Speciesism is an unjustifiable form of discrimination.

Thank you, bluesteel, for agreeing to debate with me. For those that may still be somewhat unclear about what I am arguing, let me briefly restate the central thesis of my opening round. Animals can suffer, and there is no logically compelling reason for humans not to take their suffering into consideration simply because they are members of a different species. I am not defending animal rights in a broad context; rather, I am only saying that discrimination on the basis of species membership is unjustified because non-human animals can suffer much like humans. Having restated my own case, let's now examine if my opponent has given sufficient reasons to demonstrate that speciesism is justified. C1: Animals can suffer and thus should be given basic moral considerations. Apart from the straw man arguments my challenger has raised in his second contention, he doesn't appear to have directly addressed my first argument. C2: Membership in a species is an arbitrary characteristic with respect to moral considerations. My opponent hasn't really addressed this contention either. If you will remember, I argued in my first round that membership in a particular species is a morally irrelevant biological property like gender and race. As the philosopher Michael Tooley has argued, the fact that a being is a member of a certain species does not necessarily mean that it has moral value by being a member of that species.[1] For example, a member of the species Homo sapiens that has suffered complete upper brain death would have no significant moral status. Therefore, membership in a certain species is clearly not relevant to ethics. It would appear that my challenger thinks that this view leads to absurd conclusions, but he hasn't made any valid argument to show this. C3: Different levels of intellectual acuity between animals and humans cannot justify speciesism. In his third contention titled "More absurdities," my opponent has raised very good points regarding moral reciprocity and property rights. My summary of those points and my response to them will appear there. Contention 1: We are carnivores I must humbly decline to fulfill the contrived burden of proof that bluesteel says I have to uphold. In this section, my opponent claims that evolution and natural selection sufficiently explain why humans differentiate between humans and non-human animals. And in response to this point, I feel obliged to say the following: So what? What does this have to do with showing why speciesism is justified? It is not my responsibility to "show that the explanation for why we draw the human/animal distinction is not a satisfactory explanation for the behavior." As should be obvious, this task has nothing whatsoever to do with arguing for the resolution, which is "Speciesism is an unjustifiable form of discrimination." Contention 2: A two-tiered morality While attempting to clarify my position, my opponent claims that "[Freeman] seems to argue that either we give animals the exact same moral status as humans or we give them no moral consideration whatsoever, allowing them to be tortured and killed indiscriminately." I'm fairly sure that my opponent put this straw man into a coma with all of those right hooks and body shots that he delivers in the first round. And I must admit that it was truly spectacular to watch this beatdown. Nevertheless, let me begin by saying that I reject both the straw man position my opponent presents and the false dichotomy he creates for himself. It is simply not my position nor is it the position of Peter Singer that we give animals the exact same moral status as humans. In my opening round, I merely argued that animals should receive "basic moral considerations" because they can suffer and experience happiness. Thus, humans do an injustice to animals by not taking their suffering into account merely because the animals are members of a different species. Moreover, treating animals with the basic principle of equality of interests does not logically entail that we treat animals as if they were identical to humans. In his highly influential essay All Animals Are Equal, Peter Singer writes the following: "The extension of the basic principle of equality from one group to another does not imply that we must treat both groups in exactly the same way, or grant exactly the same rights to both groups. Whether we should do so will depend on the nature of the members of the two groups. The basic principle of equality, I shall argue, is equality of consideration; and equal consideration for different beings may lead to different treatment and different rights."[2] Saying that speciesism is unjustified and that animals should receive an equal consideration of interests is not the same as saying that animals are morally on par with humans. In order to resolve the false dilemma my opponent has created for himself, he proposes two different solutions. The problem, however, is that neither of these proposed systems represents a positive argument aimed to demonstrate why speciesism is justified. They only represent an attack on the radical straw man argument that I am alleged to be defending. If anything, both of these systems wholeheartedly affirm that speciesism is unjustified. Contention 3: More absurdities At this point in the debate, bluesteel raises two excellent points about moral reciprocity and property rights. He claims that unless a being can engage in moral reciprocity or own property, it cannot be given equal moral consideration. Both of these assertions can be completely taken down by an incredibly powerful rejoinder. A baby and a severely mentally retarded human are incapable of engaging in moral reciprocity or understanding anything relating to property rights.[3] Thus, by my opponent's own logic, it is ok to discriminate against them and not take their interests into consideration. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the reductio ad absurdum to any notion that equal treatment among humans is based on the ability to own property or to engage in moral reciprocity. Given these examples, it should be clear that the crucial attribute all humans have is not rationality; it is the capacity to suffer. If one is willing to admit that babies and the severely mentally retarded should be given equal consideration of interests, how on Earth could that person reasonably argue that this principle shouldn't be extended to animals that also lack rationality? It would seem to be a completely arbitrary separation. So, instead of attacking straw men, I'll save any further critiques that I have until my challenger makes his own views clear on this point. | Conclusion | After carefully examining my opponent's opening round, it seems clear that his first contention is irrelevant to the debate and his second contention uses a blatant straw man of my own position. The only relevant arguments he raises can be found in his third contention. Although both of the arguments contained therein may seem plausible, neither one is capable of surviving the rejoinder I set out. Indeed, both of these arguments lead to the morally repugnant conclusion that we should treat babies and the severely mentally retarded in a discriminatory manner because they can't engage in moral reciprocity or comprehend property rights. For these reasons, it is still the case that speciesism is an unjustified form of discrimination. Sources: 1. Tooley, Michael. "Philosophy 1100: Introduction to Ethics." Spot.colorado.edu. Web. 21 Jan. 2011. http://spot.colorado.edu... 2. Singer, Peter. "All Animals Are Equal." The Animal Rights Library. Web. 21 Jan. 2011. http://www.animal-rights-library.com... 3. Regan, Tom, and Peter Singer. Animal Rights and Human Obligations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1976. p. 83.