(August 3, 2014 at 1:01 pm)Natachan Wrote: I'd argue this is a somewhat false analogy. A cow is not a person, their needs are different. A cow does not have the cognitive ability of a person, nor does it have the physical needs of a human. So it is perfectly acceptable to treat a cow differently than a person.All of these same things, I guarantee, have been said in defense of black slavery. However, re: cognitive ability, what's the cutoff line? There are lots of people I know for sure I'm an order of magnitude smarter than-- am I free to dispatch them on this basis? How about a nuclear physicist-- can he kill me? Who gets to decide which cognitive abilites merit protection, and which do not?
As for physical needs-- every "need" is conditional. On the condition that someone is going to live a reasonably good life, one needs not to be harmed, and not to have that life unnecessarily shortened. I don't see how cows are different from humans in this regard.