You presuppose that torture is always willful. In the context of human-scale meat production, it seems unavoidable. Yet we accept this, as it is necessary for consumer demands. The employees of factory farm facilities may very well suffer "emotional depravity;" not as a prerequisite for their duties, but as a result.
The nature of torture aside, taking the life of a sentient being is the ultimate violation of its rights. I don't see how any act less than killing can be considered morally worse than killing.
Animals are not sentient. Higher animals have some form of emotion and a great capacity to suffer but as far as we can tell today, they do not have self-aware and self-reasoning intelligence.
Okay, I used the wrong word. My point remains unchanged. Animals, in their various are not capable of enough intelligence or self-reasoning to be considered thinking beings requiring equal protection with people. It is not morally wrong for a human to hunt animals, farm animals, use animals for labor, or keep animals as pets.
This does not make it right for a human to deliberately cause harm to an animal for pleasure or entertainment. I also would consider trophy hunting to be immoral if one leaves the body to rot.
> The nature of torture aside, taking the life of a sentient being is the ultimate violation of its rights. I don't see how any act less than killing can be considered morally worse than killing.
The nature of torture aside, taking the life of a sentient being is the ultimate violation of its rights. I don't see how any act less than killing can be considered morally worse than killing.