[sjy]

This is ridiculous. Consciousness may be mysterious, but the fact that something emits sound when you break it doesn’t bring it into the same ethical domain as cows and other mammals with brains and an obvious desire and ability to avoid pain and death.

[zokula]

Nice cop out. Plants have feelings too man.

[briefcomment]

Then why don’t we just anesthetize animals before slaughtering them? Seems like it would take care of your concern.

[sjy]

The same reason anaesthesia doesn’t make it okay to kill humans. There’s lots more on this in chapter 4 (“What's Wrong with Killing?”) of Singer’s Practical Ethics, if you’re interested.

[briefcomment]

What’s the difference between an anesthetized animal and a plant? We literally call brain dead mammals “vegetables”.

[bjoli]

Well, if we are to follow the parent's mention of Peter Singer, you could go check out just about any source of preference utilitarianism. Briefly:

An animal has a conscious will to live on, a preference so to say, and those preferences are the basis of moral consideration.

A plant lacks those kinds of preferences (lacking any brain activity - what we can see are mostly just hormonal cell responses and such; things that all living cells have) and thus the plant in itself is not worthy of moral consideration.