I added to that post, because I didn't see your mention of "observed phenomena". I think the issue is the use of "belief" in Christian evangelism where it is a choice that lands you in heaven or hell. "Belief" can also mean watching an airplane fly and then believing that it is possible.No, one accepts the scientific findings, i.e. physical reality. No belief needed.
I am familiar with Singer and his work. Like all public thinkers and intellectuals, I don't agree with all of his conclusions. His ideas on the value of human life as it relates to consciousness and, for example, I disagree with.
Pigs are highly intelligent and possibly conscious on a level that rivals some humans. Their faculty for emotional suffering is very high. Other animals such as apes, chimps, elephants, and dolphins are also in this category--but we have not typically eaten those animals. I'm not sure what I personally think about that--I'm an enthusiastic meat eater, but he does make a strong case.
I may not be as moral as a Peter Singer, but I sure eat better.I cooked a couple of pork medallions for dinner last night. As a result I was feeling somewhat ethically compromised.
Fortunately I was able to assuage a guilty conscience with an excellent marinade of mustard, balsamic, honey and olive oil.
OB
Pigs are also very clean animals if they have access to clean water for cooling themselves.
It's about protecting humans from being used as food or as guinea pigs in harmful scientific experiments. Evolution teaches us that we are not all that different from our fellow animals, so any protection of humans would seem arbitrary and flimsy unless it also includes animals that share human traits. If we can justify injecting a chimpanzee with a deadly virus as research then why can't we justify the same for a human? We must protect the chimpanzees and the pigs and the cats and so on if we want to protect the humans. Protecting only humans and not similar animals is a little bit like protecting only right-handed people and not left-handed people. The arbitrary nature of the protections makes them vulnerable to challenge.
In evolutionary terms, humans are just another species of (hominids). The fact that they have developed higher intelligence is not really to do with morality (a sense of right and wrong) in any objective way but rather a more advanced form of thinking. But in biological terms, it's just the firing of electrical and chemical brain activity no different to animals but just on a different scale.
One promising technology is the ability to grow flesh in a lab. This not only eliminates the need for us to kill animals but it also is more efficient and better for the environment. In theory this might allow carnivorous animals to eat without harming other animals. For example my cat could eat canned mouse flesh that was grown in a laboratory and is free of the diseases and parasites that living mice might contain.
