Bestiality/Zoophilia should be legal and is not inherently immoral

(C1.1) I think what you mean is not sustain but police. The sum of many moral acts is a moral practice, nothing is required to sustain that. The problem is immoral acts that are hard to differentiate from moral acts. (C1.2) As stated in section A of R1 the practice is moral so long as acts are not immoral because they are part of that practice. For example punching random people in the face is immoral because of the word 'random', but punching people in the face is not inherently immoral and thus there should not be a law against it. There should be and there is a law against punching people in the face without their permission excepting self-defense. Furthermore the range of situations where acts of bestiality are moral is hardly narrow. It is neither complicated nor unusual to reach the requisite understanding of animal communication and look up relevant biological information. In other words demonstrating that a single act within a practice violates moral principles is insufficient in proving a practice immoral. (C2.1) Well yes I did just pose hypothetical questions, there wasn't enough room to even do better than that. However since you are making an issue of it I'll try to do better. (C2.2) Humans are capable of a lot of unique things, but sexual liberty is not among them. (C2.3) Now you said that non-human interspecies sex is non-consensual but that wasn't the issue in the scope of the negation. It was whether an animal is psychologically capable of granting consent. Therefore it is not sufficient to say the interaction is non-consensual but you must say that neither party consents because they are psychologically incapable. (As opposed to one not consenting, or a communication failure) In real terms the only way this is possible is if the initiator really has no preference. If it is aware it wants something it of course would prefer that other animals allow it to do that thing. i.e. it psychologically grants consent even if it can't communicate it. While this may seem reasonable for many lower species it really flies in the face of everything we know about higher animal intelligence. The most basic premise of testing learning and creativity is presenting the animal with something it wants. No animal could pass any of these tests if pursuing the object of desire was mere reflex as there would be no way for the desire to cascade through other behaviors. There is more on instinct vs desire later. "yet the accepted definition of “consent” relies on concepts of “permission” and “agreement” which are wholly dependent on the context of human mind and language." That is an unfounded position. Humans give each other consent without using language, and agreement is merely the state where two mind's decisions are consistent with each other. As explained above animals do make decisions. "To grant permission I must understand that another agent desires to do X" Why is this unavailable to animals? "the other agent recognizes my moral authority to sanction X" That has to do with the other, not whether you give consent. "the other agent is requesting that I sanction X." Same deal "I must understand that I have the ability to refuse X" Animals certainly know they are in control of themselves, why do you think they have obedience school? "that if another agent does X without my permission I have been violated" Or if you don't feel violated that means you would have given permission? For instance, girlfriend didn't ask to take your car but you don't feel violated because you would have said yes. "I have trained my dog to go in her crate when I leave my home- I say 'crate' and she enters her crate. How do we apply the concept of consent to this behavior?" Your dog consents to go into the crate. She wouldn't do so without force otherwise. I am assuming you did not use negative reinforcement to train her. "Is this because she understands that we have an agreement whereby I feed her and she obeys me?" Not unless you've refused to feed her when she disobeys. "Does she evaluate her desire to please me against her desire to lie on the heater?" Probably.... and then she makes a decision. "Pro must present a positive case that animals are psychologically capable of consent." Done, the ability to make non-instinctual (not ultimately controlled by instinct) decisions allows those decisions to coincide with another creature's. Yet they need not since past experience, mood, and personality can affect the decision. Psychologically speaking animals are therefore capable of consent. "The communication Pro relies on to establish consent will always be guesswork about what the animal wants and what it understands about the situation." Guess work for specific details but not overall interactions. Maybe she doesn't like your hand there, maybe she doesn't like the noises you make; but she consents to the interaction overall so either it's not that bad or there are other positive parts that make it worth it. I could have been talking about sex there, but I also could also have been talking about sitting on the couch being petted. "Additionally, animals lack the ability to clarify if a sexual encounter has become undesirable." They can withdraw consent. Yes it can be a chore to find out just what they wouldn't accept, but that's a chore for the human if the human is the initiator. (And for the animal if they are the initiator). All you have done is show that communication is less advanced making it harder to resolve disagreements with animals, not that there cannot be agreement. "In what sense does a dog 'pursue and action.'" They are aware of what they are doing, the 'abstract handle' (something akin to full human concepts) for the action, possibly of some of the consequences of the action. Being aware of these they choose to take that action, even a list of actions either because they desire the feelings associated with doing that action or desire/fear the consequences of success/failure to do those actions. We know they are aware of what they are doing because they will alter their behavior to adapt to circumstances even if it's the first time they come across a problem carrying out the action. We know they have an abstract handle because they can associate verbal commands with the action; only possible if they can connect a sound with an abstraction of the action in their mind. We know they can connect actions with consequences because simple intelligence tests prove they choose actions which result in consequences that are positive, and things like invisible fences wouldn't work if they couldn't associate crossing the border of their area with pain. "When a dog obeys a command is it pursuing an action or simply following an ingrained stimulus-response behavior?" Depending on how you define the later it could be both. Even as you read this you are following ingrained word-concept association. "If a dog brain is programmed to hump in response to certain stimuli, in what sense is it 'pursuing' the act of humping?" The human brain is programed to hump as well, if you're a male you've experienced it. Even if instinct leads a conscious mind to a certain behavior they still choose to follow the instinct. If they could not then it would be obvious because no dog could ever fail to hump giving the same stimuli. Instead they can be distracted by a whistle. What that tells us is that no matter what the instinct was they asserted their will and disengaged in less than a second. I know you might think something like "responding to the whistle was instinct too" but that is a non-sequitur, an instinct is not a learned behavior they are mutually exclusive and wolves don't whistle there would never be any insticnt to run towards that. The dog can also be observed to choose non-instinctual actions leading to the humping. For instance to prevent scratching people often put socks on the front legs of male dogs before sex. These dogs see the association and bring humans socks just as they might bring them a leash when they want to go for a walk or a bowl when they want food. I am running out of space so forgive the brevity. "Finally, ... animal fears retribution" Yes we do, if you never retribute they can't fear it. "When I chew food I have no mental process by which I consent to behavior of my body" No process is required and that is the point, you can't claim your mouth chewed without your permission and neither can we claim that animal's bodies act without animal-mind's permission since you and animals have demonstrated the ability to control your bodies at will. (C3.1) It is unethical to have sex with someone if it would bias you towards them inappropriately or they for other reasons would fear to break the relationship. Children can be said to not be in their right state of mind for they certainly may think that after they mature. Animals are done maturing, they don't have the understanding to fear the consequences of non-consent when there never have been any, and it is not inappropriate to make one special to you. (C3.2) But a human should not make these benefits contingent on sex, and more importantly if they never do the animal certainly won't make a connection that is not in evidence. (C3.3) Separating coercive elements is just as easy as it ever was. Wanting sex and wanting to do what’s best for the animal could conflict, but the priority should be the later and this is no different than anything else a human would want from an animal. C4.1 contradicts C4.3. If crimes made by lack of consent are not crimes for animals then neither would they be just because a human is involved. Con implies that taking a piece of popcorn from a pigeon is theft but not vice versa. If animal consent is not a requirement then only the human's consent matters for sex. (C5) A moral action or practice is equivalent to a not immoral action or practice. A is ~~A.