As a species, we’ve pretty universally said that some humans can’t legally/morally consent. A prisoner can’t consent to sex with their captors, even if they want to. A minor can’t consent to sex with an adult, even if they want to.
In short, I think declaring this as consensual is in question, rather than assumed. The power disparity here is huge between human and dolphin, in this context.
The topic of consent also ties in with one of my AI philosophy interests: what counts as a mind capable of being wronged.
I don’t know the answer. Suffering? What is that, though? We can all make something that looks like it’s suffering but is really just a video recorder of ourselves acting. Worse, on the other hand, we probably literally cannot percieve all forms of suffering: the squeaking of a dog toy is mimicking the sound of a rodent suffering, why would we be better, why would we have evolved to recognise the pain in our prey?
I don’t know where the capacity to suffer begins or ends, if it’s binary or shades of grey.
That’s why I’m vegetarian (nothing weirder to me than someone chomping down on a beef burger while they say cows can’t consent), and I would be vegan if I had more self control. Doesn’t mean it’s wrong to eat meat —again, I don’t know if they can suffer, I’d just rather needlessly restrict my diet than make the other error. Pascal’s Wager for animal welfare, if you will.
And on the topic of bad arguments, noticing that hypocrisy doesn’t make the sexual act okay: if they’re able to suffer, meat is bad and consent becomes necessary.
If someone comes out to me, the moral code I apply is “can that particular animal win a fight with you if they wanted to?” (it would be “are they enthusiastic?” but I don’t know how to judge that, especially second hand). This generally changes the anti-argument from consent to informed consent, which brings up the spectacular everyone’s-a-failure counterpoint that interspecies STDs just don’t seem to have any research, (gee, I wonder why :P) so even the humans can’t give informed consent.
Don't know the last time you tried, but the world of dairy substitutes (at least for me in San Francisco) is much better than five years ago, and incredibly better than ten years ago.
On the other hand, soy milk comes in many good flavours now, both in the UK and Germany, as does soy yoghurt.
My biggest weakness is where non-vegan stuff is an ingredient: cake (eggs, milk), chocolate (milk), bread often has milk powder too.
It is getting easier though.
Damn, I love how you've put that.