Advanced LD Brief March/April 2020
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Advanced LD Brief March/April 2020
1Resolved: Predictive policing is unjust
This topic brief was written by Jesse Meyer. Jesse is a diamond coach, recipient of the Donald Crabtree
Service Award, the state of Iowa’s 2015 Coach of the Year, member of the TOC’s PF advisory board, and
board member of the Iowa Forensics League. He is currently an assistant coach at Iowa City West High
School. He can be reached at jessemeyer@gmail.com.
2Table of Contents
Contents
Advanced LD Brief March/April 2020 ............................................................................................................ 1
Resolved: Predictive policing is unjust........................................................................................................... 2
Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................................... 3
History and Background............................................................................................................................. 4
Topic Analysis............................................................................................................................................. 6
Definitions .................................................................................................................................................. 8
Value and Criterion ..................................................................................................................................12
Values...................................................................................................................................................13
Criterions: ............................................................................................................................................29
Free Will .......................................................................................................................................................31
Sample Evidence ..................................................................................................................................33
Further Reading ...................................................................................................................................38
Bias ...............................................................................................................................................................39
Sample Evidence ..................................................................................................................................40
Further Reading ...................................................................................................................................45
Privacy/Political Oppression ........................................................................................................................46
Sample Evidence ..................................................................................................................................47
Further Reading ...................................................................................................................................51
Due Process..................................................................................................................................................52
Sample Evidence ..................................................................................................................................54
Further Reading ...................................................................................................................................57
Capitalism/Industrial Prison Complex .........................................................................................................58
Sample Evidence ..................................................................................................................................60
Further Reading ...................................................................................................................................65
Red Flag Laws ...............................................................................................................................................66
Sample Evidence ..................................................................................................................................67
Further Reading ...................................................................................................................................69
Efficiency ......................................................................................................................................................70
Sample Evidence ..................................................................................................................................71
Further Reading ...................................................................................................................................80
Conclusion....................................................................................................................................................81
3History and Background
In 2008, the Los Angeles Police Department under the command of Police Chief William
Bratton proposed the idea of predictive policing. His computer technicians had been working
for a year on a program that would take basic data on crime like areas of violent crime, race,
gender, victim, age and statistics, and other factors and compile them into an equation that
could then be used to locate other areas of potential crime and also pinpoint the age ranges,
genders, and race of the potential suspects to these crimes. In 2010, this program went live
with officers being assigned patrol routes based on the areas that the computer listed as “high
risk.” Although data is far from conclusive as to whether this program actually lowered crime
rates in the city, it make the population feel better as simply seeing a police presence reassured
people that their tax dollars were hard at work.
From LA, the program was refined, and it spread. Today, the program exists in over 50
US cities and that number is growing every day. The data that is being fed into the program has
also changed. Over a decade later, data such as time, mode of escape, and even facial ID data
can be fed into the computer program to refine the search area, suspect details, and even
generate a picture of the potential suspect.
In other countries, the idea of using data to drive policing is being tested. In China,
Suzhou Police Bureau has adopted Predictive Policing since 2013. During 2015-2018, several
cities in China have adopted predictive policing. China has used Predictive Policing to identify
and target people for sent to Xinjiang re-education camps. Data is also being used by the
Chinese to pinpoint and track the spread of infectious diseases and track potential enemies of
the state. In Europe, facial recognition data is being used to track people as they move about
the city. Facial features are being read and an instant emotion program is being used to read
the emotions to estimate whether the individual is about to commit a crime. In other nations,
data driven programs are being used to catch speeders, identify areas where drugs are
manufactured or sold, and direct police to hotspots during protests for the containment of
large crowds.
Although this sounds beneficial, it is not without its flaws and critics. Although more
detail will be gone over in later parts of the brief, issues such as racial equality, police bias,
profiling, and the use of faulty data all are recent calls for the removal of predictive policing. In
fact, due to the use of faulty data in the original program, the original city that started the
trend, LA, has started to dismantle and walk back their use of predictive policing. Other cities
are looking to data on whether crime rates actually go down when this form of policing is used.
In many cases, data is mixed at best with no results shown at worst. With the system being
4expensive to implement and with human police power being a finite resource, police
departments are opting to return to the old-fashioned method of patrol and watch policing.
As we enter the year 2020 and as we face threats from terrorism, crime, violent
protests, and even disease, the fear we feel pushes us to design better means to preempt and
stop what could cause us harm. Today, the debate will be centered around what is the best
means to stop this fear.
5Topic Analysis
The fear of the uncertain is the biggest fear that we, as humans, have in this world. It
isn’t death, public speaking, or even the COVID 19 virus. All of those things stem from the basic
fear of the unknown. The idea that what will happen a few hours, days, or weeks from now is
unknown and can’t be known to us scares us. It causes us to abandon risk and prepare for the
worst. In some cases, like preparing for a natural disaster if you live near an area that is prone
to these things can be a good thing and beneficial. However, in many cases, this fear leads us to
do irrational things like doomsday hording, panic buying, and the passage of laws that attempt
to fix problems that don’t exist yet out of fear that they might one day exist. In one part of our
lives, this is no greater than in the area of security. For years, society has wondered if there was
a way to use our ability to track patterns and use computers to put a number on crime. Can we,
as a people, use data drive analytics to predict crime? In short, can we turn the TV show
“Numb3rs” into reality?
