Someone sent me a link to
this student op-ed column. The sender wrote:
This is outrageous! The Indiana Daily Student wrote an article today encouraging people to kill and eat man's best friend!
The author isn't advocating that we eat dogs. The author is pointing out the inconsistency of eating cows and not eating dogs (or rather, caring about dogs but not caring about cows). The following three propositions are inconsistent:
1. It's morally permissible to eat cows.
2. It's not morally permissible to eat dogs.
3. There are no morally relevant differences between cows and dogs.
The author of the op-ed column says that there are people who accept 1 and 2. He is pointing out that, to be consistent, they must reject 3. He is asking them to state the morally relevant difference that justifies the rejection of 3.
