Hi Lion!
Sorry, I forgot to answer to your last question.
I'll do it now:

QUOTE:
You have gotten my thinking cap on though, although I my virgo is asking, what is the ultimate practical application of all this discussion?

Well, I had an excuse to not do other things which I had to. This is a practical application, and very useful to me, considering that I had no wish to do these things...
But, seriously speaking, if this is possible, I would say that Socrates had not particular practical truths to teach. He just was very able in making people conscious of how much the were taking for granted, but of how few they really actually knew for sure.
This does not always mean that what they believed to be true was not true just because it was not so granted as they thought... It was meant to inspire a positive change in their attitude, not to reject or object any particular belief. Not necessarily.
This is a very practical thing, because it can push people to search more, to not stop where they are. And it can show them that they should be more tolerant with the others. And it can help them in understanding why their attempts to convince the others have not so much success as a really objective argument would...
I never wanted to "destroy" anything. Or to refuse or to reject or to deny. I have no interest in that, because I wish to see the end of animals' suffering.
As humans' one. And the one of any other living being able to suffer.
I just wanted to make people see that things are not objective and imperative only because we feel them as imperative and we see them as obvious...
Maybe they are objective, but not because we see them as obvious...

Peace,
Ser

Urrah! W Sergio, W Sergio!

You'll see, when I will have reached a point where my general vision will be clear, I will not be so long.
I'm as a perfume by Dolce & Gabbana, difficult at first, but plain an pleasant after a while.
Or I hope so...

Anyway, do not be so happy yet, I've just posted a not very long but not very brief reply to another post of you. I had forgot to do it before...

And, also, I have still not posted the separated answer to LI about my Utopian idea of humans-animals interaction...

I'll do it now...

I agree about empathy, I think it comes from the fact that all is One... But as I told you in the other reply, it is not a perfectly objective contribute, because we are not so clean to be able to listen to the real, higher, universal empathy. We often mix it with our own personal individual hopes, fears, loves, hates, ideas, beliefs, etc...
About unnecessary hurting of animals, I agree that probably the very vast majority of people do not agree with it.
The problem is that they do not agree each other on what is necessary and what is not...

Peace,
Ser

Scott wrote:

QUOTE:
But the point is that every conditional claim he's made is very well articulated, because the "IF" part is always something that is widely accepted as true by 99% of the human population. That's the key.

In this case, why nothing changes? A possible answer coming soon:

QUOTE:
If we believe exploitation of humans through slavery is wrong, then in order to be morally consistent and avoid hypocrisy, then we must also believe that exploitation of nonhumans through slavery is also wrong

here it is. A part is missing, which can connect humans with animals. There is a lack, a hole, in the passage from human rights to animal rights. If we recognize as wrong the human slavery, this does not automatically bring to recognize as wrong also animal slavery. Another "if" is needed. We will recognize as wrong animal slavery IF we recognize that animals have got the same basic rights than humans...
You do, I do, many people do, but much more people don't... This is why nothing changes...
It will not necessarily change because these people will recognize animal rights, anyway. It can change also because of a global change in human collective level of consciousness, with relative improved kindness and respect toward everybody and everything...
I guess that both things will make a faster difference.
But I do not know "how"... Nor "when"...

Peace
Ser

QUOTE:
A part is missing, which can connect humans with animals.

I thought that Charles Darwin had proven, for good, that "missing part", which says... humans are animals for heaven's sake!

The fact that many humans still want to believe that they are some kind of "supernatural" thing doesn't mean that there is still a "part missing".

Poor fellas.

Hey!

Just to further entrench your view that we are "fan(atic)s" of Francione, I'll post another excerpt from his great book, Introduction to Animal Rights (I think I'll end up posting the whole book here jajaja).

QUOTE:
A Word about “Proving” Moral Matters

Human treatment of animals is first and foremost a moral issue; it concerns how humans ought to behave toward animals. The relevant question is whether there are any moral limits on how we use and treat other animals and, if so, what those limits are and how we should ascertain them.

As a general matter, we cannot prove moral matters in the same way that we can, say, prove that two plus two equals four. The proposition “two plus two equals four” is self-evident—it is true by virtue of the very meaning of the terms that are used. Anyone who understands the meaning of the word “two” and the concept of addition must conclude that “two plus two equals four” is true and that “two plus two equals five” is false.

Most moral matters do not lend themselves to the certainty that we can have about mathematics. We cannot have mathematical certainty about our moral views—whatever they may be—concerning capital punishment, affirmative action, abortion, or animal rights. We may have compelling arguments that support our moral views, but we cannot say that those views are indisputably true and certain in the way that “two plus two equals four” is indisputable true and certain.

The fact that matters of morality are different from matters of mathematics leads some people to believe that moral views are no different from our opinions about what flowers or paintings, baseball team or musical group we like, and that no moral view can claim to be preferable to another. These beliefs are reflected by those who maintain that racist or sexist attitudes or language are simply matters of “political correctness.” That is, they maintain that whether racism and sexism are morally wrong or right depends on shifting political and social conception and are ultimately subjective matters of convention, and that there is no absolute, objective moral “truth” about racism or sexism.

Such a view does not follow from the fact that we cannot achieve certainty in morality in the same way that we can in mathematics. Moral judgments may not be certain in the same way that mathematical statements are, but moral judgments do not require such certainty in order to be persuasive and compelling. If one moral view is supported by better reasons than others, then that moral view is presumably the one we should adopt—until some other moral position with even better reasons in its support comes along. If an argument in favor of a moral position is valid—that is, the conclusion of the argument follows from the premises in such a way that if the premises were true, the conclusion must also be true—then any such argument should be accepted over and argument in which there is no such relationship between the premises and conclusion. If a moral position “fits” more comfortably with other considered moral positions that we hold, then we ought to accept that moral position over another that does not so fit. For example, we may not be able to prove moral propositions in the way that we can prove that two plus two equals four, but we can offer many compelling reasons why we ought to condemn the Holocaust as a blatantly immoral event, and we can offer no reasons to regard such an event as morally justifiable. Moral condemnation of the Holocaust also fits with our considered judgment that intentionally killing innocent humans is morally wrong. But could we “prove” that the Holocaust was immoral to, say, a Nazi or some other brand of white supremacist who believes that Jews (or any other group) are inferior and may be treated solely as means to the end of whatever group serves as the “master” class? No, we could not. That does not mean, however, that the immorality of the Holocaust is a matter of opinion.

In this book, I will argue that the animal rights position, which maintains that we ought to abolish and not merely regulate animal use, is supported by sound reasons and valid arguments. And although I do not purport to be able to prove that the animal rights position is true in the same way that a mathematical proposition is true, I will argue that the position I defend fits comfortably with the two intuitions that reflect our conventional wisdom about the moral status of animals: that we may prefer humans over animals in situations of true emergency or necessity and that we ought not to inflict unnecessary suffering on animals. That is, the animal rights position can explain both of those intuitions and can unify them, thus achieving a “reflective equilibrium” between a theory about the moral status of animals and our common sense or conventional wisdom about the moral status of animals. That is the best that we can hope to achieve when we are talking about moral matters and not mathematics.

I guess that this sums up, in a very reasonable way, what we have been discussing endlessly?