The affs ethical stance is good- while there may be problems

with the Aff on an episte-ontological level, rejecting the Aff for

those reasons forfeits the emancipatory potential of the 1AC.
Lucy 98(William, University of Hull Law School, UK, Adjudication for Visionaries,
Winter 1998, 48 Univ. of Toronto L.J. 61, card modified for ableist language)
In the work before What Should Legal Analysis Become? Unger's main difficulties
were the foundational level problems of contingency and normative ascription.
Unger could acquit himself well at the level of specification since he has an obvious
way -- the distinction between micro- and macro-values -- to avoid the difficulty that
ensnares moderate value sceptics like Klare. But, because the problems of
contingency and normative ascription arise at the foundational level and beset
Unger's account of which values generate reasons for action and why, they might
be regarded as particularly serious. So serious, in fact, as to call into question the
claim that the visionary stance is the most promising account of the nature, basis,
and role of values in adjudication available to heretics. This assessment is too hasty.
First, it ignores the fact that both problems could be solved. That is, although
Unger's own arguments on both points are weak, other arguments are available that
do not have obviously unacceptable effects upon the main body of his work. Taking
the problem of normative ascription first, it could be circumvented were Unger to
argue for both social ideal and conception of the person in either moral realist or
moral rationalist terms. That would involve, inter alia, showing the conception of the
person to be a presupposition, and the social ideal a consequence, of his account of
the moral values that bind us. It seems unlikely that the social ideal could function
as the presupposition of such an account and makes little sense to regard the
conception of the person as being a consequence of it -- if we argue that certain
values are binding upon 'us' we [*122] need know what 'we' look like at the outset.
Adopting what Weinrib holds is the full-blown version of the classical style of
normative argument is not an option for Unger unless he revokes his rejection of the
notion of intelligible essences. By contrast, Unger could travel the moral realist or
rationalist path with minimal disruption: he would only have to tone down his
sceptical rhetoric about moral philosophy and give up on normative ascription. n179
One suspects that this would surely occur were Unger to acquaint himself more
thoroughly with some contemporary work in the field. The contingency problem
could also be fairly painlessly solved by Unger. The solution involves a simple
acknowledgement of the ambiguity and a statement that he endorses the weak
sense of contingency. The problem becomes debilitating only if Unger commits
himself to the strong sense of contingency. The second reason that it is hasty to
take the problems of contingency and normative ascription as fatal to Unger's
project is this. Those problems are small but important parts of an allembracing program of institutional, cultural, and psychological
development. The program ranges from discussion of the details of
particular segments of adjudication to sketches of the institutions and
practices of a future society and includes an account of how interpersonal
relations might be reconceived so as to track the higher virtues of love,
hope, and faith. To reject such an immense, ambitious program because of

the problems of contingency and normative ascription is akin to scrapping

a 1932 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow because of a faulty gear box or
destroying a Goya sketch because the charcoal is smudged. The problem is
undoubtedly serious but should not be regarded, without a great deal of argument, as terminal. The problem that
What Should Legal Analysis Become? presents is the paradox of democracy. There are ways in which Unger could
avoid it without imperilling his other commitments. Again, this would not require much of him. A recasting of some
of the language and a few of the arguments in his account of how judges should decide cases, so as to make clear
that his commitment to democracy is filtered through, or qualified by, the values that constitute the social ideal and
conception of the person, will suffice. However, taken in conjunction with the contingency and normative ascription
problems, this point highlights the most unsatisfying aspect of Unger's work to date. For, how can it be that an
enterprise so far developed, already rich in detail about our future institutions and modes of being, and crammed
full with exhortations about the ways and means with which to change our existing practices, [*123] institutions,
and mentalities, is still vague about its guiding values and the way they interrelate? Until Unger explicitly tackles
this issue we can only provisionally accept his program; it can exert just a prima facie rather than a compelling
claim over us. However, despite its problems, we should resist the temptation to begin a requiem for Unger's
program, resist Menelaus's pessimistic verdict that 'vanish'd are all the visionary joys.' n18 0

We should
accept instead the judgement of Habakkuk: the vision is yet for an
appointed time. Whether in the end it shall not lie remains to be
established.

Backlash of other parties shouldnt implicate your decision

calculus as an ethical policy maker. If it cant be predicted well
and has a low probability, you shouldnt evaluate it.
Gewirth, Philosophy Professor @ The University of Chicago, 82
(Alan, Human Rights: Essay on Justification and Application. Pg. 230)

The required supplement is provided by the principle of intervening

action. According to this principle, when there is a casual connection
between some person As performing some action (or inaction) X and
some other person Cs incurring a certain harm Z, As moral responsibility
for Z is removed if, between X and Z, there intervenes some other action Y
of some person B who knows the relevant circumstances of his action and
who intends to produce Z or who produces Z through recklessness. The reason
for this removal is that Bs intervening action Y is more direct of proximate cause of Z and, unlike As action (or
inaction), Y is the sufficient condition of Z as it actually occurs. An example of this principle may help to show its

Martin Luther King Jr. was repeatedly told that

because he led demonstrations in support of civil rights, he was morally
responsible for the disorders, riots, and deaths that ensued and that were
shaking the American Republic to its foundations. By the principle of
intervening action, however, it was Kings opponents who were
responsible because their intervention operated as the sufficient
conditions of the riots and injuries. King might also have replied that the
Republic would not be worth saving if the price that had to be paid was
the violation of the civil rights of black Americans. As for the rights of the
other Americans to peace and order, the reply would be that these rights
cannot justifiably be secured at the price of the rights of blacks.
connection with the absolutist thesis.

Their understanding of extinction scenarios is flawedthey are

only evaluating the images that extinction evokes, not the
probability of its occurrence. Their view leads to bad policies
and serial policy failure.
Yudkowsky 6
[Eliezer; Research Fellow at the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
Cognitive biases potentially affecting judgment of global risks Forthcoming in
Global Catastrophic Risks, eds. Nick Bostrom and Milan Cirkovic 8/31/06]

In addition to standard biases, I have personally observed what look like harmful modes of thinking specific to

The Spanish flu of 1918 killed 25-50 million people. World War II
killed 60 million people. 107 is the order of the largest catastrophes in humanity's written history.
Substantially larger numbers, such as 500 million deaths, and especially
qualitatively different scenarios such as the extinction of the entire human
species, seem to trigger a different mode of thinking - enter into a
"separate magisterium". People who would never dream of hurting a child hear of an existential risk,
existential risks.

and say, "Well, maybe the human species doesn't really deserve to survive." There is a saying in heuristics and
biases that people do not evaluate events, but descriptions of events - what is
called non-extensional reasoning. The extension of humanity's extinction includes the death of yourself, of your
friends, of your family, of your loved ones, of your city, of your country, of your political fellows. Yet people who
would take great offense at a proposal to wipe the country of Britain from the map, to kill every member of the
Democratic Party in the U.S., to turn the city of Paris to glass - who would feel still greater horror on hearing the
doctor say that their child had cancer - these people will discuss the extinction of humanity with perfect calm.

"Extinction of humanity", as words on paper, appears in fictional novels, or

is discussed in philosophy books - it belongs to a different context than
the Spanish flu. We evaluate descriptions of events, not extensions of
events. The clich phrase end of the world invokes the magisterium of
myth and dream, of prophecy and apocalypse, of novels and movies. The
challenge of existential risks to rationality is that, the catastrophes being
so huge, people snap into a different mode of thinking. Human deaths are
suddenly no longer bad, and detailed predictions suddenly no longer
require any expertise, and whether the story is told with a happy ending
or a sad ending is a matter of personal taste in stories.