the Japanese should not hunt whales

I would like to begin by pointing out that my opponent offers no arguments of his own in favor of whaling, meaning he has no offense in this debate. We should weigh this round using a utilitarian framework, meaning that we should endorse the policy that does the greatest good for the greatest number. As long as I prove that there are negatives to whaling, since my opponent has proved no positives, I should win. I do so by proving that upholding international laws is important, that children are forced to eat poisoned whale meat, and that it is bad for the survival of whales and the ecosystems that depend on them. The only possible benefit of hunting whale is that a few people enjoy the meat, but I provided a whole contention to show that only a very tiny number of people enjoy the flavor of whale meat. 1. International law While any individual international law may not seem extremely important on face, upholding the legitimacy of international laws and institutions is critical. As other nations, like Brazil, Russia, India, and China, gain more influence, political and military power, international laws will help hold the system together and prevent major conflicts from arising. Fareed Zakaria in The Post-American World gives advice to the United States that is just as instructive to Japan in this case. "Does the country want to push its own particular interests abroad, or does it want to create a structure of rules, practices, and values by which the world will be bound? In an age of rising new powers, the United States' overriding goal should be the latter – so that even as these countries get more powerful, they will continue to live within the framework of the current international system. This is the principal constraint we can construct to ensure that the rise of the rest does not turn into a downward competitive spiral, with great powers freelancing for their own interests and advantage in such a way as to destabilize the whole system. For such a system to work, we would have to adhere to these rules as well. If the United States freelances when its suits its purposes, why would China not do the same with regard to Taiwan? Or India with regard to Pakistan? If we are not bound by the rules, why should they be?" [1] If Japan chooses to freelance in the area of whaling and claim to be an exception to the rule because whaling is a "national heritage," then the value of international laws will be eroded and other nations will claim exceptions to other international laws in the future. Large world problems, like global warming for example, cannot be solved without the legitimacy of international laws and institutions. In response to my opponent, "should" does not connote morality; it asks whether a policy action is desirable. Under my utilitarian framework, slavery should be disallowed because making slavery illegal did a much greater good (allowed freedom and equal rights to blacks vs. economic profits to slaveholders), and accrued to a larger number of people (there were more slaves than slaveholders). Prohibition hurt the 70% of Americans who drank liquor, so removing Prohibition did the greatest good to the greatest number. In addition, my opponent has yet to prove that under any sort of standard that slaughtering whales inhumanely is a moral right. If he does show that, I would assert that any such belief system is morally bankrupt. 2. Whale meat tastes gross Japan cannot hunt fewer whales because each whaling ship costs millions and millions of dollars to operate. The industry is not profitable, which is why the government subsidizes the whaling industry in Japan and the whaling fleets feel it necessary to hunt as many whales as possible, in order to justify the inordinate expense of operating an exploratory ship, 2 harpoon boats, and a factory trawler. [2] Whale meat will continue to be wasted or forced upon children in Japan because there is so much excess meat and so few consumers actually enjoy whale meat. 3. Save the children I thank my opponent for agreeing that my point here is very good. My opponent agrees that being higher up the food chain, whales contain inordinate amounts of mercury. He also agrees with the evidence I cited before proving that Japan is forcing an increasing amount of whale meat upon children because no one else will eat it. This practice is unfair because children are a captive audience – if their parents don't pack them a brown bag lunch, they are forced to eat the whale meat when it is on the cafeteria menu. Mercury poisoning will stunt their brain development and could even kill them. Even if children were given other choices, which in many school cafeterias they are not, they are definitely not informed by the school lunch ladies of the possible side effects of eating whale meat. And if you watch Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution you'll know that nearly all parents are unaware of what their children are being served for school lunch. Japan should get rid of the unprofitable government subsidized whaling industry so that it does not need to force increasing amounts of undesirable whale meat upon school children. Forcing children to eat poisoned meat in order to "cut your losses" when no one else buys the meat doesn't seem very moral to me. 4. Bad for whales According to the University of Western Australia's philosophy department, there are moral concerns with inhumane slaughter techniques because they cause pain to animals. [3] If the animal cannot be slaughtered humanely, and we can eat something else instead, a utilitarian framework tells us that we do a much greater good by not killing the animal inhumanely, and this should outweigh the fact that it affects a smaller group. But the extinction of endangered whale species has much broader implications. Whales are critical to the life cycle of ecosystems and are considered a keystone species. According to Dr. Deepa Maheshwari, "A keystone species is a species that has a disproportionate effect on its environment relative to its abundance . . . An ecosystem may experience a dramatic shift if a keystone species is removed, even though that species was a small part of the ecosystem by measures of biomass or productivity . . . Why is whale a keystone species? Most species of whale take the place at the top of the food web/chain and therefore are responsible for keeping the numbers of their prey down as they consume such large numbers of their prey. If whales decreased, prey population increases, and consumption of food by the whales prey would increase until a point is reached where food is no longer available [and] in a couple of generations the whole ecosystem could collapse." [4] Maheshwari continues that "many of the fish species consumed by whales are not of commercial interest or suitable for human consumption. In most instances, whales are not in direct competition with fisheries." So whales are the only ones feeding on these prey animals and if whales go extinct, the prey animals will expand out of control, consuming all the resources in the ecosystem. In addition, Maheshwari points out that whales feed on plankton and that if plankton were not preyed upon, it would multiply much more quickly and add greater and greater amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, exacerbating global warming. For all the above reasons, the greatest good for the greatest number would be achieved if Japan ceased all whaling activity. It would uphold the international rules and norms that will be critical as more and more countries claim "great power" status. It would save children from being forced to eat mercury-laced whale meat during school lunches. And it would save a keystone species that is necessary to preserving the health of many of our planet's ecosystems. [1] page 238 [2] Whale Wars [3] http://www.philosophy.uwa.edu.au... [4] http://www.scribd.com...