Bestiality/Zoophilia should be legal and is not inherently immoral

First, do not accept any of Pro’s arguments made in the comments. Debate arguments must be made in round- character limits exist to prevent never-ending debates and force debaters to be concise and efficient. I am subject to the same space constraint that Pro is, if I can obey the rules then Pro can too. Note, each of my arguments C1-5 independently function to negate the Resolution. This means I only need to win one of them to win this debate. C5 Pro has no response to my C5 argument. Pro set the scope of this debate, so he must live up to his BOP. He must prove that bestiality is moral rather than an amoral act to satisfy the portion of the resolution that bestiality ought to be legal. Pro doesn’t refute that amoral actions exist nor that the statement “if something is amoral or moral it should be legal” is substantially different from his original premise “if something is moral it should be legal.” C1.1.1 The random face puncher shows that a single data point is unable to render an act moral. My argument is that an act is inherently immoral if the features of the practice result in individual immoral acts. Pro concedes this point by saying that random face punching is immoral because “it inherently means a good portion of the face punches were immoral.” This is my point- qualified instances of an act do not render a practice moral. Rather, the totality of the practice must be accounted for and if inherent traits of the practice result in immorality in the totality of the practice then the practice is immoral. C1.1.2 First, the analogy only functions to show that the factor that makes random face-punching immoral, the randomness, still permits qualified acts to be moral. Second, my argument is that multiple levels of epistemic uncertainty, combined with high risk of abuse of power, are inherent to bestiality and make it morally unstable. Bestiality means always rolling the dice since animals are unable to fully communicate consent. This is compounded by uncertainty of whether or not animals are even psychologically capable of consent. C1.1.3 Every moral instance is a qualified act- whether its face punching, bestiality, or lying. When we say these things are immoral we aren’t evaluating whether or not it is ever possible to perform the practice in a moral manner, we are saying that these practices have inherent characteristics which make them morally unstable. C1.1.4 If starting your car every morning had a 50% chance of killing your neighbor, we would ban that class of action because it was immoral. We wouldn’t say “there are instances where it is ok to start your car, so it isn’t inherently immoral”- we would look at the actual practice and ban it as an entirety. C1.1.5 First, Pro is trying to qualify bestiality- it is moral when it is practiced morally. Second, I am presenting the case that the “non-essential immoral elements” are essential because they are inseparable from characteristics inherent to bestiality, i.e. the communication gap, psychological differences, and massive power imbalance between man and animal. Third, there is no such thing as a moral act on paper. All acts occur in the real world, tied up with all sorts of aspects that Pro would deem “non-essential.” The way an act is actually practiced is inextricably linked to its morality. If X has characteristics which cause its unethical practice, then it is inherently unethical. C1.1.7 Pro has provided no evidence that animals are able to reliably communicate consent. Pro admits there is no evidence available on bestial rape rate. Again, Pro is trying to use the inherent invisibility of animal rape to show that bestiality is ethical. C1.1.8 If I could walk into a room and either eat cake or commit rape without repercussion, it would be immoral for the law to permit me to enter the room. Legalizing bestiality makes legal space for the rape of animals without repercussion. Pro said that “a law which permits a single instance of violating rights is improper.” If bestiality is legal, animal rape is legal since no instance of animal rape could ever be proven. This is not the case with murder. Pro says you can always hide the body- but the fact is there is a body to hide. With animal rape there is no body to hide- rape and bestiality would look identical to the legal system. C1.2.1 Pro doesn’t address my point that bestiality is inherently unaccountable. The nature of the act is what obscures the fact that a crime took place. Rape is not inherently unaccountable. To avoid accountability, a rapist must work to hide their crime; an animal rapist has no body to hide. C1.2.2 Practices which allow rape without repercussion are unethical, a practice which makes legal space for acts of rape is immoral. Innocent until proven guilty means you are presumed not to have broken the law until demonstrated otherwise. It does not mean we should presume the innocence of all and allow practices that shield the