Any Vegetarians/Vegans here?

[Angrboda]

You haven't even come close. All you've done is declare, "Animal suffering. Oog. Icky. Me not like, therefore bad." You're a non-cognitivist's dream.

"Nigger" suffering. Oog. Icky. Woman suffering. Oog. Icky. "Homo" suffering. Oog. Icky.

I'm not sure why you think an emotional reaction to the horrors of seeing suffering inflicted on others isn't sufficient reason for them to take a position against the causes of those horrors. Many of the changes to moral thinking have been emotional responses to unpleasant circumstances. This is not a symptom of the weakness of logic, but a testament to the strength of human compassion.

If owning slaves violates my self-interest as a human being, I have a legitimate reason for wanting to stop it. All you've done is state a preference, which you immediately started adding exceptions and qualifications to (re: punishment). That way lies causistry and a lousy foundation for ethics. That way lies a "might makes right" argument as well, in that you want your preferences to prevail over mine; but you've given no legitimate justification for why they should. If I'm right, and suffering of women and blacks is actually against your self-interest, and suffering of chicken, worms, and bacteria only indirectly relevant, you're essentially cutting your nose off to spite your face, and that's irrational. Are you going to argue against the rationality of self-interest? I think that's a value we share. We don't share your value. I can justify my stand with appeal to your values, you can't justify your stand with appeal to my values. What happened to your concerns for equity here? Oop! Guess we'll add some more exceptions. Suffering only counts when it concerns the suffering of people who base their ethics on empathy and suffering; if I disagree with you, and you put a cows interest ahead of mine and that of my progeny, well, that's okay, because that's your preference. Really? That doesn't sound like anything more than a gerrymandering of the moral landscape according to anything but personal preference, and I think that's a useless ethical standpoint. But realize, in the end, you've justified with appeal to self-interest as well, you just think a world with as little suffering in it as possible is of more value to you than the success of our species. I don't. And I don't think you really do either.