Political Memes

We used to think that most animals lacked those things as well.

Plants very well may have some kind of consciousness or will, it's just one that is so different from our own as to be unrecognizable with our current understanding.

Personally, I acknowledge that predation is a part of the ecosystem, and that it is not morally wrong to be a predator (Nobody thinks that falcons or bobcats are immoral for existing in the ecosystem the way that they do. I don't think that should be different for humans). I do believe it is morally wrong to treat an animal poorly in advance of its demise though, so my policy on food is that I will eat animals and animal products if I believe that the animal that provided said food lived/is living a life that is as good as or better than it's wild relatives, provided the practice is environmentally sustainable. So I eat a mostly vegan diet, but I also sometimes eat eggs from people's well treated pet poultry or pasture raised chickens, and I eat seafood that the monterey bay aquarium says is sustainable. On rare occasions I will eat pasture raised poultry or hunted meat. I don't do any dairy or farmed red meat because of the greenhouse gasses associated with their production.

I think it's important for us to hunt deer in most of north america because we eliminated their primary natural predator from the ecosystem and they overpopulate to the point of being harmful to the environment without wolves in their ecosystem.