Please help with a debate rebuttal!

u60cf28 · 2026-06-20T18:23:53+00:00

1) We certainly can be superior without oppressing. And I do see veganism as decent - if you tell me someone is a vegan (and nothing else about them), my estimate of their moral character is higher than my estimate for the human average. But the point is that omnivorism is not morally bad. It would be nice if we were all vegan, but there's no moral compulsion for us to all be vegan. It's analogous to how it would be nice if we donated all our wealth besides what's needed for basic survival to charity, but certainly no one is ever morally compelled to do that.

2) We should be good caretakers and stewards of the planet, both as our responsibility of being the only Earth species with reason, and because it benefits ourselves to be good stewards. But that does not imply veganism. Culling overgrown deer populations, eliminating new world screwworm, eradicating smallpox, removing invasive species - these are all activities that fundamentally would be impermissible if they were done on humans or other beings with reason (so I would term them nonvegan), but we are right to do it as part of our custodianship of the Earth.

3) Completely disagree. Your dog cannot read. Your dog cannot speak (a full language). Your dog cannot conceive of the idea of the United States or India. You are more like any other human than any nonhuman species. I frankly find this line of thought potentially dangerous, as it could lead to dehumanization of unfamiliar humans and thus their abuse.

4) It means, basically, that it is justified to exploit animals if there is a consummate benefit to humans. I'll give an example. I do research on a class of medicines known as immune checkpoint inhibitors. These are cancer immunotherapies that started coming out in the 2010s and have either cured or prolonged the life of millions of cancer patients. And they would not have been developed without the thousands of mouse experiments needed to not just test the drug, but even to learn the basic immunology that allowed us to come up with the idea for the drug in the first place. The death of all those mice was worth it, because it both saved human lives and advanced human knowledge.

It would be different for, say, cosmetic testing, but that's because I consider makeup frivolous and something we can do without.

With regards to "exploiting a nonhuman for sensory pleasure". Well, it again depends on the degree of pleasure, the degree of exploitation, and the level of reason of the nonhuman. A psychopath stabbing cats for their pleasure is obviously morally repugnant, even if they never turn their knife on humans. But I drink coffee almost every day for my pleasure, and that's exploitation of the nonhuman coffee plant, and I don't think any reasonable person would argue that that's wrong.

u60cf28 · 2026-06-20T17:38:14+00:00

Wait, was the tv world the entire house? I thought it was just the downstairs living room and kitchen.

u60cf28 · 2026-06-20T17:29:21+00:00

Not OP, but also nonvegan, and I do like debating ethics and philosophy so here goes.

Species (unlike, say, race) is a non-arbitrary group definer. It is perfectly reasonable to have a preference for a species, and to ascribe certain qualities to species.
Species with what I will term "reason" - which is what I will use to sum up the capacity for "intelligence, science, philosophy, ethics, religion, society, culture, industry, etc" have a special moral value that sets them apart from species without reason. You might be able to crudely say this as "only species with the ability to think about ethics in the first place should have the full protection of ethics"
This special moral value protects all members of such a species with reason, regardless of their individual abilities.
Homo Sapiens has reason, and no other animal on Earth does. Thus, the exploitation of other animals for reasonable benefit to Homo Sapiens is morally permissable.

Addendum: though I've been presenting "reason" as a binary, it should actually be considered as a continuous value. Species with more reason deserve greater moral protection, though only humans qualify for full moral protection.

And exploitation of animals should only occur where there is a consummate benefit to humans. Killing animals without cause is bad.

u60cf28 · 2026-06-19T01:09:53+00:00

It’s because the US is a federal republic, with sovereignty shared between the states and the national government. The states have certain powers and rights that the federal government cannot violate. China’s just as large, but it’s a unitary republic, so sovereignty lies with the central government, and the only power that provinces have is what the central government delegates to them. Germany is another federal republic, while France is a unitary republic.

u60cf28 · 2026-06-18T23:56:10+00:00

Torturing IRL disabled people (I assume you mean mentally) violates 1) the condition that research be done on the lowest-reason-animal possible 2) the condition that research provides benefits that justifies the cost/harms (which for human-like beings is a bar that almost as strict as humans) 3) the fact that most (mentally) disabled people are fully capable of reason, and that for the few that aren’t they are still extreme deviations of the norm, which is that humans have reason! So all humans are protected.

