Puppies should be tortured and killed.

Hello everybody. I thank my opponent for taking this debate. I feel compelled to say that due to the nature of the debate you should vote for me regardless of the arguments of my opponent. He's in favor of torturing and killing puppies and even if I offered no valid arguments on this topic that alone should produce a win. It is not moral to torture and kill puppies. Let us look through various moral theories to establish this. Under Utilitarianism it is immoral to torture and kill puppies unless the utility is greater than for not torturing and killing puppies. Thus, one could mount an argument under a utilitarian framework that if hypothetically a greater wrong than torturing and killing puppies were to be wrought by not torturing and killing puppies then it may provisionally be moral. No such hypothetical is posed by the topic and it is open ended. I concede that there may be moral reasons to torture and kill puppies under some limited set of circumstances. However, it is far cry than an overwhelming argument that puppies *should* be tortured and killed just that they "may be tortured and killed under some hypothetical situation". Under Kantian ethics it is unacceptable to torture and kill puppies because it would violate a universal maxim. Kant argued that it unless a rule can be seen to apply universally it cannot be moral. The rule "Puppies should be tortured and killed" fails this maxim because under a universal application of the rule we would run out of puppies and the rule would no longer be applicable to anything. Under Natural Law it is unacceptable to torture and kill puppies because that would be using the puppy against its own purpose. The purpose of the puppy is not to be tortured and killed. Thusly Aquinas would argue strongly against the proposition. Under Hobbes we find that morality is based on a set of social and political contracts between individuals and groups of individuals. Within the United States and many other government it is illegal to torture and kill puppies because of animal cruelty laws. Under Hobbes ethics we cannot torture or kill puppies either. We find that regardless of the wealth of different moral theories we check there is universal agreement that we should not torture or kill puppies. As such, it seems doubtful that a moral argument could be successfully launched in favor of it. That said, my opponent offers a moral argument. --- My opponent wishes us to believe that puppies lack a conscience and thus must be punished. Punishment with a dog is used as training and while hurting a dog may at times be a useful training strategy (for dog-hurting bastards) there is no lesson which could be learned by killing a dog. Capital punishment for dogs doesn't exist. We can euthanize them, safely and painlessly in some cases but we don't do so lightly and we don't do so as a punishment. Secondly, torturing isn't a punishment. Many people make their dogs go outside when they misbehave or even a withering stare or a "BAD DOG!" suffices. Torture is never part of the equation. If killing dogs is wrong for your dog is it wrong for you as well. If your dog kills another dog it shouldn't be killed as a punishment although it may be euthanize for safety reasons, which is a far cry from torturing and killing a dog. Dogs like many species have a sense of morality and do not need to be punished in order to be moral. Just as I do not bite my dog, my dog does not bite me. My opponent asks why we should protect a dog who murders another dog, when we wouldn't do the same for a human. First, I'm against the death penalty. I categorically oppose it and thus would not support death in such a case for people. It isn't a punishment and doesn't help anybody. Next, dogs aren't people. We expect more from people because of their rational and moral understanding. We treat dogs different and often times more humanly. However, the suggestion that we should euthanize a dog when it's a danger to others is acceptable but not applicable. First, euthanasia is not torture. Second, we are talking about puppies. Puppies not much for the killing of other puppies or dogs. Third, speculation of such a hypothetical is not part of the topic. "Puppies should be tortured and killed" is not saying that "given X this one puppy may ethically be killed." Why should we protect a dog that has commited an act so bad that if it were a human we would have killed them? If a human commits a certain act, he/she/it will be punished. If that act is so bad it warrants death, then we would kill that person. Why should it change for an animal?