Animal rights is an unjustified ethical doctrine.

I'm glad to see his lengthy argument, and it'll be fun tearing it down. I'm also glad to see that he has acknowledged that playing with semantics is a thing to be avoided in this debate, unless the call for such technicalities is deemed appropriate. Now I will admit that upon further observation it does seem that my resolution is slightly unfair in that it gives my opponent perhaps more of a burden. By phrasing it with the word unjustified, I merely have to refute any argument my opponent gives in defiance of this resolution. However, do be assured that I will put in as much work and depth in my counterarguments as well, so see that if I can successfully all my opponent's arguments then I will have upheld the resolution. If my opponent's arguments are exhausted, then it stands that animal rights would be an unjustified ethical doctrine. ==================== Fulfilling the urge towards universal compassion and understanding ==================== I don't only find it suspect, but rather flat out uncredited, for you to support such a statement from a quote from Albert Einstein. Not only is he an irrelevant authority on this matter, but nowhere in his quote or in your exposition do I find a justification for an universal moral obligation to help "all living creatures and the whole of nature in it's beauty. " Further, it's folly to believe that EVERYONE has an urge towards universal compassion an understanding - I'll be the first to say that I do not have a compassion for every living creature I know. So I ask of you. .. where's the justification? ==================== Acquiring Symbiotic Benefits ==================== While this is only a slightly better point than your previous one, it doesn't fare much better. You profess the truth of the claim that helping more organisms, and avoiding the inverse of that, will lead to an increase in our own survival because it will "prevent the collapse of it's ecosystem". Not only this, but you also propose that being altruisitic to other species will gather amiable sentiments from other species as well, resulting in a happy, happy world. Several problems at the onset: 1. Given human intelligence and thus our technology, our survivability is much less dependent on other animal species than non-human animals (where I would suppose food supply would be a major issue). Most of the laws of surviving nature's harshness has been circumvented by our technology - the only thing we really need to fear from nature are natural disasters and environmental damage, all which are irrelevant to this debate. 2. Your examples of animal species that help humans is a red herring - whatever causes these animals to help humans, I highly doubt it has anything to do with them realizing "hey, humans are alright let's help them. " I'd be utterly absurd to vocalize such a claim given the fact that there is unification between non-human animals (dolphins can't tell every other dolphin to help humans), nor is it likely that they are deliberately deciding to help humans out of compassion. Symbiosis doesn't arise out of compassion, an emotion I would believe to be either nonexistent or very primal in most animals, but rather out of natural instincts geared for the purpose of survival. Symbiosis occurs for either a necessary conditions of survival for at least one of the parties, or is more useful for both parties - the concern isn't compassion but rather survivability. 3. Further, if your examples of symbiotic benefits manifests in only examples such as a rare cases of a drowning victim being saved or humans finding honey combs then I hardly see the symbiotic benefit for us. How would animals help humans in any considerable manner? ==================== Meta-ethical argument: Allowing the shooting of the box ==================== Haha, I've been noticing a pattern - your arguments seem to progressively get better. Whether this is a good thing or not, I'll leave it up to you decide. Anyway, your meta-ethical argument and thought experiment is interesting, but ultimately it fails by blurring a few important aspects: 1. You make a critical error by claiming that extending rights to animals will do no harm anyway. This is obviously false - extending rights to animals would mean that at the very least, our attitude towards animals will force change upon our daily habits. You profess to not be aligned with PETA, so my points about not eating meat, wearing animal skins, etc. may not be effective. However, at the very least it will force some sort of change upon humans that will likely be UNWANTED. This is detrimental enough itself. 2. Just because something does no harm does not make it ethically justified. The box example is a disanalogy because most would agree that shooting a child is ethically wrong for it is likely a PERSON, and thus morally and legally relevant. However, the issue here is whether or not animals are persons, which you have yet to satisfy. "There is nothing to say that by doing this we have done anything absolutely good, or right, or moral; yet there is the possibility that, in preventing animals from suffering the worst of what schemes humans may devise against them, we are, in diminishing the needless suffering of sentient beings, doing some amount of good. " ----> Prove how diminishing suffering of sentient beings amount to some good. After all, isn't this the ENTIRE PURPOSE of this debate? "By extending rights to animals, even unnecessarily, we force humans to consider their actions and to develop a finer, as opposed to a more callous, regard towards fellow living creatures (including other humans). " ----> So any human who eats steaks and wears leather jackets is more cruel and callous to others in comparison to vegetarians and the like? Preposterous. "By not so doing, we invite humans to consider to think of other living creatures as mere machines disposable at one's leisure, a line of thought prevalent amongst psychopaths. " ----> Except we have a justified element in our line of though, if you hadn't forgotten. "This concern, of raising moral awareness and enhancing empathy, has been addressed by past philosophers and ethicists as noted here" ----> This is relevant, how? To cite philosophers who believe in X does nothing for the validity of X. ==================== Conclusion ==================== My opponent has yet to even come near to a justification of the animal rights movement. His arguments consist of an appeal to compassion/sympathy, an awkward reference to symbiosis, and a flawed meta-ethical arguments that assumes some moral elements that he should be defending in the first place. Furthermore, I want the audience to be aware that his links aren't much of a sources vote. They are all common knowledge that can be found easily on Google, don't contribute much by being there, and thus shouldn't necessitate a vote.