Natural Order and Stuff

In response to Jake - full post here

To your third point, though I'll prioritize it: I would like to make this question explicit and ask for an answer: If you were forced to kill one, would you kill a potato plant or a human?

To  your second point, to address hypothetically killing cows, I have an answer. I had not realized that we had switched the conversation is this manner. Killing the cow would still be immoral because even though the cow would not feel anything if you killed it during its sleep, you would still be depriving it of a future, the future of feeling things. Plants do not feel things. Saying that you could ethically kill cows in their sleep, would be similar to saying that you could ethically kill people in their sleep. Sleep is simply a suspension of activities, animals still have worth while they sleep.

To your fourth point, I would have to argue otherwise. Living in houses, sheltered from the natural conditions of the world is not part of the biological hierarchy. Nowhere in the biological hierarchy, besides with humans, do you see the systematic breeding of animals (to the point where such a population could never exist in nature) to be systematically slaughtered for the masses. Nowhere is it in the biological hierarchy to use 16 pounds of grain to create 1 pound of meat only to throw away more than a third of the food we have. We have, in all effects, removed ourselves from the natural order of things; we hide in our houses until others do work to produce food for us.

Finally, to your fifth point, I am not suggesting we let all the animals go. We could take care of those animals but stop them from reproducing. Of as you suggested, we could systematically kill this generation and not create any additional animals to be killed.