Instigator / Con
4
1593
rating
21
debates
66.67%
won
Topic
#3433
THBT On Balance, Excluding Cases of Necessity, People Deserve to Eat Meat
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
3
Better sources
2
2
Better legibility
1
1
Better conduct
1
1
After 1 vote and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...
Intelligence_06
Tags
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 4
- Time for argument
- One week
- Max argument characters
- 15,000
- Voting period
- One month
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Pro
7
1731
rating
167
debates
73.05%
won
Description
I am con, the contender is pro.
Cases of necessity: Any case where someone must eat meat in order to maintain their health such that abstaining from meat would lead to considerable detriment(s) to their health and/or quality of life and there is no other practical way to avoid said detriments. Examples of this can include: poverty (A person can only eat healthily if they eat meat due to a lack of money), health (a person has no other option to intake protein other than meat), etc... Those afflicted by any case of necessity related to the resolution cannot be used as a stakeholder.
Deserve: Do something or have or show qualities worthy of (reward or punishment); barring any reasons to the contrary (in the context of this resolution, inability to pay, being physically harmful, taking food from others, etc...), to have the right to eat meat.
On balance: there is more reason to believe the resolution than to not believe it such that the magnitude of reasoning is sufficient for what the resolution entails.
As it is good practice for the affirmative house to go first, I will forfeit the first round and pro will forfeit the last round. Con's first round and pro's fourth round must be ignored in their entirety when voting. For con or pro to make a speech with any rebuttals or constructive arguments in the first or fourth rounds respectively must result in the loss of a conduct point.
Questions and feedback are welcome and appreciated!
Round 1
Con
#1
I thank my opponent for accepting and look forward to a good debate! I forfeit this round as required by the rules.
Pro
#2
Thanks, Nyxified.
1. Interpreting the resolution
Define
It seems, that despite a description of considerable length, the initiative faction decided to NOT define some key terms, namely, "People" and "Meat". The two terms have appeared in specific cases where the defined terms called for examples, but never the two terms are defined. Since Nyxified has handed me the green light of going first, I will define them.
Meat: animal tissue considered especially as food
People: HUMAN BEINGS, PERSONS —often used in compounds instead of persons
It goes without saying that these are the commonplace definitions. Taken from Merriam Webster.
As a result, it is thus interpreted that the resolution is identical to the concept proposed by the statement "On balance, human beings are qualified to consume edible animal tissues, without cases of necessity".
Scope
Neither was this defined either in the topic. Con specified no groups of people, nor groups of meat, nor groups of time periods that is worth considering for this very topic. As a result, default settings will override. The boundaries for "People" is expanded to all homo sapiens that exist now, "meat" is all animal tissue that is edible, and since people has always been eating meat in the past and the future is unpredictable, the debate topic will be set to take place in a simple present tense---NOW.
2. Lab-grown meat
I am ruling out plant-based meat, although they are still edible and are(or will be) sustainable alternatives to animal-based meat. They are different substances altogether, even though they feel similar.
As much as it is an alternative, plant-based meat is just processed plants, which requires no animal flesh. However, lab-grown meat is different. It is actually made from animal flesh. [1]Stem cells can be harvested from cows and from the lab they are grown to larger strands by...mitosis and other cellular multiplication techniques. The results? The same kind of substance or mixture of substances you would expect to find in actual cows, or more exactly, traditionally-butchered beef. Lab-grown meat IS the same substance as traditional meat, and it came from the same place as traditional meat: animals. Lab-grown meat is edible animal tissue. Lab-grown meat is meat.
The main and major concern for traditional meat is that it kills animals, which is bad, as it costs innocent lives. Lab-grown meat avoids this by just gathering cells from an animal, without the necessity of killing it.
As 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen elucidates[2]:
"Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law."
Lab-grown meat does not even kill any animals, well, intentionally; let alone harm people. Not only that, it causes significantly less carbon footprint and land[3]. Plus, eating any meat in general is not illegal anywhere. There have been restriction on pork in countries consisting of majorly Muslim population, but they can eat beef otherwise. People are not barred from eating meat, nor is there no method that does not take innocent lives.
3. Consumption
It is a fact without the need to be sourced that yes, meat grows moldy, even lab-grown ones, after a finite amount of time.
[4]The world produces more than 340 metric tons of meat, in any means. [5]Note, that the meat-producing process is not single-stepped, so even if all industrial meatmakers stop now, there will still be present edible meat, or at least meat that will be edible once cooked adequately, which are definitely edible. The conveyer belts, from where the animals are slaughtered to where consumers can purchase meat, is definitely longer than zero meters. Some packed in trucks, others still blocked in supermarkets waiting to be bought and eaten. Even if the meatmaking process stops, that just means there will no more livestocks slaughtered ideally, all the meat that remains uncooked and uneaten remains uncooked and uneaten and not disappeared.
As a result, meat will definitely be sold in the short run, available to who? People. If there is a supermarket there that sells meat, anyone can buy it. Buying meat is not illegal, and yes, people do have the right to enjoy food, as some people are well capable of eating their green salad before eating their ordered and paid medium raw steak. People do have the demand too: as who would the 340 tonnes a year be made for if all people hate meat? Once bought, which is possible, they have the right to eat the meat they just purchased, even if they know full and well that they will get something else and not this after a finite amount of time passage, as meat is best enjoyed before they go moldy. Unlike purchasing and using ammunition or purchasing and consuming cannabis, and definitely like purchasing and using pencil erasers, buying meat and eating meat is not outlawed anywhere.
So yes, people deserve to consume meat for the short term, even if the meat industry stops slaughtering animals, for the sole reason that meat still exists for the short term even after the supply drops to zero and they could, would and should be consumed before they are moldy and disintegrated.
And yes, lab-grown meat is still meat. The people are probably getting that after, assuming if the halting order is perfectly executed worldwide, which is barely possible, as corporations love money and people(well, a considerable portion of them, at least) love meat. And no, there is no sufficient profit incentive to destroying all the meat specifically, it wastes food as well as costs extra energy.
4. Occupation
In this world where ethics really do matter, somehow, yes, people still require doing things and making money to live. Some of those "doing things and make money"'s involve eating meat. For example, food critics and chefs. It goes without saying, as all they are doing is making meat useful simultaneously as one makes a living, one by making food, the other by eating food and writing. Chefs should be able to cook with any edible ingredients that is not illegal or inedible(That is why you don't see many restaurants use cannabis in meals, and none with glass shards intentionally, for a reason). Meat is neither illegal nor inedible, and chefs therefore should be able to use meat. And of course, chefs should be able to master their cooking by practicing, which involves checking whether if their cookery is good or not, which means, the chefs themselves would be able to taste what they cook, in which meat is a valid choice.
Since meat is a valid choice for the chefs, they are therefore possible to be made in restaurants. As such, food critics, whose job is revolved around eating and assessing food, definitely could and would eat them(As a food critic who does not eat the food they order is impolite, obviously).
And no, this is occupation, not out of life necessity. Sure, they must keep eating or cooking to have money or motivation in life, but they can change occupations too, that is not impossible. And right now as I am typing this the local restaurant downstairs is radiating the aroma of roasted lamb chops, which tells me, yes, people are still doing it instead of just switching to another job. People can switch to these two occupations too, that is not impossible either.
