Bestiality/Zoophilia should be legal and is not inherently immoral

I am going to deal with (C5) because it affects (or not) the terminology in the rest. If you believe in such a thing as amorality then simply replace all my references of 'moral' with 'moral or amoral' in your mind. The law should not ban moral or amoral actions, only immoral ones. "if bestiality has inherent traits that make it very difficult to perform in a way that is not unethical" It does not. "I could argue that random face punching is ethical provided the person being punched happened to be committing a crime" If you did that it would not be against the law. Yet if you had ethical sex with an animal it would be. "or the person punching was motivated by true love." Motivations are irrelevant both to the law and morality. "an action which when performed is immoral 999 times out of 1000 is not immoral." You say 'an action' but there are at least two distinct actions in your example. 999 actions are immoral and 1 is not. They are not the exact same action or you could not tell me one is moral but the rest are not. Those attributes common between the 1 and the 999 cannot be the source of immorality, thus should not be the illegal elements. "Moreover, when we speak of what should be legal we aren’t arguing over individual actions but practices as a whole." The sum of moral actions is a moral practice. A law which bans a single instance of moral behavior is improper just as a law which permits a single instance of violating rights is improper. "If the overall practice of bestiality is immoral, then it shouldn’t be legal." The overall practice can't be immoral if the definition of the practice is not inherently immoral. Consider a culture where 95% of all human-human sex is rape. If you said 'overall the practice of sex is immoral' because most instances of sex were immoral you would be wrong. The immoral practice is rape. Sex qua sex is still moral. Rape should be what is illegal, not sex; even if you think the only way to stop the rapes is to outlaw sex you have no right to do so. That situation is the presumption of the opposition by the way and it's false. Based on the small objective evidence available and my experiences communicating to other zoophiles the rate of animal rape is very low. Whether it would rise if bestiality was truly and completely legal I don't know, but it wouldn't be zoophiles responsible for that change; nor your average pet owner. You have to keep in mind the typical animal has none of the human preconceptions about sex, if something makes them feel good they will almost certainly like it. An animal which is absolutely opposed to sex no matter how or when it's done is a rare individual. "We don’t legalize specific actions, we legalize a class of actions as they are actually performed." To be more accurate we make classes of actions illegal, there is no infinite list of things which are legally permissible but a finite list of things that aren't. I'm not arguing that a single instance is moral but a class of actions defined as sex with animals. A single instance can prove the class is moral though since a class is an abstraction of all equivalent actions. "To talk of some hypothetical non-representative cases bear no relevance to how law or morality actually exists." It bears full relevance since the law is a conditional, it says IF you do action X, Y, or Z you deserve to be punished (or must be removed from society or what not). The law in practice works on specific cases, whether they are representative of an arbitrary category or not. Therefore even if ethical bestiality was truly non-representative of all instances of bestiality that should not matter to a specific case being heard by the court. In that case you have one defendant being accused of one crime and it makes all the difference whether they behaved ethically or not. The law should be designed within the absolute princible that innocent people should not be punished intentionally. It doesn't matter if he/she is in the 5% of ethical bestiality, it doesn't matter if he is in the 0.0001%. A law must by definition condemn only guilty people in order to be ethical, and it can only be ethical to pass a law if that law is ethical. If there is a commonly associated immoral action, find the attribute that makes it immoral and outlaw that. You brought up an example but have ignored that this very principle is so reflected. You say punching people in the face is immoral but not all the time. Why can I go to a boxing club and punch people in the face legally then? Why can I do it for self-defense? It is not immoral all the time and the law doesn't punish it all the time despite a significant portion of face punching being immoral and illegal. (C1.2) I don't need to provide statistics, there aren't any to be had. As argued above the law operates on conditionals there is no need to know any specific prevalence rate to determine which laws are just. If you wish to use the premise that most instances of bestiality are immoral (for reasons other than the fact they are human-animal sex) then you will have to support it, I was just pointing out that is a false assumption based on what I've experienced and read. My argument does not require that I establish any critical ratios. "Allowing a practice for which there is no way to ensure moral accountability is immoral." How is moral accountability ensured in human-human sex? What if the perp kills the victim and covers up the murder too well to prove beyond a reasonable doubt? Nope it's too late you have failed to ensure the moral accountability of sex, the practice should be outlawed (of course people could just break the law then too). (C2.1) I presented an argument just not a very explicit one, as you can see the argument for ~H.3 is very similar in substance to the argument for ~H.2. The fact of interspecies sex does inevitably lead to the conclusion that at least one animal is psychologically capable of accepting their own actions. (C2.2) Actually I agreed with you that we are unique, but denied that granting consent is one of our unique qualities. The concept of consent is not rooted in human language but a state-concept inherent in the interaction of volitional organisms. If two minds choose to do the same thing or one mind chooses to allow another to do something that is consent. This follows from the definitions of permit and agree. (C2.3.1) If you know you prefer the candy bar you are psychologically capable of choosing to get the candy bar (or having someone bring it to you) which would be the internal mental element required for consent. (C2.3.2) You forget the scope, negating H.2 was only half the battle, communication was the other argument. Unless Jill is unconscious, paralyzed, or in serious fear her failure to object is implicit consent. She could say no a dozen different ways but she didn't. (C2.3.3) There was no need to redefine consent it was defined in R1. I was explaining the purely mental side of consent. Much of this section is predicated on that assumption that I am redefining consent as the intent or thought required to give consent. Thus much will be ignored. "Finally, it is unclear that animals make decisions" Very well watch the video. That's not just a thousand words, it's a thousand abstractions, it's a thousand decisions to get the object. She also performed a logical operation. This cannot be insticnt, that would be a contradiction in terms. http://www.youtube.com... "To give permission... that animals certainly do not understand." If you are certain that animals certainly do not understand what it means to have their permission transgressed then why would it be unethical to transgress it? If you are right it means nothing to the animal and no mental harm can come of it. I know my principle included consent, but that was based on (and still is) my belief that animals are quite aware that they want things and the 'golden rule' of sorts, if I were an animal I would want people to respect what I wanted. However if you are correct saying 'if I were an animal' is itself a non-sequitur because there would be no 'I' as an animal. "The overall interaction is just the aggregate of the specific details, so if one is guesswork the other is as well." No the overall reaction will be to the overall interaction. We don't know what details are contributing but we know the sum. "Pro claims animals can withdraw consent- but my point is that they have no understanding of how to communicate this." Yes they do, dogs growl when they don't like something for instance. Horses pin their ears. "the risk of pregnancy, of disease, of the impact it will have on social relations" Nope, they probably think only of how they will feel for the next few minutes. Again I do not see the reasons behind the animal giving consent as ethically relevant. We can't change their nature, and nature dictates that they won't ever do that kind of thinking. "Humans do not respond to sexual stimuli in this way." They might if no one ever told them it was unacceptable, dogs are regularly trained to restrain themselves from said behavior. (C3.1) You are not at risk if you resolve to refrain from using your superior intelligence and resources to coerce sex. This applies to everything else with animals as well. That's why consent is important, it's how you know you aren't abusing your power. (C3.3) Actually it's a good deal simpler because animals aren't caught up in human politics or culture. We don't have to worry about them being afraid of losing their job or whether someone will believe them. If they don't like something they will let you know, I mean unless you've been punishing expression for a while beforehand. (C4) Yet if a camper mauls a bear it's murder? You asserted informed consent is the only morally relevant form of consent. There was no argument to refute.