> Slavery is an excellent cognate to this.
No it's not. I always find the idea that humans are not in some way special (at least to other humans) off-putting. Even animals treat members of their own species generally better than they treat other species.
I love animals, I think we should treat them with dignity and respect as much as possible. At the same time I would not hesitate to kill an animal for food or if it endangered another human.
Good points.
I think where we disagree is the question of whether slaughter is necessarily undignified or disrespectful. When I say "treat them with dignity and respect" I think the experience of the animal up to the point of death is what's most important. The slaughter, if done humanely and quickly, is not inherently immoral to me. For example, I think most people would agree that it's better to "put down" a suffering pet than let them die of natural causes.
My problem mainly lies with industrial farming practices like battery cages.
> My problem mainly lies with industrial farming practices like battery cages.
Yeah, we definitely have common ground here. I’ll also mention that industrial farming practices are also cruel to people. Slaughterhouses in the US are overwhelmingly staffed by migrant laborers who work in unsafe conditions, for low pay, being exposed to antibiotics that damage their long term health.
We can and should do better.
The cognate here is about how attitudes about systemic actions can change due to a shift in consciousness and access to alternatives. Many people saw black people as not their own kind, and saw no reason — beyond economic imperative - to treat them with compassion.
You said yourself:
>I think we should treat them with dignity and respect as much as possible.
It becomes more possible to treat animals with more respect and dignity every day. For vast portions of the population (Not all! Not yet!) the slaughter of animals for food is becoming less and less necessary.
So the question becomes, given that you believe we should treat animals with as much respect and dignity as possible, do you believe you have a moral imperative to take advantage of these systemic advances?