 Rwy'n edrych yn diddyfodol, Ilywodraeth, a ddweud i fy mod i mi ddigwydd gael eu mewn i Llywodraethau Ffittweinig Cymru yn yna. Rydw tu sy'n siŵr pethau sy'n oed yn fynd i wneud hynny, ddiweddyn nhw ei fod yn dweud o'i mynd i fynd i gyfnod. Byddwn arweinydd ym Chyfodwch yn cael ei gweithio arnynnu'n oed ei hanes math, ac mae'n gallu bod ymgyrch yn amlwg efo bob weithio, ym yma'r cyfoswyd yma'r twfyn cyfoswyd. On behalf of the committee, I'd just like to thank you all for taking the time to come to this debate, and a special thank you to our external debater, Joey, for giving up his time to come. Joey is a well-known animal, liberation and vegan activist with a YouTube channel that currently has an excess of 79,000 subscribers. So just before we get into it, we'll briefly just recap the rules of the structure of the debate that we use here at Fitz. So all speakers will have seven minutes to speak with no interruptions from the audience. After six minutes, I will knock just to signal that the speaker has one minute left to complete their speech. After each speech, I will briefly open the floor to both the audience and people on the panel to ask questions on that speech that they've just heard. Following the speeches from all four speakers, we'll open up the floor more generally for a Q&A directed for all speakers. Then at the end, we'll take a final vote on the motion. So before we start, I'd just like to take an initial vote and try to gauge the opinion in the room. So you have the option to abstain if you wish. So could all those who support the motion meet his murder raise your hand? OK, I'm just going to say that's 90% of the room. It's pretty split out. OK, we've got 80 to 90% of the room. And then could all those opposed now raise your hand? OK, so that's 10 and any abstentions? OK, so we've got about 7 there. OK, now I'll introduce our first speaker tonight. He's William Phelps, chairman of CUCA, an exotic meets officer for the Monday State Club campaign, a society to end meet free Mondays in Churchill College. Please give him a round of applause. Thank you very much. I thought that before we launch into the wider questions and implications that are raised by the motion at hand, we need to cut through some, I'd say, intellectual dishonesty, which surrounds the whole motion and debate as to whether meet is murder. What we commonly hear surrounding the whole meet is murder and just the wider vegan discussion are points made about free lifestyle choices, the environment, animal welfare, and the capacity for animal sentience and so on and so forth. Now what I will say very openly and very freely is that these all hold individual merit and I think they can all be discussed individually and I would argue all constitute quite a separate discussion. But separate to those and I'd say obviously, well indeed it's what we discussed this evening, we need to ask ourselves is meet murder? Not merely a moral, not merely something to be prevented, to be cut down on, to be say reviewed, but is it murder? Now the first question is well what do we mean by murder? It's a term which is commonly employed, you know we always have the slogan meet as murder, the t-shirt meet as murder and so on and so forth, but what do we really mean when we say murder? Now in a very basic sense, now forgive me, I've used the OED, not the Superior Cambridge English Dictionary, which says that murder is unlawful premeditated killing of one human being to another. Now we have to ask ourselves why is it that the dictionary and indeed the legal definition says one human being to another? And the reason I would say is one which underpins society as we know it, civil society, civil democracy, is that society is something you participate in. You take things from society, you receive certain rights, you receive legislative protection from murder, for example, as we've just shown, and you give certain things in return such as tax. And all of this is underscored by a basic belief in equality before law. And this is the crux of the argument, it's about equality, right? So all of these discussions of meet is environmentally friendly. What about animal welfare? What about the sentence of animals? I would say dodge the point slightly because its radical equality is really what we're talking about here. This evening. And in order to propose that meet is murder therefore you need to say that there is radical equality and we must have radical equality and that actually we should reduce the status of the human to that of the animal. And we must compare the animal and the human on equal footing and on equal terms. They are completely equal and we must therefore afford them equal rights. Because murder if we are to judge it in the social sense we must therefore be legal about it and we must say that if I were to kill a human it's murder and if I were to kill an animal it's murder. We must grant equality. But to any person of sound mind I will say that this I think is ridiculous. On the one hand we have the implications of such a view. If we're going to afford legal equality to animals what other social qualities must you afford them? Should animals pay tax? Should they be able to vote? Should they indeed go to prison and be able to own property? And you may laugh, you may say oh this is reductionist. But really this is the sort of logic you open yourself up to when you use such extreme terms such as murder. When you say ah to eat meat as murder because that is really what lies at the core of the issue. And furthermore if I were to hit a rabbit with my car should I go to prison for manslaughter? If I were to go rabbiting for example as any rural man has want to do should I be tried for murder? If we introduce this idea that meat as murder and that animals are radically equal in America should I face the death penalty for shooting a rabbit? And again I think to most people of sound mind the answer is no. And why is that? I'd say on the one hand it's because as humans as sort of brethren in species we know that there is a certain quality to us that is I would argue more complex. That is a certain set of emotions of desires and a world view which animals simply don't have. We are a separate species. And I think taking this into account combined with the very troubling implications of such radical absolutism the view that for example the death of an infant child is to be held equal to the death of a goat raises serious questions. So what I would argue at this core is I'm not going to criticise the vegan choice. I'm not going to criticise concerns for animal welfare. Concerns about the environment, concerns about the harmful health effects of meat. They're all completely valid and I think deserve discussion. But to suggest that meat is murder and to take the implications of that and say well look we should afford radical equality to animals is simply not a sustainable view to take. The implications are dangerous and I would argue it actually denigrates both the states of man and animals in society. So I would fully support and encourage concern about animal welfare, concern about animal rights, concern about the environment and about health. But declaring meat is murder I would say is not the right way to do it and for that reason I would urge you to oppose the motion. Thank you. I will briefly take a few questions from the audience. Eric at the back. So once you suggested that you asked rhetorically should we give animal voting rights, should we send them to prison? So I think we'd all agree that the killing of what would say a one-year-old child would be murder. But we don't give babies the responsibilities of citizens, we don't send them to prison, we don't ask them to vote. There's no reason that respect for something for a right to life implies responsibility as a citizen. No, I think that's obviously a valid point. I'll stand back up. No, it's a valid one nonetheless. And what I would say is that do we believe that babies have the same capabilities and abilities that an adult man has? Would we trust a baby to vote? Would we trust a baby to drive a car? Would we trust a baby to carry firearms? The answer is no. And the reason the answer is no is not because we believe that babies are inferior or of a completely lower status. It's because we recognize that we are different as grown people, different to them. In the same way that I would argue, we must