• CON

    Rebuttal E1) This is an ad hominem by PRO. I am not...

    Bestiality/Zoophilia should be legal and is not inherently immoral

    Rebuttal E1) This is an ad hominem by PRO. I am not "complaining", I am rebutting unclear and inaccurate assertions by PRO. E2) I now recognize PRO defining bestiality, although PRO left it open to interpretation by stating that "some other people make distinctions between these terms". I recognize PRO defining consent, but do not recognize that term as defined by PRO as having any real significance in this debate, as PRO has clearly stated that informed consent is much more relevant to the issue of legality, which per the resolution is the primary issue of this debate. E3) PRO believes that practicality is irrelevant to law. I would be rather frightened by any budgetary proposal that PRO would choose to enact, if he were given the power to enact any. Practical concerns must be considered in any legal matter. PRO states that CON's "previous attempt [at negating the resolution] has been thoroughly destroyed" without stating how. Such a statement is indicative of the absolutely vacuous nature of PRO's unfortunately verbose argumentation. My conclusion from Rounds #2, and #3 stand uncontested. E4) We can look at every single kind of food and deem it "unnecessary for survival" but this does not change the fact that food is necessary for survival, and meat is a type of food. Taken in aggregate, especially given the large quantities of meat consumed, not consuming meat would lead to lower survivability for humanity. Bestiality in any form however is not necessary for survival. E5) PRO believes he has "demonstrated logically that consent is possible and given specific examples of how it can be communicated in real life," completely ignoring that CON has provided counter-examples that show "reasonable doubt" in whether or not an animal was actually communicating consent. By ignoring CON's counter-examples, PRO drops the validity of his own examples. Furthermore, there is the very real practical issue of having animals testify in court. PRO does not address this practical issue, making his advocacy supremely impractical. PRO needs to work on clarity. There is no "negation of the two universal statements labeled 1. and 2," because PRO did not label any of his statements "universal". I have no idea to what PRO is referring. R1) PRO states that "the basic intentions and attitudes of animals are communicable to humans and therefore their consent to any given interaction is also implicitly available." PRO again does not address the issue of reasonable doubt as to whether or not the animal actually communicated intent for sexual activity, especially in the situation of the human initiating the activity. PRO then states that "communication of the information comprising informed consent is also not utilized by the law." This is absolutely ridiculous. In medical issues, informed consent is communicated via written agreement. In matters of sex, "the only way to be sure is to ask." http://www.pamf.org... I can imagine the response someone would get if they ask a dog whether or not they want to have sex. It most certainly would not involve verbal consent. R2) PRO believes informed consent is a strawman, and by doing so, drops the argument. PRO then makes the false statement that my syllogism was not categorical. There were no examples in my statement and it covered general circumstances; my statements were thus categorical. PRO's specific examples of consent by animals were most definitely not categorical. By stating "If the law sees no interaction with animals as consensual the law is incorrect," PRO is destroying the credibility of his own position in this debate by doubting the law, considering that this debate centered around legality. CON has demonstrated counter-examples that cast reasonable doubt on PRO's examples, which PRO has dropped. PRO has also not provided any categorical statements in regards to the nature of animal consent. R3) PRO is asking if a dog would notice someone raping it: "Well I’ll let the voters decide if a dog would notice someone humping them." Of course a dog would notice, but by that point, it's too late, isn't it? The dog has already been raped. The entire matter is to determine consent before potentially illicit activity begins. PRO fails to uphold burden here. PRO has not determined that consent can be categorically determined. His examples are weak and have been addressed and rebutted. R4) PRO believes that it is not necessary for purposes of determining legality for anyone to "recount for a court their decision and reasoning nor is that necessary." This is absolutely absurd. PRO does not at all recognize any practical aspect of law. PRO does not recognize any practical aspect of communication. PRO does not recognize any reasonable argumentation necessary for consent, and by doing so, fully contradicts and refutes the veracity of any "rationally ethical" position he may take on the resolution. R5) PRO's statement here is borderline