Resolved: Sentience is of ethical relevance to the treatment of living things.

An initial thanks is in order first to royalpaladin for engaging me in this debate and second to those of you willing to commit your time and attention to judge this debate.Theoretical Framework: 1) Shared Burden of Proof was agreed to in R1. To win this debate Pro need not with 100% certainty that the Resolution is true, Pro need only to support the resolution better than Con negates it. 2) To win this debate Con must do more than simply refute my arguments. A simple refutation of my arguments only decreases the reliability of my support of the Resolution; in the absence of arguments that actively negate the resolution there is no Con case with which to compare a refuted Pro. Therefore, Con must actually advocate a position that negates the Resolution. 3) It is unproblematic for Pro to run contradictory positions. If Pro were committed to a single position, Pro’s case would sink or swim based on the viability of a single ethical system. This would make the Resolution irrelevant- the debate would then no longer be about the ethical relevance of sentience but about the viability of a given ethical system. My general strategy will be to advocate ethical frameworks that rely on the trait of sentience in determining how living things ought to be treated. If I win that even one is an adequate ethical framework, I have demonstrated the relevance of sentience. A) Utilitarianism: a) All actions have some end or goal. For example, I go to work to make money, I make money to pay for food and movies. b) The ethical character of an action is then determined by the end or result of the action. An act is ethical in proportion to the degree in which it maximizes good ends. b) A good end can be identified as being self-sufficient and ultimate, i.e., it is not dependent on other factors and is the final justification for an act. c) The only ultimate and self-sufficient end for an action is happiness. It is ultimate because all other actions depend on it and self-sufficient because it justifies itself. Illustration: An individual goes to work. Why? To make money. Why? To buy things. Why? Because buying things like food allows the individual to live and buying things like movie tickets allows the individual to have fun. Why does the individual want to live? Because she prefers to live over dying. Why does the individual want to have fun? Because she prefers to have fun. Why does she prefer these things? There is no further justification available. Ultimately she simply has preferences and the desirability of her preferences are self justifying. d) Satisfaction of preferences makes up the basis of individual happiness. Conclusion: Ethical actions are those actions which maximize happiness. Sentient Relevance: In order to be happy, one must have preferences. In order to have preferences, one must have sentience. Comment: The variation of utilitarianism I have advocated is preference based, however other forms of utilitarianism such as rule, motive, or two-level. All of these forms have weighting mechanisms impacted by the sentience of living things, so the viability of any of the variations supports the resolution. B) Ethical Rationalism: Actions of ethical concern necessarily are performed by agents of action. Ethical demands then can be generated by examining the perspective of an individual agent: a) In order to be an agent, I must have the ability to act, and therefore I must have the freedom to act and I must have the ability to pursue ends (i.e. my well-being). Explanation: Without freedom I cannot act and therefore cannot be an agent. Without the ability to pursue ends I do not direct actions carried out by myself and am therefore not an agent but an instrument. b) Implicit in my purposeful actions is then a claim that I have a moral right to my freedom and well-being. c) Therefore, by acting as an agent I acknowledge my own right to freedom in well-being. d) If I claim such a right, then I must acknowledge that such a right exists for other agents of action. To do otherwise would be self-contradictory. e) Since I claim these rights by virtue of being an ethical agent, I must acknowledge that other ethical agents also have these rights. Conclusion: I must recognize the rights of ethical agents to freedom and the pursuit of well-being. Sentient Relevance: The recognition of rights in others is dependent on a symmetry of agency. If a living thing is not an agent, it has no rights. Sentience is a pre-requisite for agency and so is relevant to the ethical status of a living thing. Note: This argument does NOT claim that non-agents are devoid of ethical standing, only that the rights delineated above are contingent on agency, making sentience ethically relevant. C) Discourse Ethics a) Ethical actions are necessarily situated within a community of agents. b) Agents within a community necessarily engage in rational discourse- be it in the form of argumentation, science, or giving instructions. c) The use of rational discourse presupposes the freedom and autonomy of both interlocutors. In the absence of these two traits, rational discourse ceases to be a communicative act and becomes noise. d) It is therefore the case that engaging in discourse entails the acknowledgment of the freedom and autonomy of both interlocutors, to do otherwise is a performative contradiction. Conclusion: I must recognize the freedom and autonomy of other agents capable of communication. Sentient Relevance: The ability to engage in rational discourse is predicated on sentience. Rocks can’t talk. Comment: Arguments B) and C) bear structural similarity but are distinctly different. B locates ethical obligation in the nature of what it means to be an agent of action while C locates ethical obligation in the existence of community and discourse. D) Emotivism: a) Justification for ethical judgments cannot be founded in reason; no rational justification can be made for an ethical system. b) Nonetheless, ethical judgments exist universally in human society. Humans are motivated by ethical judgments and so some account of ethics is needed. c) Ethics are the result of moral sentiments such as indignation, sympathy, respect, etc. Since ethics cannot be founded in rationality, ethics must be founded in the non-rational aspects of human nature. d) Ethics are then located in the social and mental nature of humanity- it is determined simply by the way humans happen to be. This does not dissolve ethics but simply relocates ethics firmly into the realm of human nature. Conclusion: Ethical actions are those actions which conform to moral sentiment. Sentient Relevance: Killing a human is universally recognized by moral sentiment to be bad, while chopping down a tree is not. While there may be technical niceties surrounding this issue, moral sentiment clearly distinguishes between the treatment of human and plant life. Comment: The arguments of D clearly rests on the falsity of A, B, and C. The intent of this argument is to show that EVEN IF rationally grounded ethical frameworks such as A, B, and C fail, a non-rational account of ethics still affirms the resolution. The incompatibility of arguments is unproblematic for my case because my burden as Pro is to affirm the Resolution, not affirm any specific ethical framework.