Should we allow the eating of dog and cat meat?

[Caper]

I couldn't agree more, Aunt Sally.

That's not really fair.

 

[Babbylonian]

I can only suppose you mean final products like 'soy chili ready to heat+eat' and so on?. Basic dry soy mince is cheap as chips. But really the point was not about soy specifically, just the lack of any real need to eat meat, especially great slabs of it per day, to fulfil some imaginary dietary need.

I love meat but won't kid myself I need to eat half a chicken because I spent 30 minutes in the gym.

I understood what you were saying and your point about buying the more basic building blocks is well taken...I won't do it but I take your point.

 

[BabyLion]

Did you just admit to willful ignorance and an irrational worldview held for emotional convenience?



That's nonsense. Supply and demand. Very, very basic economics.

That kind of logic only applies to "meagans" who literally dig the meat out of the garbage.

I dont know how to separate the quotes and address them individually yet. So the first part, Yes I did admit that, hence the words that i typed.

The second part, so you are saying that if i don't buy that bacon it ends up in the trash...... for a meagan. My demand doesn't change the supply much is all Im saying.

 

[asydhouse]

I dont know how to separate the quotes and address them individually yet.

After you've hit "quote" in the bottom of the comment window of the comment you want to reply to, and the window opens with the text in it where you type your own comment, you will notice the square-bracketed words saying "quote=BabyLion..." at the head of the text, and the close-quote at the end [also in square brackets]. Copy and paste the head-of-text quote bracket in front of any section of the text you want to quote, and copy and paste the closing quote bracket code at the point in the text where you want to end your quote. Delete any text outside your square bracketed sections.

The second part, so you are saying that if i don't buy that bacon it ends up in the trash...... for a meagan. My demand doesn't change the supply much is all Im saying.

I guess you are one of those that doesn't bother voting in elections.

 

[BabyLion]

I guess you are one of those that doesn't bother voting in elections.

What does this have to do with the bacon?

 

[GlennB]

I must confess, that I know next to nothing about the science behind dieting.

And yet you've made a lot of claims based on the science behind nutrition and diet?

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

The topic is legislating morality inconsistently on X subject vs. not legislating it at all.

Much of the root of the question comes down to whether we should be legislating morality at all- which seems to be a stand most posters are taking?

That's probably fair to say... but I'm not sure that addresses the point.

Do you think there's value in legislating morality (at least where it is mildly inconvenient, so we can claim the attempt is legitimate concern for morality)?

(I think this does speak to the issue of the original topic)

Legislating morality per se? Not really, at least not in the way I interpret what you are asking. If someone finds the wearing of red hats objectionable I don't believe that should be supported by legislation. Even if 51%, or even 99.9%, of society find the wearing of red hats objectionable then I'd say there's no value in legislating against it on moral reasons alone.

What I generally think would have value is an evidence-based discourse on the pros and cons of wearing red hats.

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

They are cheaper to produce- but more expensive to distribute in small quantities and occupy shelf space with a low turnover. If more people bought them, economy of scale and competition would push the price down below that of meat very quickly.

Bit of a catch 22, maybe?

But you can buy the stuff direct and in bulk and save a lot of money. Search online for TVP or TSP. It's used in military rations, prisons, cafeterias, fast food, you name it. All you have to do is add water and flavour (any broth or spice mix will do) and it's like ground meat. Some places even have pre-flavoured stuff; beef, chicken, bacon, taco, etc.

*very* cheap. Couldn't be easier to prepare either. Just add water and wait a couple minutes. Doesn't even have to be hot water.

Is that what life has come to? Living on flavoured soy-based gruel so that we can avoid the ire of the moral elite who object to people enjoying meat?

Perhaps we should disband the entire TV, music and film industry and just have 1 radio station broadcasting a monotone voice reciting the dictionary too? It would be cheaper to produce, cause less damage to the environment, and nobody really needs blockbuster 3D movies.

 

[drewid]

NVM

 

[GlennB]

Is that what life has come to? Living on flavoured soy-based gruel so that we can avoid the ire of the moral elite who object to people enjoying meat?

The soy discussion started as a reaction to somebody claiming that they need meat to fulfill some dietary requirement. The whole point is that they don't. But I agree that soya products are dull, unless it comes with a sauce so strong that it's hard to tell the difference (and I've has plenty of ready meals that fit that bill, like those frozen lasagnes that hit you with a blast of tomato and herb. Could be minced cardboard masquerading as meat in there for all I can tell). Meanwhile gimme a nicely frazzled stack of lamb chops.

