I affirm. First, definitions.

Merriam Webster's Dictionary of Law defines "recognize" as: To acknowledge formally and to admit as being of a particular status. Justice is defined as: giving each their due. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Defines Rights as Rights are entitlements to perform certain actions or not, or to be in certain states or not; or entitlements that others perform certain actions. Justice is defined as giving each their due. The affirmative does not need to defend a specific implementation, because the resoultional question is over what the particular status of animals deserts are, so affirming just requires the affirmative to prove that animals are due rights. The negative burden is the converse, to prove that moral right does not require recognition of animal rights. Prefer this interpretation because: 1. Reciprocity: This allows for the most equitable way to the ballot for both the affirmative and negative. The Affirmative is bound to the resolutional text and to prove the question it posits, and it would be unfair for the negative to do gain the ballot by doing anything but posit the negation of the resolution. 2. It provides for equitable distribution of ground. The Affirmative and Negative both have full accesses to both sides of the academic debate regarding animal rights. Absent my interpretation, I would have to prepare for an infinite number of non-resolutional alternatives. Prefer Affirmative interpretation absent egregious abuse, because of blind speech and time skew: The negative gets to tailor their response to my advocacy, and the Negative can run theory on caveats causing time skew in the affirmative. Both of these would make for a non-reciprocal debate and would harm the competitive value of the debate. Next, framework. I value Justice. We must reject rationality in order to accurately grasp the full range of morality, and we must also reject current mainstream ethical theories because of their dualistic structure which alienates the experiences of other beings. A. Rationality seperates us from other moral entities. The experiences denied us are pertinent to how we function as moral beings, and rationality must be rejected in order for us to actualize ourselves: Lori Gruen [Lori Gruen. "Attending to Nature: Empathetic Engagement with the More than Human World." Ethics & the Environment 14.2 (2009): 23-38. Project MUSE. Web. 21 Jan. 2011 ] explains: ecofeminists, have urged a rethinking of the dualistic frameworks that dominate philosophy, and to a large extent environmental and animal activism. Rationality, rationalization, and false universalizations that occlude emotion, particularity, context, and embodiment not only shape attitudes that contribute to global environmental crises but also make framing solutions to the problems more difficult. Traditional ethical theories not only fail to promote moral perception, they often thwart it by having us focus on only a small part of the moral picture. Standard
Plumwood, and other

conceptions of rationality and universality fail to capture the full range and complexity of our ethical experiences and the full motivational structures that compel us to do the right thing. As an activist and a scholar,
Ive often wondered why so many good people dont act in the face of injustices and destruction, even when, on those rare occasions, they actually know

The alienation that results from the standard dualistic ethical frameworks may be one explanation. Standard ethical theories focus on certain features of a situation in a narrow way and this narrow focus tends to flatten or erase the complexity of actual moral problems. They thus fail to capture all the richness of moral experience (e.g. how we come to have the attitudes we do; the emotional valance of our reactions to moral matters, etc.) and they frame moral problems in ways that do not capture all that may be relevant from a moral point of view (e.g. systems of power and privilege, the epistemic and political effects of histories of exclusion, nature itself). Such theories and the stances that they support alienate us from our environments, or at least important aspects of those environments, and this causes us, as Plumwood often notes, to relegate certain important sources of information to the background. But nature is more than background a biospheric other is not a background part of our field of action or subjectivity rather biospheric others can be other subjects, potentially ethical subjects, and other actors in the world ones to which we owe a debt of gratitude, generosity and recognition as prior and enabling presences. (1999, 197) Traditional ethical theories also alienate us from possible interpretations of the context in which we find ourselves, interpretations that could lead to an expanded understanding of our place in our social and natural environments. This truncated and alienating feature of dualist ethical theory also dulls our capacities for moral imagination and moral motivation. An ethical practice that emphasizes empathetic engagement can overcome alienation and, Ill argue, drawing on recent work in psychology, provide motivation
what the right thing to do is. for attending to others.

