(A bit of) philosophy in debates

1. (A bit of) philosophy in debates Training Session 03.02.2016

2. EY Prizes! • EY’s Cryptic Campus Competition is BACK this year and registration is NOW OPEN! • It’s an online puzzle game where students can play either on their own or on behalf of a society • Win daily spot prizes (such as £50 amazon vouchers) and up to £7,500 for your society. This year, the game is revolved around discovering famous alumni who you may or may not have known went to Warwick! • It’s free and a fun distraction from lectures… why not? The more society members you have playing, the more points you’ll rack up and the more chance you have of winning one of the three prizes from our £15,000 prize pot. • Log into http://crypticcampus.ey.com to register ready for the competition on Feb 1st – 14th (two whole weeks to rack up as many points as possible!).

3. Trolley problem

4. Consequentialism • Actions are valuable or not depending on the consequences • The action itself does not matter to the consequentialist, but only the state of affairs from before and after the action • Most widespread consequentialist view – Utilitarianism(Bentham, Mill) • Concentrates mostly on the distribution of pleasure over pain(in cases of states most welfare) • Pleasure is the only intrinsically valuable thing

5. consequentialism Problems? • How can we measure pleasure? • Even if we could, we are basing our actions on probabilistic calculus • It sometimes requires us to put the interests of others before our own • Are pleasures intrinsically good? Nozick experience machine experiment

6. consequentialism • Nozick experience machine experiment – are pleasures themselves intrinsically good?

7. Deontology • Duty/rule-based ethics “So act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in another, always as an end, and never as only a means.” -Kant • Certain actions are wrong, no matter the context or the consequences. “Nothing in the world—indeed nothing even beyond the world—can possibly be conceived which could be called good without qualification except a good will” • People act in a certain way out of respect for the moral law. Categorical imperative: People should act only according to the maxim which they would wish to become universal law

8. Deontology • A morally good action will be done for the sake of the moral law • Performing an action out of duty is what gives it moral worth • To be free is to determine your will • So to act according to the categorical imperative is to act according to a law that you have given yourself. • But the point is that that law must be formed abstract from our interests. We must act using pure reason

9. Non-consequentialist arguments –Steven • Why useful? • Completely ignored by a lot of debaters • Very powerful tool in debates • Introduces new metric in debate

10. Part 1. Frame it • Point out other side has not attempted to justify consequentialism. Also we live in a world where consequentialism is not automatically universally recognised as THE correct moral framework • Humans are not and cannot be used as means to an end. We are not just containers/receptors of utility that can be added by an ‘all-knowing calculator’. • Perfectly unique, emotions, hopes and dreams, which cannot be aggregated in any way.

11. Part 2. Humans have inherent value • Objects are: • non-living, non-feeling, non-thinking items • their purpose is to be used as a mean-to-an-end i.e. to aid a person to achieve some goal • Humans • have emotions • feel pain • have dreams about what they want for themselves in the future • any of these criteria individually or collectively is what makes us persons

12. Part 2 contiuned. Humans have inherent value • we can believe in one of two positions: 1. all persons are equally valuable or 2. we can differentiate between the value of persons • We believe 1). • If we believed 2) then someone incapable of, for example, providing economic output would be considered less valuable than someone who could. In fact, if they could not provide any economic output whatsoever they could be considered a net-drain on society (because they require goods, time etc. to survive). No doubt we all find this conclusion abhorrent. • On the other hand, we believe that our value does not come from how useful we are to someone/something else, but it is inherent to us given we are persons.

13. Part 3. separateness of persons and direct/indirect clashes • Separateness of persons means we cannot aggregate individuals’ happiness • Each person’s happiness/suffering is unique to them. • Cannot counter-weigh someone else’s suffering with my happiness as the two are completely different things, unique to each individual. • Direct/indirect clashes • Definite infringements of rights/suffering vs. indefinite benefit

14. Opposing a non-consequentialist case • -Would consent • -Do not really care about intentions - their life is the most important • -Individuals have EQUAL inherent worth, we can add that up rather than the subjective utilities of each individuals. • -Only way we can make any comparison/decision ever • -Sacrifice 1 to save 1,000,000? No? Absurd. Yes? Concede the principle.

15. Rights Analysis

16. What are these ‘rights’? • Clinical standards for morality. • Codifications of the insight that certain actions lead to bad outcomes, which people fail to predict e.g.Trying to tell people what religion to follow is bad. People a)Either feel very sad because they cannot express themselves b) or resist this and then you get stuff like Holy Wars and Inquisitions So restriction of religion has bad outcomes that are predictable enough for us to form something like ‘the freedom of religion’.

