Animal Rights

Defense:I really only need to defend up to premise 11, and add:12. Since rights exist, animals and plants do not have rights. Defending the rest becomes unnecessary by this addition. “3. If one human deprives another of liberty, through slavery, murder, or otherwise, he infringes upon his human rights. This is not justified. What are the premises on which a someone earns “human rights”? If it is merely being human, then depriving another of human rights does not change the fact that you are human. And thus you do not lose your human rights. Con needs to explain what premises grants someone human rights, and how depriving someone else of human rights negates your own. Neither of these are justified, and need to be for the argument to work.” Human rights are simply rights afforded to humans, by definition. Unless Pro is arguing that animals have a distinct set of rights from humans, human rights become synonymous with animal rights by his arguments. The whole point of my premises is to demonstrate that this is impossible. I think Con misread part of the statement, so I will rephrase: If one human deprives another human of liberty, he infringes upon the latter’s human rights. This has nothing to do with “losing” human rights. It is simply saying that, if human rights exist (and, per the rules, they almost certainly do), then they are violated by this. I do not need to bother explaining where these rights are derived from; it is enough for our purposes that they exist. “5. Humans must kill to eat--either plants, or animals. This is false. Milk, honey, tofu, yogurt, bread, nuts, butter, oranges, apples, etc. These are all things that are not alive, and you can eat to survive. “ I will revise this premise accordingly: 5. Humans must infringe upon the rights of other beings to survive. This covers this scenario because all of the named foods still necessitate infringement upon the rights of a living being by definition of rights, should those rights exist. You must take the fruit of a tree, the milk of a cow, and so on to do this. “7. If living is what entitles an entity to rights, then both plants and animals have the same rights as humansWhy is it that living is what entitles an entity to rights? Con says that it is because it is the least nonsensical thing he has heard. But if Con is going to argue the property of living as grounding rights over sentience, rationality, self-consciousness, etc., he needs to justify it. “ If rights exist, and they are truly grantable on broad-classification basis, which is the subject of this debate, then any entity is entitled to such rights by belonging to the group in question that has rights; in other words, living. In any case, you can replace “living” with any other basis, and the structure of this argument will remain the exact same; it is on Pro to demonstrate that animals have a distinct set of rights from humans. So, the revised set of premises is: 1. Either human rights exist or do not exist. 2. Human rights entail individual liberty. 3. If one human deprives another of liberty, through slavery, murder, or otherwise, he infringes upon his human rights. 4. Existence of human rights necessitates abstention from infringing upon the rights of other humans. 5. Humans must infringe upon the rights of other beings--plants or animals--to survive. 6. Both plants and animals are living. 7. If living is what entitles an entity to rights, then both plants and animals have the same rights as humans 8. Therefore, humans cannot eat plants and animals or their products. 9. Humans eat. 10. Either rights do not exist, and therefore we may eat, or they do exist, and therefore plants and animals do not have rights. 11. Given the rules of this debate, rights exist. 12. Therefore, animals and plants do not have rights. Speaking of which, on to the rebuttals. Argument from Marginal Cases "1) In order to conclude that all and only human beings deserve a full and equal moral status (and therefore that no animals deserve a full and equal moral status), there must be some property P that all and only human beings have that can ground such a claim." I also only need to demonstrate that one premise is false to render my opponents’ arguments moot.Demanding demonstration that all humans share P is absurd. It is possible, for example, to say that some humans do not deserve rights while others do, and not just in racist treatises. In fact, there is a specific group of humans who are considered unworthy of rights in modern-day countries across the globe--criminals. Therefore, one can say that this property P is simply a conscious willingness to obey the laws of one’s societies, entitling humans to dominate animals because of their civilized nature. The marginal cases--criminals--are in fact deprived of equal moral status to some degree, even in the most humane of countries. Argument from Suffering Pro has been more successful this time in that his first premise is actually true. However, this argument still does not hold water. 2. There is no prescribed basis by Pro for this claim. Unfortunately, I am bound by the rules to not argue that suffering is good, but I can still argue that there is no moral obligation to prevent it. There is simply no basis for this claim. “People are not obliged to prevent any suffering if doing so would maximize their own happiness” is a baseless claim that I can throw right back at it. 3. How do you determine “equal moral worth”? Plug it into random.org? Flip a coin? The phrase is meaningless. Granting animals rights does entail a sacrifice on behalf of humans regardless of circumstances--the sacrifice being the amount of produce-able food, land that could be used for another purpose but instead must be used for providing more living space, and so on. As a result, human suffering must inevitably increase; the amount is irrelevant. Respecting a right to life of animals and plants in itself incurs a cost--the pleasure bacon, turkey, chicken, carrots, and more bring are all gone in this instance. Pro doesn’t say how these things can be weighed, and this argument is consequently worthless.