Quote:
ubs wrote
I think we are more heavily motivated to beleive that animals are NOT capable of intelligence than to think that they are. We eat them. We use them for slave labor. We kill them for convenience and sport. We put them in little jails so that we can go look at them. We cut part of their heads open while they are alive to observe the effects of drugs.
Consider the implications if the pig you eat for breakfast turns out to have as much depth of feeling and the same capacity to reflect on it's life as your child.
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We pretty much know animals are sentient beings and that mammals have "feelings" and experience pain. Lobster and fish might, too, for all I know. It's certainly not a stretch to me that they do.
But you are right. It is horribly inconvenient to think of animals that way when we are sitting down to lunch, or at the dinner table. However, we anthropomorphize animals all the time, as cartoon characters who stand in for us in fairytales and other entertainment, and we treat our household pets-- whether they're dogs, cats or potbellied pigs or, ahem, chimps-- as if they were human and ascribe behaviors and thoughts to them that may or may not be appropriate.
As far as "de-humanizing" animals when it's convenient, well, we've been known to do that to each other, too.