system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Probably a repost, but: Assuming rights-based moral theory is a good way to make decisions, I think that most animals have the right to life. Consequently, eating meat is wrong. CMV.

First, I should specify that I'm not a utilitarian. I follow rights-based moral theory - that living things have rights, and it is wrong to violate them. What rights they have depends on what they are capable of. For example, adult humans have the right to free agency, and it's wrong to control their behavior, assuming they do not violate someone else's "stronger" right, such as right to life. So it's okay to send murderers to jail to prevent them from murdering more people, but it's not okay to enslave adults. Children and mentally handicapped people have a limited version of this right - it's still wrong to enslave them, but it's not wrong to stop them from running out into the street since they don't know any better. Please don't try to change my view on this, that's an entirely different conversation than the one I want to have. 

With that out of the way, I think that the desire to live is sufficient to qualify for a right to life. It seems blatantly clear to me that *many* animals demonstrate the desire to live. When posed with a threat, they run away or try to defend themselves. It's certainly possible (although I personally think improbable) that in many cases, this behavior is mindless, and they run away from harm not because they don't want to die, but because of instincts, or because they grew up seeing their parents run away from danger and mindlessly copy this behavior. 

However, I think it's very clear that some animals (apes, dogs, dolphins, and pigs, for example) function at a much higher level, closer to ours. I'm not saying that they're as intelligent as we are, but they are aware of their own existence, have emotions, and presumably, a will to live. Therefore, it's obviously wrong to kill them for any reason except self-defense. Killing an animal for food does not count as self defense because humans are perfectly capable of being healthy and vegetarian.
gpt
I think you're engaging in a weird reverse form of the naturalistic fallacy. 

"Rights" don't exist objectively. The concept is an evolved trait that we developed in order to make it possible for our intellectually advanced species to continue to exist and continue to take advantage of our being a social species.

Empathy is another such trait. Indeed, rights come, ultimately, from empathy. 

But the thing is, that trait's purpose is to allow *humans* to live together. Empathy among animals evolves to allow *them* to live together. 

Trying to take a trait that evolved in order to benefit our species and apply it to other species fails on so many levels. 

If animals have "rights" its because people want them to have rights, and the reason we would respect those rights is so that we can get along with those people. 

That's it. 

Also, morality, even if it had any objective basis, really is only capable of applying to moral actors. Some animals show some signs of being moral actors to some degree. If rights apply, they apply to the degree that animals respect them. 

Dogs, for example, seem to have a pretty good grasp on certain aspects of morality. Chimps too, as do dolphins. Cows... not so much.