>You don’t see it as necessary to give a dog or a cow or a fish privacy, for instance.
A fish has nothing to be private about.
But the still have the cognitive abilities to understand pain. Nice non-sequitor.
>If you acknowledge that category distinction, you can’t argue that taking an animal’s life is morally equivalent to taking a human’s.
Why is it morally bad to kill a human? because it causes suffering. We don't like suffering, animals don't like suffering.
If there's a way to minimize net suffering, that's a good moral thing to do.
So I can abuse dogs, and there's nothing wrong with that according to you?
>N-no, dogs are different.
Why? They're smart? Pigs are smarter than dogs, faggot.
>you’re arguing that keeping an animal captive is morally equivalent to keeping a human captive. And that selective breeding is equally bad as selectively breeding human slaves
No, it's more dependent from animal to animal. Obviously, animals with more critical faculties have a more developed nervous system, and experience MORE painful experiences. This is why we value ants over, say, Gorillas.
>This inevitably leads to disaster because if there’s no categorical distinction between humans and animals, then it becomes very easy to justify hideous cruelty to both in the aid of the ‘greater good
Nope. We should remedy NET SUFFERING. That includes animals and people.
The fact of the matter is, you don't NEED meat to survive. So when we choose to eat meat, why do we? We don't need it for survival. So why? It tastes good. That's the only reason. You can live a perfectly healthy life without meat, and even get all your macro, and micronutrients (not to mention, plant-based whole-food diets are proven to reduce heart disease, diabetes, alzheimers, CANCER, vision loss, etc).
So it becomes a value judgement: Do you want to have tasty meat? Or do you care more about animals suffering?