Why stop there? Why is continued living a good thing in the broader scope of the universe?
> Nothing here says that we should exclude from the food chain anything with an intelligence.
Then why not eat other humans too. If you do away with all ethics what argument do you have against it?
To deny that human emotion and feeling have any value is to deny the value of humanity.
I don't necessarily think it is. I empathize with Joker in the dark night series. If I wasn't a Christian, I'd be a Nihilistic Existentialist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism).
> Nothing here says that we should exclude from the food chain anything with an intelligence.
I addressed this elsewhere. TL;DR: as long as you don't disturb society, go ahead. Disturbing society is a relativistic metric that I chose since it seems to make my life nicer.
There are personal (and group) ethics which the OP appeared to be reflecting on when they pondered whether or not to eat the octopus. These arise from a mix of rational, irrational, habitual, and even hypocritical thought processes, and that's all part of the human condition.
A very reasonable, consistent position.
Although there is a gray area the closer to the line you get (insects for example), that does not diminish the fact that we can say with high degree of certainly are sentient (cows) and are not sentient (wheat).
Fine line you got there. Why do you have it? I'd take an actual response, but the question is rhetorical. I just want people to know why they make decisions they do. I also don't want people to harm others that don't agree. For example, you should have no power to prevent me from eating a chicken legally.
For the general concept of animal herd vs people collective (effectually herd vs herd), this doesn't much matter. The best argument one can muster its that we, being rational, should preserve a reasonable food chain. The idea goes like this: A stable, sustainable food chain allows us to continue living; continue living is a good thing; therefore we will manage the food chain. Nothing here says that we should exclude from the food chain anything with an intelligence. Such a pronouncement is merely a feel good. It's an extension onto the animals of the view that we, ourselves, would not like to be eaten. If such a measure were carried out without hypocrisy, one would not eat any animals. Drawing an arbitrary line is ok for the individual. It has no weight as moral imperative or generalizable postulate.