Framework – Util Sovereign

Ethics must be certain and non-arbitrary which requires objective and universal
assessment on the correct course of action – otherwise agents could opt-out by simply
disagreeing and following an alternative interpretation which would trigger
permissibility which is the antithesis of an obligation.

Aff’s fw explains why pleasure is good and pain is bad but fails to provide an objective
interpretation of future consequences proven by clash within the topic literature.

The advantage calculations are filtered through ideological filters that are
epistemically suspect.
Bardon 20 [Adrian Bardon(professor of philosophy at Wake Forest). “Humans are hardwired to dismiss
facts that don’t fit their worldview.” Fast Company. 2/1/20.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90458795/humans-are-hardwired-to-dismiss-facts-that-dont-fit-their-
worldview// CHO

Something is rotten in the state of American political life. The U.S. (among other nations) is increasingly
characterized by highly polarized, informationally insulated ideological communities occupying their
own factual universes.

Within the conservative political blogosphere, global warming is either a hoax or so uncertain as to be
unworthy of response. Within other geographic or online communities, vaccines, fluoridated water, and
genetically modified foods are known to be dangerous. Right-wing media outlets paint a detailed picture
of how Donald Trump is the victim of a fabricated conspiracy.

None of that is correct, though. The reality of human-caused global warming is settled science. The
alleged link between vaccines and autism has been debunked as conclusively as anything in the history
of epidemiology. It’s easy to find authoritative refutations of Donald Trump’s self-exculpatory claims
regarding Ukraine and many other issues.

Yet many well-educated people sincerely deny evidence-based conclusions on these matters.

In theory, resolving factual disputes should be relatively easy: Just present evidence of a strong expert
consensus. This approach succeeds most of the time, when the issue is, say, the atomic weight of
hydrogen.

But things don’t work that way when the scientific consensus presents a picture that threatens
someone’s ideological worldview. In practice, it turns out that one’s political, religious, or ethnic
identity quite effectively predicts one’s willingness to accept expertise on any given politicized issue.
“Motivated reasoning” is what social scientists call the process of deciding what evidence to accept
based on the conclusion one prefers. As I explain in my book, The Truth About Denial, this very human
tendency applies to all kinds of facts about the physical world, economic history, and current events.

DENIAL DOESN’T STEM FROM IGNORANCE

The interdisciplinary study of this phenomenon has exploded over just the last six or seven years. One
thing has become clear: The failure of various groups to acknowledge the truth about, say, climate
change, is not explained by a lack of information about the scientific consensus on the subject.

Instead, what strongly predicts denial of expertise on many controversial topics is simply one’s political
persuasion.

A 2015 metastudy showed that ideological polarization over the reality of climate change actually
increases with respondents’ knowledge of politics, science, and/or energy policy. The chances that a
conservative is a climate-change denier is significantly higher if he or she is college-educated.
Conservatives scoring highest on tests for cognitive sophistication or quantitative reasoning skills are
most susceptible to motivated reasoning about climate science.

This is not just a problem for conservatives. As researcher Dan Kahan has demonstrated, liberals are
less likely to accept expert consensus on the possibility of safe storage of nuclear waste, or on the
effects of concealed-carry gun laws.
DENIAL IS NATURAL

Our ancestors evolved in small groups, where cooperation and persuasion had at least as much to do with reproductive success as holding accurate factual beliefs about the world. Assimilation into one’s tribe required assimilation into the group’s ideological belief system. An instinctive
bias in favor of one’s in-group” and its worldview is deeply ingrained in human psychology.

A human being’s very sense of self is intimately tied up with his or her identity group’s status and
beliefs. Unsurprisingly, then, people respond automatically and defensively to information that
threatens their ideological worldview. We respond with rationalization and selective assessment of
evidence—that is, we engage in “confirmation bias,” giving credit to expert testimony we like and
finding reasons to reject the rest.
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Political scientists Charles Taber and Milton Lodge experimentally confirmed the existence of this automatic response. They found that partisan subjects, when presented with photos of
politicians, produce an affective “like/dislike” response that precedes any sort of conscious, factual assessment as to who is pictured.

In ideologically charged situations, one’s prejudices end up affecting one’s factual beliefs. Insofar as you
define yourself in terms of your cultural affiliations, information that threatens your belief system—
say, information about the negative effects of industrial production on the environment—can threaten
your sense of identity itself. If it’s part of your ideological community’s worldview that unnatural
things are unhealthful, factual information about a scientific consensus on vaccine or GM food safety
feels like a personal attack.

Unwelcome information can also threaten in other ways. “System justification” theorists such as
psychologist John Jost have shown how situations that represent a threat to established systems
trigger inflexible thinking and a desire for closure. For example, as Jost and colleagues extensively
review, populations experiencing economic distress or external threat have often turned to
authoritarian, hierarchicalist leaders promising security and stability.