And yes, meat surely creates jobs. Food inspectors, truck drivers, chefs, waitresses... Were the hypothetical scenario in which all the meat plants stopped working and no more edible meat is produced, many jobs will be lost in the long term, including some chefs with a non-vegan speciality.
I rest my case.
Verdict:
- Lab-grown meat is the same substance as animal tissue found on animals, and animals are where lab-grown meat came from, with less casualties and pollution. Lab-grown meat is meat.
- It is not illegal to eat meat, and it is possible to produce meat without intentional deaths. As a result, people deserve to eat meat.
- Were meat stop being produced, there will still be meat, in which they should be eaten...compared to letting them rot and mold and disintegrate into the trash. In this case, people could, would, and should be able to consume meat, they deserve it.
- Some occupations, such as food critics and chefs, deserve to eat what is cooked. Meat can be cooked and it is not illegal, so these people deserve to eat meat. Anyone can become a chef or food critic if they want to, so yes, people do deserve to eat meat.
Sources
.
Round 2
Con
#3
1. Intro
Thanks, Intel!
I'll admit that I goofed a bit in forgetting to define meat lmao. I didn't even know lab-grown meat (a.k.a. cultured meat) was a thing.
In my speech, I will show you why cultured meat does not adequately satisfy the on-balance nature of the resolution and why all of my opponent's other arguments operate under the assumption that meat will be banned even though the resolution has nothing to do with banning meat.
Moreover, I will present two main arguments that demonstrate why the resolution can, should, and must fall.
2. Rebuttals
2.1 Lab-Grown Meat
Lab-grown/cultured meat is incredibly niche. Only one company has actually entered the market in one country, Singapore (other companies can only operate under controlled circumstances or are in the testing phase), that company being US-based Eat Just. Eat Just charges $50 per nugget and still operates at a loss[1&2].
Lab-grown meat is not available to the vast, vast majority of people. 99.9999% of people only have access to plant-based meat (which both my opponent and I agree is irrelevant to the resolution) or meat taken from a slaughtered animal. Critically, I'm not arguing that people don't deserve to eat most kinds of meat, since this resolution is talking about meat in general. Rather, what these facts prove is that almost all people do not deserve to eat meat at all because only a very, VERY slim fraction of people have access to lab-grown meat, meaning ALL the meat that most people could ever practically acquire is not lab-based and thus they do not deserve to eat meat as I will prove, therefore my opponent's argument does not meet the on-balance aspect of the resolution. Cultured meat is such a minute fraction that it fades into irrelevance.
Cultured-meat is (relatively) very resource intensive, taking resources away from actually constructive endeavours, and for what? Just for the sake of eating meat identical to that of a slaughtered animal?
2.2 Meat Will Go Bad; Meat Will Continue To Be Produced
I'm not entirely certain that my interpretation of this argument is what my opponent meant, so I apologize if I'm missing something, but I believe their argument goes as follows:
1. Even if meat production stopped, existing meat would still exist and will go bad eventually (food waste is generally bad).
2. Buying meat is not illegal and people like to eat meat (this is what creates demand).
3. People have the right to eat meat that they have already bought (says who?).
4. Corporations would nonetheless continue to produce meat because of the profit-incentive and demand.
5. Therefore humans deserve to eat meat (at least in the short term) because it's better to avoid food going bad and corporations would continue producing anyways.
The resolution does not require any action. It does not outline that meat will be banned, nor meat will be left to rot, nor that consumption of meat will be outlawed. The resolution is simply "Do humans deserve to eat meat?" In that regard, questions of if meat should be left to rot, if it can plausibly be banned, or if people have the right to eat food that they already bought are completely outside the context of the resolution and this debate.
If meat were to be outlawed tomorrow, what to do with the meat on shelves and freezers worldwide is a necessary question, but this resolution has nothing to do with if meat should be outlawed. If humans don't deserve to eat meat, that doesn't necessarily mean meat must be banned (even if it is the next logical question after should the resolution pass, it nonetheless comes AFTER the resolution and is not DIRECTLY relevant to the resolution).
2.3 Job Losses
This argument largely has the same problem as section 2.2: it's irrelevant to the resolution.
Food critics and chefs aren't going to lose their jobs if the resolution is confirmed because, again, the resolution doesn't prescribe that we need to ban meat. That's an entirely separate discussion. Moreover, people are still going to eat the same amount of food, meaning we still need the same amount of people to judge and make the food. Plant-based meat, which has reached a point that it is quite similar to actual meat in terms of taste, texture, etc..., would likely replace normal meat even if we had to ban normal meat, meaning nothing would change for those two professions.
"Chefs should be able to cook with any ingredients that aren't illegal or inedible..."
Sidenote: I don't know why my opponent thinks cannabis is inedible. 'Edibles' are very common, legal in my country, and are most certainly edible.
My opponent insists that chefs should be able to use that which is not illegal and not inedible. Ignoring that they are using the fact meat isn't banned to argue against meat being banned (which wouldn't make sense even if the resolution demands we ban meat, which it doesn't), that's still wrong. I'll tell you why.
Again: the resolution does not outline that we ban meat. Chefs being allowed to cook with meat is an entirely separate question. The resolution talks about if people deserve to eat meat; if they have that right. Someone who has no other method of obtaining protein to live a healthy life deserves to eat meat, someone who is more than capable of not eating meat may not deserve to eat meat, but they still could.
"And yes, meat surely creates jobs. Food inspectors, truck drivers, chefs, waitresses... Were the hypothetical scenario in which all the meat plants stopped working and no more edible meat is produced, many jobs will be lost in the long term, including some chefs with a non-vegan speciality."
This argument, again, requires the assumption that we will ban meat. It's entirely possible to say that we don't deserve to eat meat for any reason and still say it shouldn't be banned because of the economic impact (this is entirely hypothetical).
If somebody were to work a job that demands work that is worthy of condemnation for any reason, while it sucks that they have to lose their job, that's not a reason that we should allow them to continue doing reprehensible work.
Food inspectors will still have work (there will still be just as much food being eaten even if the kind is different).
Truck drivers will meat replaced with other kinds of food that are still going to be needed (humans need to eat the same amount of food and thus the same amount needs to be transported [if not more because non-meat is typically less calorie-dense]).
Chefs can respecialize (and even if they can't, the impact of them losing their jobs is minuscule compared to allowing a reprehensible industry to continue slaughtering millions of animals).
Waitresses can find other work or work in a different restaurant (as I said, the amount of food being eaten is constant and thus the amount of places people eat at will stay the same).
Any impact at all exists under the assumption that meat will be banned, which again, this resolution does not demand meat be banned and thus all the impacts pro is talking about is completely irrelevant.
3. Constructive Arguments
3.1 Inherent Moral Incorrectness
Why is it wrong to kill and cannibalize humans? Obviously it is wrong to do so, but why is that the case?
To eat a human is to either kill them or let them die only to desecrate their remains. Both of these cases are morally abhorrent; I know nobody who would object to that statement. But even so, humans don't have some mystical property to them by which a human corpse is 'sacred'. It doesn't matter what your answer as to why cannibalism is wrong is, my argument will still apply.
