Firstly, animals can be eaten and have been for the last however many million years, just as animal products leftover from the food have been used for clothing for almost the same amount of time.
Let me analyse this:
1. Animals can be eaten.
2. Animals have been eaten before.
3. Animals have been used before.
Therefore it's morally justified to eat and use animals.
Not only is that a naturalistic fallacy, it's also an easy victim to reductio ad absurdum (also, the conclusion doesn't follow even if we assume the truth of the premises).
1. Women can be oppressed.
2. Women have been oppressed.
Therefore it's morally justified to oppress women.
Men have killed each other, enslaved each other and exploited each other for a very long time. Obviously, that's not a reason to continue these practices; it's rather a reason to abolish them.
Like it or not, there is such a thing as a humane way to rear animals for food - and instead of pushing for the rights and lives of the animals to be immediately better (making the conditions in which the animals are kept and killed better and more humane) which would be the middle ground, PETA push straight for the big one by trying to get the majority (and meat eaters are the majority) to simply 'give up' meat and by-products of it.
Really? You can cage, exploit and kill a sentient being in a "humane" way? Elaborate.
Gary L. Francione said:
If someone were to say, "rape is pervasive and has been so throughout history so let's take the baby step of encouraging 'happy,' or more 'humane,' rape," most of us would find that morally objectionable and a very bad practical strategy for dealing with an admittedly pervasive and longstanding problem of violence against women. We would take the position that rape is morally objectionable--however "humanely" it is done. The same reasoning applies to animal exploitation.
If you knew that a friend of yours beats his wife everyday. Would you tell him to only beat her twice a week or to stop beating her?
It's also interesting that you acknowledge that there is something wrong with causing suffering to non-human animals. I assume that you would accept the premise that it's wrong to cause unnecessary suffering on non-human animals. What follows from that is, of course, that veganism is the moral baseline.
Secondly; this is not about human slavery.
It's abolition vs. regulation, it's about slavery and the arguments are the same. The people who didn't want human slavery to be abolished argued just like you (and any other speciesist). If you really think that the logical inference from your premises is that the exploitation of non-human animals is morally justified then you either have to accept the view that the exploitation and enslavement of human animals is justified as well or ditch your premises (or you could come back with a pure speciesist argument which would put you on the same level of argumentation as any racist or sexist.)
Nature, governed by unerring laws which command the oak to be stronger than the willow [...] has at the same time imposed on mankind certain restrictions, which can never be overcome. (John Drayton (1802), in: Theodore Parsons (1773), in: Proslavery. A History of the Defense of Slavery in America (1701-1840), University of Georgia Press, 2004, p. 38)
In this argument, the advocates for emancipation blend the ideas of injustice and cruelty with those, which respect the existence of slavery, and consider them as inseparable. But, surely, they may be separated. A bond-servant may be treated with justice and humanity as a servant; and a master may, in an important sense, be the guardian and even father of his slaves. (Richard Furman: Exposition of The Views of the Baptists, Relative to the coloured Population In the United States, Charleston 1838, S. 13)
All the parallels in it's detail are described in "The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery" by Majorie Spiegel (which I recommend).
Fun fact: Majorie Spiegel
sued PETA.
Pets provide company for the elderly or lonely, aid for the blind and are rescue dogs are used by many organisations around the world, animal testing is the backbone of most advancements in the medical industry, and is a strong source of nutrition as food.
After all, you fail to give an argument as to why a justification of the usage of non-human animals follows from these points and your premises can be easily attacked.
The only one that might be worth discussing is the claim that "animal testing is the backbone of most advancements in the medical industry".
I recommend "Brute science: Dilemmas of animal experimentation" by Hugh Lafollette and Niall Shanks if you want to have a systematical and thorough analysis of both sides arguments and the actual facts.
I also recommend to stay away from making such claims without having the arguments and facts to back them up. Also, to be honest, the "nutrition" argument usually comes from people who ask " and where do you get your protein?" and know little to nothing about nutrition.
I'm really into fruitful discussions; but fruitful discussions aren't possible without sound arguments.