DENIAL IS EVERYWHERE
This kind of affect-laden, motivated thinking explains a wide range of examples of an extreme, evidence-
resistant rejection of historical fact and scientific consensus.

Have tax cuts been shown to pay for themselves in terms of economic growth? Do communities with
high numbers of immigrants have higher rates of violent crime? Did Russia interfere in the 2016 U.S.
presidential election? Predictably, expert opinion regarding such matters is treated by partisan media
as though evidence is itself inherently partisan.

Denialist phenomena are many and varied, but the story behind them is, ultimately, quite simple.
Human cognition is inseparable from the unconscious emotional responses that go with it. Under the
right conditions, universal human traits such as in-group favoritism, existential anxiety, and a desire for
stability and control combine into a toxic, system-justifying identity politics.

When group interests, creeds, or dogmas are threatened by unwelcome factual information, biased
thinking becomes denial. And unfortunately these facts about human nature can be manipulated for
political ends.

Consequentialist frameworks must resolve the paradox of future action: if

consequences are how we judge whether an action is ethical, how can we generate
binding obligations about how to act in the future when outcomes are uncertain. The
aff’s fw is insufficient and we will hijack it.

The sovereign solves – we must surrender moral judgement.

Williams Williams, Michael C. (Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the
University of Ottawa). “Hobbes and International Relations: A Reconsideration.” International Organization,
Volume 50, Number 2, pgs. 218-220. Spring 1996. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2704077. CHO
By themselves, the laws of nature are not enough, not because rational actors cannot trust each other enough to enter into a social contract but because in the
condition of epistemological indeterminacy that Hobbes portrays as natural, this universality is at best a partial step. For even
if all were to agree on
the right to self-preservation, all need not necessarily agree on what comprised threats to that

preservation, how to react to them, or how best to secure themselves against them. Conflict is not simply intrinsic to
humanity's potential for aggression; nor can it be resolved directly through the utilitarian calcula- tions of competing and conflicting

interests. On the contrary, Hobbes believes that the answer lies in recognizing the problem: namely, the inability to resolve objectively the
problem of knowing facts and morals in any straightforward manner. Once this is recognized, the stage is set for

Hobbes's solution, a solution that lies not-as Donald Hanson has argued-in a flight from politics but rather in an appeal to politics.19 Or, put another way,
Hobbes tries to show how rational certainty and skepticism can be paradoxically combined into a solution for politics

and a solution by politics. To escape the state of nature, individuals do not simply alienate their "right to everything" to a political
authority.20 More fundamentally, what is granted to that authority is the right to decide among irresolvably contested

truths: to provide the authoritative criteria for what is and thus to remove people from the state of epistemic
and ethical anarchy that form the basis of the state of nature. Hobbes uses his skepticism both to show the necessity of his solution and to
destroy (what he views as dogmatic) counterclaims to political authority based upon unsupportable (individual) claims to truth. In arguing against what he views as
seditious individual claims against the authority of the sovereign in De Cive, Hobbes puts it in the following way: "the knowledge of good and evil belongs to each
single man. In the state of nature indeed, where every man lives by equal right, and has not by any mutual pacts submitted to the command of others, we have
granted this to be true; nay, [proved it] ... [But in the civil state it is false. For it was shown. . .] that the civil laws were the rules of good and evil, just and unjust,
honest and dishonest; that therefore what the legislator commands, must be held for good, and what he forbids for evil. "21 Earlier in the same work, he phrased
the argument even more unequivocally, noting that since "the opinions of men differ concerning meum and tuum, just and unjust, profitable and
unprofitable, good and evil, honest and dishonest, and the like; which every man esteems according to his own judgment: it belongs to the same chief power to
make some common rules for all men, and to declare them publicly, by which every man may know what may be called his, what another's, what just, what unjust,
what honest, what dishonest, what good, what evel; that is summarily, what is to be done, what to be avoided in our common course of life." It follows that for
Hobbes: "All judgment therefore, in a city, belongs to him who hath the swords; that is, to him who hath the supreme authority."22 These
are the
fundamental reasons why the sovereign must be unchallenge- able ; to rebel is to return to the
subjectively relative claim to know and the conflict that this inevitably entails. They also explain why the
sovereign ultimately must control language (which defines what is) and clarify Hobbes's repeated stress on the importance of
education rather than coercion as the essential element in a successful sovereign's rule.23 Interpretive dissent leads to
political dissension and to conflict. In the words of Hobbes's patron, the Earl of Newcastle, "controversy Is a Civil Warr with the Pen which pulls
out the sorde soon afterwards. "24

Thus, the standard is consistency with the will of the [utilitarian] sovereign.
 Living Wage Offense
Vote neg – there can be no moral obligation on a sovereign entity because it
contradicts the very premise of leviathan in which the entire population consents to
absolute domination. Anything else is the state of nature which collapses to moral
relativism which disproves “ought” in the resolution.

Counterplan Text: Submit ethical decisions to the Leviathan

- The counterplan would ban the plan because we cannot place moral obligations on the soverign