I think feelings are what give things the right to live. If you feel pain of any kind, you can be "betrayed" by your environment, and there's actually now a reason not to physically injure you (aside from environmental implications, such as when forests are cut down).
If you feel pleasure, you get something out of life. If you only feel apathy and pain, a quick and painless death would actually be merciful, but torture would be wrong. If you actually feel some sort of joy, you lose something significant when you cease to exist.
If you'r a robot capable of complex logical thought processes, and have not emotion, what do I care if your death is convenient? Pull the trigger!
Feelings are the foundation of any objective ethic, I think. Why? Feelings are the reason "bad" things and "good" things even can exist. Without good and bad sensation, there is only apathetic experience... soulless existence, free of tragedy, triumph, betrayal, slavery, freedom, ect ...
and at this point in our conversation, I ask: Where do you draw your sandbox lines? I mean, if something only feels "a little" or doesn't appear to be "that sentient," is it ok to kill it?
I answer that it is ok for predators to kill prey so long as they are incapable of thinking of another way to survive and experience joy, but that man is perhaps more capable than any other known animal of being resourceful, and so might perhaps benefit from egg-eating vegetarianism.
I don't think it's right to attack a lion for killing a deer, nor to attack a man for killing a lion. The world is very imperfect... The predator/prey relationship exists as a result of blind causality, perhaps an eternity of causes continuing on and on, the whole universe being reborn every moment.
But evolution guided by will might improve things, no?
