My issue with the question is a little different, however. I don't really like the question. as a concept. I reject the idea that there is something that is objectively right or wrong, ethically. I think ethics are a subjective social construct, a social contract. How people "should" act, varies radically from culture to culture, and from individual to individual. If you phrase the question is it ethically right to eat animals, you're projecting your own ethical construct onto others. Others who won't accept the same premises as you, such as animal pain is equivalent to human pain.
To me, I'm not really concerned so much about if eating animals is "right" in some grand moral sense. I don't view the world that way. I view it more in a risk/reward ratio. Cost/benefit analysis. I don't think it's "wrong" to steal, for example. I just think there are risks to theft and there are rewards, and the risks out weight them most of the time. I also think, as a society, it is good that we have laws against theft. Making theft a crime creates a more stable society, protects peoples property and safety, and prevents vigilante actions that can spiral out of control in violence and lead to chaos. I don't think theft is wrong, I just think it's optimal for a society to make theft a crime ( and social taboo). I don't think it would be wrong for me to steal, I just don't think stealing is worth it, in terms of the cost of breaking social contracts and legal risks associated with it.
That's how I would view animal consumption. I don't really think of it as right or wrong, the question for me is, is it optimal. The industrial farming of meat I do not believe is optimal for our society and world. Industrial livestock facilities are environmental hazards. They pollute the air, ground and water. The massive amount of resources used in farming animal feed is inefficient. I do not have the level of empathy for animal suffering that many do, but it's impossible to ignore how miserable animals raised in these industrial farms are. Some of whom, like pigs, have a very high level of cognitive function and experience pain essentially the same way that humans do. There is little doubt that the glutinous amounts of meat that the West consumes (particularly the processed fatty industrial meat) is not optimal for a healthy, long life. Animals are pumped with hormones to grow as big as they can, as fast as they can, and there's a great deal of evidence these hormones are not healthy to humans when consuming the meat.
On the flip side, there is much evidence that humans are meant to consume some amount of meat. That our physiology is consistent with omnivores, not herbivores. The shape of our intestines, the enzymes in our colons, our stomachs produce hydrochloric acid. You can take supplements for nutritional benefits meat provides, but not everyone absorbs those supplements efficiently and the fact that we need to take them at all suggest we evolved with meat eating being part of our make up. While Western Diets have far too much meat in them, a reduced meat diet is probably optimal for all humans. Not all meat produced is from industrial farms. There are many organic and free range meat producers that treat their animals well before harvest, and make the harvest as pain-free as possible. You may object to the harvest itself as immoral, but I would not agree.
As a society, I would support massive changes to agri-business. I would support making massive industrial chicken, beef and pig farms illegal. I would support inspecting farmers to make certain farm animals are raised with same abuse free expectation that pets are raised with. To make sure their farms aren't environmental hazards. I would support us, culturally, cutting down our meat consumption by probably 80-90%. I think it would be a better world, a more well fed world, a healthier world.
On a personal level, I do eat meat. I try, to the extent that I can, to buy meat locally from farms and farmers I trust, either directly or from local grocers/butchers. That meat raised organically or free range taste better to me than industrial farms, where the meat is not engineered for taste and quality, but for speed and quantity, makes this choice much easier. I prefer to support local farms and businesses than corporations and big agribusiness, because they have a higher quality product and it improves my community as a whole by spending my money locally. I have cut my consumption of meat down considerably over the years, for health reasons. But I do, ultimately, eat meat. I do think that it is "okay" to consume the flesh of other animals. I think that's part of our nature as omnivores. I do this knowing that, even the most well treated animals, have to suffer some pain when they are harvested, that their lives are taken for my nourishment. Perhaps that makes me a bad person, but I think an omnivorous diet is our nature.
What does not have to be part of our nature, is to be sadists. I do not think that it is optimal for a society to make animals suffer maximally so we can have cheap meat, when growing fruits, vegetables and nuts is much cheaper per pound. The benefit to cheap meat is to the corporations that produce it, not the people that consume it to an unhealthy degree. I do not think it's optimal for the west to tie up so much of the world's agricultural land in inefficient meat production, while Billions starve.
So, I think this question is a complex one, and not one easily put in a right or wrong dichotomy. Perhaps it's just a hypocritical dance that I make, in order to justify my bacon consumption. But it's a dance I am unlikely to stop dancing.
