Humans eating non-primate sterilised meat, in moderation, is moral

As there is a shared BOP, I will first be refuting the arguments brought forth by my opponent, then bring up some arguments of my own. ”The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. ” - Gandhi To the extent that animals are of lesser value than humans, it is appropriate to eat them. This argument is essentially a food chain. The superior organism eats the lesser organism. To this extent, I should be able to eat my friend Johnny because I am intellectually, physically, and emotionally superior to him. Thus, he is my lesser. Thus, it is appropriate to eat him. Unlike animals, humans are capable of rational thought and can alter the world around them. The fact that animals aren’t capable of rational thought only furthers our responsibility to them. They cannot protect themselves from us, so we need to protect them from ourselves. Just because they aren’t humans doesn’t mean they can’t feel pain and don’t desire to live their lives free from pain and suffering. I will expand on this later on. Men and women have rights and that animals don’t. This is clearly incorrect. Animals currently already have rights, preventing us from treating them brutally and hunting them to extinction. Whether or not this is a good idea, we should at least acknowledge that our desire to eat meat is not a trivial matter, no mere “gastronomic preference”. But eating meat is a mere “gastronomic preference”. You can’t call sex “recreational preference” because we need to reproduce if our species is to continue. You can call it “recreational necessity”. On the other hand, eating meat is hardly a necessity, hardly an “instinct”. We can survive perfectly healthy on vegetables and other vegan centred foods, we do not need meat, we choose to eat it. Indeed, it may be appropriate to connect the notion of “dominion” to “stewardship” over animals. Yet humans can be good stewards of animals while continuing to eat them. Have you ever heard of a great king who mercilessly slaughtered his subjects in cruel and horrible fashions? Humans have never been great stewards of animals. “It is merely necessary that humans maintain balance, order, and sustainability in the animal kingdom. ” Yet we haven’t. We can’t. If we had maintained balance, order, and sustainability no animals would have gone extinct by man’s hand. If we are vegetarians, does it follow that we will be kind and compassionate? There is no connection between vegetarians and compassion. Just because you are a vegetarian, doesn’t mean you are very compassionate. There is no correlation between the two. Vegetarians merely do not endorse the killing of animals for food. Animals are given food, shelter and care if they become ill or injured. When it is time to slaughter them, the end is quick and pain-free. After all, unhappy and stressed animals provide poor meat, so it is in farmer’s interests to look after them. This is an extremely flawed argument. My opponent would have you believe that animals are slaughtered in a kind and compassionate way. This I will elaborate on in my first contention. and Stoic claims that man was created in the image and likeness of God. God and Jesus also showed compassion and love for ALL living things on the planet. Granting animals legal rights would be dangerous and degrading to humans. This is completely untrue! By giving rights to animals (which by the way, already exist) we are merely protecting them. Every person on this planet has rights, yet some are superior to others. Thus, rights should be taken away from the lesser people as it degrades the superior ones down to their level. By giving rights to animals, we are protecting other living things on this planet, how can that be morally wrong? Humans may not need to eat meat in order to survive, yet doing so is part of our evolutionary heritage, reflected in the design of our teeth and the structure of our digestion. Humans have also been growing crops and eating vegetables for as long as we have been on this Earth. It is just as much a part of our evolutionary heritage. Under the pressure of the hunt, the human brain grew in size and complexity and around the fire where the meat was cooked, human culture first flourished. In the fields of grain and vegetables, the human brain learned the concept of time. When to harvest, when to plant. The brain learned farming, sustainability, and preparation for the future. Vegetables are just as much a part of our culture and heritage as meat if not more. Granting rights to animals may lift us up from the brutal world of predation, but it will entail the sacrifice of part of our identity—our own animality. Granting rights to animals will lift us into a new era of which man shows compassion and love for all living things on the planet, regardless of their stature on the food chain. It will bring us a new identity of care and responsibility. The sacrifice of our animality should have happened long ago. We are not animals, we are capable of rational thought. The argument that we should avoid animal products because of their dioxin concentration is thus no less flawed than the argument that we should avoid animal products because they contain saturated fats and cholesterol. I had never argued that meats contain dioxins. Furthermore, this has no relevance to this debate as it has nothing to do with morality. I will now move on to my contentions after sufficiently refuting my opponent’s arguments. C1: ANIMAL BRUTALITY Farmers do not slaughter their own animals, the animals are usually shipped off to the slaughterhouse where they are killed there. Animals face brutality at every step: TRANSPORTATION Animals are fit into tight boxes where they don’t even have room to turn around. Poor hygiene, lack of food, crowded cages, and stress lead to the deaths of hundreds of these animals before they even arrive at a slaughter house. [1] THE SLAUGHERHOUSE Under law, animals must be stunned prior to death so they do not feel pain with a blow to the head or electric shock. This stunning does not occur properly at many plants. Worker avadivits, interviews, and videos show still alive and kicking animals being cruelly killed, while still capable of feeling pain. The same goes for birds, they are not stunned and thus are plucked and killed while still conscious. Moving birds thrown into boiling vats to get their feathers off. Animals killed for fur are often skinned alive and bludgeoned to death. [1] The eating of meat encourages these practices. Supply and demand. Will there be any slaughterhouses in a completely vegetarian country? How can supporting this act be moral? C2: BIOLGOICALLY ENGINEERED ANIMALS Genetic modification has made us feel like gods. Chickens have been made that only produce breast meat. Other chickens are too fat to stand. Cows have been grown larger, to produce more milk, and to have more succulent slices of meat in them. [2] [3] This genetic modification is wrong, we subjugate animals to live their lives gruesomely, to be bred only for slaughter. Is this morally right? To produce animals just for us to eat? On side Opposition, we answer with No. I have refuted all of my opponent’s points and introduced several of my own. Due to lack of characters, I will only introduce 2. I will introduce the 3rd in the next round unless my opponent doesn’t want me to as it might be unfair to introduce a new argument in R3. Voters should VOTE CON. . http://www.animalsuffering.com... . http://www.greenmuze.com... . http://www.telegraph.co.uk...