My 150th Debate: Animal Rights

JUSTICECon insists justice "gives each their due." But, this doesn't explain "how" we decide who is due what. Even re: treating equals equally, there must be some way we know who is/isn't equal.1. I gave 2 dropped examples showing how fairness should be used to determine dues. 2. Turn: Treating equals equally is an issue of fairness--we can't arbitrarily discriminate. His interp backs mine.3. (a) FT fails to explain in the counterexample why it is just that someone inherits that large sum of money (he just assumes it to be true). (b) Additionally, he also assumes it to be unfair without analysis; thinkers like Nozick would call it fair since all players played by the rules of the game (animals are unfairly excluded from the rules). The point here is that FT's counterexample is a bare assertion fallacy; my examples are dropped, so prefer them.4. Cross-apply my prior objections to Rawls Also, fairness is more than mere impartiality; it's also about being non-arbitrary. Rawls misses this; he basically says (re: animal rights (AR)), it's okay to arbitrarily exclude all animals but not some humans, just so long as we are impartially arbitrary. This is (a) nonsensical--it bases justice on the egoism of the participants in the VOI (that's partial) and (b) based on random chance (that's unfair).ARGUMENTSC1. Needless Suffering1. I argued that (A) rights were designed to protect individual agents from needless suffering (NS) (Con doesn't really dispute this) and (B) as animals can suffer needlessly, they meet the rights-threshold. (a) Con's remark that my theory was deontological was under-warranted. (b) My argument wasn't one of utility, in that my goal was to protect individuals from NS, rather than to minimize NS overall (notice, I said "protect/prevent" not "reduce/minimize").2. The goal of a right to NS is not to minimize SUF; it's to protect individual agents from gratuitous harm, which may have SUF-reducing effects, but the effects =/= the justification. We can recognize that there may be some cases when SUF is okay to inflict, while still saying that animals should have a right against the sadist torturing them. The sadist, or a person beating a dog in anger, violates the animal's interests against SUF, while doing nothing to advance the rights of others against NS. Con thus misunderstands my entire argument, because I don't need to prove that animal SUF reduces overall SUF; merely, I need to show that animals can be victims of gratuitous SUF. If they can be victims of that, then they are entitled to protections.3. (a) This is a bare assertion. (b) Con falsely assumes that NS implies utility; others, like Nussbaum, would disagree. Con doesn't do enough to explain why NS is necessarily utilitarian.4. If agents have due X, then justice REQUIRES us to ensure X, lest we not give each their due. Agents are due freedom from NS. If we can imagine even a handful of incidents in which animals were victims of NS (Michael Vick, the sadist, the dog beater...we can imagine more), then justice requires, in those case, that animals be protected from NS. The same with human rights; genocide, torture, rape, etc. are incidents that people ought to be protected from to stop NS. Notice that the R1 definition of rights refers to "moral OR legal entitlements;" if agents have a due X, then justice REQUIRES us to ensure X. So (a) legal entitlements are sufficient to affirm, and (b) it has to be a right otherwise we can't ensure each due is protected/guaranteed.5. Con says I'm anthropocentric, linking this to Aristotle and to humanness as the relevant factor in granting rights. (a) I already rebutted Aristotle. (b) I spent my entire case denying humanness as the relevant factor for rights, calling it arbitrary. My case is structured as it is in order to critique humanness.6. When we can choose between violating or not violating a right, we ought prefer the latter. However, when rights conflict, there must be a way resolve it, otherwise we have paralysis. My right to free speech, for instance, doesn't justify shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre, as it violates the rights to bodily integrity of scores of others, and subjects them to suffering (SUF). NS, then, is SUF that isn't necessary to prevent the violation of rights (the violation of which would lead to even more SUF). A sadist torturing a cat is an example of "needless" SUF; his actions are not necessary to prevent the violations of other's rights against NS.7. The limiting principle here is SUF. Rocks can't SUF; rocks don't get rights. Con doesn't explain why rights for the computer is nonsensical (bare assertion).8. (a) Turn: Con's advocacy is more vague. He runs 3 contradictory positions, making it impossible to know where he stands or what his actual rights-threshold is. At least, with SUF, reasonable people can agree when SUF is/isn't occurring. (b) SUF is at least a intense feelings of emotional, physical, or