Technology is advancing faster and faster. Last year, we created more knowledge and
collected more data on people than we have in the entirety of human history previously. IN the
first three months of this year, we are expected to reach that milestone again. We have a huge
amount of data. In law enforcement in particular, their collective data is endless. Most
departments have data on crime going back decades with the oldest departments having data
that spans a century or more. This data is a wealth of information. So why can’t we use this?
The dream of humans for years has been to use this data to drive law enforcement, for
smart policing, and for a way to stop crime before it happens. As was seen in the movie
Minority Report, episodes of Futurama, and on the TV show Numb3rs, the idea that we can use
math or science to predict crime to stop it before it happens has always fascinated humans.
And here we are today, in a world where our dream is one step closer. Predictive policing is
being tested in countless cities around the US as well as in other nations. Although not as
specific as the fictional examples from above, predictive policing has allowed police to narrow
their field of patrols and isolate groups of individuals that might be suspects for crimes.
On the downside, in the examples above, we also see the downside of predictive
policing. Data can be flawed, corrupted, or biased by humans once it is produced. In some
cases, TV magic can’t play out in the real world. After all, our computer systems are only as
good as the people that design them, and they are only human.
After looking at tournament data that has come in before many tournaments began to
shut down due to the spread of the coronavirus and from the literature that has been
published, this topic is a largely affirmative heavy topic. This is due to the incredible amount of
evidence that exists to show that there is a bias in the data, the lack of solvency, and the critical
implications of a greater expansion of the police state. This, however, does not mean that the
6negative has no options. Specific examples on the negative of programs where predictive
policing has worked will get around the issue of a bias or solvency. The key is to find those
specific instances and to prepare to defend how those few examples outweigh the overall
harms of predictive policing that the affirmative can run in a broad spectrum.
So today, we will be looking at the use of data collection, policing, law enforcement, and
the rules, biases, and influences that are shaping the next generation of policing and how this
will impact not only the debate round, but you as a citizen of the world in the year 2020.
7Definitions
As a change to change to other briefs, I will first start with the debate around the
definitions. As this resolution is short, there are really only two words that could cause a
debate. The first is that of predictive policing. Several definitions exist for this. Almost all rely on
the use of a mathematical formula powered by data collected from one particular area or city
to generate or pinpoint areas of potential crime based on past examples. However, a broader
definition is the use of the use of computers to assume that we can predict the future or
generate the outcome of events that have yet to happen as if a pattern exists. This assumption
can essentially lead us to assume patterns exist when non do. The crux of this debate is that
one relies on science and math to generate outcomes which allows the negative to generate
advantages while the other allows the affirmative to generate speculation and uncertainty in
the use of predictive policing. It is also to be noted that the affirmative can also use definitions
based on math and computer generated models as their basis for debate if they are attempting
to leverage the idea that predictive policing is based on a flawed assumption and biased data
and thus the models will be flawed as well.
Predictive policing is the use of mathematical calculations and data on people
to determine which individuals are most likely to commit crimes
Walter L. Perry, et al. 2013, Rand Institute and the National Institute of Justice
“Predictive POLICING: The Role of Crime Forecasting"
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR200/RR233/RAND_RR233.s
um.pdf
Predictive policing is the application of analytical techniques—particularly quantitative
techniques—to identify likely targets for police intervention and prevent crime or solve past
crimes by making statistical predictions. Several predictive policing methods are currently in use
in law enforcement agencies across the United States, and much has been written about their
effectiveness. Another term used to describe the use of analytic techniques to identify likely
targets is forecasting. Although there is a difference between prediction and forecasting, for the
purposes of this guide, we use them interchangeably.1
8Predictive policing is the assumption that we can use computers to predict the
future of crime
Norton, A. A. (2013). Predictive policing: The future of law enforcement in the Trinidad and
Tobago police service (TTPS). International Journal of Computer Applications, 62(4), 32–36.
doi:10.5120/10070-4680
Craig Uchida of the National Institute of Justice that captures the essence of predictive policing:
“Predictive policing is a concept that is built on the premise that it is possible to predict when
and where crimes will occur again in the future by using sophisticated computer analysis of
information about previously committed crimes”
When looking to the word “justice,” standard LD debate would classify this definition as giving
each person their due. To define this further, it means that you give each person what is right
for them. This concept can be expanded on further to mean each person gets what is due to
them, or their just deserts. When using this definition, the debate would become whether the
action of predictive policing gives people what they have earned and whether predictive
policing can do this even though no crime has been committed yet.
Justice, as just deserts
Nicomachean Ethics. 2nd Ed. Translated, with an Introduction, by Terence Irwin. Indianapolis:
Hackett, 1999.
Desert is a normative concept that is used in day-to-day life. Many believe that being treated as
one deserves to be treated is a matter of justice, fairness, or rightness. Although desert claims
come in a variety of forms, generally they are claims about some positive or negative treatment
that someone or something ought to receive. One might claim that a hard-working employee
deserves a raise, an exceptional student deserves an academic scholarship, a dishonest
politician deserves to lose an election, or a thief deserves to be imprisoned. But while such
appeals to desert are common, there are a number of unsettled issues regarding the concept of
desert itself and its relevance to justice. For example, it is common for people to claim that
things other than humans, such as nonhuman animals or inanimate objects, can be deserving.
How should we assess such claims? Some argue that desert presupposes responsibility. But
must this be the case? According to some theories, desert is an important component of justice.
