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Under what specific criteria do you believe it is immoral to harm an animal ?

As I said previously, it is difficult to place black and white categories on the immorality of animal abuse. We must handle situations as they arise.

However, bestiality is a black and white moral category. It's a wicked degrading act.

It's not the 9 qualified doctors we need to rapidly bobble our heads at, it's the 1 EQUALLY qualified doctor that insists we hold up a minute that deserves our utmost attention and consideration.

Overall, the team found no evidence that psychopaths were more intelligent than people who don’t have psychopathic traits. In fact, the relationship went the other way. The psychopaths, on average, scored significantly lower on intelligence tests. “I think the results will surprise a lot of people,” says Boutwell.

If a majority of people believe something it doesn’t make it true.

if you believe it is immoral to harm animals then you must also believe it is immoral to slaughter them animals.

Well it's a good thing that I don't consider harming animals immoral in and of itself.

You don’t need gastronomical gratification, people do need to eat (plants).

Surely there's more to eating meats than just gastronomical gratification; there are health benefits to eating meat, but I suppose that's contingent on which meat we're examining. One can survive as a vegetarian or vegan, but just as with meats, there are risks in exclusivity.

It’s not about who knows more, it’s about how far each side will go to avoid having to accept truths that are not convenient to them.

What you’ve done in this thread is akin to comparing two companies on safety, and even though one company had 200% more workplace accidents, called them both equal because both companies had accidents. And then, accused me of claiming the company with less accident was perfect and/or have done nothing wrong with regards to their safety measures because I won’t call them equal.

It is because highly intelligent people are compassionate.

Science and equality and reason and human rights all emerged together hand in hand from the Age of Reason.  The Right-wing gets its truth from church and country, the Left-wing gets its truth from consistent results.  Science and liberalism are on the same search for reasoned truth, while the Right most believes that the essential truth is already achieved.

argumentum ad populum

I’ve always wondered that. 

Nobody has inherently got the right to anything, we grant it to one another based on it being seen as optimal for each of our wellbeings to do so.

The primary function of debate is for someone to win.

I watched the cows getting milked and they didn't seem to be doing anything that would indicate they were suffering.

Morality is a personal impulse.

Your continual refusal to answer a simple question forces me to assume an answer. Based on the quoted statement, bestiality is only wrong if a person believes it is wrong. In other words, you believe that bestiality is a justifiable act depending on the individual's personal preferences.

Why can't you answer this simple question ?

Why can't you answer mine?

I personally do not condone either the abuse and or slaughter of humans or animals.

That is not a direct answer to my question. Is it wrong for humans to have sex with animals? A yes or no will suffice.

The question posed in this topic, the question that you've been dodging is,

How can someone be in favor of granting rights to animals and still fabricate elaborate excuses for maintaining modern factory farms ?

If you go back to the OP, you will see that your statement is a misrepresentation.

Me: If you care about animal consent, why aren't you vegetarian? [POST#1]

If rights are granted by humans, then humans can also take those rights away.

Is it wrong for humans to have sex with animals?  Quit dodging the question.

And does property have rights ?

Only humans have rights.

What about shocking a dog with a cattle prod every time you want them to move from one cage to another ?

What does this have to do with the original question of whether bestiality is morally evil or not?

Yes, I would consider them property.

- the role that objective empirical differences in races should play in government policy.

Civil Debate - Rule Three: Only your opponent can award points.

That's a silly rule because most debaters aren't going to award their opponent's any points. Even if they agree with you, they're just going to ignore your line of argument -- no use in wasting characters/time to give the opposition points.

I don't see that milking cows makes them suffer much.

" to keep a chicken (and or a calf and or a goose) locked in a small cage for it's entire life ?

That would depend on the needs of the animal. A chicken would do better in a cage than a dog, though neither would thrive in that environment. I would suggest that no one keep such an animal in those conditions but again, I would be hesitant to make it a black and white moral imperative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DinmXnu3PB8

I like this idea.

Do you think it's "moral" to keep a dog locked in a small cage for it's entire life ?

Dogs have certain requirements to maintain their health. Being kept in a small cage would be seriously detrimental to a dog's health. However, I would be hesitant to assign a black and white moral imperative not to keep a dog in a cage.

In this case of the cows, well they probably are better off existing rather than not existing at all.

Is a chicken more "alive" or less "alive" than a dog ?

It is just as much "alive" as a dog is. The only distinction between the two is a manmade one that is a matter of perception. But they are both just animals.

Yes, I would consider them property.  But they are also distinct because one is alive and one is not.

Have you considered that the they probably wouldn't have lives at all if it were not for the consumption of their products? Are their lives so terrible that they're better off not having existed in the first place?

I wonder what would happen if you gave a cow a button to push that would release the milking machine and open a door for them to wander freely in a field of grass ?

I don't really know, but because of selective breeding (I surmise) the dairy cows make so much milk that they need to be milked all the time or their udders get too full. Then there's injury and pain.

It sounds like you're arguing that a person has a right to have sex with their books and their chickens. Is that correct?

When you can convince a tribal warlord not to initiate any form aggression toward any other rival because it appreciates the ethics of its actions, then come back and talk to me.

Not sufficient. A tribal warlord is a moral agent, and therefore can function within a moral framework. My example with the lion was to create this contrast in moral agency between humans and non-human animals. Cultural politics does not render individuals devoid of their moral agency.

So you don't believe bestiality is wrong?

All I'm asking for is some consistency.

What makes you, a bunch of flesh and bones with a brain any more entitled to be treated with 'moral rights' than a gorilla or even a frog?

Also milking a cow isn't rape.

and then the other person ignoring what I wrote.

The closest you can get to objective truth is inter-subjective truth.