Resolved: Animal Rights Ought To Be Recognized In Society

Rebuttal 1-Morality: Pro split this up into 3 arguments as to why one should be moral. I’ll address each of them and then explain why egoism is better. A-God Commands It This argument’s useless. A society accounts for a whole population and not everyone believes that God exists, that if God exists he has morals (or in morals at all), or that the morals are even worth following. B-Happiness Requires It Pro’s argument here essentially boils down to the fact that moral actors are happier and those who act immoral are less happier. However, Pro offers no scientific support for this in his argument and a moral nihilist or even an egoist would have no reason to feel this way. If I (as a nihilist) don’t believe morals exist, then it’d be impossible for me to feel bad for not following someone’s made up moral law. As an egoist, I would never purposefully commit an act that would cause me to be unhappy in the first place, it wouldn’t be in my interest to do something to make me feel bad. Also, let’s link back to the topic at hand, animal rights. One can easily live a happy life and even moral one (by their own standards or understandings) by living a life that violates animal rights. The way Pro’s arguing would have it that anyone who has ever killed or led to the death knowingly of an animal, for any reason, cannot be truly or fully happy. The idea of this is virtually impossible. Essentially, not everyone believes in animal rights, so not everyone can feel less happy by violating them. Since a society accounts for a whole group of people, not everyone can feel unhappy by violating animal rights. C-Acting Immorally is Irrational I reject P1 and P2 (as Pro assumed) and agree to the adapted: P1-My interests matter to me. P2-Other's’ interests matter to them. Obviously Pro prepared for this by saying that “if the amoralist holds that her pain is really bad (as opposed to bad for her) or resents others for not helping her, she would show practical irrationality.” This argument’s generally useless as well. A) not everyone can be expected to act rationally and B) many realize this and don’t feel that way. They know that something is bad for them and don’t expect other’s assistance. Overall, egoism is preferable because that way a society is able to act in its interest. A society may have several reasons to want to do something, but if something they deem as bringing a positive impact comes as a result of a certain action it would make sense to want to do that. Having the ability to do anything intentionally, opens a wide array of possibilities that otherwise would have been locked if being held back by a restricted moral code. This can even mean acting morally if they choose because they think it will bring them more respect, love, happiness, or whatever else they feel with bring the greatest benefit to them. To link this back to animal rights, remember what I said last round about the dog and the cow? If one loves a dog, they will want the dog to survive, but if they feel indifferent to the cow’s life but enjoy what a dead cow could provide, they would not want that cow having rights. However, they are still willing to and want the dog to have its rights protected, meaning that an egoist could find a selfish reason to protect an animal, but should not necessarily be bound by it. Also, not all moral codes account for the protection of animal rights so a society as a whole should not be bound by protecting animal rights, if we accept that all should act according to their morals (assuming they have a moral code they follow). Rebuttal 2-Needless Suffering: The definition of unnecessary is “not needed or wanted”. (1) The whole idea of needless suffering is impossible. If someone is willingly committing an act, it cannot be needless, since they feel it is needed or wanted. If someone is not willingly doing something, there is something else causing it (either someone or something forcefully causing it), which means either the person forcing them to wants or needs them to do something or there is a law of the universe that means something needs to happen (a brick falling from a high height onto an animal killing it needs to happen because there is attraction between the brick and the Earth causing the brick to accelerate towards the surface of the Earth). I won’t deny that animals can feel physical pain. However, my whole egoist argument goes against the idea that a human should feel the need to care. Pro didn’t respond to what I said last round about this (except lack of a definition), so this issue may be resolved in Pro’s first contention. Rebuttal 3-Responsibility: My response last round to this was short, so I’ll repost it since Pro never responds to it. “Pro actually does explain his argument here (compassion>selfishness), by saying that love towards humans and animals is better than selfishness, based on scientific findings. He presents a correlation that, “compassion and love is positively correlated with happiness and healthiness”. Just because a correlation exists doesn’t mean that the cause is due to that. Plus, none of his sources even mention compassion towards animals. For all we know, this only applies to humans.” Now again, what I’ll say is that none of his studies show that compassion towards animals is sure or even likely to create a correlation of greater happiness and healthiness, nor that is it guaranteed that not being compassionate towards animals will lower happiness and healthiness. The rest of his argument is based on a Charter of Compassion, which essentially makes some stuff up with no scientific backing. The science came later, but as I just mentioned it, in it of itself, is useless to the resolution of the debate. Argument 1-Dead and Exploited Animals are Useful: Pro sidesteps my arguments and essentially concedes, “Whilst animal testing has been beneficial and meat is a major food source”. He admits that animal’s may be useful and drops other arguments how dead or exploited animals can be useful and bring happiness to humans. If my egoism argument is accepted, this wins the debate. Also, since Pro never strictly defines his moral code, one who ignores animal rights, but greatly believes in doing what is necessary to protect humans would be willing to sacrifice some animals if it leads to more humans being saved. As for his response, it’s entirely a false dichotomy. He assumes that if we don’t accept animal rights then all of a sudden we’ll kill enough animals to threaten our survival. Of course, an egoistic society wouldn’t do this, since it’s not in their best interest do something that would kill their society. Argument 2-Impossible Without Going Extinct or Killing Most of the World: Pro claims he never said eating meat is wrong. Regardless of whether he did or not is irrelevant, the agreed upon definition for animal rights is, “the rights of animals to live free from human exploitation and abuse.” Killing an animal for meat directly goes against that definition. He has to argue against using animals for meat, or else he loses. It’s that simple. Pro also posts blatant anti-science by saying that, “however, these are not essential nutrients since otherwise vegetarians and vegans would not exist.” This isn’t true, certain nutrients only found naturally in animals (such as vitamin B-12) are essential. (2) Most vegetarians and vegans supplement this, but it is unrealistic to expect everyone in the world to do this. As for my other argument in this argument (which was dropped). I’ll repost the main part of it, “Plus, with more farmland not only do animals lose their habitats (almost defeating the purpose) they are also killed in clearing the land.” (5, last round) To meet food demands in a post-meat world a lot more farmland would need to be cleared for it to realistically occur. However, that would kill animals and take their habitats, so that’s definitely violating animal rights. This means that for humans to meet food demands, they’d need to go to the wild to find them. However, they cannot kill animals so they are at risk of being killed by them and are less able to gather food (seeing as you’re eliminating a major food source). Sources: 1-http://dictionary.reference.com... 2-http://authoritynutrition.com...