mental pain. [25]. I've demonstrated that animals SUF as they can feel all three. (c) Pain (and what causes it) can be deduced scientifically through observations of brain responses.9. This is non-unique. Any system that applies rights is going to involve subjectivity. It may, for instance, be questionable whether person X is rational or not. This requires subjective assessments from the judge.10. (a) Con's claim that animals are ruled purely by instinct is unsupported. (b) Con drops all of my PTSD + emotional SUF arguments which show that animals have more than "mere" instinct. Prefer my dropped evidence to Con's warrantless claims. (c) Not all humans SUF the same way; surely a severely mentally disabled person SUF mostly on a physical level, yet many animals SUF not just physically, but also mentally, implying that they can SUF as much or more than some humans. Thus, it is arbitrary to give rights to humans to prevent SUF, but not to animals.11. (a) Not all pain produces evolutionary benefit (e.g. the sadist torturing a cat to death). (b) Justice can require messing with evolution. Rawls for instance, says people have a right to security [26]. But this right actively interfere's with the idea that the weak will die off allowing the most fit to reproduce. We can also imagine other rights that would similarly get in the way of nature. C2. The Law1. (a) The law is not a contract. Rawls argues that "decent peoples secure for all persons...human rights." [26] The mentally ill and babies don't consent to the social contract, yet even the social contractarian grants them ('all persons') rights. Con's own theorists rebut him, denying that the ability to assume responsibility is necessary and denying that only participants in the contract get rights. (b) Even if it is a contract, why can't non-parties get rights? The constitution is a contract among U.S. citizens, yet legal protections are afforded to non-citizens.2. Promises should be kept when the promisee has an interest in it. If you promise to help me with homework, it would be wrong to not keep the promise, because I have an interest in your keeping it, and you imposed on yourself an obligation, via the promise, to protect/further that interest. Animals have interests; if I bequeath money to my animal, "the trustee of funds...is more than a mere custodian of the animal...Rather his job is to look out for the interests [and good] of the animal." [9] Both the animal and I have interests/goods to advance.3. I am not conflating them. I am arguing that if the law promises X, justice must require X lest we break our promises, which is unjust. As I said, promises ought to be kept "unless they promise to do something clearly immoral." Con hasn't shown AR to be immoral.4. Con drops that the law makes promises to animals.C3. Marginal CasesHold Con to universal rights; his 3 advocacies call for it: the religion argument grants "universal" human rights; the justification argument protects "human beings," not "rational human beings;" and Rawls gives rights to "all persons." Con also says: "the status quo gives severely retarded infants rights." Con wants to defend the status quo; he must defend rights for that infant while denying rights for animals.Whether or not you buy that all human SUF, if you extend rights to all humans, justice/fairness requires that you also extend rights to all animals, because there is no non-arbitrary line to be drawn that gives all humans rights but denies them to all animals. Turn: Con says treat equals equally. He gives rights to "all persons," yet at least some animals are more intelligent/able to SUF than some people (e.g. Chimps vs. severely mentally ill). This treats animals as unequal when they're not. The limiting principle is the presence of a morally relevant difference, e.g. SUF, sentience, consciousness. Absent a relevant difference, it's arbitrary.If we're giving out rights on the basis of the capacity to justify/enter contracts, why not just rights to "rational humans" vs. the "human species?" Con's basic logic is that we should prioritize groups closer to us, but (a) he gives no warrant why that's moral, and (b) members of the rational human community are closer than members of humanity at large. Con's reasoning as to where to draw the line is arbitrary and biased. Why, should we not instead draw the line at mammals, as only mammals enter contracts?UNDERVIEWCon assumes that AR denies humans their dues. But, I've shown AR doesn't necessarily conflict with human rights, and Con hasn't shown that humans are due ownership of animals. As Con hasn't shown humans will lose dues as a result of AR, my underview stands. Much of the other stuff I rebutted earlier, so cross-apply.Don't let FT make new arguments or address dropped points, as I'd have no chance to reply. And, we should each defend a consistent advocacy to avoid goalpost-shifting, character skews, etc.SOURCES25 - http://tinyurl.com...26 - http://tinyurl.com...