guilty from justice. C1.2.3 I don’t know what Pro means by “this” or what his argument is. C.1.2.4 Con contends video evidence could prove an act of animal rape. First, this doesn’t address the issue of bringing up the rape accusation in the first place. Animals cannot bring rape charges to court. Second, this in practice means that there is no way to determine rape since the number of cases where video evidence existed would be vanishingly small, if not zero. Third, Pro assumes we can reliably tell what consent or non-consent actually looks like from video footage. We can never actually ask the victim and know for sure. Animals might appear docile because they are frightened - in the end it will just be guesswork, we will inherently be making a declaration that an animal has or hasn’t given consent; essentially consent will be determined not by what the animal agrees to but by what we think the animal agreed to. Fourth, who will review the tape and determine if it was rape? In reality this would be done by battling court room experts while the jury presumed “innocent until proven guilty.” C1.2.5 Pet ownership is not relevant to the Resolution. C2.3.1 Pro says he only argues that preference is the required internal mental element of consent. This doesn’t address my criticisms that preference alone is insufficient to show capacity for consent- that simply having preferences doesn’t incorporate the complex moral concepts involved in agreement and permission, that Pro projects shallow human psychology onto animal psychology, and that the capacity for consent is inseparable from the ability to communicate consent. C2.3.2 Jack and Jill was used to dispute that a lack of objection is the same as consent and that consent is only consent if it is able to be clearly communicated. Pro doesn’t refute this aspect of the argument, nor my argument about taking your wallet. C2.3.3 1. Pro tries to argue that if consent relies on human psychology, then consent has no moral significance for animals. This argument clearly falls outside the scope of the debate as Pro explicitly states in his BOP that he must show it is possible for an animal to consent to sex with a human. If Pro can’t meet his BOP, he loses. My argument that consent relies on human language was that consent can only be performed within a complex moral framework animals do not participate in- e.g. an animal can’t grant permission if they don’t understand they have the moral standing to refuse permission. 3,6 My examples of conditioned behavior prove why preference and volition aren’t sufficient for consent- when I chew my food I am engaging these traits without engaging consent. In Pro’s conception, simply being able to communicate “I want that” is enough for consent. But saying “I want this car” is not the same as saying “I agree to buy this car” and simply being able to say “I want this car” does not mean you have the moral understanding required to enter into an agreement to buy a car. 5. The evidence Pro uses to prove animal behavior doesn’t prove what Pro says it does. Even the scientists studying the dog that knows 1000 words contradict Pro. They specifically say that this case does is not an example of learning “abstract concepts like…children” but simply learning to associate nouns through brute repetition. [1] http://www.nytimes.com... (C3) Pro ignores my entire case about obligations of care-humans have a responsibility to care for those they have power over and so engaging in sex creates an unethical conflict of interest, partially stemming from the potential to abuse power. This is especially relevant in the case of animals, where coercion and behavior modification are central to the relationship. This is an ethical argument totally independent of animals’ ability to have or communicate consent. (C4) Pro functionally concedes that informed consent is the only morally relevant form of consent. His only response is that the animal knows what is happening and how it feels about it and that this is adequate. This means if I show that animals are incapable of informed consent, bestiality is immoral. First, it is at best unclear that animals know what is happening- they could be confused about many aspects of the encounter. An animal could be responding to sexual stimuli without realizing it is having interspecies sex, an animal could be trying to reproduce without realizing that the other partner is only engaged in recreation, the animal might not be aware of the identity of the human partner. Second, simply being aware of what is happening is insufficient for informed consent. Informed consent requires full awareness of the conditions of the encounter- do animals believe they will be rewarded for sex? Do they believe failure to have sex will disappoint their owners? Informed consent requires knowledge of the risks- do animals know about the health risks of sex? Do animals know they are having a sexual relationship with an actor which holds complete domination over them?