Such cute and adorable little killing machines =^.^= (and yes, I say this being of the feline persuasion myself, any predator (human or feline) should be in touch with the fact that in order to eat meat, one must kill or be responsible for it. Meat is murder, tasty tasty murder =^.^=)

Technically, plants are alive too. So you are killing them to eat vegetarian.
Actually, sometimes you're eating them alive since many of them stay alive even when they're on your plate XD.

There's a difference between plant life, which is alive in the idea that it has cells and consumes nutrients to grow, and animals who have hearts, brains, feelings, and can make decisions.

I am aware of that. Does that change the fact that both are alive?
Are we to afford mindless insects greater moral weight because they have organs?


Though feelings as a moral value are pretty irrelevant; I'm pretty sure emotions originally developed as a crude precursor to thought (since animals don't usually have language as a conceptual handle, but still need to be motivated towards certain actions).

... Yes, we are. That's the entire point of what I said. XD

So, the life of an insect is more valuable than the life of a plant?

In general, yes, especially depending on the insect and the plant. I'm assuming that you're referring to insects that destroy plants that people deliberately grow, in which case yeah, you don't want the bugs eating your stuff, but if you hadn't done the hard work and grown the plant, it wouldn't really be much of a problem to see bugs eating plants. Further, some insects are important for plant survival.

By the same token, you also don't want a fox eating your chickens. That doesn't mean you want the fox to die or that its life is less important.

But here, we are talking about value relative to how they benefit human beings.
All I'm saying, is that there is nothing objectively, intrinsically valuable about anything (I think that was the original point), that value is simply a subjective opinion of what something is worth.

So...
"There's a difference between plant life, which is alive in the idea that it has cells and consumes nutrients to grow, and animals who have hearts, brains, feelings, and can make decisions. "
Isn't this a subjective opinion?
Or is it objectively true?

Objectively true.

There is a difference between the two. Plants lack brains and nervous systems, but they have cells and absorb nutrients to grow, and thus they "live." Animals (including humans) have brains and nervous systems, and thus are able to make decisions, move independently, are subject to emotion, pain, etc. That's a different kind of life from that of a plant, which, though alive, is essentially on the same level as an inanimate object.

The original post suggested that, on the same level that a carnivore kills an animal to eat it, humans that are vegetarians kill plants to eat vegetables, and thus are guilty of the same kind of killing as those who eat meat. It had nothing to do with the subjective value of a plant. I'm afraid that if you value a plant more than you value an animal, well that's up to you!

If we are talking about what I value more, we're talking about subjective opinion.
Many lower-level life forms operate on instinct to such a degree that as far as thought goes, they might as well be animate plants.
From what I understand, a "brain" primarily came about because some creatures needed to process decisions on movement; there is this one sea creature (I don't remember what it is though, maybe a barnacle or something), that has a brain in it's polyp form, since it needs to move around, but when it finds a place to anchor itself and mature to adulthood, it's brain atrophies into nothing because it is no longer needed.

I'm not saying that there isn't an objective difference; I'm saying there is no objective value, because value itself is an opinion. If there were no intelligent beings to assign value to things, a planet seeming with life is no more valuable than a barren rock in space. It is individuals (like you) who assign greater value to the life of some life forms rather than others.

Okay, I'm starting to feel like we're going in circles, and I feel unable to relay my point to you.

No offense intended, but I'm going to go back to looking at furry porn now.

Hehe.

'IF THERE BE HERE LESSON OR MORAL, IT LIES BEYOND THE COMPETENCE OF HIM WHO INSCRIBES THIS RECORD.'- Emphyrio

Awww.

Naaaaaaaaaaaaants ingonyaaaaaaaaaaama bagithi Baba

Tonight it's arm. :3

Such cuuuute little puff balls!! x3