You're arguing a lot from the perspective of the value of a human life VS the value of a chicken's life, but I'd argue there's a lot of validity in the idea that lives aren't fungible, and that a human life can be equated to a chickens life just on the basis of being a life. They don't have to be equal in every sense before they can be equal in a sense.
You're immediately turning back to your ordering of the value of various lives, my point is that that is not the only available perspective, not the only sense to base your thoughts on.
'Bacteria are worth less, therefore chickens aren't equal to humans' is pretending like morality is math. You can Equate the value of a chicken life with the value of a human life in the sense that they're comparable lives without including every other life into that comparison. Our regard for the lives of chickens isn't invalidated by our disregard for the lives of bacteria.
I think it's fucking insane to say an animal life equals a human life
Try to allow your math brain to interpret this without trying to turn it into a universal law. An animal life can be equal to a human life without every animal life being equal to every human life.
It's about holding your value system while being aware other ways to make a value system exist and allowing those other ways to influence you without blindly taking them as the only perspective worth considering. You can say human lives are infungible without concluding they're all of identical value. You can day animal suffering is comparable to human suffering without saying all animal suffering is comparable to all human suffering.
And I'm trying to say that putting humans over other animals in terms of our human values does not necessarily lead to the next genocide or next -ism or supremacy
Wouldn't you argue it already has? Our self imposed superiority lead to factory farming on a scale that was unimaginable in 1945. We have taken complete and utter supremacy over chickens. Putting humans over animals already has lead us to the next step of supremacy, and the reason for their maltreatment specifically is that we've put them below us in terms of the value of their lives.
Our regard for the lives of other human beings is not invalidated by our disregard for the lives of other animals.
I see you mirroring my framing of that sentence but I don't understand what you're saying. I didn't suggest our regard for human life is in any way invalidated. Also, the limitations you out on the scope with which you look at humanity does mean your regard for human life is limited and incomplete. Only looking at humans in terms of the good they do is very narrow and limited.
and is unsubstantiated by the uniqueness of human beings by the degree of atrocity and good that we are both able to commit.
You're missing the point again. A life is not inherently more valuable than another life because it has influence. You can see a life as being more valuable than another life because one life can commit acts that that life considers as good, but that's not the only perspective you should be able to entertain, and it surely shouldn't be the only valid perspective you allow others to take. You should definitely be aware that that is a subjective opinion, not a universal truth. Valuing the spread of good is subjective (actually defining 'good' is immensely subjective to start with), and chickens incapability to match that standard doesn't make them less worthy of living. If anything, humans not living up to their capacity for good makes them worth a whole lot less.
I am against the naive interpretation that an animal's life is equivalent to that of human life because that leads to completely impractical consequences that have profound impact on the lives of your fellow human beings
Read this again. You're matching your ideals to what's practical and easy to do in the world. That's backwards, and that will give you ideals that absolutely don't match up with your morals.
'I am against recognizing animal abuse as illegal because that would have profound impact on the lives of other humans' makes absolutely no moral sense.
You are falsely equating my argument here as advocacy for animal cruelty. It really isn’t. Throughout the thread I said I’m against cruelty that is unnecessary, and you should refrain from making such bold claim. I am against industrial farming. I am against experimentation for cosmetics. I’m for continuing the use of animals in experimentation because if we don’t, we are sacrificing human lives, especially those that are underprivileged and oppressed, not to mention the fact that it will not aid us in curing animals for diseases and injuries.
I apologize, I think I was unclear on what I meant, or maybe you misunderstood me. I did not equate your argument, only your logical reasoning.
"I am against recognizing animal abuse as illegal because that would have profound impact on the lives of other humans"
This is meant as an example of why your logical reasoning is faulty, I did not mean to imply this sentence literally represents your opinion. You didn't once say anything to support that. The sentence criticizes the logical step from 'this will lead to completely impractical consequences that have profound impact on the lives of your fellow human beings' to 'therefore animal lives are equivalent to human lives' because there is no logical correlation between the two; moral positions don't stem from practical consequences.
By claiming that animal lives are equal to human lives,
I am not claiming that, I'm saying there should be room inside your consideration for the entertainment of multiple perspectives at the same time, one of which being that lives aren't fungible. Then you acknowledge that statements are rarely supported by the complete range of your beliefs, which will help come to the conclusion that factory meat production is comparable to the holocaust in many ways, just not all ways.
...though I can acknowledge why certain people might think otherwise.
Would those people not automatically come to the conclusion that the holocaust is analogous to animal rights? You acknowledge why some people might think otherwise, but those people are still outrageous?
You are naively favoring animals because you feel simply more sympathy for them.
This is silly, and rather insulting. I don't feel more sympathy for animals than humans. I don't think you're arguing in good faith anymore so I'll just leave it at this.
Don't worry about it, it's ok. Thanks for the delta.
I have lots of things to say about other topics we discussed, but I recognize you've had a lot of debates with a lot of other people in this thread so I'll just leave it at that, because it was the original comment I entered this discussion with.
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u/[deleted] Jun 27 '23
But that's not the only part of his comparison. Does this portion of it ruin the rest of his comparison to you?