Spiker439

First off I apologize if anyone has already begun this line of thought, I was far too lazy to read all the posts.

Isn't this elaborately stated question just another way of asking "How are animals different than humans"? It's just an application of that premise, if I'm not mistaken. As far as I'm concerned the only difference between human beings and animals is the human being's ability to reason and rationalize, which stems from self consciousness in some form. One could potentially argue, I suppose, that some species of monkey or dolphins may have this ability as well, but I think the fundamental difference is that human beings can see themselves within the context of their own species. That is to say that, a dog sees itself as a dog, but not as, say, a Cocker Spaniel, whereas human beings not only see themselves as human, but they see themselves as a particular within that species.

This is rather tengential now that I've expanded it, but let us return to the point at hand; I would say that there is a fundamental difference between animals and human beings, highlighted above, and that a human's ability to rationalize would not necessarily make it wrong to eat animals, it would just allow someone to hold us responsible for eating animals, in the same way that we are morally responsible if we are racist. One cannot, I don't think, hold a lion responsible for eating some other animal in the strictest sense, since the lion acted on instinct without the ability to rationalize it's actions. Physical and causal responsibility, yes - moral responsibility, no.

I guess what I'm clumsily trying to say is that you can hold poeple morally responsible for eating animals but you can't necessarily say that, morally, eating animals is wrong, while I would argue that you can say that racism is morally wrong as a principle of humanity. Maybe I just like chicken... But really, it does seem counterintuitive to assert that eating chicken is comparable to hating black people, doesn't it?