>Morality doesn't necessarily require deep intellectualism
I don't think that a statement about avoiding pitfalls of anti-intellectualism needs to be read as endorsing the opposite extreme, and I don't making that kind of assumption contributes to constructive conversation.
>To say it simply, there is no proverbial burning building that requires us to farm animals in the way that we currently do.
This response to the burning building example is fascinating and strange to me for a number of reasons. For one I started by providing a simple, clear cut, face value example of a case where doing good means considering how to prioritize wellbeing of different species. And as far as the example itself is concerned, you're just not engaging with it at all, and asking about a different example.
I mean, fair enough, we can get to your chosen example, but I already feel like we're a bit off kilter. If that were not already strange enough, you are saying "there is no proverbial burning building that requires us to farm animals in the way that we currently do." Well, maybe not in your chosen example, but in some other cases there is, quite literally as in the example I just mentioned. And to be clear, it's not just that I want my example to be seen because I think I'm special. It's that if someone says there is no such thing as that proverbial burning burning (e.g. no reason to treat species differently), and I show an example showing exactly that, it would seem important to engage with that example, not just to switch to consideration of other examples.
So I don't know what the disconnect is here. As to your example, well, sure. I think you are right, there is no proverbial burning building requiring harmful farming practices, and in my opinion those should be abolished, as you can argue there is no calculus in which they are neccessary Perfectly true, both in the literal sense, and as a matter of principle that it's a case where you don't have to think of it in terms of tradeoffs. But here again, I am wondering where this is coming from? Do you think "save humans from fire before mice" means ignore harmful farming practices? Where are you getting that?
>Saying that there is an inverse prioritization is not the matter at hand.
Again, very strange to me. I feel like my comments are anchored to reality by the fact that I try to stick closely to responding directly to specific things that someone else said. In this case, the commenter I was replying to was speaking generally about speciesm. I felt this was narrow, and that a more fair characterization about what drives this way of thinking is that it's how to make positive, morally good choices, in contrast to their one-sided view that only talked about it in the negative sense, in terms of inflicting harm.
For some reason, you have come in and decided that me responding directly to that is "not the matter at hand." But again, it very much was, because the subject was speciesm writ large, and I was speaking to that. So I just don't know what you are talking about, at least not without a bit more framing.