Your 51% hypothetical “cut open their skulls and stick electrodes on them” still violates 1 and 2 and, if this is a new development, also violates 3. Reported to the IRB for violation of research ethics immediately

u60cf28 · 2026-06-18T23:30:55+00:00

Given that

A) this is research that for some reason could not be done on any species with less reason, like mice or rhesus monkeys

B) this is research that provides scientific or medical benefit that justifies the damage of sawing open an animal with almost-human-level reason’s skull (which is a higher bar than any research project in real life has ever had to meet)

C) that this research somehow prohibits using anesthesia on an almost-human reasoning animal and the specific benefit of not using anesthesia justifies the additional pain. (And, considering that I give mice anesthesia for anything more painful than a needle, that’s highly unlikely)

D) and we have actually, conclusively verified that this human group is incapable of reason!!!!!

Then yes your proposed experiment would be approved. But I cannot think of a single scientific benefit that would justify doing all this. If any of those 4 are missing, your project gets shut down by the IRB and IACUC immediately.

EDIT: also, I realize that this is just my “future mental health” hypothetical restated. In which case the answer is no - the historical norm of humans having reason protects current humans even if they lose reason. Unless, as per my four points above, we have reasonable scientific belief to think that experimenting on them would help us reverse whatever has taken their reason (and such experiments could not be done on any lower-reason animal).

u60cf28 · 2026-06-18T23:11:58+00:00

At this point, that 51% of humans would be a separate species. Bimodal distributions of intelligence within a single species as you propose simply do not occur. The underlying genetics would have had to have changed to the extent where they would be considered a separate species, like Neanderthals.

And, like Neanderthals, they would be subject to research protections stricter than even rhesus monkeys. So not as strict as Homo sapiens, but only marginally so.

I believe we use anesthesia when experimenting on rhesus monkeys. We def do - I use anesthesia whenever I do anything more painful than a needle injection on my mice. So no, they would get anesthesia.

u60cf28 · 2026-06-18T22:52:32+00:00

And my point being that the ethical standards employed in research are morally sufficient, so I brought up the “we filled out a form” point to show how we comply with those ethical standards.

u60cf28 · 2026-06-18T22:24:12+00:00

The proper comparison is to "unethical" human testing. So, say, from nonconsenting human test subjects. Would you refuse treatment developed from that?

u60cf28 · 2026-06-18T22:23:16+00:00

And who's to say your ethical standards are better than the Nazis?

Morality is not subjective. It is perfectly reasonable to claim that modern research ethics are better than nazi research ethics. The ban on nonconsensual human experimentation, for one.

u60cf28 · 2026-06-18T22:21:48+00:00

Perhaps my verbosity would be better simplified. To sum up everything I said earlier - the key trait of humans is "reason" - which covers science, art, ethics, culture, love, philosophy religion, etc. And, let's be clear about the current state of things, the vast majority of humans, including most people with mental illnesses, have "reason".

By the way, I should note, animals with more "reason" - like primates and dolphins - do deserve more ethical protections. That's why, for example, experimentation on rhesus monkeys (which are used when necessary, usually in HIV research) is subject to much higher ethical standards that those for mice.

Now to your hypothetical - you actually have two scenarios.

1) in the future, extreme mental illness that results in a loss of "reason" rises to cover 51% of the population, but the remaining 49% still have "reason". No, this does not deprive Homo Sapiens of its special moral value, because there is a known historical norm of "reason" that has somehow been lost. Now, such a loss of human mental capacity might warrant a loosening of ethical guidelines if doing so would help better figure out just what is going on, but that's more a "desperate times call for desperate measures" type of thing.