17. What are these ‘rights’? • Most of the times breaking them is bad, even if you think in that one particular situation it is justifiable • Say you are some kind of monarch. You see that imposing a certain religion upon people has had bad outcomes, but you think that you have discovered The Absolute Truth, and such, it is justifiable for you to impose it on people. • So it’s more like ‘ Doing X has failed to create good consequences, even if very smart people thought it wouldn’t.’ • So having rights can protect us from a tyrannical state or a purely consequentialist decision(see for example Fascism). • So only in very exceptional cases can the state infringe upon rights. • See self-ownership and being in prison for committing murder.

18. What are these ‘rights’? • Utility vs. Categorical Imperative • Killing sb and giving organs to 10 people-appeal to what seems utility for judges • Torture-can be argued that it creates higher utility, but still wrong • So rights have some sort of universality that makes them work and protect us from purely consequentialist actions of the state/others.

19. Types of rights • Negative(Liberty Rights)-freedoms that you have and most people can exercise without the help of the state(only framework) e.g. Freedom from torture • Positive(Benefit Rights)-freedoms which require the active involvement of the state for them to exist. E.g. education

20. Property, Theft and Tax • Property- I am the owner of myself, my labour, and therefore what I produce through my labour. • I put effort, skills, time etc. into producing something so it should be mine • Property is the basic incentive for people to do anyhting in life(for most people) • Should property rights be absolute, given that we are born unequal and we inherit unequal amounts of goods?

21. Property, Theft and Tax • Les Miserables example: • 1. Person dying of hunger. Very poor. Steals loaf of bread from a very rich person. Basically the difference it makes to the rich person is 0. But it keeps the person alive. Is theft justified? • 2. If yes, then where does this stop? Say you have 1000 playstations and I don’t have any toy. I am not dying but the difference it makes to you is still negligible. Is theft justified? To the same level? • How do we decide where it stops being justified(or partially justified)? • Turns out if we start breaking basic principles, society(the order) tends to fall apart. That’s why we need the state to redistribute resources. We don’t trust individuals to make these decisions and individuals don’t trust each other if they know there is no general standard.

22. Property, Theft and Tax • How to justify Tax • If we agree that your ability to have property is secured by the existence of a framework which is provided by the state, then the state needs resources. So tax is necessary for property to be enforced • If you argue that the state is there to enforce Benefit Rights, not only Liberty Rights, then it needs resources to do so • You are not the sole owner of what you produce, because the state provides you with the means. • It is justifiable for the state to ask for something in return • There is a difference between fully owning yourself, and fully owning your labour. This is why slavery is forbidden, but employing people is not. • You don’t own your abilities. There is a lot of chance in your abilities/status/property/social background. So taxing is not stealing, and state is justified into redistributing value.

23. Property, Theft and Tax • How to justify tax(2) • You are not the owner of your abilities(in the sense that a lot of what you are capable of doing is dependent of where you were born/your genes/cultural norms etc.) • Progressive taxation justification-marginal benefit • We have created ideas such as ‘property’, ‘value’ • State is not some ‘big bad wolf’, our organization takes the form of the state • We need these concepts for society to be able to function • Tax is not theft, just the state redefining what having property means

24. Individual liberty For • Non objective values(photographs example) • Individuals know best about what they value. • Experience your own life-greater ownership over yourself • Experiences felt on individual level-no ‘pool’ of utility, you basically sacrifice one person’s utility for others’ Against • Children + irational behaviour(beer example), information asymmetry • Basically buying into the idea that people are not always in the position to make decisions. • Probabilistic –lots of harms, generally action will result in harm • Society in general-mutual constraints, so state has to balance them

25. Why do we need the state? • Assessment(in Jean Vanljean case vs playstation) • Some structure that impose ‘restrictions’. Trade-off possible. • Hobbesian version of social contract-some use, but has problems • We don’t buy into it, we are born into it. • Maybe ‘state of nature does not actually exist’ etc. • Collective action problems-environmental regulation. We all want clean water, but we all pollute just a little never happens • State might fail? • Checks and balances-we form and reform the state • Inactivity worse. Somalia for example.

26. Info slide • A Ulysses pact or Ulysses contract is a freely made decision that is designed and intended to bind oneself in the future. Example of decisions include, but are not limited to quitting smoking, losing weight or lent.