Sci-fi Is Often A Metaphor. I Think

To Be A Utilitarian Means That You Judge Actions As Right Or Wrong In Accordance With Whether They Have Good Consequences. So You Try To Do What Will Have The Best Consequences For All Of Those Affected.

Whatever The Reason, For Most Of The Present Century, The Literature And Publicity Of The Old Established [animal Welfare] Groups Made A Significant Contribution To The Prevailing Attitude That Dogs And Cats And Wild Animals Need Protection, But Other Animals Do Not. Thus People Came To Think Of "animal Welfare" As Something For Kindly Ladies Who Are Dotty About Cats, And Not As A Cause Founded On Basic Principles Of Justice And Morality.

I Don't Understand The Notion That Modern Farming Is Anything Do To With Nature. It's A Pretty Gross Interference With Nature. I Think It Ought To Be Governed By The Standards Of How It Affects The Individual Animals, Just As We'd Want To Deal With Institutions That Deal With Humans By How They Affect Individual Humans.

If Animals Are No Longer Quite Outside The Moral Sphere, They Are Still In A Special Section Near The Outer Rim. Their Interests Are Allowed To Count Only When They Do Not Clash With Human Interests. If There Is A Clash - Even A Clash Between A Lifetime Of Suffering For A Nonhuman Animal And The Gastronomic Preference Of A Human Being - The Interests Of The Nonhuman Are Disregarded. The Moral Attitudes Of The Past Are Too Deeply Embedded In Our Thought And Our Practices To Be Upset By A Mere Change In Our Knowledge Of Ourselves And Of Other Animals.

That's A Central Part Of Philosophy, Of Ethics. What Do I Owe To Strangers? What Do I Owe To My Family? What Is It To Live A Good Life? Those Are Questions Which We Face As Individuals.