this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2023
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On the basis of their being conscious feeling thinking emotional beings I assert that there is no moral difference between violating the bodily autonomy of a non-human animal and a human. Given a no alternative hypothetical it's fair to give preference for who to spare, but this is not the same as willful unnecessary violence and killing.
If it's false equivalency, demonstrate why it is permissible to kill non humans but not even permissible to punch humans in the face. What is the morally relevant difference? If you could apply that difference to a human, would you then justify doing to them all the things we do to animals?
Your examples don't have victims, this one does.
From the perspective of cultural relativism.*
Insofar as our laws view animals, we do not afford them the same considerations or rights as we do our own species. I can't speak for Europe, but in the legal systems of North American countries, animals are granted their own distinct protections separate from the protections given to entities with the designation of personhood (i.e. humans or service animals).
For instance, with permits and barring species that are protected for conservation reasons, humans are allowed to hunt and kill animals for both sport and sustenance. In such cases, animals do not consent to their hunting.
However, that does not mean that it is okay to hurt animals without cause. There are animal cruelty laws that cover unjustified and inhumane treatment of wild and pet animals.
If it is legal to kill animals but illegal to be "cruel" to them, then the act of killing an animal is not, in itself, cruelty. If it was, then animal cruelty would unconditionally occur during the process of hunting, making the latter illegal.
With these four points, and keeping in mind that laws are a reflection of the collective beliefs of society, we see that:
By (1) and that punching a human in the face is an act of harming them (and also illegal), I conclude that it is not morally permissible to punch humans in the face.
By (2) and (4), I conclude that it is morally permissible to kill non-human animals.
Just in case anyone thinks relativism is a cop-out answer because laws were written in the past and may not be reflective of society's current moral views, I ask you to consider this:
Laws are constantly changed to align with updated beliefs. Canada amended its laws to consider gender identity a protected class, which reflects the contemporary belief that transgender individuals deserve equality and freedom from being discriminated against. If society cared about not killing animals, hunting for sport would be unconditionally outlawed.
Edit 1: I meant cultural relativism. Non-Western cultures have different (and in some cases, more progressive) views on animal rights.
Foundationally we already disagree, as I'm a moral objectivist. To assert moral subjectivity is to assert that moral progress does not exist. But with your edit your argument is actually now even worse IMO, because instead of focusing on a moral relativist position you're now basically saying morality=culture/law. i.e., since you have no say in what another society does without disrupting their agreed practice, all their actions are permissible. Bigotry is permissible. Slavery is permissible, hangings are permissible, genocide is permissible, etc, just so long as it simultaneously does not occur within proximity to you and rejects your preference. I think you are tolerant of intolerance.
Moral objectivism is pretty much the argument that inevitably always ends with an authoritarian regime to "eliminate" the "unethical" people from society. Germany first, and all that.
So if i want an external society to stop genociding for abritrary reasons, and I encourage my society to openly condemn it – even consider physical intervention where no alternative works, I'm the nazi? Did America do a nazi when they invaded Germany to end Hitler's expansion/regime?