Yet according to other theories, it has little or no role in justice. Some even question whether
desert itself is a defensible concept. This article is designed to capture the scholarly agreement
9about these and other issues regarding desert. Where there is not such agreement, overviews
of some of the competing accounts are presented.
Taking a more philosophical look at the word “just,” one might want to debate the value of the
moral stance of just. In this case, we look to the inverse of “just” to find the moral value of the
word.
Unjust is rooted in morality
Cambridge English Dictionary, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/unjust
“not morally right; not fair:”
The impact to this particular definition is that morality required deliberate action. Morality
doesn’t just happen, but it must be an action that required thought and premeditation to
accomplish. In a debate over whether predictive policing is just or moral, one would then
debate whether the action is a deliberate attempt to be moral or a deliberate attempt to avoid
morality.
Morally good actions require deliberate action
Germain Grisez, Joseph Boyle, and John Finnis, “Practical Principles, Moral Truth, and Ultimate
Ends,” 32 Am. J. Juris. 99 1987.
Even morally bad actions have their point. One chooses to do what is morally wrong for some
reason, and like any other deliberate action, the reason for which one acts immorally must
ultimately be reduced to the basic goods. So far forth, even an immoral act responds to the first
principle: Good is to be done and pursued. However, morally wrong acts do not respond to this
principle as perfectly as morally good acts do. To see why, one must consider the relationship
between the principles of practical knowledge and those of morality. In prohibiting
pointlessness, the first principle of practical reasoning as it were demands: Take as a premise
at least one of the principles corresponding to the basic goods and follow through to the point
at which you somehow instantiate that good through action. This demand is minimal and leaves
one free to do anything from which one can anticipate any benefit whatsoever. One can
imagine another principle making [makes] a far stronger demand: Insofar as it is in your power,
10allow nothing but the principles corresponding to the basic goods to shape your practical
thinking as you find, develop, and use your opportunities to pursue human fulfillment through
your chosen actions. This stronger demand is, not only that one be reasonable enough in one's
practical thinking to avoid pointless- ness, but that one be entirely reasonable in such thinking.
This stronger demand is inconsistent with many possible choices consistent with the weaker
demand. The possible choices excluded by the stronger demand are those which are immoral,
for the stronger demand is a way of expressing the first principle of morality. This expression of
the first moral principle makes it clear that to be morally good is precisely to be completely
reasonable. Right reason is nothing but unfettered reason, working throughout deliberation
and receiving full attention.
11Value and Criterion
12Values
First, we look at retributive justice. This is the basic foundation for the modern criminal
justice system. In this system, you are investigated and if found guilty by a lawfully empowered
court, you are sentenced to a punishment that is fitting of the crime. The punishment would be
proportional to the crime- i.e. you wouldn’t give everyone the death penalty for a traffic ticket.
This value would work in debates where the affirmative is attempting to prove that the concept
of predictive policing eliminates the idea that you have even done anything wrong first. Since
many of the authors of predictive policing affirmative evidence write that the system amounts
to the digital version of “stop and frisk,” then you are assuming a crime has been committed
and then looking for evidence.
Retributive Justice
Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy '14 ( "Retributive Justice" Published Jun. 18th 2014.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-retributive/)
The concept of retributive justice has been used in a variety of ways, but it is best understood as
that form of justice committed to the following three principles: (1) that those who commit
certain kinds of wrongful acts, paradigmatically serious crimes, morally deserve to suffer a
proportionate punishment; (2) that it is intrinsically morally good—good without reference to
any other goods that might arise—if some legitimate punisher gives them the punishment they
deserve; and (3) that it is morally impermissible intentionally to punish the innocent or to inflict
disproportionately large punishments on wrongdoers. The idea of retributive justice has played
a dominant role in theorizing about punishment over the past few decades, but many features
of it—especially the notions of desert and proportionality, the normative status of suffering, and
the ultimate justification for retribution—remain contested and problematic.
13As we discussed in the definitions section, morality links to the debate over the criminal
justice system through the world “just.” When weighing this on the affirmative and the
negative, it will be imperative to decide what leads to the greatest increase in morality or moral
action more, assuming that a crime has or will be committed or letting a crime happen first
when you could have prevented that action in the first place.
Morality
Kant, ’59 (Preserving one’s life is a universalized moral duty. Immanuel, Foundations of the
Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Lewis White Black, Professor of Philosophy, University of
Rochester, 1959, pg 14)
On the other hand, it is a duty to preserve one’s life, and moreover, everyone has a direct
inclination to do so but for that reason the often anxious care which most [people] take of it has
no intrinsic worth, and the maxim of doing so has no moral import. They preserve their lives
according to duty, but not from duty. But if adversities and hopeless sorrow completely take
away the relish for life, if an unfortunate man, strong in soul, is indignant rather than
despondent or dejected over his fate and wishes for death, and yet preserves his life without
loving it and form neither inclination nor fear but from duty – then his maxim has a moral
import.
The purpose of a criminal justice system in the first place is that you are attempting to
provide for the betterment of society and protect for people’s lives and welfare. This is a
throwback to the social contract as the duty of a government is to protect the people. In this,
both sides would be best served by debating whether the community is safer with or without
predictive policing. Granted the neg has a bit stronger evidence on this front that predictive
policing does not work or does not have a meaningful reduction of crime, the affirmative could
argue that you don’t need to solve crime but provide for the feeling of safety. If the citizens feel
safer in their homes and communities by seeing more police patrols due to predictive policing,
then whether or not it actually lowers crime rates is only a secondary concern.
