English through Debate

Homework Assignment 2
Date Assigned: 28/11/2011
Submission deadline: 12/12/2011

Imagine yourself being a member of the Affirmative Team (the one defending the resolution).
You can see that the first two debate phases are already over and you are about to start your
rebuttal of the responses to the original seven arguments. Please structure a rebuttal (1AR) to
1NC (cca 250-350 words) and re-establish your teams primary claims. Then, please try to write
at least five cross-examination questions that you could pose to the Negative Team in order to
weaken their responses (CX to 1NC).
R: Everyone Should Become a Vegetarian
Affirmative Constructive Arguments (1AC):

Negative Constructive Arguments (1NC):

1. Animals have rights and it is wrong to kill them

needlessly. Humans are animals too and it is not
possible morally to set us apart from other species.
Animals may not be as clever as people are, but a
baby is less intelligent than an ape and we do not
say that means it should have fewer rights. Like us,
animals can feel pleasure and pain, and they suffer if
they are shut up and forced to live and eat in
unnatural ways. Many religious people believe that
all life is sacred, and that nothing should be made to
suffer without need. For these reasons killing and
eating animals is a form of murder.

1. There is a great moral difference between humans

and animals. Unlike animals, humans are capable of
rational thought and can alter the world around
them. Religious people would say that humans also
have souls and a different relationship with God.
Other creatures were put on this earth for humankind
to use, and that includes eating meat. For all these
reasons, we say that men and women have rights
and that animals do not. This means that eating
meat is in no way like murder.

2. Eating meat means that animals suffer. Farming

involves animals like cows, sheep, pigs and chickens
being kept in nasty conditions and cruelly killed.
Some farming methods such as battery chickens
are crueller than others, but all are barbaric.
Supermarkets put huge pressure on farmers to
produce meat, milk and eggs at rock bottom prices,
so it is not surprising that animal welfare is neglected
in a search for profit.

2. Treating animals cruelly is wrong, but farming in

general is far from unkind. Animals are given food,
shelter and care if they become ill or injured. When it
is time to slaughter them, the end is quick and painfree. After all, unhappy and stressed animals provide
poor meat, so it is in farmers interests to look after
them well. Some intensive farming methods are hard
to defend, but that is a reason for passing laws to
protect animals better. There is nothing wrong in
principle with farming livestock.

3. Farming animals for meat is very unnatural. Some

animals do kill others for food, but at least prey
species live free and any suffering in the hunt is
usually over quickly. In addition, unlike lions or wolves,
humans are moral beings, who are aware of the
suffering they can cause and able to choose a

3. Eating meat is entirely natural. Like many other

species, human beings were once hunters. In the
wild animals kill and are killed, often very brutally
and with no idea of rights. As humankind has
progressed over thousands of years, we have largely
stopped hunting wild animals. Instead, we have

different way of life. For this reason, vegetarians

dislike hunting animals for meat (or for fun) just as
much as farming them. Farming is actually worse
than hunting as it inflicts long-term cruelty on animals
in a systematic way. Not only are farm conditions
cruel, breeding for meat, dairy or wool has created
livestock, which suffer all sorts of unnatural and
painful diseases and conditions.

found kinder and less wasteful ways of getting the

meat in our diets through domestication. Farm
animals today are descended from the animals we
once hunted in the wild. Indeed, cows, sheep,
chickens, etc as we know them today could not live
a life in the wild any more, so if they were not kept as
livestock these breeds of animal would rapidly
become extinct.

4. Humans might have the physical equipment to

eat meat, but we do not have to do so. People
should make a moral choice not to eat other
creatures. In just the same way we know that men
are capable of great aggression and physical
violence, but society says that such behaviour is
unacceptable.

4. Humans are omnivores we are meant to eat

both meat and plants. Like our early ancestors, we
have teeth designed for tearing flesh as well as for
crushing and chewing vegetable fibres. Our
stomachs are also adapted to eating both meat
and vegetable matter. All of this means that eating
meat is part of being human. Only in a few western
countries are people self-indulgent enough to deny
their nature and get upset about a normal human
diet.

5. Vegetarianism is best for the planet. Farming

animals is hugely wasteful in land plant crops
require a small part of the space to produce the
same amount of calories as livestock. Therefore, if
every human ate a vegetarian diet there would be
no need to chop down the rainforest and ruin the
land. Nor would our seas be emptied of fish and
other species like dolphins and corals, which are
harmed by the methods used to catch them.

5. You do not have to be vegetarian to be green.

Many special environments have been created by
livestock farming for example chalk down land in
England and mountain pastures in many countries.
Ending livestock farming would see these areas go
back to woodland with a loss of many unique plants
and animals. Growing crops can also be very bad
for the planet, with fertilisers and pesticides polluting
rivers, lakes and seas. Most tropical forests are now
cut down for timber, or to allow oil palm trees to be
grown in plantations, not to create space for meat
production.

6. A vegetarian diet is healthier for you. Eating a

varied range of cereals, fruits, nuts and vegetables is
a delicious way of getting all the vitamins, minerals,
fibre and protein your body needs. In fact it is meat
(and dairy) eaters who are eating unhealthily as
they take in far too much fat, protein and
cholesterol, and often far too little fibre and vitamins.

6. It is healthiest to eat a balanced diet with both

meat and vegetable products. We should eat five or
six portions of fruit and vegetables a day, but without
adding some meat or fish, it is hard to make sure our
body is getting the protein and iron it needs to be
healthy. It might be OK for adults to choose a
vegetarian diet for themselves, but should we allow
vegetarian parents to impose such a diet on their
babies?

7. Meat eating is risky as it is linked to a range of

serious illness. Almost all dangerous types of food
poisoning (e.g. E-coli, salmonella) are passed on
through meat or eggs. Close contact between
humans and animals also leads to zoonosis
diseases such as bird flu which can be passed on
from animals to humans. Hunters eating apes and

7. Eating meat is not risky compared to being a

vegetarian. Food safety and hygiene are very
important for everyone, and governments should
act to ensure that high standards are in place.
Moreover, just as meat production can raise health
issues, so does the arable farming of plants
examples include GM crops and worries about

monkeys are thought to have brought HIV/AIDS to

humans. In addition, using animal brains in the
processed feed for livestock led to BSE in cattle and
to CJD in humans who ate beef from infected cows.

pesticide residues on fruit and vegetables. None of

this means that we should stop eating meat, just that
we should ensure all food is produced in a safe and
healthy way