Hence, formulaic moral theories only deny our ability of moral perception. Rationalized theories fail to prove their claims because they themselves claim to be based on empirical observation, but they only consider a small part of what is relevant to moral concerns.

B. Knowledge excluding the experience of differing social groups distorts human thought. In the case of women, when we exclude their experience we distort the truth of our methodology and what we perceive as true is only a facade.

Hintikka [Hintikka, Philosophy Department at Florida State University, AND Harding, Professor of Womens Studies at the University of California, 1983] Writes: What counts as knowledge must be grounded on experience. Human experience differs according to the kinds of activities and social relations in which humans engage. Womens experience systematically differs from the male experience upon which knowledge claims have been grounded. Thus the experience on which the prevailing claims to social and natural knowledge are founded is, first of all, only partial human experience only partially understood: namely, masculine experience as understood by men. However, when this experience is presumed to be gender-free- when the male experience is taken to be the human experience- the resulting theories, concepts, methodologies, inquiry goals and knowledge-claims distort human social life

and human thought.

C. An empathetic engagement with all pertinent moral actors and narratives is the only coherent paradigm with which to relate to the world

Gruen 2 writes: I mentioned at the outset that I have often been perplexed about why seemingly good people dont do the right thing, even when they know what the right thing is. I have come to think that part of the answer lies in the alienation and failure of moral perception that accompanies traditional ethical theories. I believe that engaged empathy is one way to overcome these failures as it requires understanding the perspective and situation of others from their point of view and doing that requires both knowledge of and an affective connection with the other. Engaged empathy requires that we develop skills that will ultimately make us more sensitive and attuned perceivers and more informed and effective moral actors. As Val Plumwood noted, sensitivity to the situation and fate of particular others is an index of our moral being Therefore, in order to give each being their due we must emphatically engage them and treat them as part of a holistic moral paradigm outside of current dualistic moral systems. Otherwise, we cannot morally consider them or ourselves accurately. I contend that denying animal's rights would reinforce the disjunction between species, and that reinforcing dualistic narratives engenders patriarchy and the oppression of women. Gaard [Greta Gaard Hypatia Vol. 12, No. 1 (Winter, 1997), pp. 114-137] writes: The first argument linking ecofeminism and queer theory is based on the observation that dominant Western culture's devaluation of the erotic parallels its devaluations of women and of nature; in effect, these devaluations are mutually reinforcing. This observation can be drawn from ecofeminist critiques that describe the normative dualisms, value-hierarchical thinking, and logic of domination that together characterize the ideological framework of Western culture. As Karen Warren explains, value dualisms are ways of conceptually organizing the world in binary, disjunctive terms, wherein each side of the dualism is "seen as exclusive (rather than inclusive) and oppositional (rather than complementary), and where higher value or superiority is attributed to one disjunct (or, side of the dualism) than the other" (1987, 6). Val Plumwood's 1993 critique of Western philosophy pulls together the most salient features of these and other ecofeminist critiques in what she calls the "master model," the identity that is at the core of Western culture and that has initiated, perpetuated, and benefitted from Western culture's alienation from and domination of nature. The master identity, according to Plumwood, creates and depends on a "dualized structure of otherness and negation"( 1993, 42). Key elements in that
structure are the following sets of dualized pairs: culture/nature reason/nature male/female mind/body (nature) master/slave reason/matter (physicality) rationality/animality( nature) reason/emotion (nature) mind, spirit/nature freedom/necessity (nature) universal/particular human/nature (nonhuman) civilized/primitive (nature) production/reproduction(nature) public/private subject/object self/other (Plumwood 1993, 43) Plumwood does not claim completeness for the list. In the argument that follows, I will offer a number of reasons that ecofeminists must specify the linked dualisms of white/nonwhite, financially empowered/impoverished, heterosexual/queer, and reason/the erotic.3 Ecofeminists have uncovered a number of characteristics about the inter-locking structure of dualism. First,

ecofeminist philosophers have shown that the claim for the superiority of the self is based on the difference between self and other, as manifested in the full humanity and reason that the self possesses but the other supposedly lacks. This alleged