recognize in virtue being humans that we are different to animals and therefore must treat them differently, not in a notion of radical equality. I've got a question. What is that difference? What is the morally significant difference between an infant baby and a lamb like you suggested that gives us justification to stab a lamb in the neck with a knife, take their life from them, and for some reason, killing that baby child, that human child, would be considered murder. But there must be some morally significant difference as to why it's not considered murder to take the life of that lamb. Now, the whole moral discussion, it's a big one, and I think we'd go on at length. But what I would ask in return, and I think this sums up the issue, is you must ask yourself, would you feel as comfortable killing an infant child as you would a goat? To which the answer I would hope is no. Now, I try not to be intuitive and intuitionist when it comes to morality, but I think the fact there is that block in the first place suggests that there is something of a hierarchy of treatment. I mean, it's difficult in what you say, because if you take like the massacre in Rowan, or things like that, I wasn't there, so I didn't experience. But it became very easy for a human to kill another human because they weren't of the right type. And it sounds a lot of what you say is I could imagine a slave master talking about why those group of people don't have any rights, even though they were human beings, they were different and rightless. And it just seems that, okay, that was then, but we're now. And we do understand that there are beings that can experience joy and happiness and a sense of freedom, the desire to be a parent to the lamb or whatever, or the lamb to dance. So it's very subjective, your view. You have your cultural belief that it's okay, you were brought up that it's okay to have killed animal on your plate. I was brought up that way. But as you become aware, then, of course, your morality can change because it's an awareness. It's a subjective point of view. No, of course. I think cultural relativism will always play a part in these discussions. But equally, if you're arguing that morality is completely subjective, you could say, well, maybe tomorrow or in 100 years' time, our morality will shift to the point where we have, we're slaughtering 10 times the animals we need and we are effectively employing the meat industry on steroids. I think that relativism is not a, I wouldn't use it as a base to contravene what I'm saying as such. But I think in response to the idea that maybe animals do have this sense that we don't appreciate, I think that's fair enough. It inverts you of having a sort of a being brethren in species and appreciating our wants and our needs. Indeed, not just the needs of those in the West but the needs of those in the East as well who are poorer societies can't afford the replacements that are often espoused, you know, sort of different types of milk and so forth. We do need to take into account, I would say, that there are certain arbitrary lives that need to be drawn, that there are certain things we can do or indeed should be able to do to animals. I think perhaps then it becomes more an issue of how do we treat the animals and how do we take them through that process. But obviously, no, it's about a point. OK, well, I'll take one more question from the audience then we'll move on. Joe at the back. Usually your argument for saying that killing a human is murder, killing anwysm, is too direct on some kind of difference in properties between those two things, meaning that one in one case the killing forgets murder and the other the killing doesn't forget murder. I don't think it doesn't seem like you quite outlined what exactly that difference is. Sounds like a suit. I mean, I think we need to appreciate what murder is and what the law is and what these terms are. They are legislative properties which are imparted by a society encoding them into law. And so in order for me to commit murder or to steal something, we need to have certain legal beliefs. And as I sort of outlined very roughly, admittedly, and I'm sure any HSPS student will tear me to pieces for it, is effectively the view of how society works and that society is by participation and with that you receive certain protections. And so I would say for that reason I can murder a human but I cannot murder an animal because that sort of legal franchisement and that legal protection is not extended to animals. And the only way it could be is by granting them the sort of equality and the sort of recognition which, as I've proved, is actually very, very dangerous. And so if you do respect the right of humans and animals as different and having different needs and different properties and different wants and so on and so forth, you cannot therefore classify it as murder. Unfortunately we'll have to move on. If you have any further questions you can of course ask them at the end. Now that being said, I'd like to introduce our second speaker, Louise Harris, who's a third year student here at Fitz. OK, so is meat murder? The Oxford Dictionary Definition, as Will has just said, is the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another. Clearly if we were to use this definition, meat wouldn't be murder because meat in the context of this debate is a flesh of a non-human animal. But the question is why is murder wrong? What is it about murder that's morally wrong? It's the deliberate and needless taking of a sentient being's life against its will. So that will be the definition I use today and I'll be showing you how meat fulfills every one of those categories. It's needless, it's the deliberate killing of a sentient being and against their will. So point one. Meat is murder because non-human animals who are killed for their meat are sentient. Sentience is a capacity to feel, perceive or experience subjectively. So that involves feeling pain, emotions, having awareness of your surroundings and so on. There is consensus among scientists that non-human animals have sentience. In 2012, an international group of prominent scientists signed the Cambridge, so right here, Declaration on Consciousness, in which they proclaimed their support for the idea that animals are conscious and aware to the degree that humans are, the same degree. And that list of animals was all mammals, birds and even the octopus. So, and they also acknowledged that consciousness can emerge in animals that are actually very unlike humans, including those that evolve from different evolutionary tracks. So therefore, we are not unique in possessing neurological substrates that generate consciousness. So, if non-human animals are conscious, they're sentient, just like us, why does it mean what's the difference between taking their life and taking our life? As you said, you wanted to separate animal sentience from this discussion, but if a human wasn't sentient, then would we consider it murder? Sentience is kind of key to this debate. So, some examples of sentience for non-human farm animals who are killed for their meat. So, sheep can recognise up to 50 other sheep's faces, remember it for two years. Cows show excitement when they discover how to open a gate leading to a food reward. Lame meat chickens choose to eat food which contains a painkiller. They feel pain, emotions perceived and are aware, they experience subjectively. And it can be argued, so it's not just murder, meat taking, the life of a sentient being, but it's worse because the meat industry is a lifelong suffering for these animals. That's because, generally, factory farming accounts for the vast majority of global meat production. For example, just in the US, factory farms raise 99.9% of chickens for meat. So, in factory farms, these animals are confined to tiny enclosures or cages. Chickens, for example, have less than an A4 page amount of space, they can't move. They pumped with hormones antibiotics. Chickens have their be extreme without an aesthetic at day one of age. Many attack each other or eat each other due to the stress of being kept in confined conditions. And even the process of slaughter can involve suffering. So, for example, gas chambers. These are in the UK, Australia, in multiple countries. Footage shows pigs screaming and thrashing as they gasp for air inside the gas chambers in