Tim Spin's Debate Tournament R1: Vegetarianism

Con and I have come to an agreement that the debate is primarily concerned with ethics rather than health. Nonetheless, health will still be part of my supporting arguments. Con and I agreed that in place of "heathy adults" we are substituting in those who are not in direct medical need of meat. It was crucial that I do this because it shielded me from the potentially devastating counter argument of the subject of an individual in extreme dietary need who would die unless fed meat. Since that hurdle has been leapt and Con and I have agreed that health is not to play a major part in this debate, but rather the crux of the debate being ethics. I readily accept this and present the basics of my argument starting with a set of premises: 1. Inflicting unnecessary suffering on conscious beings is morally wrong. 2. If a statement is morally wrong we ought not do it. 3. Butchering and eating non-human animals constitutes unnecessary suffering when there are clear dietary alternatives. Conclusion: We ought not butcher and eat sentient non-human animals. Premise 1: First, there is a clear difference between unnecessary and necessary suffering. If a patient freely receives a shot from a doctor, he receives pain (a little suffering) but the minimal suffering is consented to was intended to diminish suffering in the long run due to the probability of a disease that entails greater suffering. A doctor's shot obviously varies greatly from the torture of a child which can clearly be labeled as "unnecessary" in virtually every circumstance. The reason we have moral obligations to subjects is tied to their ability to experience a wide range of subjective phenomenon, including joy and pain. Obviously, a world with only rocks and dust would be an amoral world in that there are zero moral obligations. Once the conscious states of beings are recognized as morally significant, the issue of suffering versus happiness becomes paramount. Noted ethicist Peter Singer writes "If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter what the nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that its suffering be counted equally with the like suffering—in so far as rough comparisons can be made—of any other being" [1]. Additionally, Singer repeatedly brings up the issue of a human tendency towards "speciesism" in terms of disregarding the suffering of animals. Should the issue of animal suffering be placed on an equal pedestal with human suffering? This problem is contentious and would certainly hold dire implications, but it is not the point I am arguing. I am simply arguing that the suffering of animals matters intrinsically because suffering is bad. No one wants to suffer, and it is universally considered undesirable. Premise 2: There should not be too much dispute on this one. Once we have recognized moral authority, it should follow that the authority is intrinsically action-guiding. Moral realists claim the existence of mind-independent moral facts [2] that in essence claim knowledge of the concept of "goodness." Acknowledging given acts as factually "good" is an inherent recognition of principles of moral worth, and in turn prescriptively relevant. Premise 3: This third premise is probably the largest, but most important hurdle in the debate over the morality of vegetarianism. Although it has been cleared up that severe health issues are excluded from the realm of this debate, any talk concerning the morality of vegetarianism simply must concern its health impacts, despite Con's disagreement with this statement. I will promote the view that a modern society is capable of providing healthy, suitable alternatives to a omnivorous diet. A healthy diet should consist of a good balance of vitamins, proteins, calcium, carbohydrates, zinc, and iron [3]. Additionally, all of these nutrients are available in a wide variety of vegetarian dishes [3]. Despite the increasingly less frequent claim that vegetarians are actually unhealthy, a study of over 30,000 church members containing 29% vegetarians found that the vegetarians had half the high blood pressure, diabetes rates, colon cancer, and lower rates of other types of cancer than the general population [4]. In addition to being morally correct, the vegetarian diet may be significantly better health-wise for an individual! As specified in the premise, a modern society does allow for substitutes and finding other sources of nutrients outside traditional meat groups in perfectly healthy ways. Killing animals is hardly necessary for a food source, and boycotting meat provides direct economic damage to the meat industry which butchers fully conscious animals completely capable of horrendous suffering for the desires of its consumers. [1]http://www.animal-rights-library.com...; [2]http://ndpr.nd.edu...; [3]http://www.fitnesstipsforlife.com... [4] http://nutrition-software-review.toptenreviews.com...