Zaradi's Prized Tournament: Animal Rights

C1) Pragmatic arguments against animal rights Bsh seems to want me to defend every human right--this seems abusive. Why must he defend only some animal rights and I must defend all human rights? I think this should apply to me as well. This means many of these objections to utilitarianism (and even the MC) fall short. Ob1: I do not need to defend every human right. One person may lose their right to life if it benefits everyone else. Having exceptions does not refute my C1. Ob2: Utilitarianism upholds justice. Bad forms of justice are weeded out and good forms of justice come forward because of it’s impact on society. From a utilitarian viewpoint, your analogy could still be seen as immoral if the harm done outweighs the benefits done to the orphanage. For all we know, you were planning to give the money to a greater cause or invest it into the economy, causing economic growth and higher wages. The reason we view justice the way it is viewed now is because “survival... is what] most people value themselves” [1. http://tinyurl.com...]. Utilitarianism adequately describes why we have adopted the current form of justice. Ob3: The reason we support human rights is because we see them as good. We have adopted this view because violations of human rights lead to negative consequences. Utilitarianism is compatible with how human rights came about in the first place. Utilitarianism gives human rights “a strong logical foundation” [1]. We have accepted that humans have rights, but accepting it without a logical foundation is silly. Utilitarianism causes human rights to make sense. Many false rights have been created, such as slavery, but this is bad because of the suffering caused. Utilitarianism is one of the reasons false rights were abolished. Utilitarianism enhances human rights. Ob4: The rights bsh is balancing are legal rights. But legal rights are not always indicative of rights. Just because the government says it’s so doesn’t make it so. The existence of legal rights =/= justice requires recognition. The resolution says recognition of animal rights. If we assume animal rights exist, this may cause balancing. By balancing we do NOT recognize animal rights as other things override them. Ob5: Only people in the moral community are worthy of moral consideration. We have no direct obligation to animals. Animals would not be considered in my utilitarian calculation. a) Animal testing A 10% success rate is high. That 10% success rate has caused essentially every medical breakthrough in the 20th century whether it be vaccines or HIV/AIDS research. Animal test failures can be a good thing. Animal tests removed 36% of drugs from advancing to the next stage. This causes drugs dangerous to humans to not be tested on humans. 86% of drugs in early human trials fail in later drug trials [2. http://tinyurl.com...]. No one suggests human testing is inaccurate. The argument that animal testing is unreliable is a misapplication of the statistics. My opponent argues we can use other methods or that animal testing can be applied humanely. An animal’s right to life, is often thrown out during animal testing. Despite many regulations which reduce an animal’s pain, many tests include inflicting brain damage upon animals. Others include applying acid or burns. This may lead to long-term disfiguration [3. http://tinyurl.com...]. Many pain killers like anaesthesia are effective, but there are many cases where local anaesthetics have not been applied properly and pain is still felt by the patient [4. http://tinyurl.com...]. Current regulations reduce the suffering of animals but fail to end it. Animals will continue feeling pain unless we recognize animal rights. Sadly, this would lead to the deaths of millions of people in the future. I do not deny that alternatives are being found, but right now animal testing is irreplaceable for medical research. Although many advancements have been made, studies have concluded that “many areas involving experimental animals have been barely touched” and “testing and experimentation on animals will be indispensable for some time” [5. http://tinyurl.com...]. I welcome alternatives, but the evidence tells us that animal testing is indispensable for current medical research. b) Sustenance I do not deny that we could feed the world without meat; I preempted this. I provided evidence that eating red meat is good for people, and recognizing animal rights makes it impossible to intake red meat. Bsh responded by saying replacements exist; those replacements are protein replacements. The research argued that red meat was good because of the fats it provides. The replacements have very little fat. I never said that modern society *needed* meat, but that meat gives us a plethora of health benefits. These benefits would be removed if we recognize animal rights. The alternatives fall short in the health aspect. Bsh claims unrestricted consumption of bushmeat will lead to ecological collapse. Many species cause amazing amounts of environmental destruction. Wild boars caused a famine in 1749 and caused 3,000 people to starve. They cause agricultural distress which forces many farmers to utilize techniques to protect their crops [6. http://tinyurl.com...]