 

[Darat]

The soy discussion started as a reaction to somebody claiming that they need meat to fulfill some dietary requirement. The whole point is that they don't. But I agree that soya products are dull, unless it comes with a sauce so strong that it's hard to tell the difference (and I've has plenty of ready meals that fit that bill, like those frozen lasagnes that hit you with a blast of tomato and herb. Could be minced cardboard masquerading as meat in there for all I can tell). Meanwhile gimme a nicely frazzled stack of lamb chops.

Normalisation again, we learn to like the food we are brought up with.

 

[c4llum]

As others have mentioned, genetic similarity isn't really ethically relevant.

The moral issues revolve around intelligence- capacity to have interests, and to have them violated. Though in that respect, it's a gradual continuum.

No, the moral issue revolves around suffering. As a certain mr Singer....who's name unfortunately hasnt been mentioned yet said, 'All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals.'

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

The soy discussion started as a reaction to somebody claiming that they need meat to fulfill some dietary requirement. The whole point is that they don't. But I agree that soya products are dull, unless it comes with a sauce so strong that it's hard to tell the difference (and I've has plenty of ready meals that fit that bill, like those frozen lasagnes that hit you with a blast of tomato and herb. Could be minced cardboard masquerading as meat in there for all I can tell). Meanwhile gimme a nicely frazzled stack of lamb chops.

Yeah, I know. It's just an argument that I think misses the point from both sides. Since when was necessity a deciding factor in whether something is allowed/allowable/ok/whatever you want to call it?

We do a whole host of things that aren't biologically necessary every day of our lives.

Funny thing is as well, the same people being castigated for eating cat/dog probably eat more soya protein instead of meat than most of us do.

Normalisation again, we learn to like the food we are brought up with.

I don't know about you but I like a range of foods and I find diversity to be pleasurable and rewarding in food as well as a whole host of other things. I have no biological necessity for it but still its something that gives value to my life. Even the occasional bit of tofu.

I find the world a better, richer, more interesting place for the fact that people have differences, including what they eat. I might even go so far as to say i need it.

Am I morally wrong to feel like that? I'll take a lot of convincing of that.

 

[Darat]

Still not sure why people think this is a matter of logic and reason, we are not rational creatures, there is no reason to suppose this type of preference arises from a rational source.

All we can use logic and reason for in such discussions is to try and understand the behaviour we see humans exhibiting. And I'll speculate that if we could and ever do understand why humans exhibit certain behaviour it will not be an explanation that will change that behaviour.

 

[RelativeSpace]

People who imagine themselves to be rational can be amazingly irrational and jump right on the woo wagon when actual evidence threatens to undermine their personal habits and sense of moral perfection.

It's very sad.

When presented with logic, I'm well ready to admit that sometimes I do things that are not moral. And I feel bad about that, as I should. And I try to change (sometimes unsuccessfully, but hey, I'm human after all).

I don't want to say here that I'm vegetarian or anything like that- I neither want to brag about my achievements, nor frankly to admit my shortcomings.

It's not relevant to the issue. What is, is that looked at from an intellectually honest and objective point of view, the ethics on the matter are clear.

Anybody who says otherwise IS peddling Woo as irrational as (and possibly even more harmful than) psychic powers, alien abductions, and homeopathy.


I think I'm on more or less the same page as GlennB here, and I really appreciate seeing his comments. That's the response sane people should have if they don't personally have the motivation/want to be vegetarian.

Simply Acknowledging facts.

We're not all perfect in our behavior. Sometimes we do things that are wrong. I think we can all strive to be better people year by year, but it's not always an overnight process.

That doesn't mean that we can't look at the situation rationally and objectively and see it for what it is, though.

To all of those refusing to do so due to your personal biases, all I can say is: Very Disappointing.

You're better than that. Not that you should act better- but that you should THINK better than that.

We stopped at a place in State College before heading out to load up on a bunch of that stuff you described. [...] I literally couldn't survive off of.
[...] I kinda have acid-reflux. After three days of eating that stuff, I started getting real sick. I was hungry, but I wasn't hungry. I nearly puked it back up when I tried forcing myself to eat, and had real bad heart burn.[...]
Also, at 7 bucks per meal per person, not cheap! We had mac-and-cheese, lasagna, some pizza-flavored spicy noodly stuff that put me under...

