Every human is unique.

Not every human is unique. This conclusion can be reached both logically and because our moral and legal structures that we take for granted require it to be false. This round, however, I will just respond to Pro's arguments. "1.) If a 6 year old child is murdered, it is not sufficient for the murderer to return any number of 6 year old children to the family even if they were exact replicas or clones. The only way to compensate the family fully would be to bring the same child back to life." First off, I concede that "a family of a murdered child can only be fully compensated [by the knowledge that] their child is returned to life." Consequently, it is possible "for the murderer to return [a] 6 year old [child] to the family" in place of their murdered child, as long as the family thinks that the returned child is their child. For example, Frederic Bourdin managed exactly this feat: he convinced a family that he was Nicholas Barclay, the 13-year old child that they were missing [1]. Thus, Nicholas Barclay is not a unique human being: in the eyes of society, he was considered to be the exact same person as Frederic Bourdin. This is because society judges people based upon their changing behaviors and appearances instead of upon more permanent characteristics; over time, it possible for people to change in almost every way imaginable, deliberately or unconsciously, as to resemble others and be completely different from the way they were before. "a.) We treat this totally different than if someone had destroyed any other property the family possesses. Often compensation is twice the value of the item plus compensation for mental distress. Why does the same reasoning not apply to murder?" Actually, the same reasoning does apply to murder as long as another equivalent child is returned to the family. Indeed, the punishment for kidnapping a person and then releasing them in a safe place is often less than that of some crimes against other people's property, since as copyright infringement. Of course, the child returned may not actually be the same as the one kidnapped; the family and all of society, however, will consider them to be the same person instead of different, unique individuals. "2.) Slavery is unacceptable." Slavery is morally wrong precisely because humans are not unique. Indeed, it is not the unique fate of certain individuals to be enslaved to their masters; rather, all people are born equal under the law and ought be treated identically, based upon societal choices and actions instead of predestination. This is why people are considered innocent until proven guilty. "a.) If humans are just another animal, how can it be morally impermissable [sic] for some animal to own the same type of animal? That is, it's not logically impossible for an animal to form hierarchies, even if they are all the same animal." Logically and empirically, it's more likely for animals of different species to form hierarchies than for animals of the same species. Humans, too, used to use superficial characteristics such as skin color to justify slavery. In fact, one of the reasons slavery was outlawed is that people started to realize that there was no master race and that skin color really was just a superficial characteristic instead of an indicator of intelligence, ability, superiority, or uniqueness. Thus, it is much less likely for animals of the same species to form hierarchies (since they all have similar abilities, similar strengths, similar weaknesses, and similar problems) than for animals of different species to. In fact, Karl Marx observed that before the agricultural revolution, human hunter-gatherer tribes practiced a form of primitive communism [2]. If Pro's claim regarding animals of a single type forming hierarchies is correct, why is it that early human societies, which consisted of members more homogeneous than those in modern ones, did not institute slavery but instead practiced primitive communism? "My argument is that any moral framework that posits those ideas can only be logical if humans are unique." Utilitarianism is logical but places a monetary value on human lives, indicating that humans are not so unique that their behaviors and actions cannot be quantified and classified. Sources 1. http://en.wikipedia.org... 2. http://en.wikipedia.org...