This refers to the article, “On mercy to animals, let’s follow our texts” (December 26) by Hiranmay Karlekar. Whether an action towards anyone else is cruel is a function of how much we see ourselves in the other, and not whether the victim has the capacity to reason or feel.
Philosophy teaches us to expand our notion of individual self into a universal self. This provides a logical reason as to why we should be kind to animals. This is one way of extending ourselves into the universal self. It is outright absurd to argue this in purely material terms.