Do you agree with Richard Dawkins?

[simplexity]

I agree that factory farming is unnecessary and maybe even "terrible" in a way because any animal is physically similar to us and we may have a natural tendency to have to look at this as disturbing.

But I do not find it morally unethical because the animals involved for argument sake are not self aware/sentient.

I still will stick with saying that an animal may experience a reaction to a stimuli and you can refer to this as "pain" if you will. A non sentient animal cannot suffer though, unless it is aware of the pain itself and is therefore sentient/conscious. So unless an animal is sentient there can be no such thing as unnecessary pain and suffering since it cannot experience suffering(ie it does not not even know it's alive as another poster said). Self awareness is needed for there to be any suffering involved. Suffering does not occur in the brain until after we have already experienced the reaction and then become aware of it. The reaction given by an animal may give us a human tendency to feel the animal is actually experiencing suffering but really this is not enough. I do not think it is ethical to kill any animal which displays any signs of sentience unless it is completely necessary to survive.

Granted, all of this is in an ideal world where we could easily understand whether or not an animal has a sense of self awareness. The distinction between reaction to stimuli and self awareness is a difficult one indeed. A chicken may even show a reaction when one of it's chicks is seemingly in distress but how do you tell whether it is actually aware of the actions it has taken.

Very carefully.
There are neurological methods of brain scanning and such which are already being studied, but it is still in the beginning stages.
Just wanted to post this:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...ecognition

Even a plant could be self aware. How could we know? This has always been a question. When it comes down to it we still have to eat and the notion that it is ethically wrong to eat is completely ridiculous. So, no I disagree with dawkins. And yes "trying" to prove livestock animals are not sentient would be the moral choice, but doing it is another matter. BTW please define the word moral. We are constantly updating our values but the way you use the word seems like you already know all the answers. If that is so why are you trying to argue this point.

Without sentience, an animal is just another machine and not an intelligence. Sounds very callous I know, but it's true.