If I had to rationalize why cannibalism is disgusting, it's because I wouldn't want to be killed for my meat or eaten after I kick the bucket. I want my dead body--the embodiment of the life that I lived and the final memory of my physical existence--to be treated kindly. I don't expect a royal funeral, but I want to be treated like my corpse matters, because as the embodiment of my life, you can't say that my life mattered if you don't treat my corpse like it matters.
Moreover, to commit murder is self-evidently horrendous. It is to end a life; to rob a being of the existence it could have enjoyed and the bountiful experiences that exist therein. Assisted suicide for a terminally-ill patient is not murder for that very reason: you aren't robbing them of a potentially joyful life by doing so, but rather are saving them from having to suffer painfully while watching themselves rot away despite their death warrant having been signed long ago.
To kill someone so you can eat them is doubly evil. It is to give neither life nor its physical remnant respect. It is to take both one's existence and their memory and brutally rip it into shreds so you can reduce their entire life into something to be chewed up.
How is none of this applicable to animals? Why do we consider ourselves to be above them so much so that we have the right to rob them of existence and force them to endure the endless suffering of factory farms? Is it our divine right to, as humans, force a living thing to, from birth to slaughter, exist and suffer because we want to eat it? Do we deserve to take a being that has emotions as all animals do, to force it to endure pain, and to desecrate its life by breaking it down to naught more than calories just because it tastes good?
Slaughtering, desecrating, and consuming animals, if it is not necessary for our own health or survival, cannot be justified on the grounds of 'it tastes good and it isn't illegal.' This is no less true for a cow than a human. A cow deserves to live a happy life just as much as a human does. A cow doesn't deserve to suffer any less than a human does. A cow lives a simpler life than a human, but it nonetheless is a being that can feel and can be, and if humans deserve to not be cannibalized, neither do cows.
I'd challenge my opponent to come up with a reason that animals deserve to die and be eaten in a way that humans don't.
There are many other reasons that meat shouldn't be eaten. Things like the environmental impact, the health detriments, the inherent unsustainability of excessive meat-consumption/production, etc..., but all of those either can be avoided under very specific circumstances or don't mean an individual doesn't have the right to do so if they so choose. I recommend anyone reading this look into it (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/commission-report-great-food-transformation-plant-diet-climate-change#close and https://www.landhealthinstitute.org/single-post/2020/07/27/Environmental-Effects-of-the-Meat-Industry to start with), but they aren't relevant to this resolution.
Bit hard to come up with arguments. Prom's tomorrow (May 26th) and I'm stressed, but ah well. I'll try to do a bit more for the next speech.
I apologize if I took a condescending or mean tone in this speech. I tend to do that at times. I thank my opponent for their speech and look forward to the next round!
Pro
#4
Thanks, Nyxified.
I will admit I have underprepared for this round due to large chunks of my time being used to prepare for an IRL public forum debate tournament(which I lost), so, sorry for the late response.
1. On Definitions
- Opponent did not actually deny that lab-grown meat is actual meat, as well as that it is indeed possible to make.
- Therefore, if people deserve to eat lab-grown meat, they deserve to eat meat.
- (Indeed, lab-grown meat is still edible animal flesh.)
I will reiterate Con's definition for "deserve".
Deserve: Do something or have or show qualities worthy of (reward or punishment); barring any reasons to the contrary (in the context of this resolution, inability to pay, being physically harmful, taking food from others, etc...), to have the right to eat meat.
In other words, if there is no moral or legal, etc, factors barring a person from eating meat, they deserve it. So far, for lab-grown meat, yes, it has none of those problems.
2. Lab-grown meat
The main concern for meat is that it takes innocent lives. Lab-grown meat does not do that, they just sample cells. If sampling cells is killing animals, then good luck never going to the hospital again for checkups, because they sample your blood like they sample cow stem cells, etc.
Then, again, there is no counter of sources regarding that lab-grown meat takes less energy and land than traditional meat. All my opponent has brought up on this point is this:
Cultured-meat is (relatively) very resource intensive, taking resources away from actually constructive endeavours[citation needed], and for what? Just for the sake of eating meat identical to that of a slaughtered animal?
And, somehow, this is what my opponent came up with. What is something else that is more expensive and less available compared to everyday standard food?
- On balance, people deserve to eat truffles.
- On balance, people deserve to drink rational doses of wine.
- On balance, people deserve to eat food with saffron.
You get my point. Just because the supply is low does not mean people deserve not to eat them. They do, it is just a matter of choice, as they are better off eating something more available and cheaper, such as plant-based meat. If I choose to take the metro subway everyday to work or to school instead of driving my car or taking the bus, does it mean that I do not deserve to drive cars or ride buses? No. That just means I choose not to. People deserve to eat truffles, as truffles are not the causer of environmental damage, at least not as much as for the meat industry. The same can be said about wine(which uses grapes, etc) and saffron.
I'm not arguing that people don't deserve to eat most kinds of meat, since this resolution is talking about meat in general. Rather, what these facts prove is that almost all people do not deserve to eat meat at all because only a very, VERY slim fraction of people have access to lab-grown meat, meaning ALL the meat that most people could ever practically acquire is not lab-based
Actually, the lab-grown meat is open to the public. Everyone can just buy it, they just choose not to. All the meat most people could practically acquire is not lab-based because is cheaper and more abundant, ignoring the environmental and moral impacts. They do deserve to eat lab-based meat as it is open to public and has none of those moral impacts and less environmental impact. People are worthy of eating them based on sheer quality.
As for quantity, most people can afford at least 10 nuggets from Eat Just per year, even if the price doesn't drop anymore. The median income worldwide is $850[1], which ensures that at least 17 nuggets can be acquired per year for the average person worldwide. Of course, they just choose not to do so because it takes a large amount of income away from them. A family earning $100,000 can simply have the ability of spending $79,000 on luxury foodstuff, and can simply choose not to do so even if they deserve to do so from a definitive standpoint.
And what is about the "one single firm" you say? There are at least 19 firms that make lab-grown meat[2]. Lab-grown meat has dropped to $10 per patty[3]. People do deserve to eat them.
Killing plants, etc
My opponent has brought upon the point that killing animals for food is wrong. OK and? Killing plants for food is wrong too, if so. If anything, lab-grown meat is MORE justified than for plants that require plucking the entire plant out, for example, potatoes[4].
(I am not an experienced biologist, and the article says so. You get the point.）
2. Aftermath Consumption
4. Corporations would nonetheless continue to produce meat because of the profit-incentive and demand.5. Therefore humans deserve to eat meat (at least in the short term) because it's better to avoid food going bad and corporations would continue producing anyways.
Not quite. Even if the large corporation stopped, there will still exist meat that can be used. Animals that are just finished being slaughtered, would you use it, or would you just leave it in the factory not having any uses for it, AFTER it is dead? This is on top of that the pollution has been done. There will be still finite amount of meat going out to the market for the sake that the meat can be used, and it should be used instead of being trashed. People deserve to at least enjoy those meat knowing pretty much all the damage that can be done for this process is done and unavoidable, and we have no technology to store meat forever, nor do we have the technique to piece together raw flesh into living animals. As a result, the most useful these things can be used for is eating.
