Sept./Oct.

Adam Roke
I negate, resolved: [Justice requires the recognition of animal rights.]

Resolved: Justice Requires the recognition of animal rights

Torrey Pines AR // Welfare NC

Rights to fair and humane treatment are not actually animal rights, rather animal welfare, which makes it by definition impossible to affirm as the aff advocates for welfare. Sunstein1 Those who want to change human practices with respect to animals fall into two different camps. Some people insist on the protection of animal welfare. Others seek animal rights. Animal welfare advocates argue for strong laws preventing cruelty and requiring humane treatment. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is committed to this basic approach. By contrast, animal rights advocates oppose any and all human use of animals. They invoke the Kantian idea that human beings should be treated as ends, not means but they extend the idea to animals, so as to challenge a wide range of current practices. These include the use of animals in rodeos, circuses, zoos, agriculture, hunting, and scientific experimentation. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the Humane Society of
the United States are committed to this basic approach.

Further, animal rights are indeed different than welfare. Katz2 Those who believe that animals can contribute to human welfare (e.g., by providing food, fiber, work, companionship, entertainment, or by serving biomedical research or education) believe that humans have moral obligations to protect the welfare or provide for the well-being of animals. How this is achieved depends upon our definition of welfare, our ability to assess welfare, and then our willingness to implement changes where problems exist. Animal rights philosophy, on the other hand, is diametrically opposed to the concept of animal welfare. The animal rights philosophy is opposed to any use of animals, holding that it violates the moral inviolability of an animal to consider it as a resource for use by people. The impacts are two-fold. First, the affirmative rejects any use of animals for human benefit. Animal testing has empirically saved millions of people and continues to do so. We rely on animals in order to live, and it would be impossible for us to be debating about this if animals had rights. Also, vote off of the concession in cx where my opponent says animal rights are rights to welfare and humane treatment. My opponent is just confused and mixing up the two different applications. Katz 2 Confusion over the meaning of the terms and the philosophies encompassed by animal rights and animal welfare leads to misunderstanding and misdirected efforts by animal scientists and animal producers. You are going to default neg as 1.) the neg burden is to defend the status quo so the aff actually has a proactive burden to do something whereas if they are wrong you automatically negate and 2.) my opponent misunderstands the resolution and defends welfarewhich I am totally okay with. There is no reason why we cannot have animal welfare, so insofar as thats true, I gain all the offence coming off of the AC and my opponents impacts and cards become completely non-unique. Furthermore, the aff must defend treating animals the SAME as humans. Katz 3 For example, even if your neighbors lungs could be used to cure all people with cancer, it would be wrong to take those organs without permission. But, if a
monkeys or a dogs or a mouses lungs could cure cancer, most people would find little difficulty making the morally correct choice. This simplistic metaphor

The animal rights philosophy argues that there is no morally relevant difference between humans and other animals. Furthermore, it is argued that animals have an interest in living and in avoiding pain, therefore humans must consider animal interests when
boils down to the basis of the disagreement between animal rights and animal welfare.
1

Cass R. Sunstein. Introduction: What Are Animal Rights, found in Animal Rights by Cass Sunstein and Martha Nussbaum. Oxford University Press. 2004. p4-5. 2 Katz, Larry S. [Ph. D Extension Specialist in Animal Science.] Rutgers. The State University of New Jersey. 2010.

Sept./Oct. Adam Roke

Resolved: Justice Requires the recognition of animal rights

Torrey Pines AR // Welfare NC

assessing our behavior towards them. This argument is frequently expanded by enumerating the characteristics in common between animals and humans. Some of these generalities include: the ability to suffer, the capacity for self awareness, intentionality in behavior, the ability to communicate, and many others. I am fulfilling the converse of the wording of the resolution true so you automatically vote negative as I meet my burden. Also, even if you arent buying any of the impacts thus far coming off of the NC, we default neg because animals can never have rights. The resolution is a question of state obligation because governments are the only actors that can administer rights as non-violable as there would be no point in affording animals rights that can be violated. They provide rights only to members of their state who have agreed to the social contract. Animals do not have the capacity to reason morally and therefore cannot agree to the social contract and cannot have rights. Vote off of this before any other argument as it functions a priori. This is where you are going to vote neg if my opponent somehow links their case into animal rights and out of animal welfare. A prioris come before everything else in a round because it handles the truth of what is in the limits of the actor that would be enforcing the resolution. If its impossible to give rights to animals by definition, there is no debate, you just presume neg. Theory is a no risk issue for the affirmative, they can run theory against non-abuse to gain an advantage that skews my way of legitimately winning the round. Reject theory shells talking about a prioris as there are multiple a prioris in the topic literature and its not my fault that my opponent didnt dive deep enough into the topic lit. Dont vote me down because I did more prep than my opponent. Also, I am being reasonably fair as there are multiple outs for my opponent that do not involve theory. Thus, I negate.