Marc,

straight up, i find your argument very unconvincing. at the outset, you claim with certainty that animals maintain a clear moral capacity but present to the reader nothing more than anecdotal evidence to support it. it is suggestive of something present in the animals interiors but not sufficient to be conclusive from my perspective. (also, is this interior "self-reflexive" at all?)

clearly, convincing someone of such a thing is a huge task to accomplish with the limited word space available here; i am anticipating that given the greater space provided by a book format you will be able to go deeper and back up your argument with much more depth and profundity.

aside form that, specifically problematic is that you say that Darwin's thoughts (as quoted above) directly back up your claim when in fact his statement clearly does not. Darwin points towards a future time when an animal's capacity for moral insight COULD be supported if their "intellectual powers" become as developed, or nearly as developed, as man's. as far as i am aware, this is definitely not the case. this being as it is, is it not possible that you are elevating an animals' responses and/or anthropomorphizing the depth from which their intentions arise?

furthermore, from an Integral perspective, developmental evidence has demonstrated that it is indeed possible for two individuals to display similar behaviours (or, answers) but for vastly differing reasons, which in the end shows how just because a behaviour is evident, it is not necessarily due to a higher developed capacity. (ex:your child is sick, is it ok to steal medicine that one cannot afford... a query to which there are similar final answers from the pre-conventional and post-conventional beings, yet vastly differing reasonings behind them)

do you have a way of navigating this territory in your research?

you claim UR evidence but do you have evidence of moral development correlated in the UL, LL, and LR quadrants respectively? can a summation of these perspectives be used to triangulate an accurate supposition? can we honestly identify a moral LOD in any animal not capable of speech and the complex structures that that act signifies?

also, do you have any sentimental stories regarding these behavioural insights from domesticated livestock? (the lives of cows, pigs, goats, sheep or chickens, etc.)

i had heard that you were involved in the Integral Ecology text and am assuming a knowledge of AQAL framework; forgive me if this is not the case.

curious and keen to delve in,

Eric Giesbrecht
Meta4 Foods