According to Preference Utilitarianism, Speceisism is Morally Wrong

In this round I will provide my case in the form of a syllogism to show that assigning special value based on speceis membership alone is inconsistent with principles on which preference utilitarianism is based on. Over the course of this debate my opponent and I will argue on whether or not my argument is logically valid.Premise 1The principle of utility states that an action is morally write if it maximizes utility(happiness). This is simply the definition on which most forms of utilitarianism are built on. Different versions of utilitarianism define happiness as diferent things. This is releant to this debate in that when we apply this to preference utilitarianism, happiness is defined as adherence to one's preferences. Premise 2This principle applies to any being capable of having preferences.One of the basic tenets on which utilitarianism is based, is that pleasure is inherently good and pain is inherently bad. On preference utilitarianism, pain is when one's preferences are gone against(someone kills me, going against my preference to go on living). So any being who is capable of holding preferences would necessarily need to be taken into account when applying the principle of utility. This is why no one questions that humans are to be taken into account under the principle of utility. Premise 3 Animals are capable of holding preferences.If we are to see if animals are able to hold preferences, let's look at how we know that humans are able to hold preferences. There are three ways in which we can conclude that a person holds a preference. We'll take as an example, the preference to go on living. The three things that a person can do are:Verbally Communicate If Person A comes up to Person B with the intention of killing Person B, Person B will in most cases be able to verbally communicate that he wishes to go on living. Person A: I'm going to kill you!Person B: Please don't! I want to continue living!So obviously, when PA decides if he will kill PB, he must take into account the principle of utility because PB is capable of holding the preference to go on living. Animals in most cases cannot speak human languages though so we must look at other forms of communication.Non-Verbal CommunicationIf PA comes up to PB with the intention of killing PB, PB will, in the case that he is deaf or mute, still be able to communicate that he has a preference to go on living, either through sign language or through written language. PB can write on a paper that he wants to go on living or speak in sign language. Again, animals in most cases cannot use this form of communication so we must look for another form of communication.BehaviorAnother way we can look at someone's preference is to look at their behavior in certain situations. If PA comes up to PB with the intention of killing him, if PB tries to defend himself or run away, we can rationally assumes that he has a preference to continue living. It is with this reasoning that we can see that animals are capable of holding preferences. If you begin to beat on a dog, it will either try to get away from you or attack back. We can see from it's behavior that it prefers not to be beaten on. Conclusion 1Assigning animals lower value only on the basis of their speceis is inconsistent with the principle of utility. It is an accepted premimse in preference utilitarianism that if a being is able to hold preferences, they should be taken into account when deciding on the moral rightness or wrongness of an action that involves them. Since animals are able to hold preferences, assigning them lower value than humans only on the basis of the membership of their speceis is morally wrong. I will pass the debate on to my opponent and await his response.