Utilitarianism must recognize animal's happiness.

My opponent struggles, in this round, to differentiate between the two meanings of the word "must". In the first contention, Pro suggests that John Gay's version of utilitarianism is not justified, and therefore does not prove the resolution false. This contends with the lack of an argument for utilitarianism which does recognize the happiness of animals. Pro simply never gives any proof for why utilitarianism which considers animal happiness is valid. Instead, all other arguments have been centered on whether or not utilitarianism which does not consider animals are self-consistent. John Gay's utilitarianism is entirely theologically based, and it is based on a from of Christianity. He simply did not have to prove the existence of his God or that his theory was true for the idea to be self-consistent. He was a utilitarian, and his brand of the normative ethics did not need to consider the happiness of animals. "For example, he believed that "beauty" was an intrinsic good. A beautiful object had value independent of any pleasure it might generate in a viewer" [1]. G. E Moore disagreed with the idea that beauty was subjective. The viewers of beauty, including animals, did not contribute to the ideal. This is another example of a self-consistent utilitarian ideology that does not need to consider the happiness of animals. What I suspect may be an argument for the brand of utilitarianism my opponent is suggesting, is the example of patriarchal views, My opponent suggests that since men learned to treat women as their equals, humans can learn to treat animals as our equals; thus my opponent suggests that women are to men as animals are to women. What this achieves, is to suggest that holding animal's happiness as less than animal's happiness is simply unjustified. My opponent gives no evidence for this idea, but the conclusion nonetheless remains irrelevant. The two brands of utilitarianism which I covered earlier do not become any less consistent with this assumption. Gay's reason for promoting human happiness was specifically due to his position on God's relationship to humankind. Moore's ideology promoted beauty completely independently from the pleasure that it caused. Pro's attempt to "destroy" my argument falls flat in more ways than one. The first being that beauty remains independent from happiness. The second being that it is an attempt to misconstrue the resolution. Utilitarianism "must recognize animal's happiness" in so far as its core beliefs are applied to animals. What the resolution suggests, is that the "greatest happiness for the greatest number" refers to the happiness of animals. Saying that the animals have an indirect role in that is not relevant. Consider my opponent's rule, as well as the rest of the debate so far: Semantic arguments are not allowed, and the entirety of the debate suggests that this argument is no more than that. Considering the happiness of animals clearly refers to accepting animals as a part of that greatest "number". I urge the floor to simply disregard this rebuttal. In conclusion, Utilitarianism does not need to take into account the happiness of animals. It is true that most varieties must, but the argument supporting the claim that all have to is borderline nonexistent. The argument supporting the claim that only the varieties that consider animals are correct is similarly nonexistent. Thank you for the lovely debate. [1]. http://plato.stanford.edu...