RESOLVED: Anthropocentrism ought to be valued above biocentrism.

Sorry, homeboy, but that short answer won't fly. I warned you at the beginning of my speech that I'd be knocking you off your LD high chair, so pull up your pants and let's go. == Pick your poison== I first had a double bind argument for the negative. I said that the utilitarian world that the con proposes where human life is valued as equal with all life will go one of two ways. Either 1) the human growth rate becomes 0% and we stay at our current level. Unfortunately, the evidence the con gives shows that that would still deplete the Earth's resources through deforestation, climate change, and pollution and all life would still die, meaning that there is no "greatest happiness of the greatest number" when every form of life is gone. This means that the Con has no util world. The other option was 2) humans let themselves die off bit by bit so that all life can flourish without them. After all, the death of only one human would save hundreds of cows, chickens, oranges, apples, trees, and other such life from dying over a lifetime. Not to mention, one human's death would probably also feed a couple of vultures and a couple hundred bacteria off the corpse alone. This is a util world, remember? Greatest happiness for the greatest number! You have one life; how can you stand to be alive when you will sacrifice hundreds of other lives equal to yours? To vote for the Con, humanity's going to have to take a long, hard look at a gun... == Do you feel lucky? Huh? Do ya, punk?== The Pro suggests that we not just look as the number of existences as important; we should look at the number of lives that have success and beauty in them. The Pro feels offended at the Con's willing suggestion that we should send dog food to impoverished people. The Pro isn't saying that we shouldn't provide basic necessities to the impoverished, but our goal shouldn't be to do just enough to make life happen; our goal should be to make life rewarding, exciting, and wonderful. The Pro recommends that we not take let humanity die off in trying to create a util Earth. We have to let humans continue existing to imbue the universe with our intelligence, our art, and our wisdom. In this way, humans will create life where there was only lifeless space before. The Pro is now going on the offensive. Supporting humanity's way of improving and spreading its beauty will create life throughout the galaxies that will last for thousands more years. How many planets out there are cold and empty? Humans will someday colonize and create on those planets, creating more happiness and more life. In this way, by voting Pro you can increase the greatest happiness for the greatest number by an exponential number versus the Con. The Pro can satisfactorily fill both values; why do you have to choose only one? == The clash== And so the debate comes down to one question: is it more important that humanity scrape off and leave the Earth to the whims of survival-minded animals? Or should we continue to color the world and the worlds beyond with technology, thought, and love? Life only has value if you do something to make it valuable; you can't assume it starts out with value. == Just in case== And even if you don't buy any of the Pro arguments about beauty, the Pro had a nuance clarified at the end of the last speech. In the Con's world, util will only be valued and upheld as long as humans are around; as soon as they're bumped off, nothing would value util. This makes the Con's value unsustainable to follow. Only the Pro's value of beauty can be consistently upheld by humans.