[beat]

No, pigs and cattle are not sentient.

Sentience is a complex question, but it mostly revolves around language and symbol-making/recognition. There's substantial evidence that whales actually have language. Pigs and cattle do not.

(edit: I'm misusing the word "sentience" here. The problem is that it's not the right distinction. Cows/pigs are sentient, in that they can feel emotions. But they cannot reason. So it's not just that whales are sentient, but also that whales can reason. At any rate, whales are considered by most experts to be able to think similarly to the way humans think - language, symbolism.)

[lprubin]

I believe the important distinction is not whether or not pigs and cows are sentient/language capable. Instead the real question is can they suffer. And if they can is it acceptable to cause that suffering simply for entertainment value?

Ask yourself if dog fighting is acceptable. That is clearly animal suffering for purely entertainment purposes. If you live in a situation where you can survive and thrive without eating meat, how is eating meat any different than watching dog fighting? It’s animal suffering for enjoyment purposes.

[beat]

I've never understood this part of the vegetarian argument. Cows and pigs wouldn't exist if we didn't eat them. Is it better that they not exist at all, than that they should suffer briefly?

[lprubin]

I say yes. Can we breed humans as slaves and say “would it be better that they didn’t exist than live a horrible existence?” to justify breeding them? Because that is the exact logic slaveowners used.

Same with dogfighting. If we breed dogs for dogfighting that wouldn’t otherwise exist, does that make dogfighting acceptable?

[janimo]

I am pretty sure we do not want to go down the 'cannot reason so can be eaten' path.

[hkyeti]

Pigs are incredible intelligent. Yet even for sentient beings that aren't at the same level, that doesn't mean they should be exploited (think through the ethical consequences of that world view)