Quote:
Originally Posted by jammies
My personal morality is that only conscious or potentially conscious beings have rights. It's wrong to kick a dog not because you are violating its rights, but because causing pain for your own pleasure or convenience is aberrant behaviour that increases the likelihood that you will do the same or similar to a conscious being that does have rights. Eating animals violates no rights and does not lead to the violation of rights in its indulgence, so therefore cannot be immoral.
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Well, two flaws to all this. First, scientists have declared that mammals are conscious. Which I had no doubt of given that elephants mourn their dead and dolphins have displayed metacognative abilities.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/...d-as-such.html
Secondly, how can you assume that my enjoyment of animal suffering would lead to suffering against humans, but your enjoyment of animal suffering would not lead to suffering against humans? You cannot prove that my enjoy that my kicking of my dog will lead to kicking of humans any more than I can prove that your eating of cows will lead to eating of humans.
One big difference between you eating meat and me kicking the dog is that unless you hunted down the animal yourself, someone else likely killed the animal. You have removed yourself one step from the actual suffering. However, it would seem that those that kill animals for food may well be more likely to commit violence against humans:
http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/...-violent-crime
Which is interesting given Golding's "Lord of the Flies".