an Australian, the biggest pig avatar in Australia, that was video footage. And constantly, people who go into factory farms to film the slaughtering process have found that actually the law, which you say is so important, has been broken in so many cases. Animals are being kicked, slapped, stamped on, improperly stunned. And many of them actually aren't sufficiently stunned so they are conscious when they are killed. So, as you say, they will be hacked in the throat whilst they're conscious. So, it's not just murder, it's not just death, but it's also lifelong suffering. And because they are sentient, it means it's wrong. Point two, so even if the animal, let's say, is stunned sufficiently so they're unconscious when they're killed, the idea that this is somehow humane is ludicrous. What's humane about ending a sentient being's life against their will when they want to survive? Do they not have a right to life? Well, let's take a dog. We love dogs. Who here is like the Facebook page, Dogspotting? Raise your hands if you have. Okay. And who's like Cowspotting or Pigspotting? Okay. So, even a small number of people, there's still a difference. Why is there a difference? That's because how we view them. Cows and pigs and sheep, then maybe not as cute or fluffy. They're not publicised in the media as being funny or smart because we are conditioned to believe they're products, not individuals with identities. But research shows, again, they're not just a sentient. Pigs are smarter than three-year-old humans. They can play video games. They're just as smart as your cattle dog. But they taste good. Let's say your dead dog tastes like chicken. Would you eat it? Probably not right. You know, people in the UK will sign petitions against the dog meat trade in China. Research reveals that one of the reasons is because we see pets to have complex minds like us. Once we are made aware through education that farm animals have these complex minds, have sentients, then what is the difference? Why is killing a dog murder in most people's view in Western society? So then why is killing a farm animal not murder? So I don't see the difference there. Okay, point three. Meat is murder because the killing of animals for meat is needless in most of current society. So some people try and compare meat consumption to a lion hunting. There's not just one difference there, but one main one is that a lion's body is designed for meat. They're a carnivore. They don't have digestive systems to digest plant food, but we do. If they don't hunt that meat for survival, they will die. We will not. In our case, it's not a matter of whether we need meat. It's more greed. We do it because it tastes good. It's traditional culture. I'm not saying that everyone in the world, in every situation, it is murder. If there's someone in a rural village in a third world country, they have the only food source available to them as meat. That's their only way to survive. Then can you see it's needless? But when we're looking at the context of meat in our society, the majority of meat consumption is by first world countries. And we simply just do not need meat to survive. It's a luxury. If we wouldn't support ivory trade or trophy hunting, which are fun activities or luxury products, why would we support the meat trade? Finally, you made the point that clearly murder is to do with humans. Meat isn't just the murder of farm animals, but also humans. This is because the meat industry can be seen to perpetuate world hunger. Recent studies have shown that we already grow enough edible crops to feed not only the current human population, but the one projected for 2050. But that requires us to go vegan. That's because the plants that we're growing are going, 34% of those are going to animals. They could be going to humans and they wouldn't be starving and dying. So it's murder for us as well. Thank you. So firstly, any questions from the audience? They're just the hand of that there. I would just like to ask, if you are opposed to the killing of sentient creatures when there's not an assay, for example, to stay someone's life, what's your opinion on abortion when the woman's life is not in danger? When the woman's life is not in danger. I see the similarities you're making because it's the taking of a life of a sentient being, but here it's a lot more complex issue. If that woman isn't ready to have a child or there's a lot of complex issues there, it's interfering with her own well-being. Whereas whether you're eating meat or not is not going to interfere with your life in any tangible manner. So it's clearly needless. I'm just slightly curious as to the way you're addressing murder. Because you said that if there was a villager in an underdeveloped country who ate meat, that wouldn't be murder. And that murder is apparently now defined as needless waste. Surely that firstly doesn't accord with the definition you gave at the beginning and secondly is just you saying this is murder. And therefore I'm going to classify needless waste but not an underdeveloped nation's village consuming meat as murder. Because if you want to be logically consistent shouldn't you say that all meat consumption is therefore murder. Because animals should therefore be equal. My definition is that meat is murder because it is needless. So to me if two humans are on a desert island and in order for one of them to survive they have to kill the other, to me that just isn't murder because they're doing it out of the need to survive. You might define that differently. I've got a different view on that. I think there's more of a reason but I don't think it's morally justified if you and I were on a desert island and I killed you to survive. I didn't need to do that. I mean we're both as sent in as each other and we both have, you know, I think that's still murder personally. And I don't think that some, I don't think there's, it's always murder for me. I think it's to be consistent across the board. Animal products in third world countries are a luxury. So to say like rice is less accessible than you know a sheep maybe some hunting scenario but for me it's not moral. They might have more of a reason, more of a justification there than you do over here. Any further questions before we move on? Yeah Louise. We're talking about meat as when we kill for example sheep or well cattle. But what's your take on insects for example? If we eat an insect is that murder, is that meat? So scientific research on sentience is consensus about, sorry, consensus about the sentience of mammals and birds. As far as I'm aware like the research on insects is inconclusive. But I mean in my view it's always best to give like the benefit of the doubt, the benefit of the doubt. If you don't know if something's sentient you should, you know, you should prioritise trying to avoid eating what's kind of most sentient or that's you know is sentient. Okay. I'd like to introduce the second speaker for the opposition Patrick Newton. Third year student here at Fitz and also president of the debating society. Hello everyone. It is a pleasure to be here tonight honestly to see so many of you here at an event. Yeah it's great and I'd like to thank everyone who's made tonight possible. Now in all honesty my position in this debate is far closer to Joey and Louise and it's my partner and I hope that he has appealed to those of you in this room who share his views but I do not. I think that the meat industry as it is is murderous. And I agree with everything that Louise has said on the horrors of the meat industry as she has called out battery farming etc. But my speech is not here to argue with that. I'm going to be explaining how meat and the direction it is going actually is moving from being murderous to not murderous and is the way to move forward into a future where meat isn't murder. The most effective way to do that is to vote that meat isn't murder. And that's for one very simple reason. We live in an age of developing technology where cultured meat is becoming cheaper and more productive by the year. The first cultured hamburger was produced in 2013 and over the last few years it has become a cheaper and more available food source. It is still a luxury product but if the history has taught us anything it is that technologies get cheaper, they get faster, they get more effective. So let me be clear. The meat