Home / Weak arguments / Wrong criterion
"We should love animals."
They ground the defense of animals in faith, affection or hierarchy, not in sentience.
Why it is weak
It confuses affection with respect. No one is obliged to love humans or animals, but no one has the right to harm them for that reason.
The same goes for the variants "I'm vegan because I love animals", "animals are my friends, and I don't eat my friends" and "veganism is love and mercy". You don't need to be friends with everyone in another country to know they have rights.
These phrases also make veganism look like pure emotion, when it has a rational foundation.
The question "if you love some, why do you eat others?" has the same problem: it assumes an affection not everyone has, and it loses its force as soon as the person answers that they don't love any animal.
How to say it better
You don't have to like cows to stop paying for their deaths. The question is justice, not affection. When someone does love an animal, it's worth pointing out the inconsistency, but rest the conclusion on what holds for everyone: what relevant difference is there between a dog and a pig, if both can suffer?