Community safety
Squires '1997 (Peter Squires. Professor of Criminology & Public Policy at the University of
Brighton. "CRIMINOLOGY AND THE 'COMMUNITY SAFETY' PARADIGM: SAFETY, POWER AND
SUCCESS AND THE LIMITS OF THE LOCAL" http://www.britsoccrim.org/volume2/012.pdf)
The discourse on 'community safety' has been around for little over a decade. (SOLACE,
1986) Even so, it has become well established in a fairly short period of time, but this
only begs a further question. We should not take them for granted. Use of the concept
'community safety' was developed by the GLC Police Committee Support Unit to
describe a distinctly local government approach to crime prevention and related issues.
14More and more in local government circles the phrase 'crime prevention' has been
reinterpreted to mean the promotion of community safety and the securing of
improvements in the quality of life of residents by reference to a wide range of social
issues, the tackling of certain risks and sources of vulnerability and development of
policies on a broad range of fronts (ADC, 1990; Coopers and Lybrand, 1994). According
to the Local Government Management Board, 'community safety is the concept of
community-based action to inhibit and remedy the causes and consequences of
criminal, intimidatory and other related anti-social behaviour. Its purpose is to secure
sustainable reductions in crime and fear of crime in local communities. Its approach is
based on the formation of multi-agency partnerships between the public, private and
voluntary sectors to formulate and introduce community-based measures against crime'
(LGMB, 1996). A survey into the community safety activities of local government by the
Local Government Management Board in England and Wales, from which the above
definition is derived, asked authorities to nominate their core priorities for the coming
year. The specific priorities identified by the responding authorities were, in descending
order: (1) young people, (2) substance misuse, (3) fear of crime, and (4) CCTV and town
centre security (LGMB, 1996: 25.) Such a list of priorities will hardly be surprising though
they reflect a variety of concerns and in some respects quite contrasting criminological
perspectives. To some, no doubt, they will reflect a pragmatic, balanced and multi-
layered response to problems of crime and community safety whilst to others it will
appear more of a 'shotgun' approach - something might work - or perhaps just 'suck it
and see'.
15The concept of a criminal justice system is based around what is the greatest good for
the greatest number of people. As a society, we have determined that drug use, drunk driving,
assault, and murder are all things that are not the greatest good for the greatest number of
people in our society. Thus, debaters would be best served by using utility to weight the
impacts and values of their cases to determine if what they are advocating for is in the best
interest of the majority of the people.
Utility
Sylvia Thompson. 10-24-2018 "'Predictive Policing': Law Enforcement Revolution Or Just New
Spin On Old Biases? Depends Who You As." CBC News https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/crime-
los-angeles-predictive-policingalgorithms-1.4826030
In a city with a long history of law-enforcement friction, activists and the Los Angeles Police
Department are squaring off again. The latest crime-fighting controversy isn't over issues like
police brutality, corruption or gangs — it's all about data. And the ways police are using it.
Activists at a public meeting with the Los Angeles Police Commission this summer held up signs
reading: "Data Driven Evidence Based Policing = Pseudoscience," and "Crime Data is Racist." It's
an example of how the community has been put on edge by the LAPD's use of an elaborate data
collection centre, a shadowy data analysis firm called Palantir, and predictive algorithms to try
to get a jump on crime. "We're trying to get better about where to put scarce police resources
to prevent crime from happening in the first place," says Deputy Chief Sean Malinowski, who
was at the meeting to defend the use of data analytics to help guide policing activity. "Implicit
bias is something the LAPD has been struggling with," counters Jamie Garcia, of the Stop LAPD
Spying Coalition, a tiny community group which monitors the LAPD. "The data they're using is
the data that's collected by law enforcement," Garcia adds, saying that as a result it's inherently
flawed. Jamie Garcia, with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, is skeptical about police claims that
predictive policing reduces bias. 'It's trying to convince communities that by using data, by
driving algorithms and risk assessments with data, that somehow policing is becoming more
effective, efficient and fair.' (Sylvia Thomson/CBC) Los Angeles isn't the only place where
concerns are flaring over how citizens' data is collected and used by law enforcement
authorities. Police forces across the U.S. are increasingly adopting the same approach as the
LAPD: employing sophisticated algorithms to predict crime in the hope they can prevent it.
Chicago, New York City and Philadelphia use similar predictive programs and face similar
questions from the communities they are policing, and even legal challenges over where the
information is coming from and how police are using it. Canadian police forces are very aware of
what their U.S. counterparts are doing, but they are wary of jumping in with both feet due to
concerns over civil liberties issues.
16Originally many believed that predictive policing produced positive results when it came to
crime management.
