> Animal abuse and murder is wrong, full stop.

Perhaps. Why is it wrong?

If your answer is "because I overwhelmingly feel that it is so", that is an acceptable answer, but it isn't something on which to provide a universally applicable truth, since many people now and throughout history have clearly not felt that to be so. It is, however, a fine example of the power of socialization.

> Do you not believe in morality?

I do not believe that there are moral truths.

There are descriptions of human social norms, of course, and any member of any society would be well-advised to follow the norms of that society if they value their own lives, freedom, or happiness, since social groups generally do not smile upon norm-breakers. I also suspect that some degree of in-group altruism is genetic.

> Your argument seems to be, "Western ethics are only one way of thinking, therefore it can't be true."

You are starting with the position "Western ethics are True. What is the evidence they are not True?"

I am starting with the position "I am skeptical of Western ethics. What is the evidence they are True?"

So for me, the fact that many moral systems (defined here as 'set of norms') exist now, and many, many more have existed throughout human history, and that each moral system was wholly believed as divine and irrefutable Truth by its adherents, who laid all kinds of logic on top of different unprovable and un-evaluatable (as Truth) axioms, is strong evidence that I should not privilege modern Western ethics as the special truth in the absence of other evidence.

> Those big questions you're putting up have never had universally satisfactory answers.

I am puzzled how you can make this statement, with which I agree, and then go on the say things like:

> I believe we can uncover moral truths. The Western philosophical project has made great strides in this arena.

One thing is true, or the other. From my analysis the Western philosophical project has made exactly zero strides in this direction, unless you count the discovery that there are no moral truths as such (which is not unique to the Western tradition, but has perhaps been best explained by it); moral truths are not like integers.

If we set up arbitrary values as axioms, we of course can introduce logic from that point onward. For example, if we set as an axioms "happiness is Good" and "suffering is Evil", we can arrive at something like the moral opinions you prefer:

1. Suffering is evil.
2. The exploitation of animals causes suffering (of animals).
3. Therefore the exploitation of animals is evil.

Unfortunately, because even our contemporary Western morality, as a messy product of genetics and millions of year of history, is inconsistent and fuzzy, we end up with moral "problems" under this system such as whether it is justifiable to redirect a train which will imminently kill ten people to a track where it will kill a single person and save the ten.

(Most) moral philosophers identify these areas of fuzziness and inconsistency by holding moral feelings as moral truth. That's why you can read a ten thousand word essay describing the logical reasons why it would be justifiable to kill the single person (generally it would minimize suffering, or maybe you throw in the sanctity of human life as an axiom) which makes a fine show of sound reason and then ends by saying "but it feels wrong, so never mind."

> I don't see what makes animals lesser beings because they happen to be a different species than me.

I don't believe animals are lesser beings. Humans are animals. I find no objective basis on which to grade animals by superiority. As far as we know, humans are the best at abstract reasoning, language skills, and tool-making, and many other things. That's well and good, but being smarter doesn't make you better. It makes you smarter.

That's exactly why I discount the idea that humans have "responsibilities above and beyond animals." They are animals, no better or worse than other animals. The idea that humans somehow have responsibilities beyond other animals seems to me to be incredible, egoistic arrogance, the implicit assumption that humans are better than (other) animals and therefore their social norms (one modern set of which ascend to the rank of Universal Truths) must rule the world.

Of course, humans would be probably well-advised to maintain things like biodiversity if they want to survive in the long-term, but that's a practical argument, not a moral one.

> I'm basically reading an unapologetic cynicism in your entire post. I can't convince you out of that position.

You absolutely can, if you can show me an example of an uncovered moral truth on which we can hinge the allegedly sturdy edifice animal rights.