industry as it is is murderous but the future of meat and the direction it is going disconnects the product of meat from an act where you must kill a being. This is a huge disconnect in the argument where the meat industry as it is now is murderous but the future of meat is not. Now there are plenty of you here who are very aware of the hearts of the meat industry. I'm sure that the opening vote has made that very clear alongside the arguments of Louise and Joey. But there are plenty more who are not at this debate and people like my partner who will never be convinced by the argument of Govegan who will retain eating meat to the day they die out of stubbornness. I'm sure those of you who are involved in vegan organisations are aware of these people and have come across them, right? What is the way to win them over? What is the way to convince those people to stop murdering animals? It is to transform meat itself. It is to change the underpinnings of their debate and to move meat away from when it is murderous to when it is not through changing technology and a transforming world. Therefore I urge you that when you leave here tonight you argue that meat is not murder. Not just because you know meat tastes nice or they're not really human or battery farming doesn't matter because you know they're chickens or whatever. I urge you argue that meat isn't murder because of a changing world which disconnects meat from the killing of a sentient being and that means that we can convince those who are never going to stop eating meat that they do not have to kill to get their things. Thank you very much everyone. Thank you very much. Okay any questions? Right we'll go with the gentleman at the back. So meat is using regenerative techniques similar to stem cell research to grow exactly the same compounds as you would get in a live animal in a lab. So the process of it is actually incredibly similar to the process of vertical farming in that you grow in a lab or in a factory using scientific methods a product that is not involved a live animal that is ever sentient. So I think that falls quite clearly under the definition of meat. Do you agree? But animal based cells. But it's one at a time so if you have a question please raise your hand and he will call you one by one. Okay we'll go with the lady at the back. How many people here have had children or cultured meat? Because as far as I'm aware that the most of the meat here is animal culture. Yes, yes. So I agree if we aren't moving forward to growing it in lab right now with the type of time I think it's murder. Okay. I've not but it is growing and it's one of those kind of weird trendy niche restaurant things. But what I would say is a reason that I would agree with you that the majority of meat as it is now is murder. But let's not sell the principle because once we sell the principle it's much harder to convince the people who are never going to convert right? I'd say that if you want let's keep the debate open. Let's say that meat isn't murder when there is a technology which we can pursue to win over meat eaters to a product which doesn't harm animals. Does that sound like a fair response to you? What we can do right now and what is happening right now are different. So cultured meat exists and it separates the principles of meat being murder versus the majority of what is happening. So there are clear examples in the world today where meat isn't murder. So the principle is kind of hard to sell. And I would say that if you sell that meat is murder as a principle today it becomes much harder to convince people who are never going to move on to the alternative. So of meat which has grown in labs. Thank you. Can we take two more questions? There's the lady at the back. Well earlier I kind of got the impression that the fact that killing the animal was part of it in the sense that you, the guy in the picture, were saying how it's kind of like an assertion of human superiority. And I wonder how you would feel about labgro meat knowing that it's not asserting authority anymore. Is that putting animals equal to humans? How do you feel about that? Cos I don't think labgro meat would satisfy all meat eaters because as you were saying before it's the fact that you seem to want to feel superior. This is more a question for you than it is for me. A few things there. The first with regards to human superiority in that point, it's less a want to feel superior. It's more I would argue a social necessity purely due to the implications that arise when we start judging animals to be completely equal. I mean as I said if we want to have a logically coherent society we would have to grant them rights which with the example of a baby shows we just can't feasibly do. So it's less about want. And with regards to labgro meat, I've much preferred the real thing myself. I've never had labgro meat. So the way that sort of satisfies the whole superiority discussion I'm again I'm slightly confused throughout the question there. But what I would say is that to declare it as murder taking into account the points about labgro meat is effectively not only a baseless reduction of meat if you do have hope for labgro meat in the future as has been said, but also thinking back to the early point quite a dangerous approach to take if we are to have a society in which humans can flourish and animals can be treated as separate beings but with their own rights in turn. OK, we'll have one more question and then we'll move on to doing. Thank you gentlemen, am I far right? Are you not asking us to answer two questions in one both taking as a question of whether animal based meat is murder versus cell culture based meat? I mean the question is very different. Yeah, I think if the debate was is animal meat murder I wouldn't be on the side of the argument right? I'm just saying let's not sell the principle because this question has to include both. It has to include the potential for a future when as this technology takes off and becomes more mainstream people are able to eat more widely available a meat that clearly isn't murderous. Yeah, so I think that's a really good point. What I would say is don't go out of this room and don't vote against the principle of meat. Cast your vote against the current state of the meat industry and it's abominable practices. Yeah, so they are two different questions. No it wouldn't because it would mean if you do that you vote that meat is murder. You would be cutting off an option which allows the future of meat to be separate from murder. But that's not the question in front of us is it? Okay, but I have one more question and then we have to move on after that. I mean there was a distinction with oat milk and plant based milks not to be called milks and cheeses and yoghurt's because the dairy industry in the US and Europe said milk has to come from an animal. And I have a feeling that you're optimistic that cellular based lab meat will have the same right because it comes from animal genes. But you don't know, the industry may say they may see it as a threat to their market and their industry and want it differentiated and then class it not as meat. So let's see what the future holds and what classifications fall into place as the tech grows. But at the moment lab grown meat occupies the exact same cellular structure. It has been able to replicate tastes. It has exactly the same resting principles. What differentiates it is cost and production. Yes, and lack of consciousness, which is exactly why you should vote that meat isn't murder because it's that key separating degree. So this is a meat which results in people in beings not being murdered. So doesn't that prove the point? Okay, we're going to have to move on. And finally, I'd like to introduce our fourth speaker, Joey Carpstrang, vegan activist. We give him a round of applause. All right. Hello everyone. Thank you everyone for your interesting positions and ideas. So the first thing we got to get off the table is the word murder because really this is a play on words, isn't it? Like the word murder bears weight and we're over here said that the most used definition, but not the only definition is the unlawful premeditated killing of one human by another. Don't you worry, I hear it all the time. Probably here at five times a week by people defending their meat eating. But that's not the only definition. So if