Affirmative Case LD November-December It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.

It's because I agree with Mother Teresa in saying this that I stand in Affirmation of this resolution, Individuals have a moral obligation to assist people in need; and to justify this position, I'll first provide a framework, and then offer a value and value criterion, and then two contentions. Observation 1: Framework The resolution asks us to affirm or negate a general rule: that it's morally obligatory for individuals to help people in need. It does not place the burden on the Affirmative, however, of proving that there are no possible exceptions to this rule. Thus, if I as the Affirmative demonstrate sufficiently to you that, in general, it's necessary for us to help those in need, I should win the debate. Observation 2: Value and Value Criterion Throughout this debate, I will assert that the highest value we can set our sights on is morality. I will moreover affirm morality though both Utilitarianism and Deontology. Although Utilitarianism and Deontology are competing philosophical systems, I hope to prove that helping those in need is a human perogative from both a utilitarian and a deontological perspective. Irene van Staveren, of Radboud University in the Netherlands, does a good job of explaining these philosophies in her 2007 article, Beyond Utilitarianism and Deontology: Ethics in Economics: As is generally known, utilitarianism allows individual agents to have moral preferences and to act in the interest of others, when action toward others generates a net utility gain for the individual (Becker, 1996). However, in welfare economics the original Benthamite utilitarian principle of comparing individual utility (the greatest
happiness for the greatest number) is rejected. In its place is the Paretian principle, which states that we can only identify situations where no one can be made better off without making someone else worse off. The Paretian principle rejects redistributions (because someone is made worse off and individual utilities cannot be compared), thus removing the moral basis of utilitarianism from welfare economics (Hausman & McPherson, 1996). By so absorbing morality into subjective and incomparable individual preferences, neoclassical economics has 22 I. van Staveren effectively removed ethical evaluation from welfare analysis. This has resulted in many critiques from both inside and outside economics; it has also led to the application of different ethical approaches to the discipline (McCloskey, 1985; Sen, 1987; Hausman & McPherson, 1996; Wilber, 1998; van Staveren, 2001). A major alternative to utilitarianism, which

has attracted the attention of many economists, is deontology. The deontological approach to ethics regards morality as a duty, or a moral rule that ought to be followed. Deontological ethics is about following universal norms that prescribe what people ought to do, how they should behave, and what is right or wrong.

Observation 3: Contentions I will offer two contentions to support the Affirmative side of the resolution. Subpoint A: Utilitarianism: Utilitarianism justifies an obligation to assist others. Peter Singer, Famine Affluence, and Morality, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Volume 1, No. 1, Spring 1972. The second objection to my attack on the present distinction between duty and charity is one which has from time to time been made against utilitarianism. It follows from some forms of utilitarian theory that we all ought, morally, to be working full time to increase the balance of happiness over misery. The position I have taken here would not lead to this conclusion in all circumstances, for if there were no bad occurrences that we could prevent without sacrificing something of comparable moral importance, my argument would have no application. Given the present conditions in many parts of the world, however, it does follow from my argument that we ought, morally, to be working full time to relieve great suffering of the sort that occurs as a result of famine or other disasters. Of course, mitigating circumstances can be adduced - for instance, that if we wear ourselves out through overwork, we shall be less effective than we would otherwise have been. Nevertheless, when all considerations of this sort have been taken into account, the conclusion remains: we ought to be preventing as much suffering as we can without sacrificing something else of comparable moral importance. This conclusion is one which we may be reluctant to face. I cannot see, though, why it should be regarded as a criticism of the position for which I have argued, rather than a criticism of our ordinary standards of behavior. Since most people are self-interested to some degree, very few of us are likely to do everything that we ought to do. It would, however, hardly be honest to take this as evidence that it is not the case that we ought to do it. Subpoint B: Deontology: Our moral agency requires us to be altruistic. William W. Clohesy, Altruism and the Endurance of the Good, Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, Volume 11, No. 3, September 2000. Altruism, as a moral emotion, is the human capacity to reach out to care for anyone in need. To treat persons altruistically, in a moral sense, is to care for them as particular persons, displaying specific concern for their needs, feelings, and experiences. Treating anyone impersonally, without feeling or care, as a burdensome duty to be met, would be a failure to respect them as the distinct, needy persons they are. Blum implies that Kant's ethics leads to the failing of impersonality by its denigration of emotion. Blum, however, confounds impartial with impersonal treatment. We must be impartial in determining what we ought to do in a situation, for we should heed everyone's need in making our decision. With our duty determined, we should act with personal attention to the care we give to specific persons. As moral reflection becomes integrated into our characters, feelings of altruism should more readily arise whenever we recognize and respond to another in need. Our altruism will not be reserved for intimates, but will be a response we make toward anyone in need. Kant does not specifically mention altruism, but it is a fitting constituent of our moral response to all members of the world among whom we are all moral agents.