Animal Slavery

[John V]

My cat literally does NOTHING for me. He simply lives here and comes and goes out of the house as he pleases.

That's not slavery. The only thing I'm getting is an awesome friendship with a great cat.

That's nice. Unless you're arguing that all animals owned by humans are in a similar situation, it's not terribly relevant for this discussion.

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I once ended up at a seminar about animal ethics, partly by chance. In the end one of the panelists expressed the view that we have the right to exploit animals, because we have assumed the right to do this. (Well, that was the gist of it. He had more explanations, but I won't tire you with them here)

But, would he say that one group of humans has the right to exploit another group of humans, because it has assumed the right to do so? That would be advocating slavery.

Like I said, convenience. To the extent that humans can ease the suffering of animals, we do so... as long as it doesn't deprive us of something we want or need (food, clothes, entertainment, plowed fields, etc). I don't think of it as slavery because when I think of that term I think of people acting against people, not animals. But you could make a case that it comes down to us deciding that we're sufficiently above other creatures so as to treat them in such a manner.

I think this is the justification most people use.