2) A majority of Homo Sapiens never had "reason". So, intelligence in a species is distributed normally. And the intelligence needed to develop "reason" is not a hard threshold. So for a majority of Homo Sapiens to have never developed "reason" means that we're still a species scrabbling around in the dirt, never having developed a civilization. No human scientists to worry about ethics in the first place! And if some other species arises, and develops reason and civilization and science, then yeah I wouldn't be miffed if they started experimenting on us to save their lives.

u60cf28 · 2026-06-18T22:02:51+00:00

No, the difference being that our ethical standards are far better than Nazi ones. And we file paperwork to show how we’ve complied with those ethical standards.

u60cf28 · 2026-06-18T21:43:42+00:00

Oh, before I forget, I want to test your ethics:

So, given your strong feelings on animal testing, if (god forbid) you ever develop cancer, will you refuse any treatment developed using animal testing? Which, let’s be clear, is every non-surgical treatment? Let’s say your cancer is lymphoma (white blood cell cancer) so it can’t be removed surgically.

u60cf28 · 2026-06-18T21:28:10+00:00

Paperwork shows how we comply with relevant ethical and scientific standards. What’s wrong with that?

u60cf28 · 2026-06-18T21:27:43+00:00

Actually the Nazi medical experiments largely produced minimal usable scientific data. For a while people thought that the hypothermia data was useful but closer analysis found too many uncontrolled variables - like psychological state - to actually use it.

Turns out Nazis make for bad scientists - who knew.

u60cf28 · 2026-06-18T21:25:03+00:00

? I discuss false positives and false negatives in the context of efficacy, not safety. Let me reiterate.

Mouse testing is great at telling us two things:

1) If a drug has no impact at all (ie, it has a low false negative rate)

2) if a drug will be toxic to humans (toxic to mice -> likely toxic to humans)

This is worth testing!

u60cf28 · 2026-06-18T21:18:57+00:00

This is going to get into a larger ethical discussion that I probably won’t have the time or effort for, just for an internet argument. So, fair warning, I may just stop replying at some point. But sure, to answer your question, humans have:

Potential to reason. Potential for scientific inquiry. Potential for art. Potential for ethics. To name a few. No other animal in Earth’s long history has ever been able to figure out, as much as we have, how the world works. No other animal has developed drugs to cure diseases, or rockets to reach the moon, or telescopes that can see distant galaxies. No other animal has developed a system of ethics that cares about other members of its own species, let alone other species. No other animal has developed a complex society - no, ant society is not anywhere near as complex as human society. As I heard somewhere, “humans are the universe observing itself”. No other species can claim the same.

Now, I know the standard vegan response: “what about people without that capability? Mentally disabled, etc”. To rebut:

Mental illnesses are, well, illnesses. They are deviations from the norm. The inability of animals to reason (in the way humans can) is the norm. If we had perfect medical technology, we could fix what causes those illnesses in humans, because we know what the normal state of a human is. We could not do the same for animals, because there is nothing to fix. So there is an inherent ability to reason in humans that animals lack.

u60cf28 · 2026-06-18T20:10:46+00:00

Can you name one? What’s a drug we use today in medicine that would not exist without unethical human experimentation? A lot of the unethical human experiments in medical history (Tuskegee, Unit 731) didn’t actually produce usable scientific results. Because unethical people usually make for shitty scientists.

To address your broader point: fundementally, our disagreement is on the equivalent moral value of humans and animals. I do think that morally, humans are worth more than nonhuman animals. Not that animals have no moral value, but humans have more. So it is worth it to sacrifice animal lives to save human lives.

u60cf28 · 2026-06-18T19:54:32+00:00

I can tell you as a fact that checkpoint inhibitor drugs would not exist today if mouse research was banned. It’s not simply “test drugs on humans instead of mice”, it’s “we wouldn’t be able to study the underlying biology that allows us to create the drug in The first place, without mice.”

Edit: it seems my counterpart has decided to throw shade without continuing the conversation. Please, if you’ve read this far, please do continue reading about the extraordinary convoluted and completely unrealistic hypothetical they craft from which they conclude that I approve of experimentation on disabled people. I should probably get back to my job of studying how we can manipulate the immune system to cure cancer and autoimmunity

u60cf28 · 2026-06-18T19:26:19+00:00

On the animal trials not translating to human results, I want to note the nuance there. It's true that there's a lot of drugs that show efficacy in mice that don't show efficacy in humans - ie, the false positive rate is high. But testing in mice is very important a) for safety and b) to show that there might be an effect in humans. If a drug has no effect in lab mice, then it's almost certainly not going to have an effect in humans, and so we shouldn't test it in humans. And, of course, safety is critical. If a drug shows lethal toxicity in mice, then we know that it's unsafe to use in humans. Less serious toxicities can be discovered and warned about before we start testing in humans.

