this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

All humans are of equal value.

Not all animals are of equal value. A cow is not of the same value as a fly and a fly is not the same value as a human.

Would you deem someone who swats a fly equal to a murderer? Probably not. Because the value of flies, if any, is irrelevant.

All humans, including vegans, deem animals as of lesser value.

You will never protect a fly to the same level that you protect a human.

There's a distinction to be made, and to deem only humans to be of value, is one such distinction.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'd assign value in order of sentience, consciousness, comprehension of the world, others and self. How intense do they experience the world? Can they feel pain and suffer? How social are they? Is it really like something to be that animal / does it have a subjective experience? Does it want to live?

Would you generally agree?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

How intense do they experience the world?

Hard to say for any animal.

Can they feel pain and suffer?

Yes, we know every animal, even insects, feels pain and fear.

How social are they?

That depends a lot. Most felines and reptiles are not social, neither are sharks or hummingbirds. Canines, equines, bovines, chicken, ants, termites and bees are very social

Is it really like something to be that animal / does it have a subjective experience?

This question didn't make much sense. Are you supposed to compare, say, how a jellyfish experiences life with an octopus?

Does it want to live?

Pretty much everything in this earth "wants" to live, including microbes. This "want" is not a right, however. No animals, not even humans, has any sort of "right" to live. Rights are a human invention.

Of those questions, seems only one actually leads to different answers (how social it is), and whatever comes out of the subjective experience one.