Animal experimentation is immoral.

I will now proceed to make my final statements in this last round. While my opponent has repeatedly tried to dismiss my arguments and counter arguments, I will now summarize my points to show that it is actually he who has misunderstood my points and arguments, not me. The fundamental difference in our arguments actually stems from the different models of "morality" that we are using in our arguments. I argue the following:1) The standards of utility and morality that my opponent uses is from a human viewpoint, and cannot be used as the moral standards for this debate. My opponent talks about how the alternatives are worse off. For example, he uses the fact that humans do not have the short reproductive cycles of mice, and hence greater number of lives - human lives - will be in jeopardy in human experimentation. He also speaks of how not carrying out animal experimentation would handicap research and would result in a failure to make effective disease control. But remember that this is worse off from a viewpoint of a human. The alternatives consume more human lives, or it jeopardizes more human lives as a consequence of poor research progress. All other arguments that he uses, of the pragmatic difficulty - the "realistically viable" was a poor use of double quotes, but was a paraphrase of this point - associated with consent, is essentially an argument that does not leave the anthropocentric viewpoint. My opponent concedes that all animals act in their own self-interest. Animal experimentation is essentially the same. Humans are sacrificing other species for their own interests. My opponent attempts to argue that animals do benefit from human research. Yet he also concedes that animal experimentation is a tool to analyze the potential effects of certain material or procedures on humans. This shows that the primary beneficiaries are humans. It is also important to realize that the potential non-human beneficiaries only include pets and livestock and those that are aligned with human interests. I wish to emphasize that the general non-human community do not benefit, just as wild rodents do not benefit from human research. My opponent easily states that the ends justify the means precisely because the means justify HUMAN ends. Of course for a human, in his self-interests, would argue that since it justifies human needs, it is moral to sacrifice others. Consider, in the viewpoint of the non-human species. What is moral about taking members of their species to experiment on them? From the viewpoint of the rats, animal experimentation is immoral, just as it is immoral for predators to kill mice in the viewpoint of mice. This is why I have used the prey and predator model. Contrary to my opponent's beliefs, this example is completely relevant. What is important to realize is that then the utility of experimenting on animals becomes irrelevant. It is effective and useful only in human context. In the viewpoint of the victimized animals, nothing is more unjustified than the act of taking their lives for human interests. This is precisely why the "contextual morality" cannot be used as a viable model. All of the 'contextual' arguments that my opponent argues assumes the viewpoint of humans. But animal experimentation does not involve just humans. The victims are animals, and as thus what seems moral for humans is not a standard we should use. So which one must we accept: the rodents' moral argument, or my opponent's human argument?2) We must separate the morality of an action and the morality of its intent. I have argued that morality of a predator attacking a prey cannot be determined by the moral standards of either the prey or the predator. This implies that the contextual morality model that my opponent uses cannot produce a valid moral decision. . What is apparently moral for us may not be for the subjects of our acts. For the purposes of a moral decision, we should consider all sacrifice of other party's rights for one party's as immoral. Whether or not it aids more of our kind, animal experimentation victimizes other animals, and thus must be considered inherently immoral. In doing so, I have proposed a model that separates an act and the cause. While my opponent claims I've contradicted myself on my analysis of the injection analogy, I have not. The injection is immoral, while the intent is not. I used the term "overlooked" and not "justify" when I explained how the act would be ignored in face of its more pronounced intent when the victim and the beneficiary is the same person. Some, for example, consider the immorality of the injection more important than the morality of the intent, and thus refuse injections altogether. I do not see how I have contradicted myself. This model that I use is in line with all of the legal decisions. On murder, the act is considered a violation while its intent is used as a measure to determine punishments. Samaritan Laws dictate that if there was good intent for the victim involved, punishments must be exempt. Self-defense is also another example. Animal experimentation must follow suit. The experimentation on animals itself is an immoral act. The intent of doing so is moral: to save more lives by research. Conclusion. I admit that my opponent has sound arguments on why the benefits of the experimentation, and the alternatives may affect our judgment on the morality of animal experimentation. But his arguments have never escaped the viewpoint of us humans. If we are to judge the morality of this act, we cannot just consider ourselves but the victims too. However just it may appear to humans, this cannot be our validation for the morality of an act that not only involves us, but the animals as well. In doing so, we must concede that the act itself is inherently immoral. Animal experimentation is inhently immoral. With that. I finish my arguments on this debate.