Sylvia Thompson. 10-24-2018 "'Predictive Policing': Law Enforcement Revolution Or Just New
Spin On Old Biases? Depends Who You As." CBC News https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/crime-
los-angeles-predictive-policingalgorithms-1.4826030
Sergeant Dave Rich checks a printout of a map of Los Angeles that has problem areas marked in
red boxes. He tucks the paper under his car's visor, throws his "black and white" into gear and
pulls out of the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Division headquarters, heading for
one of the red boxes on Sunset Boulevard. Instead of an old-fashioned LAPD crime analyst
creating that map and the red boxes, it's a computer algorithm which has identified the problem
areas on the map — or predicted future problem areas, to be precise. The sophisticated
program is called PredPol, short for predictive policing, and it's used to varying degrees by 50
police forces across the United States. The genesis of the program came from a collaboration
between LAPD deputy chief Sean Malinowski and Canadian Jeff Brantingham, an anthropology
professor at UCLA. "Driving through areas that have been identified as problematic, sometimes
you just get flagged down," Rich says. "You can roll right into a robbery in progress." The LAPD's
PredPol software program produces updated, predictive property crime maps at 1:30 a.m. each
day, which are handed out to officers on the morning shift. The maps are updated later in the
day for subsequent shifts. PredPol uses several years of crime reports to predict where police
patrols should concentrate their efforts. "This area across the street from us right here has been
identified as a problem," Rich says, driving through the 1300 block of Wilshire Blvd near the
downtown core's MacArthur Park. "The officers are encouraged to spend their available time
here doing proactive policing, as well as just being a visible deterrent to crime," says Rich, as he
drives into the area indicated by one of the map's boxes. The cruiser's movements are
monitored remotely. "It will also be documented that we passed through this area for X-amount
of time, and that will also get uploaded into the system. So they [the LAPD] can identify
specifically how much time was actually spent within this particular box." Sarah Brayne, a
Canadian sociologist, spent two years inside the LAPD studying its use of predictive policing. She
says the LAPD has been using predictive policing since 2012, and crunching data on a wide range
of activities — from "where to allocate your resources, where to put your cars, where to put
your personnel, to helping investigators solve a crime. And even for some risk management, like
tracking police themselves, for performance reviews and different accountability reasons."
17Moral Obligations must be verified by policy analysis—looking at the principle in a
vacuum has no value.
Ben Minteer, 2-12-2020"JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS." , v!7, p. 1
39-140.
2004 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226736098_Environmental_Ethics_Beyond
_Principle_The_Case_for_a_Pragmatic_Contextualism
In sum, Dewey argued that moral principles should operate very differently than the way most
contemporary environmental ethicists employ them in discussions regarding environmental
policy making and problem solving Ethical theories are, in this opinion, critical instrumentalities -
tools — for analyzing and interpreting particular social problems and conflicts, not fixed ends to
which we owe any son of special treatment or obedience. As a result, the "rightness" of moral
claims depends on their ability to contribute to the resolution of specific problematic situations -
an ability determined through intelligent appraisal and inquiry — not On the intrinsic nature Of
the principle itself (Dewey. 1989, p. 280). In making this move, Dewey significantly shifted
discussions of moral theory and argument away from a preoccupation with the ontological
status and justification of general moral principles and moved it toward the refinement of the
process of intelligent inquiry and the development of better and more effective methods of
deliberation, cooperative problem solving, and conflict resolution. It is important to note that in
arguing for the instrumental and experimental role of moral principles in problematic situations,
Dewey did not deny the existence of Such principles, nor did he reject their role within moral
deliberation and decision-making. He only Sought to put them in their proper place. Historically
successful moral principles promoting the good and the right were not to be uncritically
accepted before experimental inquiry, just as I hey were not to be cast aside simply because
they trafficked in generalities or presumed to hold a universal currency. Instead, they should be
understood as potentially useful resources for comprehending and ultimately transforming
particular unstable and disrupted moral contexts: In moral matters there is … a presumption in
favor of principles that have had a long career in the past and that have been endorsed by men
of insight…. Such principles are no more to be lightly discarded than are scientific principles
worked out in the past. But in one as in the other, newly discovered facts or newly instituted
conditions may give rise to doubts and indicate the inapplicability of accepted doctrines (Dewey,
1989, p. 330). Still, in Dewey's way of thinking, the conceptual and practical demands placed on
previously held moral principles by the emergence of new experiences and evolving factual
circumstances required an adaptive moral system, one in which standards, rules, and principles
would necessarily undergo various degrees of revision and reinterpretation in order to meet
new socio-historical conditions and changing individual desires Often, this process led to the
formulation of entirely new principles as moral inquirers responded to the dynamic and evolving
quality of human experience: In fact, situations into which change and the unexpected enter are
a challenge to intelligence to create new principles. Morals must be a growing science if it is to
be a science at all, not merely because all truth has not yet been appropriated by the mind of
man, but because life IS a moving affair in which Old moral truth Ceases to apply Principles are
18methods of inquiry and forecast which require Verification by the event: and the time honored
effort to assimilate morals to mathematics is only a way of bolstering up an old dogmatic
authority, or putting a new one upon the throne of the old. But the experimental character of
moral judgments does not mean complete uncertainty and
luidity. Principles exist as hypotheses with which to experiment (Dewey, 1959, p. 221).
Utilitarianism is the only moral framework and alternatives are contradictory
Joseph S. Nye, "Nuclear Ethics." pg. 18-19. 1986
The significance and the limits of the two broad traditions can be captured by contemplating a
hypothetical case.34 Imagine that you are visiting a Central American country and you happen upon a
village square where an army captain is about to order his men to shoot two peasants lined up against a
wall. When you ask the reason, you are told someone in this village shot at the captain's men last night.
When you object to the killing of possibly innocent people, you are told that civil wars do not permit
moral niceties. Just to prove the point that we all have dirty hands in such situations, the captain hands
you a rifle and tells you that if you will shoot one peasant, he will free the other. Otherwise both die. He
warns you not to try any tricks because his men have their guns trained on you. Will you shoot one
person with the consequences of saving one, or will you allow both to die but preserve your moral
integrity by refusing to play his dirty game? The point of the story is to show the value and limits of both
traditions. Integrity is clearly an important value, and many of us would refuse to shoot. But at what
point does the principle of not taking an innocent life collapse before the consequentialist burden?