BS. That's not AT ALL what I described.

TVP should cost you about $1 a day, MAX. If prepared by somebody even half competent at cooking as lazagna, tacos, etc. it's also indestinguishable by most people from pure meat (a lot of people even mix in meat flavour when cooking- which is very common in Mexico).

That's not really fair.

It kind of is. This person is engaging in staggering intellectual dishonesty to rationalize his factually bunk position. And he is literally appealing to a difference without any logical justification as a moral justification.

Whether he (or anybody) eats meat or not is their business. But the intellectual dishonesty and Woo he's pushing is not acceptable. Dessi is right to call him on it. And she's doing a good job too (hi Dessi).

So the first part, Yes I did admit that, hence the words that i typed.

And yet you do nothing about it? You simply accept that you're wrong but believe it anyway because you want to?

What kind of mental gymnastics does that require? The likes of Deepak Chopra don't even go that far.

The second part, so you are saying that if i don't buy that bacon it ends up in the trash...... for a meagan.

Statistically, It ends up in the trash the first day you don't buy it- then the store orders less bacon, and the slaughter houses adjust their output, and the farm stops breeding as many pigs.

You waste one package of bacon- and then for the rest of your life, fewer pigs are raised in morally problematic conditions and slaughtered.

My demand doesn't change the supply much is all Im saying.

What does this have to do with the bacon?

It was a perfect example.

If you don't understand that, you may be a completely lost cause.

No, it doesn't change it *much*- it changes it by precisely the consumption of ONE person, which is (incidentally) precisely the amount of change you are morally responsible for.

You're only responsible for the consequences of your own actions- not those of others.

Small changes add up over time as more people opt for them. The intellectual dishonesty of equating small with zero is profound and far reaching.

I caution you not to fall into that trap.

And yet you've made a lot of claims based on the science behind nutrition and diet?

Thank you.

I don't understand what's wrong with people.

Is it so hard to say: "I do something immoral. I don't care enough to stop, though, because I really like it. I'm not a perfectly moral person."?

Or maybe, if they can't admit that: "You know, you're right. I can't quit right away, but I resolve to reduce my meat consumption by 10% every year from this point forwards. I'm going to try to be a better person because this is an issue I care about deeply"?

It's not that difficult to say.

Some people might even go 'vegan' as it sound like Dessi did (which is great if you can do it).

What's with this obsession of considering ourselves morally flawless and rationalizing every action despite how much Woo we have to indulge to do so?

All of this rationalizing makes them WORSE people than they would have been if they just admit it, because now instead of contributing to some animal suffering, they're still doing that but also peddling pseudoscientific nonsense to falsely justify it.

Do they have enough grasp on reality to comprehend that they're adding what would be insult to injury?

Legislating morality per se? Not really, at least not in the way I interpret what you are asking. If someone finds the wearing of red hats objectionable I don't believe that should be supported by legislation. Even if 51%, or even 99.9%, of society find the wearing of red hats objectionable then I'd say there's no value in legislating against it on moral reasons alone.

Red hats being objectionable isn't a valid moral claim. In order for it to be valid, they would have to provide evidence for how such an action causes moral harm.

Illegitimate moral claims, presented without evidence, should not be candidates for legislation.

What I generally think would have value is an evidence-based discourse on the pros and cons of wearing red hats.

Yes. At the point it can be shown that wearing red hats harms other sentient beings in some appreciable way, then it should be considered as something perhaps worth legislating against.

The question of animal agriculture isn't even a matter of debate anymore. It's incredibly obvious that it's morally problematic.

Is that what life has come to? Living on flavoured soy-based gruel so that we can avoid the ire of the moral elite who object to people enjoying meat?

Your argument is inherently false.

You wouldn't be able to tell the difference in any spiced food (like taco or lasagna) unless you already knew it was soy based. Nutritionally, it's superior. Ethically, it's superior.

It has nothing to do with avoiding the ire of the "elite"- it has to do with doing the right thing. If you value morality at all, that is obvious.

If you don't value morality, why not legalize kiddie fiddling too, so the kiddie fiddlers don't have to grovel before the ire of the moral elite either? It's only fair (that is to say, as long as they're only fiddling their own children, and not yours, you have no reason to complain- unless for some silly reason you value morality)

Maybe I'm guessing wrong and you even like that idea- I've known people who actually do advocate legalizing it because it's one of those pesky altruistic social morals that- as any Ayn Rand worshiping Objectivist knows- are the root of all evil.

