You too
Obviously, I don't think all life is of equal concern, strictly speaking I don't think biological life has any relevance whatsoever. I like to take cues from the norms of ethical behavior regarding humans, and fall back on things which I believe have broad appeal to human rights activists and most people in general. Specifically, I find it fascinating why people value the lives of newborn infants in the first place. Newborns aren't much of anything in their mental facilities -- they can't talk, they aren't rational, they don't have a concept of social contracts let alone human rights, they can't demand their rights, they aren't moral agents, they aren't much of anything. So why should people value them? Religious explanations aside, the answer isn't as 'obvious' as it should be. They may be humans, but not
persons in a conventional sense. I take the perspective that newborns really don't have a whole lot going for them, except they can suffer, so they can be valued for that much alone. Its not a bad principle either, empathy for suffering seems to have fairly broad appeal to human rights advocates. Seeing that most animals aren't moral agents, but can suffer, I think their situation is comparable to the status of infants, no surprise that animal rights activists are so fond of using animal suffering as a starting point for their ethic.
Forgive me for arriving so late to this thread-and I'm sorry if I repeat things that have been said already, but I'm having a hard time believing this argument. I agree, to a point, that it is moral and humane to treat animals in our care in such a way as to reduce or eliminate their potential suffering to the greatest extent possible. In this respect, I think we agree. Where I have a hard time following you is where you appear to be saying that there is, or should be no expectation of a higher level of concern or treatment for humans. I.e. what you seem to argue (and please correct me if I'm misunderstanding) , is that both, say, a severely mentally handicapped person and, say a cow, have a low, or no ability to contribute to our society, and an equal ability to suffer. Therefore, because as a society, we (hopefully) fully agree that to kill and eat the person would be wrong, there is no reason why we should view the same treatment of the cow as ok.
My issue with this is that this argument depends on the assumption that there is no intrinsic value placed on being human. I simply don't, and won't believe this.
Look at it removed from the issue of meat animals for a second- as I think there is an argument there that is separate from the Human rights vs animal rights argument.
A cat, 5 years old in a shelter has very little chance of being adopted. If said cat were to become sick- say it gets leukemia, it is not going to be treated. It is going to be euthanized. This will save the cat from a long time of suffering or painful treatment that it can not understand, and it will free up the resources of the shelter to better care for other animals who have a better chance.
Now imagine that instead of a 5 year old cat in a shelter, it is a 10 year old child in an orphanage, and just for the sake of making the comparison as close as possible, say the child has a mental handicap that will not allow them to comprehend the reason for a painful treatment, or grow to be a productive adult. This child has a similarly low chance of being adopted, a similarly low chance of contributing to our society, and will suffer in similar ways by being treated-operations, chemotherapy, etc. However, I find it hard to believe that anyone would argue that that child should therefore be euthanized. I see no reason for this, unless we accept that that child's humanity grants it a greater right to life than that of the cat.
I can think of many situations where people are granted rights singular to them, simply for being human- neuter and spay programs come to mind- again acceptable to do to animals but not to mentally similar humans, simply because the humans are human.
This is why this argument bothers me. I find the assumption that there is no intrinsic value of a human to another human to be. . . strange, to say the least, and I think that framing an argument against animal cruelty in this way winds up detracting from the argument by allowing those who don't agree to wave the whole argument away because they, like me, find this argument extremely flawed. Really, the argument, in my eyes, is whether we can justify killing animals to eat them. I certainly think reasons may exist why many people can not justify this, but I don't agree with any reason based on the assumption that there is the same value placed on life and suffering with no regard to species.
Again, please correct me if I am misunderstanding your reasoning.