3. People have the right to eat meat that they have already bought (says who?).
People deserve to grant use to something if it can be granted usage and it benefits humanity. If we would abandon those meat and left it for rotting and molding, then humanity would be more hungry than if we consume it. If people do not have the right to consume what they have bought knowing the damage has been done already and making use for something that is useful is better than making it useless, why? At least for this point, there will be close to no slaughtering, and there will be no impending harms for consuming meat(that is outlined). Why, then, are people still deserve not of eating meat?
The resolution does not require any action. It does not outline that meat will be banned, nor meat will be left to rot, nor that consumption of meat will be outlawed. The resolution is simply "Do humans deserve to eat meat?" In that regard, questions of if meat should be left to rot, if it can plausibly be banned, or if people have the right to eat food that they already bought are completely outside the context of the resolution and this debate
If there is no more meat being produced, and there are still meat that are left on the shelves waiting to be eaten, people are rightfully and justly entitled to eating them. Period. People thus deserve to eat those meat. Since it is concerned with whether people deserve to eat meat, no, this is perfectly within the boundaries of this debate.
3. Moral Incorrectness?
To eat a human is to either kill them or let them die only to desecrate their remains. Both of these cases are morally abhorrent; I know nobody who would object to that statement. But even so, humans don't have some mystical property to them by which a human corpse is 'sacred'. It doesn't matter what your answer as to why cannibalism is wrong is, my argument will still apply.
There are actual cultures that consider eating your ancestors sacred, and cannabalism is a ritual for them[5]. Let's not get into the fact that cannabalism is unhealthy because it has prion virus.
To kill someone so you can eat them is doubly evil. It is to give neither life nor its physical remnant respect. It is to take both one's existence and their memory and brutally rip it into shreds so you can reduce their entire life into something to be chewed up.
That is not true. In fact, we raise those animals for food, and killing for food is fulfilling their meaningful purpose. Killing an animal that is running around in the wild for no reason and eat it may be unjustified because it prevents them from fulfilling more purposes for them, but for those in the slaughterhouses, the animals live to be eaten. If we as humans don't have the right to assert superiority over other animals, why suddenly should we assign an unrelated purpose to them and insert our feelings inside them when we don't actually know precisely how they feel?
Just accept it. They are made to be eaten. If they are suddenly "freed" to the wild, they would have little ability to adapt to the external environment due to them having been fed by humans all their lives previously. If anything, they will die more painfully as we humans are trained to give an end to those animals with as little pain as possible with skill and training, but the predators out there don't.
In fact, even if the animals are suffering, why isn't slaughtering them, which stops their suffering, considered a good act, since it ensures them to not suffer anymore?
Of course a cow deserves to live a happy life, but having no knowledge of what the outside is like and little ability to adapt to the outside, what statistics show that they will have a happier life if they are "freed"? I think this is not "freeing". This is "Expelling".
I'd challenge my opponent to come up with a reason that animals deserve to die and be eaten in a way that humans don't.
Because eating humans are unhealthy and may cause you to get diseases due to the prion virus[6]. If anything, eating humans are less desirable than eating other animals. Would you choose a clean cabbage, or a cabbage that has been implanted with a chemical that could potentially kill you? Exactly. Humans are useless as food.
Humans don't deserve to be cannibalized, because not that humans are above that, but because humans are below that.
Conclusions
- Lab-grown meat is publically available. It is not that people do not deserve to eat it, they just choose to eat other stuff.
- Lab-grown meat is ethically justified and people deserve to eat them.
- There will be leftover meat even if meat stopped production. To eat the meat that still exists is making it useful, not harming anything. People are justified for doing that.
- There has been currently no evidence of that animals will be happier if they are not in the way of being slaughtered.
- These animals are made to be eaten. To be killed for food is their purpose. If anything, NOT eating them would be a disgrace to them.
- If animals hate it, why is it not that slaughtering the animals stops their suffering and is good?
- If animals like it, why change it?
- Humans are not cannibalized because humans are undesirable to eat.
- As a result, this is not sufficient to prove that traditional meat is even too unethical for humans to eat.
Round 3
Con
#5
Thanks, Intel!
Sorry to hear about the IRL debate, but I hope it was fun and a learning experience.
1. Rebuttals & Defence
1.1 Lab-Grown (a.k.a. cultured) Meat
"And what is about the "one single firm" you say? There are at least 19 firms that make lab-grown meat[2]. Lab-grown meat has dropped to $10 per patty[3]. People do deserve to eat them....lab-grown meat is open to the public. Everyone can just buy it, they just choose not to."
As I stated in my previous speech, only one company in one country has achieved market entry[1]. There are many more companies that make lab-grown meat, but there is no other company that consumers can buy from.
Look at the source I listed and you will see that there is only one company who has the market-entry box of their respective row highlighted green to indicate that they have entered the market. My opponent's source does not dispute this, it just names companies producing and not necessarily selling lab-grown meat. How exactly are people supposed to eat the only kind of humane meat if it's impossible to practically buy?
To say "anyone CAN buy cultured meat" is equal to saying anyone can go to the moon. It's not wrong, per se, but if some random Joe Schmoe wanted to go to the moon, he would have to dedicate decades of his life to meeting the educational and physical requirements to MAYBE get the chance to go to the moon. It's for that reason it's absolutely absurd to say that anyone can go to the moon.
Similarly, if the 99% of humanity that doesn't live in Singapore wanted to buy Eat Just's nuggets, they would have to:
1. Get on a flight that could cost thousands of dollars
2. Spend multiple days getting there, eating it, and flying back
3. Spend hundreds of dollars on the food (nobody is going to eat 1 chicken nugget)
4. Spend their vacation days
5. Spend tons of money on a hotel
6. Do this entire process while most likely not speaking Malay
It's technically possible, but it's so incredibly impractical that to say 'anyone could eat lab-grown meat' is fallacious. This means 99% of people do not have access to lab-grown meat and therefore can not eat any meat humanely and therefore do not deserve to eat meat at all. This satisfies the on-balance nature of the resolution.
I repeat: there's only one company in one country that sells lab-grown meat to consumers.
1.2 Killing Plants
"My opponent has brought upon the point that killing animals for food is wrong. OK and? Killing plants for food is wrong too, if so. If anything, lab-grown meat is MORE justified than for plants that require plucking the entire plant out, for example, potatoes[4]."
Killing plants and killing animals are obviously not the same thing. Animals have emotions, memories, desires, etc... An animal can experience pain, love, sadness, self preservation, etc... An animal (at least the larger ones) can 'feel' and all have a brain.
Plants cannot feel anything. They cannot be killed because they are not alive to begin with nor can they feel the pain that animals do. A plant does not have a brain to process or truly experience pain.
"Given that plants do not have pain receptors, nerves, or a brain, they do not feel pain as we members of the animal kingdom understand it. Uprooting a carrot or trimming a hedge is not a form of botanical torture, and you can bite into that apple without worry. However, it seems that many plants can perceive and communicate physical stimuli and damage in ways that are more sophisticated than previously thought." -Brittanica
I include the latter half of that quote because I expect my opponent may bring it up in his next speech. Yes, plants can communicate and perceive damage/physical stimuli, but that's not pain (even if some may say it is) because they do not have the nervous system nor the consciousness to feel pain.