you're going to go into the dictionary to use definitions of words, there are many nonanthropocentric definitions of the word murder. So Collins dictionary has to kill brutally to kill inhumanely or barbariously. And you could, we can't deny that robbing someone of their sentence can never be humane. I mean, unless they are suffering or, you know, we make them suffer. Then we robbed them of their sentence or we keep them in these happy farms and then we robbed them of their sentence. So I think that fits perfectly what we do to animals. Merriam, Webster dictionary are to slaughter wantingly. So these definitions are all up there online. These all apply to animals. So just based on semantics alone, based on the definition alone, meat is murder. Meat, a product of murder. Now, I get into these semantics battles a lot. Is artificially inseminating a cow rape. Is, you know, subjugating sentian animals slavery. Is shooting an animal in the head without moral justification murder. I don't think there's a significant moral difference between animals and human beings. Now you might say, well, that justifies us killing them against their will for an unnecessary reason and an unjustified reason. So you might say, well, you know, we are superior. We're obviously more intelligent. Animals don't have iPhones and I'm like, you know, they can't vote in court. But so can't certain humans. Some certain humans are born with a mental disability. Do we treat them in a way that, you know, breaches their right? Of course we don't. Of course we don't. A human baby. Now you said, oh, should we assign a human baby rights? Human babies have fundamental rights protecting them. Protecting their liberty, their freedom, protecting them from abuse. We touch a child. Where do you go? Prison. OK, so they have rights. And you say, like, no, we can't equate babies with animals. Well, a pig. Higher sentience, higher in intelligence with the fourth most intelligent animal on earth. OK, just before chimpanzees. And what's the next one? Well, they're the fourth really, really intelligent things. I mean, you could argue that a human baby is just nothing more than, you know, a dribbling, you know, they just, they don't really have much to offer the world. OK, but we would never rob them of their sentience. We'd never abuse them. They have fundamental rights protecting them. The right to drive a car, get a licence and to vote. I mean, some humans don't even assign those rights. I'm talking about fundamental rights of liberty, bodily integrity, the right to live, the right not to be enslaved and subjugated and murdered. Cambridge Declaration of Consciousness. Wow, it was signed right here. OK. Now, no one's going to argue that animals aren't sentient. I don't think anyone in the scientific community of any merit thinks animals are not sentient. Or, and, well, I mean, it's quite obvious that they are. There's someone inside of there. Someone with wants, desires and needs. Someone who wants to avoid, you know, pain. They have the desire for well-being. So what is the difference between us and animals? Where we feel like we're morally justified to, you know, subjugate them, to steal their children from them, to put them inside of gas chambers, rip the flesh off of their bones, stick knives into their throats. What is the difference, the morally significant difference between them? OK, because we could argue there are humans of, you know, if you believe in sentience hierarchy, lower sentience than animals contribute less to society than animals could. But we'd never rob them of their rights. So I think legality and morality get conflated and mixed up and confused. What's legal isn't always moral. I mean, just look 200 years in the past to see that slavery was once legal. It wasn't moral. And I would argue that there is no morally significant difference between us and animals that justifies killing them. And for that reason, I think to murder a human is just as morally unjustified as murdering an animal, OK? And I think we should assign animal rights, just basic rights. The right not to be treated, just what actually, I just asked for one right. The right not to be treated as property, as someone else's, as a product, OK? That's all I would assign them. You know, you don't have to give them a license and stuff like that. I understand that. So there's also a crime by law called murder by proxy. It's not where you with a knife kill the animal yourself or you with a knife kill a human yourself. You assign others to do the job for you. Murder by proxy Charles Manson, famous serial killer, was charged with murder by proxy. He got life in prison, OK? When we purchase animal products, it's not us putting a knife in the animal's throat, but it's murder by proxy. Second hand murder. So I feel like you didn't really answer the question, Will, about what is the difference between animals and humans that justifies a knife in the animal's throat, a moral treatment of human beings. And I'm happy to bang out what that difference is and we can apply that in the animal context and see if it justifies stabbing them. But also you threw us a curveball, Patrick, with the cultured meat idea. I think we focus on the three trillion animals that are murdered annually for flesh and not the three companies that are bringing out prototypes for cultured meat when we have thousands of plant-based options already. But we can also argue that the meat inside a coconut is also meat and that that's not murdered too. But I think for the benefit of this debate, meat is definitely 100% just as murderous as shooting a human child in the head, in my opinion, and that's it. OK, I'm going to just open up the floor specifically for Joey's speech and then we'll open up the floor more widely. So Lauren. With pets, we are in a bit of a pickle with domestication. Domestication is a problem that human beings created. OK, we created that problem and you know what the alternative is to rescuing those animals, which it's the most vegan thing we can do is rescue animals from shelters. They get a needle in the arm and they go, you know, they get killed, they get euthanized or sometimes they're gas chambered. So the most moral thing for us to do is to control them from breeding so we have less of this problem and rescue them from shelters without otherwise being killed. OK, we can't let animals free, domesticated animals free in society because they get collected by the RSPCA and taken to a shelter and if they're not rescued by someone they're killed. So we have no option with that. But is meat murder? Yes. Is the flesh of a dog murder? Yes. Just a sort of feeling what I've last asked just so we're 100% sure of what we're dealing with here. And it's a very simple yes or no question. Would you feel the same way about killing a baby as you would a chicken? Just sort of your binary yes or no? Would I feel the same way? As if you had to kill a chicken and a human baby. My feelings on killing... Yes or no, would you feel the same way about... Well my feelings on killing... Yes. Right, OK. Yes, but my feelings on... Yeah, I would. Yeah. My feelings on killing a human baby and a chicken have got nothing to do with the morality of it. So you kill a baby as easily as a chicken? So my feelings on the topic have got nothing to do with it. OK, noted. So... They're fair enough but we've got it. Well, I can throw that back at you. OK. So for you as well the same that you asked him. So if you know about the atrocities of the animal agriculture, you say yourself that you still prefer the real thing as you said. So knowing how badly the animals are treated, knowing that the animals suffer when they die, knowing the environmental impact on it, what is your justification for carrying on doing it? Well, I think that's a separate question to the idea of meat as murder because as I said before... Oh. I mean fair enough because actually before this evening I honestly didn't think that there were people who could say I could kill a human infant child as easily as I could a chicken. And maybe I'm wrong. That's a straw man. Maybe I'm wrong. That's a straw man. I remind people that it's Q&A. No, sorry, I obviously misheard it. But the point is that there is a quality of difference, quite frankly, and that actually humans I think, as we can all see, and I would say probably intuitively feel, have a certain level of