It should be considered morally wrong to kill sentient animals for their meat

“"My opponent has committed the non-sequitor that if it should be considered to kill animals for their meat, that the farmers will lose their land and that they have to get rid of their cows." When my opponent speaks of committing a non-sequitor he has clearly done the same thing for an entire two paragraphs in which he states that suffering as well as animal suffering is "bad". I have experienced first-hand with my personal exposure to agriculture, that cattle do no suffer when they die. They are shot and instantly killed with no pain.” Before I address the latter part of my opponent’s argument here, I would like to highlight that he has not addressed the criticism here, rather using the logical fallacy of ‘tu quoque’ to say that I have also committed the non-sequitor. This does not excuse his own logical fallacy, even if I have committed one. Furthermore, my opponent has straw-manned my argument in that he suggests my argument said that suffering was bad, therefore animals shouldn’t be killed for their meat. Clearly, I made an argument against the imposition of killing animals, which is a required part of my argument – it is the combined suffering and imposition that make it immoral. “I know that a carnivorous, starving sentient animal would without a doubt kill a human. So what is stopping us from doing the same? Did we give that wild dog permission to kill us and eat us?” This is not moral philosophy. This is simply: ‘he did it to me first! I should have every right to do it to him!’ “I would find it extremely immoral if we killed sentient animals and not utilized as many body parts as we could like we do so today.” Obviously, you would have to kill them in the first place in order to make use of their body parts. However, if you killed them to save them the burden of having to live in agonising pain, and then made use of their body parts, this would be moral. It’s simply that you can’t kill them for their body parts – the intention makes it immoral. From round 3… “1.Become overpopulated.” How will they become over-populated if they are not allowed to breed? “"The government of the country could help subsidies the cattle’s existence, and the cattle can be stopped from reproducing so that the problem does not become permanent." This sounds extremely immoral from my stance. Not being from a rural area you do not understand that a mass operation such as this would be extremely difficult. A cow is not going to stand still while it is made sterile. Take it from personal experience.” Extremely difficult =/= immoral. You consistently argue differing levels to which my argument is difficult to enact, when this isn’t all that relevant to a moral debate. “This is how slavery and raising cattle is different. We do not make cattle do work, we feed them regularly and keep them healthy, move them to different areas so they do not overgraze…” You missed the point. The point is that both were considered ethical at one point, but this doesn’t make either of them moral. You appealed to popularity, so I showed why the popular thing isn’t always the moral thing. “I have pointed out how it is immoral to take away what an entire family's life has revolved around for hundreds of years.” They are doing the wrong thing in the first place. If someone had a black-market industry of selling pre-teen prostitutes and super-hardcore drugs, that had existed for more than 100 years, it would obviously be the right thing to abolish the awful business, despite the livelihood being generated from it and whatnot. “I have also pointed out that it is immoral to simply keep cattle from reproducing.” I would like to borrow David Benatar’s Asymmetry for a quick response. (1) If a person exists, then his/her pain is a bad thing. (2) If a person exists, then his/her pleasure is a good thing. (3) What does not exist cannot suffer (therefore this non-existing pain is a good thing). (4) What does not exist cannot be deprived of any pleasure (therefore this non-existing pleasure is not a bad thing). Therefore, it is immoral to reproduce, given that not bringing sentient animals into existence should be preferred; therefore, it is not immoral to stop cattle from reproducing. Besides, my opponent no convincing reasoning as to why it is immoral to stop animals from reproducing. “1. That I gave all possible scenarios not just for animals being shipped into the wild, I also gave examples of what would happen if they were taken care of.” You continue to address the difficulty of stopping the mass slaughtering of cattle, when the moral aspect is far more relevant in a debate on morals. Even if it would be very difficult to deal with the cattle, it would still be the moral thing to cease slaughtering them for their meat, let alone preventing it on a mass scale. “2. My opponent has also failed to address the face that even will government funding no amount of money will keep these cattle from overgrazing. Even if this would happen isn't our government in enough debt where as they shouldn't have to keep cattle alive with no benefit whatsoever to the American people or themselves. It sounds immoral to fund a cause with no return profit.” Again, this is another argument against the difficulty of it, and you wonder why I didn’t bother addressing either of these. If you want to argue against the difficulty of implementing something moral, go do so away from a debate about the morality of harming animals. “3.My opponent has again failed to address how it is morally right to let an animal die painfully by natural causes instead of being kept in a safe environment and being peacefully killed when it reaches it's mature age.” From what you suggested, the imposition on life would be immoral (i.e. breeding cattle so that we can eat them). It wouldn’t be moral to knowingly let an animal die painfully; when did I ever argue the opposite? I haven’t yet addressed these arguments because they are either an appeal to difficulty (rather than morality), or a straw-man of my position. “My opponent has also spoke of an alternative method to get protein called "In vitro meat." He has failed to cite any sources for this so called vitro meat so I will cite. This method also is extremely costly to produce and we won't see it for another decade. So how do we get our protein for an entire ten years…” I couldn’t find any credible sources on In Vitro Meat (and nor has my opponent in quoting Wikipedia), so I will drop this argument . However, my opponent assumes that protein can only come from meat products. This is simply not true. Tofu is extremely rich in protein. Conclusion My opponent continues to centre his argument on the difficulty of stopping the slaughtering of animals for their meat, rather than the moral aspect. As this is the case, a lot of his argument has seriously diminished value in a debate about the morality of killing animals for their meat. Again: difficult =/= immoral. In the few places that he does address my moral framework, he either straw-mans it or misses the point. For example, he concludes that [according to me], “All that matters is suffering is bad. Even though livestock is killed peacefully.” There is a section I wrote that is headed with the title: Killing animals is morally wrong,which involves explaining how killing animals for their meat is morally wrong, even if they don’t suffer. This is, once again, an example of another straw-man.