"A tree falls in the woods; but whether or not anyone hears it, the tree has no regrets. Nor does it experience fear, anger, relief or sadness as it topples to the ground. Trees — and all plants, for that matter — feel nothing at all, because consciousness, emotions and cognition are hallmarks of animals alone...Cells in plants also communicate through electrical signals, according to the article. However, the signalling in a plant is only superficially similar to the billions of synapses firing in a complex animal brain, which is more than a mass of cells that communicate by electricity..." -Livescience
1.3 Aftermath
"Even if the large corporation stopped, there will still exist meat that can be used. ...would you use it, or would you just leave it in the factory not having any uses for it, AFTER it is dead? This is on top of the pollution has been done. There will be still finite amount of meat going out to the market for the sake that the meat can be used, and it should be used instead of being trashed. People deserve to at least enjoy meat knowing pretty much all the damage that can be done for this process is done and unavoidable... As a result, the most useful these things can be used for is eating."
The resolution specifies that cases of necessity are irrelevant towards the resolution. i.e. we cannot use the situations where meat is the only practical source of food, protein, etc... to claim that because they deserve to eat meat, everyone deserves to eat meat. Cases of necessity cannot be used as stakeholders.
However, cases of necessity will still exist even if the resolution is affirmed. Even if all meat production ceased tomorrow (which the resolution still does not outline), there would still be people who have no other source of food or protein and thereby deserve to eat meat and will eat that meat that is left over. I'd say that some amount of meat production should continue to exist so that people who need to eat meat can eat meat (even if I was arguing we should ban meat, which I'm not, I wouldn't demand Africans stop eating their only source of protein. That would be insane.)
The resolution, if affirmed, does not demand any action nor specifies that the meat should/will be left to rot. The resolution is only about, excluding cases of necessity, if humans deserve to eat meat; if the benefits of eating meat when not necessary justifies the unavoidable consequences of slaughtering a living being.
"If there is no more meat being produced, and there are still meat that are left on the shelves waiting to be eaten, people entitled to eat them. People thus deserve to eat those meat. Since it is concerned with whether people deserve to eat meat, no, this is perfectly within the boundaries of this debate."
My opponent is claiming that, if there is no more meat being produced, people deserve to eat the meat that's on the shelves. My opponent is operating under the unjustified assumption that I am insisting we cease production of meat. None of what I have said nor the resolution itself demands meat production/consumption is halted.
If it's determined that people don't deserve to eat meat and people choose to continue to do it anyways, that is their own prerogative. If they decide to abstain in light of that information, that is their own free choice.
People who need to eat meat will still eat meat no matter what. Meat production should continue for those who need it. Meat can be frozen and kept fresh for long periods of time.
Moreover, it cannot be argued that if meat production continues that people perpetually deserve to eat meat that's on the shelves because "the animals are already dead anyways." People continuing to buy meat will lead to meat continuing to be produced and more animals being killed. The animal they buy may already be dead, but the demand they create in doing so kills a future animal because of a slaughterhouse that is trying to match demand.
Action 1 cannot be justified only by the fact action 2 has already occurred when action 1 causes action 2 to occur again.
Consumption cannot be justified only by the fact production has already occurred when consumption causes production to continue.
1.4 Cannibalism
"There are actual cultures that consider eating your ancestors sacred, and cannabalism is a ritual for them[5]."
There are/have been cultures that consider women inferior to men. There are/have beencultures that consider blacks inferior to whites. There are/have been cultures that practice ritual sacrifices.
We can obviously recognize that these beliefs are reprehensible, and therefore the fact that their culture holds these beliefs in no way defeats intrinsic moral principles of equality and right to life. Thus it cannot be said that by virtue of a culture believing in cannibalism that it is morally just.
"...we raise those animals for food, and killing [them] for food is fulfilling their meaningful purpose. Killing an animal that is running around in the wild for no reason and eating it may be unjustified because it prevents them from fulfilling more purposes for them, but for those in the slaughterhouses, the animals live to be eaten. If we as humans don't have the right to assert superiority over other animals, why suddenly should we assign an unrelated purpose to them and insert our feelings inside them when we don't actually know precisely how they feel?Just accept it. They are made to be eaten."
Replace the word 'animal' with the word 'child' and see how self-evidently horrifying the paragraph becomes.
"...we raise those children for food, and killing [them] for food is fulfilling their meaningful purpose. Killing a child that is running around for no reason and eating it may be unjustified because it prevents them from fulfilling more purposes for them, but for those in the slaughterhouses, the children live to be eaten. If we as humans don't have the right to assert superiority over babies, why suddenly should we assign an unrelated purpose to them and insert our feelings inside them when we don't actually know precisely how they feel?Just accept it. They are made to be eaten."
To assign a living being's purpose in life as being nothing more than a lamb to be needlessly sent to the slaughter upon reaching maturity is not 'meaningful', it's reprehensible at best.
We know how an animal feels the same way we know how a baby feels: certain parts of their brain respond to certain stimuli in the same way that happens in adult humans. It's not assigning an 'unrelated purpose' to say we don't have the right to assign a living being's purpose in life is to be killed and eaten. It's not 'inserting our feelings inside of them when we don't know how they feel' when we know they can feel pain, happiness, love, sadness, etc... We can therefore deduce they have the same right to live their life as a human does.
This isn't just a case of changing the entire meaning of the paragraph either. How is it justifiable to say that we can dictate that the purpose of a living being's life is to be murdered and consumed just because it's an animal? Why is it suddenly evil to do the same for a human? This is my opponent's reasoning:
I'd challenge my opponent to come up with a reason that animals deserve to die and be eaten in a way that humans don't.
"Because eating humans are unhealthy and may cause you to get diseases due to the prion virus[6]. If anything, eating humans are less desirable than eating other animals. Would you choose a clean cabbage, or a cabbage that has been implanted with a chemical that could potentially kill you? Exactly. Humans are useless as food.Humans don't deserve to be cannibalized, because not that humans are above that, but because humans are below that."
My opponent doesn't believe it's wrong to slaughter and eat a human being, they just think it's inefficient.
"Just accept it. They are made to be eaten. If they are suddenly "freed" to the wild, they would have little ability to adapt to the external environment due to them having been fed by humans all their lives previously. If anything, they will die more painfully as we humans are trained to give an end to those animals with as little pain as possible with skill and training, but the predators out there don't.In fact, even if the animals are suffering, why isn't slaughtering them, which stops their suffering, considered a good act, since it ensures them to not suffer anymore?Of course a cow deserves to live a happy life, but having no knowledge of what the outside is like and little ability to adapt to the outside, what statistics show that they will have a happier life if they are "freed"? I think this is not "freeing". This is "Expelling"."
I am not advocating that we free all of the livestock that has no ability to survive in the wilderness, I am saying that they do not deserve this fate; that it is reprehensible that we put them in a position where they have no purpose but to be killed and eaten.
I'm saying we don't deserve to unnecessarily eat meat because of the fact our continued consumption leads to continued production and that production leads to the atrocities I have described (keyword: deserved. Still not saying we must stop eating meat).
I'm saying that they didn't deserve this. They did not deserve to be born only to suffer. They did not ask to exist, and yet, we brought them into existence only to rob them of any joy from that very existence. We brought them into existence only to make it impossible for them to live a full, fulfilling life as they were meant to.