sentient complexity which is above and beyond. Not all humans. Not all humans though. Sorry, please can I... This is Joey's Q&A, so I'll ask him questions. You'll have more chance to argue with him, so don't worry. So we'll take two more questions directly for Joey and then we'll open up the floor more generally. So yeah, just a hand there. I can't see just him. A controlling of animals breeding. The thing, if we would not hold a double standard if there was a problem like that for human beings, okay? So if there was a problem that was uncontrollable, like what's happening to domesticated animals, what's the alternative? The alternative to not controlling their breeding is they get murdered in a shelter. So this is the most vegan option we have. But is meat murder? Yes, so I feel like this isn't even on topic, but it's fine we can go out into this moral grey area. But for me and other vegans, the most vegan and moral thing we can do is rescue these animals and control their breeding. Otherwise, what do we do if we just let them lead them to the devices and let them breed more puppies into existence? There's more numbers and guess what, more cows, sorry dogs, pigs, cows. They're all the same to me, you see. No species isn't here. More dogs are going to get killed in gas chambers. But is dog meat murder? Yes, is cow meat murder? Yes, is pig meat murder? Yes. Also, there are differences between humans and animals. There are, but what is the difference that justifies us stabbing cows in the throat and not human beings? There's a significant difference. Yes, there's differences in sentience. Maybe this elephant's more sentient than a mouse. But does that mean we should walk up to a mouse and step on them, kill them? What is the difference that morally justifies us stabbing cows but not an infant child but not some human being of lower sentience or intelligence? There are plenty of them. We treat them morally and we assign them rights. What is the difference? It's a double standard. I'll take one more question and then we'll open it up for Lee. Any new hands? OK, we're going to draw it at the back. I feel like my provider has always rather has a small, so-compatible, brand more or larger. To me at least, in my case, semantic and sentient interpretation that brings me to birds seems to be one principle. Whereas if any instance of meat falls into the set of things which are murder, so I would I think it would not be very, very, very significant moral points and arguments which fall into the one that I'm asking. But it would just be that what you've established there seems to be that animal meat is murder which is, yes, it's very it's a very essential premise but that's not the same as saying that all meat on principle is murder which is, I think, an example where in some enforcement factories meat does not deserve and in this scenario no, I think you haven't said anything wrong at all and I'd say that it doesn't for me at least and you might have a difference of date or location with you. It doesn't prove the principle that this is murder. It proves the principle that's hitting that. Yes, exactly. Joe, would you like- Can you repeat that question? Where does the word meat originate from? I think we've got plant-based meat alternatives too that you could call meat and we call the plant-based alternatives chicken but are they directly murdering a chicken? No. But in coconut meat is that murder? No. And cultured meat if they don't exploit an animal they might take a cell and create an infinite amount of chicken flesh and didn't murder anyone in the process. Is that murder? No. I'm not going to argue that that is murder. But I think for the 3 trillion animals that are stabbed and have the flesh ripped off their bones that meat, the 3 trillion a year a conservative estimate 2.7 million trillion marine animals and yes, my friend. Can we take- Sorry, should we take two votes at the end of this then? Is meat murder the topic that was actually placed before the murder which is exactly what you have argued and everyone in this room probably agrees with. Should we take two votes? No. I mean, I think, well, at least I think we all went into it into this debate saying it is meat as we commonly understand it murder. Yeah. It's a little careful. I mean, have we want to take it I'll leave it to the powers that be. No, I'm just making this fun I guess it's semantic. Obviously we're going to take one vote but they are two very different topics aren't they? Well, we could say is milk exploitation of a cow and you could say well what about coconut milk you know what about oat milk and then the debate's finished. I mean, clever but yeah. Gentleman at the back. I'm sorry, could you say who you are directing the question to if you are directing the question to If you are directing the question to is a man. You've got one question because you've got a lot of people to get through. Okay. The reason that I want to ask my general question you mentioned would you feel different killing a sheep for an infant then you can ask would you feel different killing an infant for an old person there is a difference however, I am on the side that there is a very big difference between killing an animal and killing a person and you keep asking for difference and in my opinion it is for a certain new t-shirt that I don't even know what to do is hope evidence where is your evidence of that animals can't hope or desire or want or avoid pain and suffering well, we do hope is not like love hope is a complex emotion that requires something more full-time and personally I don't know if there is suffering in a gestation crate I think they would hope they would be released soon if you harm an animal for long enough and they are suffering and then you release them out into a green field and let them free and then you bring them back into harm I think they would hope to be out in that green field soon what you are saying is they don't have any memory they don't have any desires I think science is on the side of the complexity of animals emotional range and their intelligence I mean going up against science there brother sorry we have more questions to get through who is next exactly we will go for the gentleman there in the yellow shirt fine picture how do you feel if an alien species came along with a higher sentence than us and more intelligent or evolved and farmed your mum, you to be fair to be fair generally when people call my mum a cow it is a less roundabout way but fair enough it is not an insult cows are beautiful obviously in virtue of being a human and knowing my capacity for sentience and knowing the complex levels of emotions that we as humans feel I would have a definite and set series of emotions about it but I think which I believe is what we are trying to do to analogise that then to animals I don't think it is quite right because we have heard Joey say animals can do this that and the other they can hope, they can experience love which I am not going to deny it right because I obviously don't know the science as well as you but I think that there is uncertain ground there I think that to completely anthropomorphise the feelings of animals which is what any discussion of animal feeling is at the end of the day is as I said shaky ground and so to try and analogise in that way just isn't quite accurate but if anything it is a testament actually to humour sorry again question and answer we have way more people to get through who is next or a gentleman here at the front my questions for Will when Patrick was talking and he was describing the lab meet versus meet from an animal he said that basically there is no trade difference except sentience you turned around and said I'd still prefer the animal meet why would that be when the only trade difference is sentience well admittedly I think Patrick knows more about lab growing than I do is more off the cuff mark with regards to taste there is no trade difference well maybe that is the case and in that case fantastic if we can cut down the carbon footprint maybe we should welcome lab growing meats but I have no experience of them and just from personal experience I would say I would go for the murder he would go for the murder he would prefer to go for the murder so let's take the total number of meat eaters in this world you are going to have some the kind that go fox hunting but there is a group