Animal rights, veganism and PETA

[The Omnissiunt One]

Suffering requires both bodily pain and sentience. So even if chickens' bodies react AS IF they feel pain, if they are not sentient they don't actually feel it or suffer.

You could say the same of other people. You can never know for sure that they have any inner mental life. But we all agree that they do.
I am not aware of such data myself and I'm not particularly interested in it either. There's so much suffering going on in the world anyway I don't really know where to start.

And if I wasn't on Lithium (a toxic mood stabilizer) I'd love to give blood.

Once I turn 18, I'll probably give blood? Also, are you an organ donor? That way, you can be useful even in death.

EDIT: This is my 7600th forum post. Proof I have no life.

But this forum's much the better for it.

I'm glad you appreciate that point. It also makes the concept of aggregate pain incoherent for the same reason.

Mean pain presupposes aggregate pain, because it suggests that pain units can be added together to find a 'mean'.

I say that every individual matters, and every individual matters equally by default. But once we are actually born we are not born into equal circumstances and situations and some of us suffer more than others. And I say, focusing on the individuals that suffer most FIRST, makes sense. Once they're out of the way, focus on the individuals that suffer less and less, and then, lastly, focus on perfecting happiness.

Negative consequentialism rules, I agree.

The other issue is of course what is possible to do. It's no good striving to help those beyond help. "Ought" implies "can".

Indeed, as Kant said.