What would be the harm?

[bennyboy]

If I don't have a binding issue with killing cattle...what chance does an ant have to garner my sympathies?  

I dunno. You're the one claiming that there are objective mores floating around in the ether. My position is that since you don't have strong feelings about the animals' welfare, and since those around you don't elicit worry or fear of castigation about the issue, that you are unlikely to consider the welfare of the animals in your dietary decisions. But that's because I don't believe there are things which are just right because they're right-- I believe morality is a process of feeling and subsequent negotiation with others.

How about a lion? If it shreds an animal for lunch, is it acting immorally? Since you are claiming that causing harm is intrinsically moral, and not dependent on the whims of a subjective agent, does it really matter what kind of agent commits the harm? Or are you going to argue capacity, with the caveat that we don't get to consider brain function and determinism in considering capacity among humans?

[quote]
This argument.,..which we've seen before, is the "you eat meat so that makes morality all about feelers" gambit.  I do eat meat..but that doesn't mean that my morality is based on my feelers.  Assuming the absolute worst, it means that I knowingly do things I consider to be bad...which..ofc, we already knew was something that human beings do.

So you claim there are objective mores, give the example of the causing of physical harm being immoral, and then embrace the causing of physical harm, and with a certain degree of irreverence to boot. If instead, "Meh, they're just fucking cows" it was "Meh, they're just fucking homos" (or niggers, or bitches, or Republicans), would you accept the rejoinder "Meh. . . you might be right, but I take pleasure in it and anyway we know that people are imperfect."

Seems like about one step away from Friday-hookers-Sunday-confessional.