Happy animals gain weight faster and taste better. If you're raising them for meat pure efficiency is a good argument for decent treatment. If you have many cri

Happy animals gain weight faster and taste better. If you're raising them for meat pure efficiency is a good argument for decent treatment. If you have many critters then the health of all of them could be risked by lack of care for a sick one. The "human dignity is damaged by mistreating animals" argument isn't a bad one, as you note: people who cannot empathize with animals are more likely to fail at empathizing with other humans.