criminal. PRO believes that when one has sex with someone, "only their perception is relevant," meaning that all we need to do to not rape is to think it's not rape. This is absolutely and totally absurd. Rape is rape, whether you think it is or not. It depends on whether or not the other party consented, not on the perception of the rapist. R6.2) First of all, PRO continues his ad hominem tirade and completely drops my argumentation and concedes there are parallels with hunting and military activity. Second, PRO's believes I have misinterpreted his statement, which is simply not true. If PRO finds it objectionable to kill those who have committed the “crime of being on the other side of a political conflict,” then PRO indeed "believes it is a crime to kill others "on the other side of a political conflict."" All of my argumentation in round #3 on this point (which PRO has completely dropped) applies. I ask that conduct be taken into account for PRO's repeated ad hominems against valid argumentation. PRO has dropped civil debate in exchange for petty name calling, a sure sign of a vacuous position by PRO. R7) PRO brings in the totally irrelevant point of statutory rape in order to detract from his dropping arguments on this point. Laws on rape apply to all citizens of a nation. R8) PRO has completely failed to uphold burden here. He has not proved that animals can demonstrate consent in a court of law. R9) PRO believes that "swear an oath or commit perjury or what not, those were strawmen," utterly failing to demonstrate how any legal provisions regarding bestiality can ever be practically enacted in a court of law. If it cannot be enacted, then there should be no legal provisions advocating for such. R10) PRO fails to demonstrate how one can have sex with a tree. For example, putting a penis into a hole in the wall does not constitute having sex with the wall. Neither a tree nor a wall has sexual organs. This line of argumentation by PRO is borderline trolling. R11) Empty bravado from PRO. Total failure to uphold BoP. R12) Again, PRO drops the point about animals being unable to consent to human initiation of sex with animals, which is the heart of CON's argumentation. By dropping CON's rebuttals and argumentation, PRO drops the veracity of his case. R13 and R14) Dropped by PRO. R15) PRO admits that "animals cannot reach a standard of information calibtrated [sic] to a general human populace," meaning that animals cannot viably communicate informed consent. PRO concedes his case (again) here. R16) PRO makes the ridiculous assertion that "all animal sex is rape." This is reductio ad absurdum...by this logic, all human sex would be rape as well, and consent would be impossible. CON has demonstrated the ease in which informed consent could be demonstrated amongst humans, and that animals may indeed be capable of informed consent, although they may not be able to demonstrate this capacity to humans in a court of law. CON has thus consistently maintained that interspecies communication regarding consent to sex must be categorically demonstrated by PRO. PRO has failed to uphold this burden. Consent cannot be determined in a court of law, so any instances of bestiality must be seen in a legal sense as non-consensual sex. Conclusion This has been a rather frustrating debate, mainly because despite PRO's verbosity, he almost totally and completely lacks any real argumentation. The only reason he won his prior debates was because his opponent forfeited. PRO's opening was rambling and exceptionally unclear, which did lead to CON missing some terms that PRO defined, and for that I apologize. Regardless, beyond length and verbosity, PRO does not have much going for his case other than weakly asserted examples (all of which were addressed) and the repeatedly unsubstantiated assertions of strawmanning. PRO completely dismisses the notion of legality, despite the clear wording of his resolution. It is not CON's role in this debate to provide burden, it is PRO's burden to fulfill. PRO has stated repeatedly that he will be unable to fulfill burden, and thus PRO deserves to lose this debate. Furthermore, upon cross-examination, PRO regressed to rather insulting ad hominem attacks, foregoing reasonable argumentation. I ask that conduct be taken into consideration. PRO has not even bothered to address CON's main point of argumentation, that: "One engaging in [bestiality] could then become accustomed to having sex with a non-consenting living being, and could indeed become desensitized enough to engage in such behavior with non-consenting human beings, which would indeed be the legal definition of rape." Rape is illegal, as should be bestiality. I thank readers for reading this long debate. I ask that readers take PRO's insulting remarks into consideration for scoring, and that readers keep in mind that burden of proof falls squarely on PRO for this debate, and that this debate centers around legality.

    • https://www.debate.org/debates/Bestiality-Zoophilia-should-be-legal-and-is-not-inherently-immoral/5/