superiority of the self, moreover, is used to justify the subordination of the other (Warren 1990, 129;
Plumwood 1993, 42-47). Next, ecofeminists have worked to show the linkages within the devalued category of the other, demonstrating how the association of qualities from one oppressed group with another serves to reinforce their subordination. The

conceptual linkages between women and animals, women and the body, or women and nature, for example, all serve to emphasize the inferiority of these categories (Adams 1990; 1993). But while all categories of the other share these qualities of
being feminized, animalized, and naturalized, socialist ecofeminists have rejected any claims of primacy for one form of oppression or another, embracing

that all forms of oppression are now so inextricably linked that liberation efforts must be aimed at dismantling the system itself.
instead the understanding

Thus, in order for us to end the master model of social relations we must fully embrace animals as beings that are our moral equals. Moreover, continuing the fiction that the animal world and human world are irreconcilability different only furthers the subordination of all subaltern groups in our own society. Contention 2: Gendered conceptions of society lead to military violence that is not natural or inevitable in humans. War is driven on by gendered identity and perpetuated by it. Enloe [Enloe, Cynthia. The Morning After: Sexual Politics at the end of the Cold War. 1993. California University Press.] Explains:

Conquerors' mistresses, wartime rape victims, military prostitutes, cinematic soldier-heroes, pin-up models on patriotic calendars--these are only some of the indications, not only that nationalism is often constructed in militarized settings, but that militarization itself, like nationalist identity, is gendered. To put it more simply no person, no community, and no national movement can be militarized without changing the ways in which femininity and masculinity infuse daily life.

Enloe Continues:

For instance, I might have paid attention to State policies regarding rape: were soldiers given instructions to avoid sexual assaults on women in the contested regions? Were reported assaults treated seriously by superior officers or glossed over? I might have given more analytical weight to evidence that

insurgent male leaders deliberately excluded or included women that they tried to prevent sexual liaisons within their units, that they encouraged most women to serve the now-militarized cause in roles compatible with concepts of femininity pre-existing in the community. And by paying attention I might have caught sight of the contradictions that threat their way through most instances of militarization. For militarization is a process that is not geared with natural inclinations and easy choices. It usually involved confusion and mixed messages. On the one hand, it requires the participation of women as well as men. On the other hand, it is a social construction that usually privileges masculinity. It is the first of these two conditions that make many women who have
become nationalists willing to support militarization their participation as women becomes valuable, and they often gain new space in which to develop political skills. During the intifada, Palestinian women began to run more of the West Bank community institutions as the Israeli military closed down older institutions as security risks, and as hundreds of Palestinian men were imprisoned. During the eight-month Iraqi military occupation, Kuwait women, having lost their Asian maids, likewise gained a new sense of their political value, actions such as obtaining food, carrying information, and caring for torture victims took on new, nationalist connections. Similarly, Iraqi women who identify themselves as nationalists by virtue of participation in the ruling

Baathist Party's Women's Federation today speak of the earlier Iran-Iraqi war as a time when the state was compelled to take women's talents seriously, as it replaced conscripted men with women in hosts of official positions.

Contention 3: Hierarchical orders and the perpetual war they engder lowers the chances of human survival and destroys the value to life. Clark writes: [Clark, Mary E. "Rhetoric, patriarchy & war: explaining the dangers of 'leadership' in mass culture." Women and Language 27.2 (2004): 21+. Student. Web. 8 Aug. 2010. ]: Our problem is that power-military, political, economic, and informational-is located at the top of institutionalized hierarchies scattered around the planet. The "logic" of this hierarchical order has created a culde-sac for humankind. The purpose of hierarchical structuring of ever-larger societies is to increase power vis-a-vis a competing other-which means there is constant threat and insecurity and potential for violent struggle. The meaning of life for an individual human being, as an accepted member of a community of others, disintegrates under this enormous burden. Human nature is not being well-served in today's "masculine hegemonic" world. To put it bluntly, patriarchy does not favor species survival, because it blocks the one thing that is necessary for human beings to overcome their differences and live peaceably together-namely, open, dialogic communications.