Sex with animals is ethically permissible

Is sex with animals an ethical question? The first way to establish an ethical dilemma is to seewhether an ethical dilemma exists in the first place. One cannot comment on anethical conception of a prime number it is literally ethically void, or havingno ethical value at all. If nothing ethical comes out of the question thanobviously it is ETHICALLY permissible. We can establish the ethical validity ofthe question by simply defining ethics. Ethics has three main branches: Appliedethics, Normative Ethics, and Meta-ethics. Now the branch of ethics we aredealing with now is known as normative ethics. It concerns itself with what oneshould do. So the question being should one have sex with animals is indeedcoherent and it is obviously of contention between me and my opponent thereforeit can be ruled an ethical question. Animal rights and Freedom Irrelevant? Let’s imagine that non-rational animals (not humans)have no rights, no freedom, and no comprehension of anything. Let’s assumeDescartes assertion that animals feel no pain and have no souls is correct. Does it follow that one should be allowed to have sex with animals? My casewould lead us to think not. Animals and People are entitled to the amount ofrights they are able to comprehend. Hence, kicking your dog is wrong because itcan comprehend (to limited extent) pain. Even were this not true it would stillbe ethically impermissible to have sex animals. Teleological Account of Human Nature and Bestiality What constitutes a good knife? One that cuts wellobviously. What constitutes a bad knife? One that does not cut well. An agentthat performs its function well or telos is a good agent. For example, In orderfor agent A to accomplish B, A must reasonably do C. The function of humanagents as a whole is act rationally according to Aristotle. The function of themind is to produce rational thoughts a mind that doesn't is considered a badmind. Anything can be considered on basis of telos can find it’s good. What isright depends on the goal. But as Aristotle defined men, in order to be moralmust act rationally. Morality is rationality. My opponent seems to think thatbecause rationality is objective and non-changing in cannot be based onfunction. As Contradiction once said "Given a teleological account ofhuman nature, there is no fact-value distinction, for value is built into factfrom the very beginning. If the purpose of eyes is that they see, then itfollows straightforwardly given their telos that eyes which see well are goodeyes. Nature is not merely descriptive, but also prescriptive. "Ought" claims are not derived from "is" claims, butpresent to begin with". Objective purpose is inherent rather thansubjective intention. I don't intend that my eyes see they simply do. Sincegoodness is defined on what is proper for something and we have somethingobjective to evaluate its performance with we can evaluate the reproductiveorgans, which function are to reproduce using them toward some other end whereno procreation is impossible is immoral in this sense. But let’s take this astep forward, what if Teleological conceptions of morality are wrong. Duty: Deontology takes a bite out of Bestiality He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals. -Immanuel Kant Kant is the most influential deontological philosopher. Deontology is obviously a much different philosophy from teleologicalconception of morality however I believe we will arrive at the same conclusionas my previous argument. While Kant did not believe we had any duties toanimals per se we may have duties that directly affect them as we are therational being in his philosophical system. When Kant started his ethicalsystem he was very frustrated with all the wishy washy ethical systems of hisday so he proposed a stone cold non-negotiable that everyone had to follow allthe time for it to work. He proposed that morality is based in rationality andthat in order to discover whether you should be allowed to do something youhave to make the maxim a natural law and run it threw two tests: one, whetherthe world is even conceivable in these circumstances and two whether you couldrationally will to do the maxim in the such a world. Having sex with animalsfails both tests and is therefore impermissible. If it were a natural law thateveryone would be allowed to have sex with animals than it becomes permissibleto act on sexual pleasures rather than rational thought. In such a world menwould be allowed to risk life and limb for simple sexual pleasure, this worldis not conceivable. My opponent may say that men risk these things now buthaving their sexual organs bitten off isn't quite as high of a risk with afemale human rather than a panda. But let’s move on to the other test the"rational will" test, could or would rationally will to act on maxim,and honestly most people would probably agree you can't rationally willyourself to have sex with animals. The pragmatic concerns make it ethicallyimmoral because it is irrational. The sexual pleasure resulting do not outweighthe negative aspects (diseases and potential danger to self). Kant is very firmon the point that in order for an action to moral it must be rational and wecan clearly see that it isn't rational to have sex with animals. Consequentialism:The Achilles Heel of Bestiality found! Now we come to Kantian deontology's foil, antithesis toDeontology, the joker to Deontology's batman, Consequentialism. Consequentialism is the theory that actions ethical content are entirelydependent on the consequences of such actions. There are many different formsof consequentialism and while it may to some seem to favor bestiality, itreally doesn't. Let’s think of the personal implications of having sex animals,first you have the knowledge you are doing something that is not typicallynormal and if anyone finds out you know that you may be shunned(wrong or not),inciting feelings of guilt. Also you have potentially opened yourself to manydiseases along with potential diseases; typically if the sexual actions isunwelcome many animals are rather vicious. But is this the only negativeaspect? Let’s think of the societal implications, do we really want toencourage our youth to perform sexual actions on basically anything we want despitethe pain or anger it shows? Do we really want to tell our children thatbehaving sexually irresponsible is permissible? Do we need to give them morecause to act on sexual pleasure rather than rationality? The greater good seemsto slightly favor not allowing people to have sex with animals, but let’s takeit a step forward and address Ulitilitarianism the most common form of ethicalconsequentialism today(in my opinion). Does allowing people to have sex withanimals really make more happiness for the majority of people? I'd say not formany reasons. Considering the majority of people disagree with the resolutionincluding an incredibly powerful company that you may of heard of named PETA. Now I am not saying they deserve so much power but they do, and there is no wayin heck that they will let this go through easily. They will run commercials,they will get the religious right out, and they will get every bit of supportto morally scrutinize sex with animals. All that discomfort and anger is muchmore unhappiness for the majority of people versus the little amount ofhappiness you may get from sexual actions with animals. Conclusion As I do not adequate space to continue refuting theresolution I must end here, but I would ask voters to ask when considering theresolution, what is more commonsense? I will post my rebuttal next round(as perthe rules). The resolution stands negated. Works Cited1. . http://www.brainyquote.com...2. . http://plato.stanford.edu...3.http://www.threeminutephilosophy.com...