Non-humans animals should have equal rights to humans

"I would like to point out the sheer amount of quotes and hypothetical plethora he exhumes. For me, this is going to be difficult to address, because there's so much!" I would appreciate it if Con stuck to attacking the argument and not how it is made. Furthermore, I"m sure voters will agree, I laid out my argument in a clear and coherent manner so I am struggling to understand where Con is coming from. "Pro states very weakly to why Human Utilitarianism is NOT superior to that of our animal counter parts, he makes Only one point to justify his platform!" Firstly I"d like to point out that I made three arguments to justify this. I did this in the fashion of a refutation of the arguments one may give to justify a significant difference between animals and humans. If the arguments give against a view do not stand up then that view should not be accepted. That is what I attempted to show. Any arguments I neglected can be brought up by Con and I will attempt to reject them as invalid or unsound. The three arguments I addressed where the following: 1. Human pleasure and pain is different and therefore superior to any animals. 2. Humans are superior in intellect. 3. Humans are superior in a moral and rational sense. Furthermore, I"d like to point out to Con that the quantity of arguments is in no way synonymous with the quality of an argument. Rejection of 1. Human pleasure and pain is different and therefore superior to any animals. "Well, what is your justification?" "If a human could not read Shakespeare for example, should that make them less valuable than a human who can." No, that's quite a subjective and narrow statement. I don't care if another can read Shakespeare, the same I don't care for a Goat that can juggle. That's not a productive purpose, therefore NOT relevant. Indeed this is relevant. If you accept that it is subjective and that you do not care whether someone can read Shakespeare then this means you accept my argument. Namely, that it does not matter whether one is capable of experiencing higher pleasures or not. You admit that this is irrelevant thus accepting my argument. "In response it could be argued that these higher pleasures bring more pleasure and minimise more pain and therefore are more important." What is your reasoning? This is me trying to postulate what one may say in response to my argument. This style is a good way of building a strong argument. If you accept that this challenge to my argument is not a worthy one then we should not discuss it further. Perhaps you could find a more adequate challenge to my argument if you agree this one is not a good one. "We were driving a carriage on a narrow street alongside a pavement. You see a white man in front of you on the road. Unless you alter your course onto the pavement the carriage would with a near surety kill him. Now on the pavement is a black man. If adhering to the argument of higher pleasures being superior you would have to run over and kill the black man. In the 18th century it was far more likely for whites to experience higher pleasures than blacks. Black men were largely slaves or ex-slaves and certainly would not have access to the level of education of their white counterparts. This would mean the white man should be saved because he can read better. I'll leave you to bite the bullet here." Again you appear to be confused. This argument was meant to be reductio ad absurdum. It was meant to show that running over the black man would be wrong (as you accept). If you accept this then the capacity to experience higher and lower pleasures [1] is irrelevant. If this capacity is irrelevant then it cannot be used by those opposing animal rights. A point aside on the topic of utilitarianism (irrelevant to this debate but I have to mention it). You say "I wouldn't run either of them over!" Well I"m afraid that is not possible in the thought experiment. You would have to run one of them over. Even by not acting you would run one over. Rejection of 2. Humans are superior in intellect. Brainless human example. "No Human can live without a Brain and function, and the majority of Humans Are not missing Brains, therefore this argument is completely invalid and irrelevant." Firstly, I would like to point out that that criticism would make the argument unsound not invalid. [2] Secondly, this was a thought experiment and as many thought experiments it was not meant to be scientifically accurate but merely to get you to think about the value of human life. If you would like a more scientific modification then here it is. A human has a disease which means they cannot think. They would still be human. Their DNA would match with human DNA. However, they would possess no intellect. Therefore, there is nothing special or superior about being human. I would expect my opponent to accept that this diseased/ unthinking human should not have superior rights to an animal." Now can you challenge my argument that being human does not necessarily imply greater intellect and that therefore humans should not have greater rights than animals on these grounds. "Furthermore, numerous animals, chimpanzees, parrots, pigs, crows etc posses superior intellect to many disabled humans." "Almost comedic. Could you please provide some evidence to support your claims?" Its it almost comedic that you respond by branding the argument comedic. Of course some animals have superior intellect to some humans. There are humans that cannot think. Assuming you admit animals can think then the conclusion that follows is that some animals are superior in intellect to some humans. An example of low intellect in humans are those with the condition lissencephaly who have IQ scores lower than 20.[3] An animal has a greater IQ than that. For instance parrots have been shown to be as intelligent as four year old humans.[4] Rejection of 3. Humans are superior in a morally and rational sense. Ok I will state why my other argument applies here. P1: Morality requires a capacity to reason P2: Some humans cannot reason[3] C: The word "human" does mean a being that can reason. Therefore, again we see that we cannot discriminate between humans and animals on the grounds that humans can be moral. We cannot claim that human life matters more than animal life. This is because this statement is backed up with the justification that humans (as true by definition) are capable of morality. This justification is wrong as not all humans are capable of morality. Therefore, being human in itself does not make one more valuable. "Overall my opponent has made completely ludicrous statements without any reference or evidence from ANY sources. It was hard to take this in a serious sense." I"m sorry if you thought so. Many of the points I had made I felt were obvious to any reader. Anyway, in an attempt to please my opponent I have attempted to include scientific evidence. This evidence I feel backs up what was already obvious to the majority of readers. [1] http://plato.stanford.edu... [2] http://www.iep.utm.edu... [3] http://mostextreme.org... [4] http://www.dailymail.co.uk...