Objectivism is intellectually, philosophically, and morally bankrupt.

There is no legitimate reason not to switch (at least gradually) to a more vegetarian diet in general- it's just momentum of cultural tradition and human irrationality.

In all likelihood, the only thing that will be able to change that is legislation that gradually encourages fast food restaurants and other food suppliers to incorporate more plant-based proteins, and phases out animal agriculture over time by reforming animal welfare laws and decreasing demand.

Perhaps we should disband the entire TV, music and film industry and just have 1 radio station broadcasting a monotone voice reciting the dictionary too? It would be cheaper to produce, cause less damage to the environment, and nobody really needs blockbuster 3D movies.

The scale of harm to others is orders of magnitude lower for the entertainment industry than for animal agriculture.
The scale of benefit to society is orders of magnitude higher for the entertainment industry than for animal agriculture (in fact, one is positive while one is negative).

Your comparison amounts to a flagrant abuse of mathematics.

-9001 (the harm of animal agriculture to others and the environment) + 100 (the benefit to society as industry and a provider of [some of the worst] jobs; e.g. slaughtering, rendering, meat packing) + -100 (the selfish harm of eating meat- namely health- normalized also for the small culinary benefit some people perceive that mitigates that slightly) = -200 (the harm of the entertainment industry to others and the environment) + 200 (the benefit to society by providing good and enjoyable careers and industry) + 9001 (the selfish benefit of the entertainment industry)

-9001 != +9001

The two do not at all compare. They're nearly opposites.


If you want to compare something, choose something that has minimal selfish benefit (or even has selfish harm), and harms others substantially.

Cigarettes:
Harm to the self, no benefit (concentration benefits are temporary followed by a drop in concentration- it evens out at best; and then causes cancer)
Substantial harm to others- cancer and respiratory problems caused by second hand smoke exposure and further oxidized particulates that the smoke leaves behind; particularly for children and pets.

That's close, but not quite.

How about:

Diamonds:
Benefit to self: Completely useless, and easily replaced by damn near any other gem, and much cheaper. Some people think they're magically better than synthetic, but can't actually tell the difference in practice (kind of like fake meat in most applications).
Harm to others: The high value placed on diamonds, even if certified "conflict free" fuels the conflict and slavery for production of other diamonds.

The question of how direct that influence is if somebody purchases conflict free diamons is unanswered... so this doesn't quite cut it either.


Ahah!

Anti-vaccination:
Harm to self: High, risk of death due to deadly diseases. Benefit: You don't need to get poked by a needle.
Harm to others: Extremely high, particularly the elderly and immunologically compromised. Has the potential to re-establish the population of carriers necessary for the disease to evolve and become resistant to the existing herd immunity and initiate a new plague, risking the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

Bingo! I think we have a winner!

Yes, following from the logic that maybe meat should not be allowed, anti-vaccination should also be illegal.

Oh, how terrible that would be! We'd all have to be vaccinated against horrible diseases to protect ourselves and others!


If you're incapable of doing an honest cost-benefit analysis, of course you will be incapable of understanding ethics/morality. It all comes down to comparative analysis- as crude and approximate as it may be (the grey areas are questionable, but we can still determine some things within a tight enough margin of error to leave no doubt as to their negative moral qualities as a whole).

I'm not trying to insist here that meat should be made illegal- but it's something to think about legislating such that some day the animal agriculture industry may be substantially different or even fade out of existence in favor of more sustainable and moral food sources.

 

[Darat]

People who imagine themselves to be rational can be amazingly irrational and jump right on the woo wagon when actual evidence threatens to undermine their personal habits and sense of moral perfection.

It's very sad.

When presented with logic, I'm well ready to admit that sometimes I do things that are not moral. And I feel bad about that, as I should. And I try to change (sometimes unsuccessfully, but hey, I'm human after all).

I don't want to say here that I'm vegetarian or anything like that- I neither want to brag about my achievements, nor frankly to admit my shortcomings.

It's not relevant to the issue. What is, is that looked at from an intellectually honest and objective point of view, the ethics on the matter are clear.

Anybody who says otherwise IS peddling Woo as irrational as (and possibly even more harmful than) psychic powers, alien abductions, and homeopathy.


I think I'm on more or less the same page as GlennB here, and I really appreciate seeing his comments. That's the response sane people should have if they don't personally have the motivation/want to be vegetarian.

