My point is that the hierarchy is ordered by increasingly sophisticated internal conscious experience. This is the least arbitrary thing ever when it comes to concern around suffering.
My argument was more that there is no association between a theoretical "hierarchy of care" and actual, real brain sophistication. If there were, people would for example eat cats before they ate pigs.
Cats don't have much meat, I imagine larger mammals are farmed because they're large. But inhibition to eating pigs would be larger than that for eating cats, I'd agree on that.
Sorry edit: I disagree strongly that there is no association, it's an 80-20 thing. 80% can be explained by real brain sophistication, with 20% explained by cultural baggage.
