Plautus And Moral Obligations

Plautus was one of ancient Rome’s greatest playwrights. He once said, “The day, water, sun, moon, night-I do not have to purchase these things with money.” I affirm the resolution, “RESOLVED: Access to drinking water ought to be valued as a human right instead of as a commodity.” Affirming achieves the value of morality defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as, “conforming to the rules of right conduct; moral or virtuous conduct.” This is the proper value for the round because of the word ‘ought’ in the resolution which the same sourced defines as, ‘Used to express duty or moral obligation’ meaning the resolution is asking us to determine the more moral means of providing drinking water to people. Morality is also the proper value because
Thomas explains in “Individual Rights: The Objectivist View”. He writes, “What does it mean to have rights? A right is an absolute political claim. If you have right to some land, other people ought to permit you to have it. If you have a right to vote, nobody should prevent you from voting. If animals have rights, then we mean that no one ought to harm them. Rights are political claims because they pertain to what the law can or can’t force you to do, and what it can or can’t force others to do for you. Rights are not a physical property of human beings. They aren’t encoded in your DNA, rooted in your hair follicles, or readable via an iris-scanner. But they aren’t just a moral fashion statement, either: it’s wrong to say someone has a right simply to cheer for whatever the right stands for. I think it would be grand if people would travel to Mars. However, that alone doesn’t give someone a right to travel to Mars. Moreover, if you have a right, you have a right to do wrong, too. Your right to vote isn’t just a right to vote for good candidates: it’s a right to vote for the bad ones, too, if that’s your choice. In fact, rights are principles. Properly understood, they objective moral principles that provide the foundation for political-legal order. No law should violate rights. Rights are “self-evident” and “unalienable “because they are derived from facts about human nature. They are principles defining the fundamental freedoms and responsibilities that people
Volume: 36. Issue: 5. Publication Year:
2004

Right to Food: It is not difficult to conceptualize the importance of water in relation to adequate food security. Water is essential for agriculture, and much of the food in rural areas is harvested through sustenance farming. The Commission on Human Rights' Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food recommended that drinking water be treated as a public good and thus included within the right to food.65 Governments should set standards for water quality and ensure access to good-quality water resources to protect social justice.
This means failing to affirm violates the right to food and so this is enough to affirm.

Sub point D: Failing to affirm undermines the right to health.
Ramin Pejan, ―The Right to Water: the Road to Justiciability, The George
Washington International Law Review. Volume: 36. Issue: 5. Publication Year:
2004

Right to Health: Unsafe water can lead to a number of diseases, including cholera.
As mentioned above, unsanitary water has caused cholera and other epidemics, killing millions. The CESCR's General Comment 14 on the Right to Health defines this right as an inclusive one that extends not only to timely and appropriate health care but also to those factors that determine good