We evolved to be happy. All animals did. We are happy when our needs our met because it ensures our survival, safety, and the continuation of the species. To be happy is the ideal end-goal of our existence because happiness is directly caused by that which continues our existence and the survival of the species.
To look at this purpose and determine that it is our prerogative to take animals from birth and to give them no purpose other than to be murdered and to not give their corpse the respect that the corpse of any living beings deserves (as I proved in my previous speech), we have committed a grave injustice.
All this resolution is about is acknowledging that injustice.
Pro
#6
Thanks, Nyxified, for this detailed response. I appreciated it very much.(This is not concession, it is just normal appreciation).
1. Just Eats and "Deserve"
- No response on how lab-grown meat is not meat
- No response on how much people make(I will add to it, it is actually $9733 per year for the average household worldwide[1])
I should restate that what people deserve to do has no direct correlation to what they actually do. I, as a 16 year old, clearly deserve to be flipping burgers at Mcdonalds, I just choose not to. There is nothing stopping me from just accepting a part-time job at the local Mcdonalds, I just don't.
And no, comparing eating a nugget to going to the moon is absurd. One requires years of military training picked from perhaps High School and not any Joe Schmo can have such physique even under infinite dedicated training. That requires more effort than a nugget, which requires little more than money.
Neither is it rational to say no one will just eat one singleton piece of nugget, they could, they just choose not to because they have better things to do than that. Nothing is barring people who have enough money, morally, legally or financially, to just go there, eat a nugget, and leave like a "chad". So, in definition, those people deserve it, they just choose not to just like nothing bars me from working in a Mcdonalds instead of typing blocks on my computer here.
The furthest flight you can go to Singapore is in NY, in which it costs only $900~$1400 per single flight[2][3]. Of course there are separate fares, but we shouldn't assume that they are straight up going to a vacation, then claim people are not rich enough for that. Even then, they are -probably- able to buy just 1 nugget. In other words, the most one needs to buy a single nugget is $2850 at bare. Look at that number. That is not even one half of the $9733 figure, of the income per capita! In other words, on balance, people are financially worthy of eating meat as they are rich enough to buy 1 Just Eat nugget which counts, and nothing bars them. Once again, they don't have to, they just deserve to the definition.
It's technically possible, but it's so incredibly impractical that to say 'anyone could eat lab-grown meat' is fallacious. This means 99% of people do not have access to lab-grown meat and therefore can not eat any meat humanely and therefore do not deserve to eat meat at all. This satisfies the on-balance nature of the resolution.
[no source on that 99% people does not have access to it] [I have the sources needed to prove it, look above]
"It's technically possible" yes that is what deserve means, as is defined yourself, to Con. People are financially worthy, they are not barred from buying nor from flights. People deserve it.
2. Plants
- So, is the "Stop killing animals" about the pain,
- Or is it about the death?
If it is about death, then obviously if anything lab-grown meat is MORE ethical than many plants, which requires no deaths.
Plants cannot feel anything. They cannot be killed because they are not alive to begin with nor can they feel the pain that animals do.
Pretty sure you can tell when a plant is dead, for example, when it is withered and dehydrated. Ohh. So it is about pain then.
We can in fact ensure euthanization of animals so much that it is not a problem. What I said in R2: We humans are trained to give an end to those animals with as little pain as possible with skill and training, but the predators out there don't. There are sources on how to kill animals humanely[4] and Con has yet to brought up any measurements that animals feel pain from the meatpacking industry, or that animals feel pain in said process at all. Animals can be killed humanely with little to no pain, just like plants, if they really do feel no pain.
Look above, voters. Con has yet to bring sources on that killing animals is painful in the industry. All Con has brought up is that yes, animals can feel, and no, plants can't. And no, bringing up how much pain animals feel would be a new argument not fit for the conclusion round, since the argument in the previous rounds is about how killing animals itself is wrong, not painful. Con singlehandedly changes the approach by saying killing plants does not count because it is painless.
So if we consider on behalf of what pain is, killing animals is not that painful, and yes we have methods of near-painless animal killing for centuries.
3. Aftermaths
Con has yet to bring up any real refutations to this argument. I am not advocating for the stoppage of meat production, but if an animal has been done slaughtered, the most we can do for the dead animal, other than to mourn for it, is to use it. How do we use animals? Meat is one use, one popular usage. We deserve to eat the meat of a slaughtered animal for the sake that if we don't, it will be wasted. Again, no comment on that not eating animals is somehow "respectable" to animals, it is the killing of the animals that does most of the damage(if killing animals is really that sinful to begin with), not eating. If anything, it is BETTER to use what would be left for those animals, compared to letting it rot.
Again, I am not advocating to stop meat production. It is just that after an animal dies, there is no damage to eating them, well almost none, and yes we are worthy of eating them. This applies not to just the whole world, but to any single meat plant or even an animal. I can just slaughter my cow(if I had one) and serve it to my mother, and even if slaughtering my cow is that bad, eating it does not share the burden with killing the cow, and my mom is still innocent for eating the beef I made, or that she would deserve it in this scenario.
4. Moral Incorrectness
Replace the word 'animal' with the word 'child' and see how self-evidently horrifying the paragraph becomes.
We don't eat children for a reason.
To assign a living being's purpose in life as being nothing more than a lamb to be needlessly sent to the slaughter upon reaching maturity is not 'meaningful', it's reprehensible at best.
[proof needed]
I did mine. Then again, if an animal started to live in the meat industry and isn't painful(no sources by Con), then the way can go. If an animal feels pain in the meat industry(Still no sources), then it would be rational to slaughter it, painlessly hopefully, so to end more pain in the long run, and it is always better to just use the meat that has been killed than to leave it a rotting carcass. If anything, it would be better for an animal to be slaughtered for meat if it is already in because we humans gave them a shelter warm enough against any pain-inducing predators and their death is a relatively less painful one. The slaughterhouse is probably better than outside for the animals and the meat better go to my plate than be stocked molded in a trash pail. In other words, for most animals in the meat industry, killing them and eating them is one of the best alternatives out there practically.
We don't do this for humans because the best outcome for most humans is not food. In fact, human flesh can inherently make you sick and that disease, Prion, has currently no stable cure. On the other hand, eating animals is probably the best they can get for some animals. I don't advocate for slaughtering animals for the long term, but for the short term, where those animals would have little or no use otherwise, eating them is the best they can get. Until animals breed to have actual uses outside the meat industry, eating them is justified because it is the best for them animals.
My opponent doesn't believe it's wrong to slaughter and eat a human being, they just think it's inefficient.
It is wrong because it is inefficient. You would not put any cow on the moon, because cows are not meant for things like this. We would not eat humans because humans are unhealthy and poisonous to eat, humans are not built to be eaten by other humans.
I'm saying that they didn't deserve this. They did not deserve to be born only to suffer. They did not ask to exist, and yet, we brought them into existence only to rob them of any joy from that very existence. We brought them into existence only to make it impossible for them to live a full, fulfilling life as they were meant to.'
minutely reminder that there had been about ln( 1 ) sources on this subject
no source(or even detailed enough reasonings) for:
- animals feel pain in meat industry
- animals are robbed of happiness when they are killed
- any superior alternative other than those animals to be eaten, any happier alternative for them
Without proof, it is thus that killing animals (humanely) for food is the best for those animals in the short term as there is no proof they get any sadder or more painful from so. Any new proof would be a new argument and shall be ignored. Me stating so that has been the case since the start is not.