Would it matter if there were twenty or 1,000 peasants to be saved? What if killing or torturing one
innocent person could save a city of 10 million persons from a terrorists' nuclear device? At some point
does not integrity become the ultimate egoism of fastidious self-righteousness in which the purity of the
self is more important than the lives of countless others? Is it not better to follow a consequentialist
approach, admit remorse or regret over the immoral means, but justify the action by the consequences?
Do absolutist approaches to integrity become self-contradictory in a world of nuclear weapons? "Do
what is right though the world should perish" was a difficult principle even when Kant expounded it in
the eighteenth century, and there is some evidence that he did not mean it to be taken literally even
then. Now that it may be literally possible in the nuclear age, it seems more than ever to be self-
contradictory.35 Absolutist ethics bear a heavier burden of proof in the nuclear age than ever before.
19The impossibility to attain knowledge of every outcome or abuse leaves utilitarianism
as the only option for most rational decision making
Robert E. Goodin, "Utilitarianism As A Public Philosophy” Pg 63." Cambridge University Press 1995.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/utilitarianisma a-public-philosophy/government-
houseutilitarianism/E1A9BD8EE397DBBC956EF656C081FA78>.
My larger argument turns on the proposition that there is something special about the situation of
public officials that makes utilitarianism more plausible for them (or, more precisely, makes them adopt
a form of utilitarianism that we would find more acceptable) than private individuals. Before proceeding
with that larger argument, I must therefore say what it is that is so special about public officials and
their situations that makes it both more necessary and more desirable for them to adopt a more
credible form of utilitarianism. Consider, first the argument from necessity. Public officials are obliged to
make their choices under uncertainty, and uncertainty of a very special sort at that. All choices-public
and private alike- are made under some degree of uncertainty, of course. But in the nature of things,
private individuals will usually have more complete information on the peculiarities of their own
circumstances and on the ramifications that alternative possible choices might have for them. Public
officials, in contrast, at relatively poorly informed as to the effects that their choices will have on
individuals, one by one. What they typically do know are generalities: averages and aggregates. They
know what will happen most often to most people as a result of their various possible choices. But that
is all. That is enough to allow public policy makers to use the utilitarian calculus – if they want to use it at
all – to choose general rules of conduct. Knowing aggregates and averages, they can proceed to
calculate the utility payoffs from adopting each alternative possible general rule. But they cannot be
sure what the payoff will be to any given individual or on any particular occasion. Their knowledge of
generalities, aggregates and averages is just not sufficiently fine-grained for that.
20Utilitarianism is the only way to access morality. Sacrifice in the name of preserving
rights destroys any hope of future generations attaining other values
Joseph S. Nye, "Nuclear Ethics." pg. 18-19. 1986.
Is there any end that could justify a nuclear war that threatens the survival of the species? Is not all-out
nuclear war just as self-contradictory in the real world as pacifism is accused of being? Some people
argue that "we are required to undergo gross injustice that will break many souls sooner than ourselves
be the authors of mass murder."73 Still others say that "when a person makes survival the highest value,
he has declared that there is nothing he will not betray. But for a civilization to sacrifice itself makes no
sense since there are not survivors to give meaning to the sacrifical [sic] act. In that case, survival may be
worth betrayal." Is it possible to avoid the "moral calamity of a policy like unilateral disarmament that
forces us to choose between being dead or red (while increasing the chances of both)"?74 How one
judges the issue of ends can be affected by how one poses the questions. If one asks "what is worth a
billion lives (or the survival of the species)," it is natural to resist contemplating a positive answer. But
suppose one asks, "is it possible to imagine any threat to our civilization and values that would justify
raising the threat to a billion lives from one in ten thousand to one in a thousand for a specific period?"
Then there are several plausible answers, including a democratic way of life and cherished freedoms
that give meaning to life beyond mere survival. When we pursue several values simultaneously, we face
the fact that they often conflict and that we face difficult tradeoffs. If we make one value absolute in
priority, we are likely to get that value and little else. Survival is a necessary condition for the enjoyment
of other values, but that does not make it sufficient. Logical priority does not make it an absolute value.
Few people act as though survival were an absolute value in their personal lives, or they would never
enter an automobile. We can give survival of the species a very high priority without giving it the
paralyzing status of an absolute value. Some degree of risk is unavoidable if individuals or societies are
to avoid paralysis and enhance the quality of life beyond mere survival. The degree of that risk is a
justifiable topic of both prudential and moral reasoning.
21Consequentialism is the idea that the end effects of action matter. If you are driving the
limo that the president is riding in and you come under a terrorist attack, and you flee with the
president., but in the escape attempt, you run over several civilians and kill them, you must
weigh the entirety of the consequences of your actions, not just the fact that you achieved your
goal. This is like a video game where you have a mission objective to eliminate all enemy
attackers, but you are docket points for collateral damage. In this case, does the system of
predictive policing have end consequences that go beyond the reduction in crime? The negative
will surely argue that it does based on a number of contention level arguments that will be
outlined later in this brief.
CONSEQUENTIALISM CAPTURES THE JUSTIFICATIONS FOR RIGHTS.
