Any Vegetarians/Vegans here?

[bennyboy]

My point is that animals should be considered "others" too, ie they are worthy of our ethical consideration.

This is the fundamental issue: where do we draw that moral "line in the sand," inside which things deserve consideration, and outside which things are treated without that consideration?

In this thread, vegetarians have sometimes been compared to religious people. However, it is the anti-vegetarian arguments which are more Biblical in nature: they imply that there's some kind of soul or essence which separates humans from other animals. But what is there, really? A brain, a nervous system, an awareness of the pain and discomfort of the self-- and these are very obviously not unique to the human species.

---

My answer to both questions is this: Humans are people. Fully sentient people capable of complex thoughts and feelings beyond being hungry or horny.

And yet how much of this complexity ends up getting subjected to those monkey desires? How much intellect goes into arranging to get laid, or to preparing and consuming food? How much intellect goes into justifying behaviors that are clearly harmful to the local ecosystem, to the world's environment, and to many of the other species that live on Earth?