. For some species, unrestricted consumption would benefit the environment. In the examples I provided eating animals would be fairly rare. The population in the Sahara is very small. If you are starving to death, killing the random camel you find is better than dying. The amount of animals killed would be fairly low. The Sahara region really doesn’t really regulate the hunters there, and there isn’t a massive ecological breakdown due to hunting. In Alaska, where there are people living off of the grid, they often rely upon animals. I am not saying everyone in New York should have guns kill the entire deer population, but a society in Alaska or the Sahara should have the ability to kill an animal if it is a situation of life and death. To deny them that right is to condemn thousands of humans to die. C2) Moral Community Ob1: This is question begging. What makes harming animals bad? The quote seems to rely upon the opinion of the author as to what makes harming animals evil. The rational argument says it is bad because it infringes upon human rights and causes humans moral harm. The actual effect is that animal abuse is still frowned upon and animal rights still not recognized. The rational argument--which spends a lot of time explaining why hurting animals is wrong even if they have no rights--explains animal suffering. Ob2: The MC does discuss justice. If animals are not part of the MC, no rights can be infringed upon and thus justice does not require the recognition of animal rights. It does not seem reasonable to give animals rights if they do not fulfill the necessary requirements. I argued against mistreatment of animals, but this does not mean they have rights. It is bad because it harms the person morally. Physical harm of animals is not sufficient for moral status. Ob3: Legal rights are based upon morality. We ban murder because it is immoral, we ban robbery because its immoral, we allow gay marriage because there is no reason to ban loving adults from forming a union. Laws are based upon what we see as good. If animals have no access to moral rights, there is no reason to grant them legal rights. Recognizing animal rights has no foundation. Prohibiting animal rights upon the MC gives the law a foundation to stand upon. Giving legal rights to animals makes no sense if there is no moral foundation. If there is no moral foundation, how can justice be applied? How can it be required? Establishing moral rights is imperative as to whether or not animals should be given legal rights. a) What is morality? Bsh confuses moral action with moral status. You can commit moral actions but still not have moral status. Animals do many things we see as ‘moral’, but they cannot rationalize why it is moral. Bsh brings forth a definition of morality, but MC and moral actions are different, and his definition doesn’t really clash with mine. The MC is committed towards moral actions and improving the moral status of the community. The MC has many moral principles and continually refines them for the better. The MC is both oriented towards principal and action oriented goodness. Bsh’s definition really doesn’t affect what the MC is. Bsh’s next argument here is against moral status. He argues many animals actually are rational. Humans are the *only* rational animal in all measures: culture, mind, life, and matter. Many animals exhibit similar behaviors, but it is simply incorrect to claims animals are even on the same level of rationality. “[H]umans are exceptional in that they have the capacity for self-conscious justification” [7. http://tinyurl.com...]. As bsh states, animals have the ability to enhance their welfare and help others; they don’t know how or why they are helping others, they just do it. Humans, with our ability to rationalize, are on a totally different playing field. Emotions are irrelevant. You must be able to rationalize moral behavior, not just feel it. b) Other issues You do not have to actively join the MC to be in the MC. You can have standing in a community without acknowledging you are part of it. A nihilist may say he is not part of the MC but he actually is. He thinks nihilism is the best moral code for the world, which means he meets the MC’s requirement: to attempt to advance the moral goodness of the world (which requires rationality). And as stated in R1 (and above) some people do not have rights, so people not being in the MC doesn't refute the contention. You cannot have standing in a community unless you uphold and understand its values--something animals are incapable of doing. People who are unable to be rational have the capacity to be rational. See last round. The legal structures argument was fairly insignificant. See Ob4 C1.