With that, I conclude.
- The median income ensures that the average person can get more than 1 trip to eat lab-grown meat per year, so on balance, "people" deserve to eat meat.
- They didn't "not deserve it", nothing bars them to as they are financially worthy. They do deserve it.
- Killing plants is somehow justified because it doesn't cause pain, yet there are near-painless methods of killing animals.
- Lab-based meat is as justified as plants in this measure because it induces nearly no pain and no deaths.
- Therefore, killing animals should be nearly as justified as plants because it is almost painless.
- Con has presented no proof that animals are painful when killed, or that they feel any pain in the context at all. just that they can feel pain, that's all.
- If an animal has been killed, then eating its flesh shouldn't be considered unethical standalone.
- All the damage has been done.
- If anything, eating it is better than letting it rot for us, since the damage has been done nonetheless.
- This point, here, is still unrefuted in of itself.
- For the short term, animals that are meant to be slaughtered has little to no use outside, and the outside will just be more painful compared.
- The slaughterhouse shields them from any predators that causes pain, and even if they are killed, it is relatively painless.
- In other words, for these animals, being killed for meat is the best for what they can achieve, and eating them is the best for what we can do.
- No proof that animals are robbed of happiness or that they do feel pain in the meat industry, and neither are there any given alternatives that are better for those animals.
- Therefore, due to the present case, it is the best for those animals to be slaughtered for meat and we deserve to eat those meat in the short run.
- VOTE PRO!
I rest my case. Thanks for this meaningful discussion regarding meat, Nyxified. Please vote wisely if possible.
Round 4
Con
#7
1. Introduction
Thanks for a wonderful debate, Intel!
In my speech, I will give some brief rebuttals and defence for pro's previous speech and then go on to summarize the general themes/clash of this debate and show why con has won on all of them. I will also summarize my points and show why my opponent's rebuttals do not defeat my arguments.
2. Rebuttals
2.1 Cultured Meat
"...what people deserve to do has no direct correlation to what they actually do."
We agree, then. Just because people do not deserve to eat meat in no way means that they must stop eating meat as my opponent has implied throughout this debate. This resolution does not mean the death of the global meat industry and anyone who chooses not to eat meat should this resolution pass is doing so of their own free will.
"And no, comparing eating a nugget to going to the moon is absurd. That requires more effort than a nugget, which requires little more than money."
The comparison is purposefully exagerrated, but the principle is obvious: regarding the general population, to say an action is 'possible' is meaningless if the action is incredibly impractical.
If I asked you if you could go to the moon, it's possible, but it's so impractical that you'd say no.
If I asked you if you could just fly to Singapore any time you wanted to eat nuggets, it's possible, but it's so impractical that you'd say no.
Even if the average salary is ~$10,000, the vast majority of people don't just have $2,500 of disposable income and 3 days of free time to spend on eating horrendously overpriced food in a country, whose language they do not speak, with a different climate and egregiously overpriced hotels.
""It's technically possible" yes that is what deserve means, as is defined yourself, to Con. People are financially worthy, they are not barred from buying nor from flights. People deserve it."
I gave clear reasoning that the practicality and the fact 99.9% of people do not have practical access to any kind of cultured meat means that those 99.9% of people do not deserve to eat any meat. This satisfies the on-balance nature of the resolution. However, I won't just prove that most people can't eat Just Eats, I'll prove that the vast majority people don't deserve to either.
"...they could, they just choose not to because they have better things to do than that... So, in definition, those people deserve it, they just choose not to..."
Even if I agree that people deserve to eat cultured meat in a vacuum, as I said above, practicality means that Just Eats is not available to the vast majority of the population. However, if that does not convince you, here are reasons that people do not deserve to eat Just Eats:
Most people on Earth do not live in Singapore and need to get there somehow. People who live within driving distance of Singapore would almost all use non-electric vehicles, meaning they would generate substantial amounts of carbon.
The average car produces approx. 120 grams of CO2 per kilometer. Over 1500km (the approx. distance from Singapore to Bangkok), the average car would produce 180kg of CO2.
The average passenger plane produces 101 grams of CO2 per passenger per kilometer. Over 4000km (the approx. distance from Singapore to Shanghai), a Boeing 747-400 would produce 134,532kg of CO2.
If even just 1% of the world's population flew to Singapore to eat cultured meat a single time from an average distance of 4000km (which is generous, since that's a fraction of the Earth's circumference) on a Boeing 747-400 with an average seat occupancy of 333 (80% of the total), they would produce 33,400 tons of CO2.
1,000,000 tons of CO2 in 1 year would kill 226 people over the next century. This means that 1 person will die a preventable death for every ~4,425 tons of CO2.
In other words, 1% of the population flying to Singapore a single time (under generous assumptions) would kill ~8 people.
8 people who will never get to live their life to the fullest. 8 people who will never be able to tell their parents that they love them again. 8 people who will never be able to experience the joys of life for another day.
And for what? So we can go through immense inconvenience just to eat an overpriced emulation of the desecrated corpse of a living, breathing animal and be able to claim that it's 'technically okay'?
My apologies, but I remain unconvinced.
2.2 Plants
"Pretty sure you can tell when a plant is dead, for example, when it is withered and dehydrated."
I gave several sources and reasons to believe that plants are not alive nor conscious[1&2]. Yes, you can tell if a plant is dead or alive, but pulling a "well, actually" doesn't defeat the self-evident reasoning behind what I said.
Plants are not conscious, therefore killing them doesn't matter. To kill a plant does not lead to any of the moral problems with killing an animal (ceasation of consciousness, pain [that can only be meaningfully experienced with consciousness], robbing them of the right to live a fulfilling live, respecting the corpse of an animal as a memory of the life they lived [unconscious things can't live any life at all], etc...).
While I believe it makes sense contextually, I apologize if my wording was unclear. "You cannot kill that which is not conscious" could be better worded as "killing unconscious things doesn't (intrinsically) matter."
The reason killing plants doesn't matter and killing animals does is because of consciousness. Killing plants vs killing animals is not at all a fair comparison because plants were never conscious at all. To claim that killing a weed and killing a human is on the same level is self-evidently incorrect.
"Ohh. So it is about pain then."
It's about both the pain and the murder (which matters for animals and not plants due to what was said above).
"Look above, voters. Con has yet to bring sources on that killing animals is painful in the industry."
Google 'factory farm' and look at the images section. It's common knowledge that the meat industry's practices are abhorrent so much so that I felt it went without saying.
It is not just the murder, but the abhorrent conditions that they are born and forced to live their entire life in.
2.3 Aftermath
"...the most we can do for the dead animal, other than to mourn for it, is to use it. How do we use animals? Meat is one use, one popular usage. We deserve to eat the meat of a slaughtered animal for the sake that if we don't, it will be wasted."
- Action 1 cannot be justified only by the fact action 2 has already occurred when action 1 causes action 2 to occur again.
- Consumption (eating meat), while perhaps moral if production (slaughtering animals) has halted, is the direct cause of continued production.
- Therefore, consumption cannot be justified only by the fact production has already occurred when consumption causes production to continue.
