"Cognitive abilities"?

In a TV-program a few days ago pictures from a pig farm were shown. The place was dirty and crowded. The pigs, obviously, were not all right. Rottening carcasses were lying on the ground. Some of the pigs had been attacked by other pigs. Some of the pigs were sick. The pigs were moving around restlessly, rubbing against each other.

Two people ("experts") were intervied; an administrator and a philosopher. The administrator was eager to convince us that the pig farm incident is an exception. Inspection routines are, she said, gradually improved even if there are still some things to be done. The philosopher was critical of the treatment of animals as commodities. It is easy to agree with her about this, of course. But I was apalled about her primary reaction towards the film from the pig farm. According to her the farmers, and those involved in the meat industry, have failed to distinguish the cognitive capacities and abilities of animals. She talked for a while, very abstractely, about the rights of animals. Arguing like that, it was as if she didn't see what was going on in the film. As if she was at most able to derive some conclusions about the type of capacities the behaviour of animals is indicating. "We have to prove that animals have particular capacities - after that, we may say something about what is cruel, unjust..." But that type of talk is obviously very strange, and very insensitive. I would be very surprised if a person who watched the pictures of the restless and shit-drenched pigs were to say that she could not SEE the pigs' suffering. Of course the philosopher in the TV-studio was not blind to the suffering of the pigs - but she seemed to believe that she had to talk about cognitive capacities if what she had to say would have any influence over those defending the meat industry.