"Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment."

"My opponent seriously needs to focus on this argument, since if I can maintain this ethical foundation, then his position seems grim." I pointed out that not ALL animals are sentient. Only a few of the more advanced ones are. You said nothing against this, really. "And if you bothered to read the description of the appeal to nature fallacy, you would realize that the ethical foundation for eating animals CAN NOT come from the fact that it's natural." Our ancestors ate meat. Our grandparents probably ate meat. Meat is part of the human diet. Human taste buds have evolved to enjoy the taste of meat. We enjoy the taste of meat, because meat is good. Meat, meat, meat. Also, my opponent has not countered the fact that we only breed cows, chickens, and pigs for meat (well, cows for dairy, too, but the PETA is against that, too), and if eating meat was outlawed, farmers would have no incentive to breed such animals, and it would lead to a severe decline in reproduction, and one goal of animals is supposedly to reproduce successfully in large numbers. And if you really think about it, how many animals are there that would kill another member of its own species? Not many. They mostly just fight for a while, but they never kill. And that is reflected in human nature, so why not throw in meat? Finally, animals acknowledge that there is a food chain, and there has always been a food chain as long as there has been food, before humans. Humans simply arrived to be at about the top of every food chain, although sharks and polar bears are ahead of us. If humans can be eaten by animals because they are meat, and humans can eat meat, they should actively participate in their local food chain and EAT MEAT! "You aren't even addressing my counterarguments, but simply going around them." I attacked your nature fallacy. That was your counterargument, right? "So my opponent concedes his original argument, and basically aligns it with his previous justification for eating animals. Okay, but of course his argument for eating animals is equally empty of reason. So until he can rescue the first argument, both of these arguments will sink." That WAS my original argument. Because we have correlated eating and using for clothing, I guess nothing further needs to be said. "My opponent basically just said the opposite of my argument, a claim with no evidence or reason to back it up. I stated that just because something isn't smart enough, doesn't mean it deserves less rights. All my opponent said was the opposite. A completely unsupported argument." You said that A didn't imply B. I said that it didn't imply the opposite of B, either, and that there may be a lack of correlation. You didn't defend this part at all. "Which is why it should be our responsibility now to take care of them. Because it was humans who first bred them purely for our uses, and it should be our responsibility to fix this. I can imagine programs trying to find ways to integrate them into a natural evnvironment, or maybe even creating one for them." Even with such programs, the population of lab rats would never recover to the "glorious heights" that it reached when lab rats were the primary test subjects for scientists. And high population is a goal for animals, which we fulfill. "Uh, not always. Have you ever seen circus animals? Besides that, there are many cases of animal abuse in domestic homes - a simple flip on the television can attest to that." I'm pretty sure that the circus animals would rather perform and be fed than never fed at all. Also, you do not provide any sources for animal abuse in the home, and a circus website or video would really have helped your case, but it would be too late to do so next round, as it is the last. "Supplying animals with food (their lack of food most likely results from the spread of humans) is a good thing, but forcing them to be your pets and/or for human entertainment is NOT ethical..." Forcing them to be your pets? The cats in my neighborhood walk around everywhere, with no restrictions. They could very easily try to live out in the woods; I bet some of them have. However, they always go back home, because they know that home has food. And as for entertainment, horses have been used for entertainment by jockeys for centuries, and they develop bonds with their horses, so it's not just a feed and entertain thing. http://www.suite101.com... "It's like me going up to a hobo, giving him food and shelter, but forcing him to entertain me. If the hobo wants out, he should be allowed to. But can an animal do that? No." This implies that we should never give the animal a chance. This would mean restricting the animal to never entertaining for food, on the basis that the animal might be unhappy with it. Most animals would rather entertain than starve. Entertaining for food is just about the only option many animals have in today's society, so we should give it to them. "My opponent stated that he has produced a 'fresh argument against the sentient point'. I really hope that this isn't true. He has no substantial argument against the ethical underpinnings of my argument, and every other example of applied ethics (not using animals for food, clothing, etc.) crumbles in succession. If my opponent really wants to refute my ethical basis, he should start by NOT giving me links that support my position." I said that not all animals are sentient (a statement that supports me, not you), which you never refuted. Anyways... In conclusion, people naturally eat meat, and eating meat is natural, and people are meat, and have been eaten for their meat, so they are part of the food chain, so they should participate in the food chain by eating meat. The clothing part has been linked to the eating part, above. If humans did not experiment on, eat, or use animals for entertainment, many animals would find themselves going extinct, with damages to the population greater than any little program could fix. Animals need to be given the chance to entertain for food, which is the same chance that my opponent would give for a hobo. Vote CON. Thank you for this debate.