Simply Acknowledging facts.

We're not all perfect in our behavior. Sometimes we do things that are wrong. I think we can all strive to be better people year by year, but it's not always an overnight process.


That doesn't mean that we can't look at the situation rationally and objectively and see it for what it is, though.

..snip...

Well put

...snip....
Is it so hard to say: "I do something immoral. I'm don't care enough to stop, though, because I really like it. I'm not a perfectly moral person."?

...snip...

Don't quite agree with that section of your post. When you realise that morals are not objective, that there is no stone tablet to refer to you do have to accept that for some people they will consider themselves moral even when doing things you consider to be immoral.

I think we even have to be careful in calling "hypocrisy" when someone is doing something that using logic and reason is at odds with their stated moral codes, because that can be using the wrong tools to examine and understand their actions.

...snip....

What's with this obsession of considering ourselves morally flawless and rationalizing every action despite how much Woo we have to indulge to do so?

All of this rationalizing makes them WORSE people than they would have been if they just admit it, because now instead of contributing to some animal suffering, they're still doing that but also peddling pseudoscientific nonsense to falsely justify it.

...snip...

You prose is slightly more purple than I would have used to make the powerful point you make above but I totally agree. False rationalisation can be very appealing as it means we can avoid facing reality but no matter how unpleasant reality is it is reality!

 

[RelativeSpace]

Yikes, more replies while I was typing.

But I agree that soya products are dull, unless it comes with a sauce so strong that it's hard to tell the difference

Well, yeah- soya has almost no flavour (unless fermented of course). Plants with rich flavour (like herbs) are naturally strong enough to cover up the relatively mild flavour of meat. That's why meat is spiced anyway- to make it taste more interesting.

For most people, meat itself is dull without herbs and spices. Otherwise we wouldn't bother with them.


But if you like the mild taste of meat, why not flavour the soy with meat based bullion? It uses substantially less animal products (e.g. almost none), and you get the taste too. Win-win

Normalisation again, we learn to like the food we are brought up with.

Good point.

No, the moral issue revolves around suffering. As a certain mr Singer....who's name unfortunately hasnt been mentioned yet said, 'All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals.'

That could be an interesting argument in itself. I don't think I quite agree.

I think, maybe, a little off topic for this thread though.

Since when was necessity a deciding factor in whether something is allowed/allowable/ok/whatever you want to call it?

Necessity merely provides a kind of excuse/justification on its own.

Once you take away necessity, then you are presented with a legitimate moral choice and have to do an honest cost/benefit analysis to determine the ethical course of action.

We do a whole host of things that aren't biologically necessary every day of our lives.

Certainly, and being unnecessary neither makes them right nor wrong. It is the result of the costs and benefits that determines that.

Two things that are equally unnecessary can have entirely different moral qualities when considering the relevant consequences.

I find the world a better, richer, more interesting place for the fact that people have differences, including what they eat. I might even go so far as to say i need it.

Better? NO.

Richer and more interesting? Maybe. War is interesting, peace is boring. Pedophiles make the world a more interesting place too.

I would hardly argue for the continued existence of either of those things merely because they make the world more "interesting". That would be a profoundly selfish thing to do. These things hurt others, and merely provide amusement for me by appearing on the news or satisfying some primal curiosity towards dramatic conflicts.

Am I morally wrong to feel like that? I'll take a lot of convincing of that.

Yes. See above. If it takes more convincing than that, I don't know what to say.

We have FICTION to satisfy our inherent need for "interesting". There's no need to selfishly impose those moral calamities upon REALITY just to get your giggles.

 

[Aepervius]

The topic is legislating morality inconsistently on X subject vs. not legislating it at all.

Much of the root of the question comes down to whether we should be legislating morality at all- which seems to be a stand most posters are taking?



That's probably fair to say... but I'm not sure that addresses the point.

Do you think there's value in legislating morality (at least where it is mildly inconvenient, so we can claim the attempt is legitimate concern for morality)?

(I think this does speak to the issue of the original topic)

Which morality will you legislate with ? The one which say one shall cut the hand of a thief and brand a A on the head of adultery women ? The one which say contraception and abortion is again god's will ? The secular one ? The one which maximize freedom ? The one which maximize protection ? The one which maximize capitalism ?

Legislating on morality is a can of worm because it immediately lead to "which morality ?". And then you can as well give up by that point.

