July beginner's Tournament. Animals don't deserve rights.

Thanks Con! I urge the voters not to take into account round 2 for their vote. Onto the rebuttals. My opponent makes two main points: -Animals feel -We need animals for our survival Point #1: Animals Feel Con states: "Humans created the concept of ethics, where an advanced psychological being, the human, treats another with emotions and empathy." This may or may not be the case, but it seems to admit that morality is a social construction, and by extension, subjective. If indeed 'humans created the concept of ethics', then there would be no objective source of morality. If this is the case, however, then it is hard to see how Con can uphold their argument. If ethics is a social construct then rights as an objective reality don't exist. How then can we give them to animals? Simply, we cannot. It thus seems that in his argument, Con shoots himself in the foot. If morality is a human concept and a human concept alone, then there would be neither a duty nor reason to treat animals morally, for that would require an objective foundation to morality. More precisely, I do not see how this means that 'animals feel' as Con states. Why should the fact that morality is a social construction mean that animals feel? It would be useful if my opponent could elaborate on this point. Again Con States: "Animals have merely helped the ecosystem balance. Humans did greatly influence global warming and made it worse." Again, this may or may not be the case, but isn't, I think, relevent to the motion. Many things help the ecosystem balance, yet we do not grant them rights on that basis. Plants are a prime example [1], which are vital to any ecosystem, thus benefiting humans, yet we do not give them rights (whether we protest against their demise or not, they never have rights in the conventional sense). Also, the latter point may be countered by a simple example: the cow. A UN report in 2006 showed that cows, by methane emissions, contribute more to global warming than all cars put together [2]. Animals, therefore, may be detrimental to the environment, pace Con. Point #2: We need animals for our survival Against this, it may be said that animals are one of, if not the only, sources of food for a great deal of the world's populace: thus, especially in more impoverished regions of the world, animal rights, especially that to life, would severely thwart human well-being. E.g. Eskimos and whales. Namely, human right to well-being: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family". Article 25 (1) [3]. This shows, at the least, that animal rights should not be a universal principle, contrary to Con's argument. If they were, then humans across the globe would suffer. Surely we should place human rights above those of animals in most cases. Thus I do not disagree that we need animals for our survival. However, this does not at all entail that they deserve rights! To the contrary, only by denying animals' right to life can many survive at all. In order for humans to flourish, animals cannot. In short, I don't think Con has developed his points enough to make a cogent, holistic argument. Sources: [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org... [2] http://www.independent.co.uk... [3] http://www.un.org...