You cannot kill an animal and then claim that you then have the right to eat it because you "may as well" or "they're already dead."
No serial killer has the right to say they "may as well" eat the children they killed, but con would insist that they might as well and that it's the most that can be done for their victims.
My opponent acqueises that meat production would continue, but would believe that the fact the animals are already dead justifies financially incentivizing the meat industry to continue killing more animals.
"If an animal feels pain in the meat industry(Still no sources), then it would be rational to slaughter it, painlessly hopefully..."
You can't just cause pain and then claim you're doing the right thing by killing them to end their pain.
3. Defence
3.1 Moral Incorectness
"(Killing and eating humans) is wrong because it is inefficient..."
I haven't truly rebuttaled this argument, but have rather stated it plainly (my opponent sees no issue with cannibalism other than it's inefficient) for a good reason: cannibalism is wrong. This isn't a hot take. We're not talking about taking dead humans and eating them, which most people would still think is wrong, but killing humans for the sole purpose of eating them.
The moral incorrectness of ending the life of a human so you can eat them is self-evident so much so that my opponent's reasoning is ridiculous.
I asked the question "why is killing an animal okay when slaughtering a human is not?"
My opponent's response throughout this entire debate boils down to "It's not. It's just inefficient."
Unless you believe that, if it were efficient/non-poisonous, there would be nothing wrong with raising people from birth to maturity in utter squalor only to kill them for the sole purpose of eating them, my opponent's position can not stand.
Assuming you don't believe that, my opponent can not answer the question I asked in a satisfactory way for a simple reason: there is nothing different.
The right to live life, to be happy, to not be murdered, and to have your corpse treated with the most basic of respect that the last remnant of your life deserves: these are rights that are applicable to a cow just as much as a human because of the instrinic rights that are afforded to conscious, living, feeling beings.
My opponent has not given a satisfactory rebuttal to the fact that a corpse is deserving of respect and that cutting a living being's life short is instrinically wrong.
I would want my corpse to be respected. If I'm an organ donor, it's not disrespecting my corpse to take my organs because I consented to that. If I said you could eat my flesh post-mortem, there would be no moral issue.
It's wrong to have intercourse with animals because they can't consent. I don't know of anyone who would disagree with this fact. You're taking their body and using it for your own desires even though they have absolutely no capacity to consent, understand what is happening, nor communicate their emotions verbally.
How is using an animal or human's corpse any different? If they have no capacity to consent, it is not anyone's prerogative to decide what they can do with it.
They deserve that basic respect.
4. Themes/Clash
4.1 Availability of Cultured Meat
My opponent claims:
- It's technically possible.
- People deserve to eat it.
- The impracticality of eating cultured meat for the majority of the populace in no way defeats the principle.
My responses:
- It is a fact that there is only one company in one location that has achieved market-entry producing cultured meat.
- It's technically possible to go to the moon. That self-evidently doesn't mean it's correct to say "anyone can go to the moon" even if it may be technically correct.
- To travel to Singapore to eat Just Eats would emit so much carbon, leading to environmental damage and death of innocent people, such that people do not deserve to eat cultured meat.
- If it is not practically possible for 99.9% of the world's population to eat cultured meat (without doing it in a way so harmful they do not deserve to do it [i.e. by emitting carbon to get to SIngapore]), 99.9% of people do not have access to any meat they can morally eat and therefore they do not deserve to eat any meat.
4.2 "May As Well"
My opponent claims:
- The animals are already dead and therefore you may as well eat them so their meat does not go to waste.
- The best way to respect a dead animal is to use their corpse for a good purpose.
My responses:
- By eating them, you are leading to the meat industry continuing to kill them. You can't justify eating them by saying "they're already dead" when eating them will lead to more animals being dead.
- It is not anyone's prerogative to decide what the respectable way to use anyone's corpse is. Nobody has the right to use any animal's body for any purpose without their consent. A horse willingly allows a human to ride it, but no animal can willingly allow itself to be eaten when it's already dead.
4.3 Morality
My claims:
- People don't deserve to be killed
- All the reasons people don't deserve to be killed apply to animals
- Nobody has the right to dictate if a corpse, human or otherwise, should be desecrated
"We don't eat children for a reason."
Let me guess: because it's 'inefficient'?
Pro
#8
Per the rules I am supposed to not write an argument here. Thanks, Nyxified, for a good debate.
Criterion
Con
Tie
Pro
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:
Analyzing the line of arguments pro makes a case from lab-grown meat, short-run availability, and occupation. Lab-grown meat is obviously the strongest argument and occupation is the weakest one, which pro drops subsequently.
Con does not dispute that people deserve to eat lab-grown meat. The implicit concession seemingly goes down from here as con argues that because the resolution says "on balance," it does not matter, this is not explained with respect to how or why. Con makes the obvious gestures toward the irrelevance of aspects of pro's case. The resolution doesn't entail that meat will be banned or that people can't use/eat meat. Just whether or not they deserve it. lastly, con builds a case by drawing a comparison between humans and animals appealing to a seeming lack of relevant moral distinction.
Pro doubles down on con's effective concession of lab-grown meat. Pro has won the debate as of now. All people deserve to eat cultured meat therefore all people deserve to eat meat. Everything else becomes irrelevant frankly.
For some other notes:
Con claims that plants are secretly not alive (I think you need to go back to biology class for that one) and repeats more claims about human and animal parallels and brings up more immaterial statistics about companies that sell lab-grown meat. The fact that not everyone can eat lab meat is obviously irrelevant to the argument that everyone deserves to eat it, which is the resolution made by the contender.
Con quotes pro saying "what people deserve to do has no direct correlation to what they do," agrees to this statement, then subsequently goes to cite reasons in respect to traveling as to why people don't deserve to eat cell-cultured meat, essentially contradicting what they just agreed to? Regardless if con agrees to this then there is nothing in the on-balance specification that would preclude cultured meat.
Con repeats the statement that awkwardly clashes with 1st grade level science: plants aren't alive, and contradicts himself again stating:
> "I gave several sources and reasons to believe that plants are not alive nor conscious[1&2]. Yes, you can tell if a plant is dead or alive"
Con says plants aren't alive and then says, in the same sentence, that you can tell if a plant is alive so con says plants are...and are not alive in the same sentence?
Pro wins hand down, arguably Intelligence_06 won the debate in the second round. Good job to both debaters. The contender contradicting their own statements multiple times only ended up tilting the debate more into pro's side.
I find Novice's vote to be as ironic as it is unsurprising
Pro-choice abortion alongside vegetarianism, let alone veganism, is a deeply sickening irony to me. Not relevant necessarily to this debate but a stance I have grown to deeply find irony with.
Hey, thanks again for the great debate, homie! Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
No. I'm still dependent on my parents and thus don't have much control over my diet. I think I'll probably become vegetarian or vegan later in my life, though.
I created this debate to prove a point to Novice, that being that, even if I lose this debate, this debate is not inherently unwinnable and I would perform significantly better and could present an actual argument that would stand up to scrutiny. Him being completely swept by RMM was the result of poor debating, not the debate topic or bias.
Are you vegetarian or vegan?
The feeling's mutual! I've quite enjoyed debating with you.
Argument ready within a day. Gotta say, I think this debate is good, and you are good too.
Good luck.