Originally Posted by FlyingJesus
Humans are sentient beings, meaning we have a full range of emotions and understand why things happen and why they affect us. You can say that animals feel pain too, but what happens in normal animals is that their nerves are triggered, and they react in such a way that we see it and recognise it as being in pain (because of how we react ourselves). However, animal "pain" is simply an instinctive reaction to attempt to get away from the source of whatever it is that threatens their continued life. As far as scientists are aware, the closest thing to a sentient life form on Earth that isn't humans is the dolphin, and no-one I know eats dolphins.