I think that this is a great public forum topic: it relates to a current event that will educate students on some of the nuanc
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Lesson 4.2 Day 3
| 13NFL1-Compulsory Voting Page 18 of 163 www.victorybriefs.com The non-agential sentences (1) and (2) say that certain states of affairs ought to be the case (the “ought-to-be”). Here ought is commonly glossed as meaning it is best that, so we can call these readings evaluative. From some state of affairs being best nothing directly follows about how any agent has most reason to act, and so these sentences seem to have at most an indirect bearing on agents deliberations. Sentence (2) entails neither that somebody has most reason to rig the lottery so Larry wins, for example, nor even that Larry has most reason to buy a lottery ticket (the odds of his winning would after all be extremely long. Now, why should you care about this analysis of the grammatical function of ought At least three reasons. First, it is away to refute the MacIntyre/Boyle and Lavin function arguments you will be likely to see. If the resolution is non- agential, that means it is not a question of an agent’s reasons for action. That means that there is no agent stipulated in the resolution and the resolution is not a question that relates to the function or reasons of an agent. This would be a strong takeout to most frameworks. Second, if you are thinking of running a Boyle and Lavin-type function argument, this is something to keep in mind. Most frameworks are missing the step where they specify why the resolution is even talking about an agent’s reasons for action, and such frameworks would be vulnerable to this kind of attack. Third, realizing this way of analyzing the resolution opens up a wide variety of interesting and strategic framework arguments somewhat outside the norm. I’ll just suggest a few possible framework directions you could go with this argument you could argue that the non-agential "ought" does not bear on an agent’s responsibilities or capabilities, so arguments about whether compulsory voting would be practicable or even possible are irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if a system of compulsory voting is impossible all that matters is that it would be best if voting were compulsory. Consider this example It would be incorrect for me to say Jon Stewart ought to grow wings and fly because presumably Jon Stewart is incapable of doing that and so it’s inappropriate to obligate him to do so, given the well- accepted principle that ought implies can On the other hand, it is perfectly acceptable for me to say It would be best if humans grew wings and flew about because then we could fly and it would be super-fun. That is just expressing the desirability of a certain state of affairs, not obligating an agent to bring it about, and so there is no question about the capability of the agent. |