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I'm not sure veganism or moral vegetarianism is subject to rational argument; it's a matter of axioms. If you don't give a shit about chicken and cow deaths, no one is going to argue you into doing so. And if you do, nobody's going to argue you into meat-eating.
Anti-car people pop up often enough. There are arguments, they don't really convince anyone, but that's not unusual. Personally I think you've inadvertently provided one of your own arguments against the anti-car people:
Most "axioms" are not axioms at all. A chicken with human-level intelligence and values would have moral worth, so the true axiom is something like "intelligence grants moral worth." Starting from that axiom one could argue that chickens have some intelligence and thus some non-zero moral worth.
I disagree; a theoretically intelligent chicken would not have moral worth because it is not a human, and ‘humans have sufficiently more moral worth than animals to justify eating them’ is a statement I consider a postulate. It doesn’t matter if whales are as smart as people the japs still have the right to eat them, and it doesn’t matter if chickens are as smart as chickens or as smart as people, I will still fry and eat them.
If chickens were as smart as people there would be absolutely no justification to fry and eat them, if only because their equal intelligence implies there will probably be a time in the future when the tables are turned on who has power and you absolutely wouldn't want the chickens to start eating humans.
Of course intelligence gives rise to moral worth, and yes I will bite the bullet and freely say that some people are worth more morally than others (this doesn't mean that intelligence is the only thing behind moral worth, but it absolutely is one of them).
It doesn't, though. If that's your argument, then you have to explain why unintelligent humans have any moral worth. Profoundly retarded people are arguably less intelligent than squid, which at least have the ability to survive on their own , but I don't think anyone would argue that they have the same moral worth.
I would. I think all such people should be euthanized. They aren't really people. They're worthless sacks of flesh that just happen to have human DNA
I think this objection is misplaced. Yes, killing someone with no brain activity is inflammatory to some people, but "I think I should kill a fat man to save five people from a trolley" is also inflammatory to some people. But since it follows from well-understood and common principles that are often discussed here, we allow posters to say it without having to throw in a justification every single time they do.
He didn't say "someone with no brain activity" he said "profoundly retarded people who can't survive on their own", which includes many eg down syndrome group home dwellers who have some brain activity.
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