Non-human animals should have rights.

Let me first start by once again thanking my opponent for setting it up and for everyone that took time out of their day to read it. ============ Case Pro- Rebuttals ============ Contention 1: "Individual capabilities aren't relevant to granting rights. "My opponent has made the above statement which would require rights for everything. Living, non-living, inanimate, make-believe, and fictional would all be afforded rights according to my opponent. My opponent has not put forth another criterion that is better than individual capabilities, so my point stands. " -Nags Forgive me if I choose not to chase down all of the red herrings you've set up. I've already stated that all sentient creatures ability to hold preferences and suffer is adequate criterion for granting equal rights. Your attempts to misrepresent my position have failed. Contention 2: (Part A) "My opponent claims blastocysts are gentically members of the species homo sapiens. This is false. "- Nags Obviously in the context I was using the term blastocyst I was referring to human blastocysts. And human blastocysts are indeed members of our species. The structure of their DNA is identical to humans and thus they are members of the species homo sapiens. [1] -Contention negated Contention 2: (Part B) "My opponent claims that my logic for granting brain-dead persons is faulty. However, the test for moral judgment is not a test to be administered to humans one by one, but should be applied to the capacity of members of the species in general. By granting rights based on individual abilities rather than species, my opponent's logic would give smart, white Europeans more rights than dumb, black, Africans. It would give educated Doctors more rights than high school drop-outs. And so on and so on. " - Nags I have never argued that we should grant rights based on individual capacities at all. This entire time I have been arguing that the ability to hold preferences and feel pain is in itself a sufficient objective basis for granting rights. And this entire time you seem to have consistently misunderstood or deliberately misrepresented my argument. I can only repeat myself so many times before it becomes tedious. If my opponent is unwilling to deny rights based on single deficiencies found in certain brain damaged humans then how is it any more morally cogent to deny rights based on a general deficiency? Both parties at hand can feel pain and suffer even if they have nothing else in common. Contention 4: "My opponent's example of "a single human living in solitude in some remote part of the world" is obviously a theoretical, a far-fetched theoretical at that. My point stands. " -Nags It is manifestly true that there are some humans that live in solitude in certain parts of the world. If my opponent doesn't know this then he doesn't know very much about statistics, history, various cultures, and people generally. There are over 6 billion people living on our planet and many of those people have chosen to live by themselves secluded away from the rest of society. Various mystics, yogis, and gurus have done this throughout history and still do this even in the present day. Some go into solitude for months while others may spend their entire lives alone away from civilization. One of the more famous examples of this can be found in the journey of Siddhartha in his quest for enlightenment. [2] –Contention negated ====== Case Pro ====== Contention 1: "Higher primates are persons and thus deserve rights. " "Higher primates are not considered homo sapiens. My opponent proposed a definition and reasoning that is in no way scientific and would never hold up in any academic community. Obviously we are similar, but not the same, as my opponent claims. " –Nags It would be an understatement to say that I don't find my opponents tautological assertions very impressive. I've already demonstrated that defining persons as humans is circular and invalid. And if my opponent thinks my definition for persons is unscientific then he should have given some reasons why he thinks this instead of making baseless claims about the views of academics. He has failed to point out any flaws in my definition and thus my definition for persons shall stand. For those that have forgotten my definition for a person was the following: A Person is- "a distinct entity with preferences and the capability to view oneself as a unique individual that exists over time. " ================== Case Pro- Closing Statements ================== My opponent listed a blizzard of sources in his last round, most of which were irrelevant, in order to artificially inflate the academic standing of his own position. For a moment I felt as if I were studying for the midterm in my biology class instead of debating animal rights. I take it for granted that humans and other animals are different; that isn't at issue here. Despite these obvious differences I have logically shown that membership in a species and capabilities are irrelevant to rights because the ability to suffer and hold preferences are the only objective basis for granting rights. One of Nags main arguments could be surmised in the following two sentences. Humans should be given rights, regardless of their qualities, because they are members of the species homo sapience, because they are members of the species homo sapiens. Non-human animals shouldn't be granted rights, regardless of their qualities, because they aren't members of our species, because they aren't members of our species. Epistemological black holes of this sort are fast draining the compassion and sensibility from our world. The fallacies behind circular arguments of this sort are obvious so I won't bother analyzing them any further. ======= Conclusion ======= I have already shown that animals like dogs and gorillas can suffer and respond to stimuli much like humans can. [3] At the very least this more than sanctifies the notion that they should be protected from abuse. If we agree that the principle of equality is equality of interests then animals should also have rights, to be protected from cruelty, because they can hold preferences and feel pain very much like we can. Resolution affirmed –Vote Pro Best, Freeman [1] . http://www.advancedfertility.com... [2] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] . http://www.newscientist.com...