T.M. Scanlon, 1988 "CONSEQUENTIALISM AND ITS CRITICS, Ed. By Samuel Scbeffler." p. 74.
1988.
https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/17542460/Scanlon_Rightsgoalsandfairness.pdf?s
equence=1&isAllowed=y
In attacking utilitarianism, one is inclined to appeal to individual rights, which mere
considerations of social utility cannot justify as overriding. But rights themselves need to be
justified somehow, and how other than by appeal to the human interests their recognition
promotes and protects? This seems to be the incontrovertible insight of the classical utilitarians.
Further, unless rights are to be taken as defined by rather implausible rigid formulae, it seems
that we must invoke what looks very much like the consideration of consequences in order to
determine what they rule out and what they allow.
22Only consequentialism can resolve conflicting moral values and promote healthy
society
James Wood Bailey "Utilitarianism, Institutions, And Justice” Pg 9." Oxford University Press.
1997.
A consequentialist moral theory can take account of this variance and direct us in our decision
about whether a plausible right to equality ought to outweigh a plausible right to freedom of
expression. 16 In some circumstances the effects of pornography would surely be malign
enough to justify our banning it, but in others they may be not malign enough to justify any
interference in freedom. I? A deontological theory, in contrast, would be required either to rank
the side constraints, which forbid agents from interfering in the free expression of others and
from impairing the moral equality of others, or to admit defeat and claim that no adjudication
between the two rights is possible. The latter admission is a grave failure since it would leave us
no principled resolution of a serious policy question. But the former conclusion is hardly
attractive either. Would we really wish to establish as true for all times and circumstances a
lexical ordering between two side constraints on our actions without careful attention to
consequences? Would we, for instance, really wish to establish that the slightest malign
inegalitarian effect traceable to a form of expression is adequate grounds for an intrusive and
costly censorship? Or would we, alternatively, really wish to establish that we should be
prepared to tolerate a society horrible for women and children to live in, for the sake of not
allowing any infringement on the sacred right of free expression?18 Consequentialist accounts
can avoid such a deontological dilemma. In so doing, they show a certain healthy sense of
realism about what life in society is like. In the world outside the theorist's study, we meet
trade-offs at every tum. Every policy we make with some worthy end in Sight imposes costs in
terms of diminished achievement of some other plausibly worthy end. Consequentialism
demands that we grapple with these costs as directly as we can and justify their incurrence. It
forbids us to dismiss them with moral sophistries or to ignore them as if we lived in an ideal
world.
23The basic argument behind the social contract is that as humans, we emerged from a
state of nature and formed societies and governments. We then tastily gave up our right to do
whatever we wanted for social order and in return, our government gave us protection and the
guarantee that they would keep us safe and secure. One could argue that the subsidies are part
of this guarantee as the need for a reliable fuel source is so great, that it would ne negligent for
a government to even think of ending this support network. When we apply this to the
resolution at hand, we see that criminal justice system is based in the foundations of an
obligation by the government to the people of a country. The issue up for debate is whether
the concept of predictive policing fulfills this through preemption or whether a social contract
based society requires a benefit of the doubt.
Claims to moral obligation undercut political obligation and allow for violence
to occur
Jeffery C. Isaac, "Ends, Means And Politics." Dissent. 2002.
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/ends-means-and-politics
As writers such as Niccolo Machiavelli, Max Weber, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Hannah Arendt have
taught, an unyielding concern with moral goodness undercuts political responsibility. The
concern may be morally laudable, reflecting a kind of personal integrity, but it suffers from three
fatal flaws: (1) It fails to see that the purity of one’s intention does not ensure the achievement
of what one intends. Abjuring violence or refusing to make common cause with morally
compromised parties may seem like the right thing; but if such tactics entail impotence, then it
is hard to view them as serving any moral good beyond the clean conscience of their supporters;
(2) it fails to see that in a world of real violence and injustice, moral purity is not simply a form of
powerlessness; it is often a form of complicity in injustice. This is why, from the standpoint of
politics— as opposed to religion—pacifism is always a potentially immoral stand. In categorically
repudiating violence, it refuses in principle to oppose certain violent injustices with any effect;
and (3) it fails to see that politics is as much about unintended consequences as it is about
intentions; it is the effects of action, rather than the motives of action, that is most significant.
Just as the alignment with “good” may engender impotence, it is often the pursuit of “good”
that generates evil. This is the lesson of communism in the twentieth century: it is not enough
that one’s goals be sincere or idealistic; it is equally important, always, to ask about the effects
of pursuing these goals and to judge these effects in pragmatic and historically contextualized
ways. Moral absolutism inhibits this judgment. It alienates those who are not true believers. It
promotes arrogance. And it undermines political effectiveness.
24The aff is moral evasion: consequentialism is imperative
Kai Nielsen, "Absolutism And Its Consequentialist Critics, Ed. Joram Graf Haber, P. 170-2 ." .
1993.
Forget the levity of the example and consider the case of the innocent fat man. If there really is
no other way of unsticking our fat man and if plainly, without blasting him out, everyone in the
cave will drown, then, innocent or not, he should be blasted out. This indeed overrides the
principle that the innocent should never be deliberately killed, but it does not reveal a
callousness toward life, for the people involved are caught in a desperate situation in which, if
such extreme action is not taken, many lives will be lost and far greater misery will obtain.
