Eating animal meat purely for pleasure is unethical.

Eating animal meat purely for pleasure is unethical. Contention 1: Rights and Preferences A snail is an animal. My opponent is not opposed to eating a snail for pleasure. Resolution negated. Pigs and cows are NOT self-aware. Self-awareness is assessed most effectively with the mirror test (http://www.sciencedaily.com...). Dolphins, chimpanzees, and a few others have passed the test and are therefore considered self-aware. Pigs and cows have not passed. Yes, they can feel pain, but that is a different matter. ======== Contention 2: The Moral Imperative A.) My opponent should not overpower me and take my money because if he does so, it will sow distrust. He may go to jail. More directly, though, no one will trust him and he will be hurt in the long run. A person may feel that it is morally wrong to rob someone at gunpoint, but this feeling originates out of a selfish desire to continue to be accepted in a community. Slavery has a similar problem. Rape as well: women do not want to be raped, so even if you rape one time you will get the reputation of a rapist and women will avoid you, so overall you will have fewer children. The reader may feel that these things are morally wrong, and that is correct. But this is the reason why they are wrong. I ask the reader to step outside of the evolutionary directive and understand WHY we consider these behaviors to be wrong. It is not truly because they are harmful to others; it is because they have social repercussions. I am perfectly aware of the workings of the naturalistic fallacy. I am not saying that we should follow the moral imperative simply because it is natural. I am saying that we should follow it because the fact that it is natural makes it the only true option. All other options are arbitrary and artificial. Subsequently, how can we even hope to define morality without at least basing it upon our evolutionary roots? B.) The analogy is inapplicable. It is impossible to put a human brain into a chimpanzee without completely changing the brain structure. But false analogies aside, the brain is a large part of what makes us human. A chimpanzee with a human brain would be more human than chimpanzee. ======== Contention 3: Eating Meat and Suffering A.) I'm not playing around. My opponent has just conceded for the second time. My opponent provided no definitions in round 1. Is it my fault that he was using an unconventional definition of "animal"? No. My definition is the one which will be accepted. B.) Ethics do not have to perfectly model reality. It is easily conceivable that there is a scenario in which animals are painlessly euthanized. There is nothing morally wrong with this. My opponent objects to factory farms; it is true that factory farms are very common right now, but euthanasia is still entirely possible. "If I were to painlessly murder everyone in a city in their sleep I would be acting in a way that did absolutely nothing to increase my victims suffering." This is inapplicable. Humans are capable of self-awarely considering the future. Humans have a truly conscious desire not to die. Animals merely have evolutionary directives. ======== Contention 4: Source of Morality My opponent misunderstands the true source of morality. This has been addressed in contention 2. ======== Case Pro ======== (These are not contentions. This is a syllogism. However, I will retain my opponent's labeling system.) Contention #1: Agreed. Contention #2: Wrong. This is addressed repeatedly in my case. Contention #3: False, since #2 is false. Contention #4: False. See my second contention. Contention #5: True, but irrelevant.