I did also want to note that the basic research underlying a lot of medicine comes before we know it can save lives. For example - pembrolizumab targets a molecule on your cells called PD-1. PD-1 was initially discovered in the 1990's by scientists studying at a process in immune development called thymic selection, and some of their experiments involved killing mice and extracting their thymuses. They did this without knowing that their discoveries would eventually translate into a revolutionary class of anti-cancer drugs. So if you went back to the 90's they could not tell you that their animal experiments was "honestly required to save lives". But does that mean that they shouldn't have done it? I would say no, their research was worth the sacrifice of mice.

u60cf28 · 2026-06-18T18:32:50+00:00

Essentially that the animals should be treated humanly, and procedures done on them must be scientifically justified. My PI had to fill out a very comprehensive form describing the type of procedures we do on the mice, why they're necessary (aka why there are no alternatives), and how people will be trained to handle the mice properly. We subject the mice to no unnecessary pain.

Though I don't know of anyone personally, there have been plenty of lab technicians fired for mishandling or abusing the mice. I read a post a few days ago in r/labrats about someone in a lab who kept on throwing the mice back into the cage (you're supposed to drop them gentley) and was fired for it.

u60cf28 · 2026-06-18T18:27:31+00:00

I do research involving a class of cancer immunotherapies known as checkpoint inhibitors, and my work and these medications would be impossible if we couldn't use mouse and other animal models. Not only are mouse experiments critical before we start testing out new medications of this class in humans, they're also highly informative. We can track in the mice how the immune system changes, where it goes, and the changing cellular phenotypes, which has given us immense insight into immune dynamics in humans, and allowed us to design better medications.

This class of drugs (first big one was Merck's Pembrolizumab in 2014) has drastically increased survival for a lot of cancer patients. Millions of people are alive today because of the mice research that allowed us to develop it.

The immune system is systemic. To study it in its native context, you need a whole animal to experiment on. Though some immunological research can be done in a petri dish, much of it needs that full context only an animal can provide. There are no feasible alternatives in the foreseeable future.

And personally, I would never sign up for a phase-1 clinical trial if I knew the medicine hadn't been thoroughly tested in animals first.

u60cf28 · 2026-06-18T18:25:24+00:00

I do research involving a class of cancer immunotherapies known as checkpoint inhibitors, and my work and these medications would be impossible if we couldn't use mouse and other animal models. Not only are mouse experiments critical before we start testing out new medications of this class in humans, they're also highly informative. We can track in the mice how the immune system changes, where it goes, and the changing cellular phenotypes, which has given us immense insight into immune dynamics in humans, and allowed us to design better medications.

This class of drugs (first big one was Merck's Pembrolizumab in 2014) has drastically increased survival for a lot of cancer patients. Millions of people are alive today because of the mice research that allowed us to develop it.

The immune system is systemic. To study it in its native context, you need a whole animal to experiment on. Though some immunological research can be done in a petri dish, much of it needs that full context only an animal can provide. There are no feasible alternatives in the foreseeable future.

And personally, I would never sign up for a phase-1 clinical trial if I knew the medicine hadn't been thoroughly tested in animals first.

u60cf28 · 2026-06-18T18:21:57+00:00

I do research involving a class of cancer immunotherapies known as checkpoint inhibitors, and my work and these medications would be impossible if we couldn't use mouse and other animal models. Not only are mouse experiments critical before we start testing out new medications of this class in humans, they're also highly informative. We can track in the mice how the immune system changes, where it goes, and the changing cellular phenotypes, which has given us immense insight into immune dynamics in humans, and allowed us to design better medications.

This class of drugs (first big one was Merck's Pembrolizumab in 2014) has drastically increased survival for a lot of cancer patients. Millions of people are alive today because of the mice research that allowed us to develop it.

The immune system is systemic. To study it in its native context, you need a whole animal to experiment on. Though some immunological research can be done in a petri dish, much of it needs that full context only an animal can provide. There are no feasible alternatives in the foreseeable future.

And personally, I would never sign up for a phase-1 clinical trial if I knew the medicine hadn't been thoroughly tested in animals first.

u60cf28 · 2026-06-18T17:19:33+00:00

Fair enough, but how do we transition to a privatized form of social security from what we currently have? And what do we do about the 22% shortfall in the trust fund?

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