Comment 94 by logicophilosophicus

If you choose a life punctuated by occasional suffering, might not the zebra, too?

That’s your objection; the zebras might “choose” to be eaten alive? Silly notion. You need to provide evidence that zebras possess the mental faculties necessary to contemplate these options and then choose between them. Seems unlikely. For now, the evidence suggests being eaten alive gives them only fear and pain, with little benefit in return.

If avoiding suffering at any cost is an absolute good, then a sterile world is better than one in which any creature with an advanced central nervous system exists, because that is the only sure way to avoid suffering.

And maximizing well-being. There’s no pleasure in death. And I didn’t say “any cost”, that’s your words.

The God-botherers think He tells them how to behave. A conscienscious Darwinist logically must endorse the Malthusian/Darwinian/Dawkinsian Selfish-Gene struggle

Utter nonsense. The natural order of things has nothing to teach us about morality, as Darwin himself would tell you.

I'm wondering whether you have, deep down, a cute-kitten, fluffy-bunny attitude to animals. What do you think?

I think this is a poor excuse for an argument.