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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. |