We do hold ourselves to a higher standard, but we typically have actual reason to do so.
Vegan moral arguments almost entirely rely on empathy. "The animal suffers therefore it's wrong".
And they miss the mark almost every time because they're literally thinking emotionally instead of logically. Human suffering has actual consequences and we're basically always worse of if we don't reduce it. Where that isn't true such as in times of war we happy promote it.
Those arguments are far weaker than you would expect because empathy doesn't actually weigh as heavily as you would expect on real social level decision making. Instead, practicality always wins and animal products are far far more valuable than the nearly non-existent harms of animal suffering.
>Vegan moral arguments almost entirely rely on empathy. "The animal suffers therefore it's wrong".
This isn't an appeal to empathy, it's a rational argument based on the mental capacity of the animal and our existing standards for ethics. An empathetic appeal would be to say, "when the octopus suffers, you feel sad, therefore because you feel sad you shouldn't cause it harm". That's not the vegan moral case. Your feelings don't matter. Speciesism is illogical and requires empathy or lack thereof. You don't feel bad when you cause the octopus harm instead of a human, therefore the octopus doesn't matter. Logically, the vegan is on perfectly solid ground.
You have it the exact wrong way around. In social decisions empathy weighs very highly and logic counts for very little, which is why tribalism is such a huge driver of human behavior, even when it causes many more living beings harm than it helps, as it does during war.
The two possibilities I can see for your alternate take is either:
Placing suffering as the absolute centerpiece of morality and then basing all your conclusions on that.
Or an argument to "common sense" in that most people will tell you causing suffering is bad. Therefore it's bad.
I don't see either of these as being great arguments.
> In fact speciesism is illogical
Why? Most of it is perfectly logical. Pigs aren't humans. It's not illogical to treat them differently from humans in very substantial ways.
Also basically nobody says "we can kill pigs because I don't feel bad when I kill them". It's almost always "I do it for the meat".
And if you watch how we treat animals we largely differentiate them based on their functional differences. Even where you get weird cultural things like India not wanting to eat meat - that originated from the need for milk, fertilizer, etc.
The only weirdness you'll see is if you challenge people on it from an empathetic standpoint. People are socially wired to say there "good people who never would made an animal suffer" so you're running into social norms more than anything there.
> Why? Most of it is perfectly logical. Pigs aren't humans. It's not illogical to treat them differently from humans in very substantial ways.
That is specifically NOT what speciesism is. Speciesism is about making moral decisions based SOLELY on a morally irrelevant (and arbitrary) category, species. This is very similar to sexism: Noone would claim men and women are literally identical, but we are against making moral distinction solely based on sex.
> Also basically nobody says "we can kill pigs because I don't feel bad when I kill them". It's almost always "I do it for the meat".
And most people say you can't kill dogs for meat. And the dog fight leader also only does it "to survive". Just because you can make up a justification does not make it morally valid or relevant.
Finally, to appeal to how "we've always done it" in a moral context is just obviously wrong.
To make it more practical:
- do you genuinely think that animals cannot suffer?
- Yes, then I hope you are morally ok with ANY and ALL things done to ANY animal, including dogs and cats. Things like bestiality
- No, then the practical question for 99.9% of people reading this is whether temporary taste pleasure is morally more important than that suffering
- Yes, then we come back around to dog fighting rings, and legal bestiality etc. Anything and everything that causes comparable suffering must be considered moral by you
Looking at land animals btw, the fewest are carnivores (e.g. look at predator vs herbivores rates) - they evolved to fill a niche, and they lack the body and intelligence (while they have a lot) to develop tools and reflect on ethics and moral that would allow them to do differently. How can one argue with animals eating other animals in comparison to our great "master species" /s at all?
