[irb]

>> At the end of the day- many animals eat other animals' meat. Why is it any different for humans to do the same?

It's a question of moral agency. Generally animals are not held to any kind of moral standard at all - no one thinks a dog that bites a child is "evil", just dangerous. You'd be more likely to blame the owner for not training/controlling it properly.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

I assure you that I still think of the dog that bit me twenty years ago as the true incarnation of all evil. Bastard mutt! It just jumped out of nowhere and bit me in the leg. The fuck?

Now, I think the point you're making is that, in terms of moral agency humans are special, so special that we 're not allowed to eat other animals, even though other animals do it (and they'll eat us if given the chance).

Well, I have to say that I've heard the same claim on both sides of the issue. For example, in the past people have claimed that animals don't have a soul, and in modern times, that they don't feel pain (or don't experience it as humans do) or have emotions (or human emotions) and that, therefore, it's fine to treat them anyway we please. In fact, I believe that this special moral agency of humans is used to justify animal experimentation, at least to some degree.

Obviously, I don't think that this idea of special human moral powers holds any water. We're animals like the rest. We 're part of the same food chain, where living things feed off each other. Why should we be treated differently than all those other living things? They can eat us, and each other, we can eat them.