to see that the majority of Americans still support the death penalty. Not to mention our currently over crowding jails that this is nessisary for us to keep room avaible in jails and we can still see taht since the majority of Americans still want the death penalty then we must see that the Death Penalty must still be allowed since the majority still wants it. Contention 2: Costs. My opponent here hasn't shown you the entire picture we can see, as in the case and arguments that I provided last round, that the average prisoner lives about 50 years so when we do the math that's about $5 million while it costs $3 million at most for a death penalty meaning that it's chearper to do the death penalty. If my math skills are right we save more money doing to the death penalty. While my opponent is only providing the immidiate comparisions by comparing cost of the death penalty to the cost of a year or so of putting a criminal in jail. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure that criminals stay in prison longer than just that one year. Contention 3: Morality My opponent provides an article from April 28th to show that there is a 4% mistake rate, HOWEVER, an article I cited a month later from May 8th 2014, states that the margin for errors is that of under 1%, 0.28% to be exact. So we can actually see and do the math by seeing that of the 260,000 people convicted for murder in the US, they have found that 34 were wrongly convicted, of those 34 18 were exicuted. Which I do agree we should do more to help the innocent, but mistakes happen and according to the Theory of Infinate Probability we can see that no matter what, something ALWAYS has a probability for occuring no matter how crazy it might seem. We can see that such minescual percentages shouldn't prevent us from exicuting cold blooded killers like Ed Gein, John Gracey, Osama Bin Ladin, the list goes on and on. Due to personal time restraints I will get to the last one in my next round as I unfortuantely cannot get to that argument and I must ask for my opponent to wait for a day or so until she responds. Sources 1. (http://plato.stanford.edu...) 2. (Lectures and Drafts on Political Philosophy, translated Frederick Rauscher and Kenneth Westphal (in preparation). Relevant contents: "Naturrecht Feyerabend" course lecture, fragments on political philosophy, and drafts of works in political philosophy.) 3. (Johnson, Robert. "Kant's Moral Philosophy." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2012.) 4. (Hobbes, Thomas, and J. C. A. Gaskin. Leviathan. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998. Print.)