It is likely that we evolved a moral sense to keep our communities functioning, to allow us to bond and share and coordinate. But the factors driving morality’s evolution don’t determine how we can and should think about it as modern individuals and societies, if no other reason than our still-limited understanding of psychological evolution. For example, just because we evolved to mate for the success of our offspring doesn’t mean we can’t love whom we fall for, or grow old without children of our own. That we can feel empathy for members of other species may be an accident, but the feelings are real nonetheless.

Anyone who takes the time to observe an animal commits the sin of anthropomorphism — finding enough about the animal intelligible enough to ascribe emotions and motivations to it, emotions and motivations that can only be experienced first-hand by ourselves. We should really call this sin “automorphism,” because we make this same leap of faith when interacting with other humans — we assume, based on the evidence, that others have feelings and lines of reasoning analogous to our own. (Analogous but not identical, which is why we have such trouble communicating with each other.)

Claiming species privilege, if not species superiority, denies the continuity of evolution and the blurriness of groups. Humans are not the end of the line in evolutionary history, and while we have amazing abilities, we have no right to use our abilities and points of view as the standard measure against which all other species fall short. Besides which, there are many humans who are not smart or even conscious most of the time, who function without opposable thumbs, who live with no more technology than a chimp or a crow or a fish. My facetious friends, declaring their intellectual machismo, claim they would eat starving children from Africa if it was socially acceptable. But I think they play the devil’s advocate so often they become the part, and deny the validity of their basic sympathy for beings similar to themselves. No one really wants to say that the young, the senile, and the handicapped should be treated as morally irrelevant. Even non-humans care for their sick and injured!

The other problem is where one would draw the line for “appropriate” empathy. It’s true that we fail to empathize with those we don’t interact with, but this is true no matter who the out-group is. Historically and presently, it has included people with different appearances, different languages, different practices, different genitalia. These are members of the same species, but with genetic material or cultural ideas considered inferior and worthy of less consideration than those of the in-group.

As one friend of mine suggested, we could solve this problem by putting our chickens in boxes where we cannot see them — where we cannot empathize with them. But why would we want to blind our moral sense, desensitize ourselves to cruelty? By the same logic we should sear off our nerves so that we wouldn’t have to feel pain. The truth is, we still have to put the chicken in the box. We couldn’t see the chicken everyday and not care. We have to tell myths about those we eat, convince ourselves it’s normal or even important, and ultimately forget about the animals themselves as we lick them off our lips.