Thankfully it's been already established that animals experience pain and that it's bad. Even the veterinary community created guidelines for pain management in animals [0].
But let's say the above wasn't the case, basically your argument seems to be that because animals can't think about thinking, the pain they experience isn't bad.
But luckily there are a few thought experiments you can do:
If you have a dog, what do you think would happen if you try to cut your dog with a box cutter? Do you think it would yelp, try to run away or even bite you? If so, why?
Another one... so metacognition also implies self-awareness. Pigs have demonstrated that they possess this, by passing the mirror test [1]. Children under 2 can't pass this test. So using your theory, do you think it's OK to inflict pain, since kids under 2 can't experience 'bad quality' pain yet?
We probably will never know how other sentient beings experience pain, since we don't physically experience their pain. If you hurt yourself I can empathize however, I can see that you're experiencing pain.
It's the same with animals, humans can recognize when other animals are in pain and we usually have an urge to help.
Seriously, go watch Earthlings [2] and tell me what you see is not 'bad quality' pain or is not a morally bad thing. If you think it's totally fine what you see and it's morally OK then I guess you are also disagreeing with ethic scholars like Peter Singer or Richard Dawkins [3]. Richard Dawkins even says animals might experience pain more severely than we do and wouldn't it be better to give them the benefit of the doubt?
And cockroaches run away when you try to squash them.
And some plants furl their leaves when you touch them.
Not convinced by your argument.
Also that might be one of the dumbest experiments I've seen in a while. As if pigs can't use their noses (and heavily rely on them) to sense where food is, ignoring what their inferior eyes are telling them.
It's stated in the study[0] that the pigs were not locating the food by smell.
But ignoring that test for a moment, you haven't really responded to any of the other points.
Or how would you respond to the fact that our law acknowledges that animals experience pain.
Your line of reasoning is a logical fallacy that a lot of us make.
But that line of reasoning has allowed major atrocities in the past, i.e. objectifying other sentient beings or comparing them to lower forms of life like cockroaches, justified their immoral actions.
Holocaust survivors are drawing comparisons with what is happening in the factory farm industry to what happened to them in concentration camps [1].
IIsaac Bashevis Singer said: βFor the animals, life is an eternal Treblinka,β. It's a bitter pill to swallow if you look at it from that perspective.
I know winning arguments might be important here on HN, but I'm not sharing this information to win arguments.
I'm encouraging you to watch Earthlings and to see how your humane side reacts to what you see. Do you really agree that it's OK how we treat other non-human animals, just because we can't prove (yet) that they don't experience pain like humans do? What if they experience it even more severely - hence why they scream when we hurt them.
But you might just not care about animal cruelty. If so, do you care about our biosphere[2] or do you care about the people having to work in the factory farm industry. Slaughterhouse workers experience PTSD. Could you work in that environment - killing and gutting hundreds of animals?
Future humans most likely will claim that the way we treat farm animals is immoral[3], the same way we say that slavery in the past and now is immoral.
Moral progress is important - it's what makes us human.
But let's say the above wasn't the case, basically your argument seems to be that because animals can't think about thinking, the pain they experience isn't bad.
But luckily there are a few thought experiments you can do:
If you have a dog, what do you think would happen if you try to cut your dog with a box cutter? Do you think it would yelp, try to run away or even bite you? If so, why?
Another one... so metacognition also implies self-awareness. Pigs have demonstrated that they possess this, by passing the mirror test [1]. Children under 2 can't pass this test. So using your theory, do you think it's OK to inflict pain, since kids under 2 can't experience 'bad quality' pain yet?
We probably will never know how other sentient beings experience pain, since we don't physically experience their pain. If you hurt yourself I can empathize however, I can see that you're experiencing pain.
It's the same with animals, humans can recognize when other animals are in pain and we usually have an urge to help.
Seriously, go watch Earthlings [2] and tell me what you see is not 'bad quality' pain or is not a morally bad thing. If you think it's totally fine what you see and it's morally OK then I guess you are also disagreeing with ethic scholars like Peter Singer or Richard Dawkins [3]. Richard Dawkins even says animals might experience pain more severely than we do and wouldn't it be better to give them the benefit of the doubt?
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[0] https://wsava.org/global-guidelines/global-pain-council-guid...
[1] Smart Pigs vs Kids | Extraordinary Animals | BBC Earth - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mza1EQ6aLdg
[2] https://www.nationearth.com/
[3] Richard Dawkins: No Civilized Person Accepts Slavery So Why Do We Accept Animal Cruelty? | Big Think - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4SnBCPzBl0