Puppies should be tortured and killed.

"If a puppy does a wrong deed, and deserves torture, then you should torture it." Your argument is basically surmised in that one phrase. My argument is dogs never deserve torture. The fact that they, to some degree, know right from wrong doesn't lead in any causal direction towards a deserved torture or death. Let's look at this reasonably: I know that X is wrong. I do X. Therefore, I should be tortured and killed. That doesn't actually follow. What does follow is the fact that I know what I did was wrong. There's no part of knowingly doing something wrong which requires torture or death. Puppies are rarely guilty of anything more malicious than being in poor control of their bodily functions, however we don't torture or kill them for such infractions. Much of your argument is applying a human character to puppies and genuflecting towards moral theories that suppose human understanding and human characteristics. There are a number of objections here. -- Dogs may know what they did was wrong but that doesn't make them have any of the human moral characteristics we require in society. -- We don't torture people as punishments. -- We don't execute youths such as puppies would be. -- Again, they are dogs and not humans. -- Did I mention dogs. -- And the topic doesn't require some hypothetical, under obvious interpretation it would surmise that all puppies just be outright tortured and killed and not as a punishment. You are arguing not that "puppies should be tortured and killed" but that "under some circumstances some puppies may be ethically tortured and killed." I didn't suggest that Kantian moral theory was perfect or a great reflection of ultimate moral truths but the idea that lying to protect the lives of innocent people is on par with torturing puppies willy-nilly is simply wrong. I pointed out a wide variety of such moral theories and they were all opposed to the torture and killing of puppies. These sort of edge moral questions usually find different answers with different moral theory. Hobbes might suggest you give them up, Mills would oppose it, Aquinas would probably oppose it, but on the issue of puppies they are all crystal clear. Any flaws in any particular moral theory probably only show up where there's a conflict between two different moral ideas, there's no conflict here and the moral theories are extremely opposed to your presentation. The Hobbes ethic isn't that somebody says it but rather the government of which we are all members opposes it and assigns punishments and prohibitions against such actions. This alone suffices to suggest that it is wrong. ---- In none of your arguments did you actually argue for both the torture and death of a puppy. You argued for torture. You argued for death. But you never argued for torture and death of the same puppy. You never argued that "puppies should be", just that it might be ethical "to do". Your arguments were based on far-fetched hypotheticals based on dog crimes and attempting to find applicable moral understandings to apply to animals who may understand that you're upset they ate a cake on the table, but certainly wouldn't understand all rights from all wrongs. All moral theories are categorically opposed to the torture and killing of puppies. Your arguments fail logically, ethically, topically, morally and fundamentally. You have provided no good reason why all puppies should be tortured and killed. You have provided weak rational for why some hypothetical puppy could commit some hypothetical crime which hypothetically could be understood by the puppy, and hypothetically require punishment which would hypothetically need to be as strong as torture and death. -- The arguments fail at every point. --- Puppies should not be tortured and killed.