(January 26, 2014 at 8:49 am)jg2014 Wrote: Fundamentally all we can really know is that "I" suffer. We only make a generalisation to "all humans" or "all conscious beings" based on their similarity to ourselves. When meat eaters limit ethical concern to the suffering of humans they make an error of natural kind, in that rather than identifying the specific characteristics that would make other's suffering similar to ours, they assume that humans have an unidentified essential characteristic in making our suffering fundamentally different to animals.
I think most on this thread have accepted the non-solipsistic extension of suffering (and the right not to suffer unnecessarily) to humans.
Some have argued that animals don't have the capacity to suffer, or to suffer "as we do." In my opinion, that's an ignorant argument. It's clear by watching animals, at least mammals and birds, that they are capable of great suffering. They react similarly to humans in many situations. It would be easy enough to dig up some scientific papers proving pretty categorically that animals suffer.
Others have argued that humans don't need to care: that is, that there's no reason to include non-human species under the umbrella of morality, and to extend to them the rights that humans enjoy. To me, this position is inexplicable, because the REASON people sympathise with each other is that they've learned as children to put themselves in other people's shoes. And yet people seem incapable of putting themselves in the animals' "shoes," and to arrive at what seems to you and I the obvious moral decision. I cannot see what logical idea or position draw the line after human suffering, but before that of animals that obviously suffer similarly to us.