By the way that's why we recognize that law can be amoral, and morality can be in some case unjust, they are often perpendicular to each other.

 

[RelativeSpace]

Well put

Thank you.

You prose is slightly more purple than I would have used to make the powerful point you make above but I totally agree. False rationalisation can be very appealing as it means we can avoid facing reality but no matter how unpleasant reality is it is reality!

Sorry, it just kind of rustles my Jimmies when people turn to woo to gratify their own egos.

Don't quite agree with that section of your post. When you realise that morals are not objective, that there is no stone tablet to refer to you do have to accept that for some people they will consider themselves moral even when doing things you consider to be immoral.

Ahh, well, this is both a philosophical and semantic issue.

There is actually a way to consider morals objective when we accept that we can dismiss logically inconsistent morals as illegitimate.

You might appreciate the derivation; though it's a little off topic for this post.

In short, no, there isn't any stone tablet- but if we accept only logically deduced morality as legitimate (as we should), we can arrive at something as objective and consistent as pi is in mathematics.

I think we even have to be careful in calling "hypocrisy" when someone is doing something that using logic and reason is at odds with their stated moral codes, because that can be using the wrong tools to examine and understand their actions.

I don't think logic and reason are ever the wrong tools

But that said, there is the possibility that they are just ignorant or crazy.

Also, hypocricy doesn't apply if somebody does something he or she believes is wrong, and admits that he or she is doing wrong.

E.g. a smoker who advises against smoking, or a drunk who recommends sobriety- with the caveat that they should and want to pursue this advice too, but have a shortage of will power to achieve it.
It is only when they maintain their actions are right, or deny them entirely, that they are at risk of hypocrisy.

 

[RelativeSpace]

Which morality will you legislate with?

An objective, rationally deduced one.

The one which say one shall cut the hand of a thief and brand a A on the head of adultery women ? The one which say contraception and abortion is again god's will ?

Those are revelatory, and not deduced logically. I don't want to get into a religious debate, but they don't really have any place being legislated in a secular society.

The secular one ? The one which maximize freedom ? The one which maximize protection ? The one which maximize capitalism ?

All of the secular moral systems which purport to be derived from reason ultimately boil down to a finite number of overarching principles and parameters.

Objectivism and its ilk- the selfish principles- are right out. They yield logical contradictions, and if those are resolved, at the very best they ultimately come down to (if interpreted with any consistency at all) a raw social contract.

That's the default for amoral selfish agents who work together for mutual benefit only. The default- moral legislation, by nature, is what lies beyond that. Selfish morality is oxymoronic- it only amounts to the position that we should not legislate morality- and this being about which morality should be legislated, that is a foregone conclusion.

Aside from that, we have deonotlogy- illogical (out)

Virtue ethics- assumptions with no derivations (unless consequentially derived)- because they fail to provide any link to a rational derivation, they are out.

And then consequential ethics- the only thing left.

Under the consequential umbrella, there are a number of theories and interpretations, but they all follow the same general trend (with various tweaks); even those virtue ethics which are derived from consequentialism.

maximizing good- seen as happiness, pleasure, or self determination

minimizing bad- seen as unhappiness, pain/suffering, or sabotage of self determination by others

These are all interrelatable, and can be interpreted and equated in the context of behavior.

How good and bad are weighted against each other, and between individuals, varies.

If you like, you can stop there and just understand that variance between the different implementations as the grey area- or the errors bars- the uncertainty of our ethical analysis.

Some situations will come out clearly favorable (win-win) and be positive in all evaluations.

Some will come out clearly unfavorable (lose-lose) and be negative in all evaluations.

Those situations are the ones in which we can make the most certain moral choices- and where we can viably apply those to legislation.

The grey areas are, well, grey areas. Ethics are an active field of study- as is human and non-human animal cognition.

I will say that there's no rational moral reason to draw an arbitrary distinction between the two in terms of the existence of any of those relevant parameters. So, in any logical sense, we do have to consider other species (at least to the degree that they have the relevant experiences- which animal cognition will reveal to us in greater detail as research progresses) if we are to consider anything at all.

Legislating on morality is a can of worm because it immediately lead to "which morality ?". And then you can as well give up by that point.

See above. I just provided a resealable jar large enough to store the problematic can of worms. It even has air holes in the lid.

It's entirely practical- the only issue is getting people on board with the idea of using logic instead of religion (which is a can of worms, likely with no jar large enough to contain) to guide social progress.