The more clearly we think about positive possibilities, the more strongly we hope for this outcome, and the more attractive the prospect becomes, the more we will invest in thought and in practices that have a chance of bringing these prospects to fruition.
In the Cartesian view, to attribute feelings to these animals was to commit the “pathetic fallacy.” Even today, the industrial production of meat takes no account of any subjective experience on the part of cows, pigs, and chickens.
The ecological crisis is a real world crisis, not an abstract one. To improve the world often requires asking questions that are not the property of one academic discipline or another.