of people who probably want to be vegetarians but like the taste there is probably a tradition there they grow up meat eaters so I would say that the market of people can potentially be moved to lab growing meat as the product becomes far more refined of more than three companies there was a time when there were only three companies making computers that will convert you will have a bunch of people who will forever the same reason some people still hunt elephants and poach tigers now for completely horrendous reasons but I think that it does open a future for a world where meat remains on the menu but non-murderous I think my question is more for the vegans because I kind of understood that you were both vegans but they would be based on meat and other things that people who don't eat meat are on necessities vegans because some eat eggs or honey or milk but for example if there are chickens in a field and you come across a leg because they lay eggs you don't use and then they fill if you eat that egg it's that murder of course it's not if you come across an egg in a field there's no sentience in the egg murder is to rob someone of their sentience in a dropped egg that's like asking if eating a piece of animal feces is murder I think using animals as products is inherently immoral animals are viewed as property as resources, as egg laying machines as slaves essentially they're not looked at as like you so graciously display they're not looked at like anything more than to step on your boot and use his flesh shoot them in the head, treat them like nothing they can't even be considered murdered they can't be considered raped they're not even considered at all and I think this is a huge problem when you see a chicken what do you see an egg laying machine someone to walk like do you see a bird do you see an intelligent individual that is sent in they look after their young they want to live just like other animals do they probably want to live just as much as a baby does there's traits of intelligence in animals that supersede traits of intelligence in human babies like newly hatched chicks they can recognise their siblings upon hatching something that a human baby can't do they display something called object permanence where if you cover up an object to a baby chick they know that object still exists even if you cover it up but a human baby thinks it's disappeared that's why you can play pickaboo with them so they display great intelligence in human babies do they have more moral value then or do we have different traits of intelligence and that doesn't determine moral value this is a problem this question is for the meat is murder side I would assume they're against for example sweets that contain gelatin would they also so they would consider sweets containing what would be murdered who you are addressing they is it vegans ok would you also extend to say organic is murder because organic is fertilised with manure from the animal so you would say what was the gelatin part first and then we'll go into the manure part would I be right to assume you'd say sweets that gelatin is murder by proxy meaning if if you're funding animal agriculture with gelatin ok if you're subsidising their costs if you're making their costs cheaper and you're funding them then you're funding a murderous industry ok and the addon to that was would you by the same reasoning say that organic vegetables are murder because they use that manure I would say that there's a full on complex topic ok but we have it is so complex because there's different there's different ways they acquire the manure in different countries but I will say this if organic producers are purchasing huge amounts of blood bone organic you know fecal matter off of industry and it's subsidising their costs and like they would otherwise have to pay to dump all of this by product it's not actually a by product if you are paying for the product that then becomes a product I think that this is a big issue that needs addressing secondary to stabbing cows in the neck for burgers ok but it is still an issue now I think steering towards more synthetic you know we have technology now you know we can steer towards synthetic fertiliser that don't harm the environment and that don't help to subsidise animal agriculture this is secondary to sticking your fist in the cows to inseminate them for dairy and then slashing their child's throat open and eating their body parts but I do think it is a moral issue that needs addressing so for the graphic description just explaining objective reality for animals are you against animal cruelty I'm against animal cruelty in so far as we are able to effectively retain a healthy position of animals in society as I have earlier defined because if we, sorry Ashley I'll let you go on would you agree that animal cruelty is the unnecessary causing an animal unnecessary harm while suffering well I mean animal cruelty obviously it's unlike murder there's no one but it's a set term bit set definition for it so you say unnecessary harm and suffering but equally to ask me to make a judgement about what is in your mind unnecessary harm and suffering because we may have different if I didn't need it for my health but I live a healthy and thriving life do you need to be healthy and if you agree that you don't need it to be healthy then are you not guilty of causing I would say unjustified I would say unjustified not unnecessary unnecessary is very ambiguous unjustified now to oppose animal cruelty but to openly pay for fund consume animal cruelty is a complete contradiction of your own moral system and to say that you know animals aren't even on the same playing field as us we can use them, subjugate them and stab them in the throat and it's not even murder but to be against animal cruelty for some reason they must have some moral value to you to be opposed to treating them cruelly now whether that's you you know there's a sentient being in there who avoids pain and suffering and wants to experience well-being so somewhere deep inside of you you know that they have moral value but for some reason you contradict your own moral stance against that once again I think it's a big issue of anthropomorphising the issue because you talk about cruelty and you're saying cruelty with regards to animals in the same way we have cruelty with regards to humans and I would say let's say we define cruelty as unnecessary suffering I would say yep sure I pose it in the context of my other views as to how we should and indeed have a right to use animals so of course you know if we as a meat eater who supports the production of meat and the consumption of meat I would I would fully support a ethical and sort of righteous use of animals that's not called grievous harm righteous, define righteous sorry we have a million more questions to get through well let's open up let's discuss this what do you mean by righteous killing of animals walk on to it lady there who's had a hand up for us yes I'm sorry they would somehow rise to be and that there's some sort of need to contain our stater by killing them and if we didn't kill them there would be some sort of role reversal or anarchy and the house would start to ignore is that a straw man of your position or is that your position carnival's daily mail is what that is but no not at all I mean my point was and we're going back to the original motion because obviously we've strayed at certain times quite far from it is that if we are to and what I've said and I'll say it again if we are to say that meat is murder we have to afford animals equal status to humans and if we afford animals equal status to humans that's a very dangerous position I think you used the word radical equality like exactly equal to humans in every way like no we're just asking for fundamental rights like one right to be treated as a free being as in look not as a slave not as property belonging to someone else so it's hunting all right like sort of stalking in the world because if they're no one property no I know they're free but I'll go far to say it's hunting is murder I hear you said the one fundamental right not to be treated as a property so surely if we abide by that definition and I can hunt animals no no but go back to what you said originally forget this one fundamental right I say I can hunt animals not be treated as a property no you can't