Resolved: Sentience is of ethical relevance to the treatment of living things.

Framework Hisonly remaining defense against my observation is that morality is notsubjective; he argues that since I did not prove this to be true, there is noreason to believe it. Note that he has already done this work for me. In theframework he presents in his first speech, he argued that he can proposedifferent, contradictory ethical theories. The fact that he acknowledges thatmoral theories can contradict each other proves that morality is subjective. (This is not a new argument because it is adirect extension of the affirmative framework.) This means that myobservation, which indicates that I only need to propose one ethical theorythat does not take sentience into account, still stands. At the point that thisis true, you can immediately negate. Hisdefense of multiplicity amounts to nothing more than an ad populum logicalfallacy. Unfortunately, just because many people say something is true does notmean that it is true. For thousands of years, everyone on Earth believed thatthe Earth was the center of the universe, but that was later proven false, forexample. Heis mishandling my claims of abuse. The fact that he presents multiple ethicaltheories is not abusive, but the claim that he can simply drop his whole caseexcept one ethical theory while I have to refute every point that he makesaccording to his framework is abusive. There is no reason that this can standin the round. Deep Ecology Ialready answered back the fact that the interconnectedness of life means thatwe have to treat other forms of life as if they have value due to ethicalemotivism. Insofar as he ignores this justification, you can extend it as wellas the validity of deep ecology. Moreover, he disregards the fact that thepurpose of life is to perpetuate itself and survive. This is not an outdatedtheory because it is literally supported by all of biology (evolution, naturalselection, etc.) At the point that my ethical philosophy is connecting withother forms of knowledge, you can negate because it is most likely true. Goback and read his justification of util. It literally says that individualswith preferences ought to be considered higher than others. Moreover, all ofhis ethical theories say that it would be ok to disregard grass and step on it(read his second speech again: he literally says this), which means that theydisregard sentience. All Western theories tell us how to act while dealing withmoral agents. Individuals have rights, for example, because they are consideredmoral agents. However, because plants are not moral agents, according toWestern ethics, there is no reason to respect their lives at all. Heultimately drops the argument from Deep Ecology that states that we cannotinterfere with other types of life unless it is vital to our survival. Thissolves back all of his questions about repotting plants, trapping grasshoppers,etc. In addition, since it was dropped, you can extend the validity of DE as anethical theory. Hisdefense against the Double-Bind is tenuous at best. Traditional Western ethicsgives absolutely no standing to non-moral agents because it does not describehow to deal with them. He never explained what sort of standing other organismshave according to his philosophies. So, you can extend the double-bind, whichexplains that either they have no standing according to him, which means that Iwin based on Deep-Ecology’s existence, or that they do have standing, which meansthat sentience is ethically relevant. In addition, if the standing of otherorganisms is different, then he is still arguing that sentience is ethicallyrelevant. This attack is not even responsive to the double-bind. Anthropocentrism Again,if his argument is that the standing is different, then he is still treatingsentience as ethically relevant. In addition, discourse ethics is notaccounting for the mentally incompetent, individuals in a vegetative state, andthe mentally incompetent, which he drops. Turnthe preferences argument because this is a reason that we should value all oflife. All of life has preferences (such as survival, reproduction, etc.), so ifpreferences do not need to be articulated for util., then sentience is notethically relevant. Thefact that DE extends emotivism does not mean that emotivism accounts for DE. (Thisis like saying that a rectangle is a square because a square is a rectangle.)DE is a type of emotivism that applies the basic parts of the theory in a specificcontext. The theory as my opponent is running it does not account fornon-sentient creatures. Util Extendthe preferences turn from point two above. Healready dropped the argument that rule util. collapses into act util, so hecannot attempt to attack it here. In addition, he never specified which util.he was running until after I made my attack, meaning that he is being a movingtarget, which is unfair. Thus, we assume act util. because it is the moststandard form of utilitarianism. Act util. is unjust because it justifiesatrocities like slavery, so it is not even a valid moral theory. Rationalism andDiscourse Thesewere addressed by the arguments about infants, humans in a vegetative state,and the mentally incompetent. He conceded this arguments against DiscourseEthics, so he immediately loses that ethical theory’s applicability. Inaddition, he loses that Rationlism does not account for irrational humans andis thus not a proper modern theory, so this is refuted as well. There is noreason to affirm off of these ideas. Emotivism Ihave already shown you that 1. The Double-Bind still stands and that 2.Organisms with different standing based on sentience means that, according tohim, is required for ethical consideration. Iconcede that an extension of emotivism, namely Deep Ecology, is true. Thenormal theory itself falls prey to the general attacks that I made against hiscase, which I have been explaining for the last three rounds. Voting Issues Iclearly won the framework debate because my observation goes unrefuted in theround. At the point that I provide a valid ethical theory that does not takesentience into account, you negate. TheDouble-Bind still stands. This is the easiest way to negate.