Moreover, the people who do such a horrible thing or acquiesce in the doing of it are not likely
to be rendered more callous about human life and human suffering as a result. Its occurrence
will haunt them for the rest of their lives and is as likely as not to make them more rather than
less morally sensitive. It is not even correct to say that such a desperate act shows a lack of
respect for persons. We are not treating the fat man merely as a means. The fat man’s person
his interests and rights are not ignored. Killing him is something which is undertaken with the
greatest reluctance. It is only when it is quite certain that there is no other way to save the lives
of the others that such a violent course of action is justifiably undertaken. Alan Donagan,
arguing rather as Anscombe argues, maintains that “to use any innocent man ill for the sake of
some public good is directly to degrade him to being a mere means” and to do this is of course
to violate a principle essential to morality, that is, that human beings should never merely be
treated as means but should be treated as ends in themselves (as persons worthy of respect).”
But, as my above remarks show, it need not be the case, and in the above situation it is not the
case, that in killing such an innocent man we are treating him merely as a means. The action is
universalizable, all alternative actions which would save his life are duly considered, the blasting
out is done only as a last and desperate resort with the minimum of harshness and indifference
to his suffering and the like. It indeed sounds ironical to talk this way, given what is done to him.
But if such a terrible situation were to arise, there would always be more or less humane ways
of going about one’s grim task. And in acting in the more humane ways toward the fat man, as
we do what we must do and would have done to ourselves were the roles reversed, we show a
respect for his person. In so treating the fat man not just to further the public good but to
prevent the certain death of a whole group of people (that is to prevent an even greater evil
than his being killed in this way) the claims of justice are not overridden either, for each
individual involved, if he is reasonably correct, should realize that if he were so stuck rather than
the fat man, he should in such situations be blasted out. Thus, there is no question of being
unfair. Surely we must choose between evils here, but is there anything more reasonable, more
morally appropriate, than choosing the lesser evil when doing or allowing some evil cannot be
avoided? That is, where there is no avoiding both and where our actions can determine whether
a greater or lesser evil obtains, should we not plainly always opt for the lesser evil? And is it not
obviously a greater evil that all those other innocent people should suffer and die than that the
fat man should suffer and die? Blowing up the fat man is indeed monstrous. But letting him
25remain stuck while the whole group drowns is still more monstrous. The consequentialist is on
strong moral ground here, and, if his reflective moral convictions do not square either with
certain unrehearsed or with certain reflective particular moral
convictions of human beings, so much the worse for such commonsense moral convictions. One
could even usefully and relevantly adapt here though for a quite different purpose an argument
of Donagan’s. Consequentialism of the kind I have been arguing for provides so persuasive “a
theoretical basis for common morality that when it contradicts some moral intuition, it is natural
to suspect that intuition, not theory, is corrupt.” Given the comprehensiveness, plausibility, and
overall rationality of consequentialism, it is not unreasonable to override even a deeply felt
moral conviction if it does not square with such a theory, though, if it made no sense or
overrode the bulk of or even a great many of our considered moral convictions, that would be
another matter indeed. Anticonsequentialists often point to the inhumanity of people who will
sanction such killing of the innocent, but cannot the compliment be returned by speaking of the
even greater inhumanity, conjoined with evasiveness, of those who will allow even more death
and far greater misery and then excuse themselves on the ground that they did not intend the
death and misery but merely forbore to prevent it? In such a context, such reasoning and such
forbearing to prevent seems to me to constitute a moral evasion. I say it is evasive because
rather than steeling himself to do what in normal circumstances would be a horrible and vile act
but in this circumstance is a harsh moral necessity, he [it] allows, when he has the power to
prevent it, a situation which is still many times worse. He tries to keep his ‘moral purity’ and [to]
avoid ‘dirty hands’ at the price of utter moral failure and what Kierkegaard called ‘double
mindedness.’ It is understandable that people should act in this morally evasive way, but this
does not make it right.
26Deontology is a broad criterion as it only means a moral framework. In essence, it is a
class of values and criterions that is the opposite of a utility framework. Using the general term.
Under this theory, values like moral obligations, morality, justice, and divine command theory
would all fall under a deontological framework. The general concept is what is the most moral
action we can take? Is it moral to stop crime or to let crime happen because of the uncertainty
with the system used to find crime?
Even if morality ought to be measured in utilitarian terms, punishment ought to
be evaluated through a deontological lens.
John M. Darley, 91 Nw. U. L. Rev. 453 (1996-1997) Utility of Desert; lexis. Ben Holguin.
We begin the argument for our position by criticizing all of the alternatives. That is, before we
detail the case for enhancing the criminal law’s moral credibility, we comment on the other
utilitarian theories for distributing criminal liability and the difficulties that each face. Our
conclusion is not that these standard utilitarian mechanisms for controlling crime have no effect
in reducing crime, but rather that they have only a limited benefit that is outweighed by their cost
in undercutting the law’s crime control power by reducing its moral credibility. Remember that
sentences based upon desert do provide the opportunity for rehabilitation, incapacitation, and
deterrence. In arguing for desert distribution, then, we need show only that the additional crime
control benefit that the standard utilitarian analysis claims by deviating from a desert distribution
is outweighed by the additional cost that such deviation incurs as it inevitably undercuts the
criminal law’s moral credibility. The optimum distributive principle, [uses]we argue, is one that
rehabilitates, incapacitates, and deters, but only through the use of liability and punishment that
tracks the community’s principles of perceived desert.
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