hunt animals that's murder but if you afford animals rights to protect them you afforded them a right to liberty bodily integrity so if you shoot them I think that we should have laws that protect animals from being killed like we do for human beings right but as we've established that requires a certain equality but not radical or not exact equality in every single way shape and form because you don't afford that to babies either human babies you don't say okay let's get human babies up in parliament to vote and give them a driver's licence you know like that's what you were that's the extremes you're going to but they've got fundamental rights as you said earlier I mean you're contradicting your own position here no no no no no and not like the right to vote are two different things no but the obviously you can say it's reductionist but that's the kind of logic you're working on and that logic simply doesn't allow me no that's good we're chatting this through I think hunting an animal without justification is murder you know and I think if they had laws protecting them laws protecting them from people like you that would want to kill them but that's development on your idea of the only one you need their bodily integrity just the right to not be used as a product treated as property murdered like we have these rights protecting us human rights not all humans are like radically equal either there's a radical equality of species you've got a universal declaration of human rights human rights keyword but what's your human supremacist rights where we can we demand rights ourselves but we take those rights away from animals like complete double standard but we're different this is a Q&A you guys this is what it's all about Kevin I'd like to present Joey with a purely hypothetical scenario I'm not going to try and speculate as to how realistic this may or may not be imagine yourself in a survival situation where you're only four of us was a piece of roadkill so you had no sort of plants nearby well yeah I'm not finished so you're not actively making the choice in the very full of sense to eat this because it's your only way to survive and secondly it's not been intentionally killed if it's roadkill would you still consider this murder by proxy? of course not you're not paying anyone to stab someone in the throat someone's been killed accidentally if that was a human being's arm on the floor there and that was the only thing I had to eat murder by proxy then there's a difference between premeditated murder paying someone to assassinate someone for you on your behalf and finding someone who's been accidentally run over and eating their body when you're about to die I mean where's the moral roadkill that's the moral loophole eat roadkill you can eat I personally think that unless you were about to die you'd still be disrespectful like why not just treat them like someone who has died move them off the side of the road maybe bury them see if they're still alive put some leaves over them and if it was a human being you'd call the police and say oh my god a human being's been run over unless you were starving you'd probably eat their thigh first and right we'll have to take another question this is for you so do you think it's okay to kill animals because they have a lack of emotional capability would you be okay with eating your own dog? well if I'm going to be logically consistent yes and would you feel the same way? would you feel the same way? what look I'm all about logical consistency fair enough if I'm going to argue that consumption of animal products is fine then yes I do also have to say that I would eat my own dog but the beauty of the beauty of free societies that I don't have to if I don't want to so I probably wouldn't eat my dog no exactly great well as I said before okay let's go into logical consistency but you wouldn't eat a human being no because as we've established different to and I would argue what is that difference? you haven't spelled it out yet? because it comes down to intuitive morality and if you're able to give me an expounding in on the two minutes mean just out of your intuition you don't? for the same reason that I think the majority of the world would probably have more of an issue killing a human baby than a chicken that's that sort of intuitive morality that's the moral difference that's your own intuitive morality what is the difference? that's not being logically consistent because you would eat your dog but you wouldn't eat a human from some moral intuition my moral intuition says it's bad to stab cows in the throat for a burger but in the eyes of a cow and a human child I think they're both on a similar degree of sentience and intelligence you haven't even spelled out a difference and this is where it ends we'll take two more questions and then we'll have a final vote on the proposition so gentlemen of that please moral agency moral agency human beings possess moral agency animals in the wild do not do not sorry and then humans originally hunted other animals for their food we hunted each other and killed and ate each other too so is that is that moral? well we hunted each other and ate each other too cannibalism and tribes is that moral that's murder but if it's for survival well if me and you were on a desert island I wouldn't murder you to survive either I'd try to like see who died first and I'm vegan so I'd live longer right we'll take one final question and then we'll move to voting go on Sam yeah coming back to that argument as you talked about a key thing like to met the cannibalism and whatever would you be comfortable serving like any of your pets for example like a dog or an animal who needed meat or would you see who died first or find find some other way well dogs can be super healthy on a plant based diet that's formulated there's a peer reviewed study on that sorry this is what you know cats need touring they need protein they need to be monitored you don't need to stab other animals in the throat and people go oh well the cats have this they have a natural diet cats aren't naturally occurring animals they're human selectively bred man made domesticated animals why should we stab a cow in the throat to feed a cat a house cat and when is a cat gonna go into the ocean and drag a tuner out you know what I mean like based on environmental destruction not even morality based on environmental destruction alone meat is destroying the environment the number one cause of amazon deforestation, ocean dead zones water use, land use and you think your cat has that much moral value that they can contribute to the destruction of the earth or if there's peer reviewed studies and thousands of anecdotes of healthy plant based cats wouldn't we choose the formulated pet food for that cat I mean and you're not a cat do you eat steak do you eat steak where's your moral justification we talk about your cat later meat is murder that's it now for questions before we get on to the final vote I'd just like to thank everyone for contributing despite different arguments everyone's put forward their ideas really around being a civilised debate so I think a round of applause is in me well done to well done to Wills for coming and I know well done for standing up against because you had a lot of people challenging you and you did very well now we'll move to the final vote so we'll start with the original proposition which is meat is murder so for those in favour of the proposition raise your hand that's remained similar and for those who oppose the proposition and for those who abstain so there have been fewer abstentions by two and three fewer for the opposition so that means there has been a swing further in favour of the motion which is meat is murder and then as Patrick suggested we should vote on the proposition animal meat there's no need to do that unless you want to right do you want to do the difference animal meat is murder versus just meat is murder coconut meat or cultured meat or plant based meat what about beyond burgers I advise instead that we give everyone a round of applause for coming thank you for the people who make these events a success and I also recommend you get yourself a glass of vegan wine excellent enjoy yourselves thank you everyone so much for coming really well done man that was really good I really enjoyed myself thank you no no you did a good job