How is this controversial? Anyone who literally thought that animals had nothing analogous to morality or who didn't understand the evolutionary underpinnings of morality was not being serious.
Nevertheless, the difference in intelligence (and thus scope of morality) between humans and most animals is so vast in degree that it becomes a difference in kind. Also, I still like eating tasty animals.
>Nevertheless, the difference in intelligence (and thus scope of morality) between humans and most animals is so vast in degree that it becomes a difference in kind.
The qualifier "most" kind of sinks your battleship on this one. I don't disagree with what you said, per se, but with its implications.
Let's say an animal's intelligence is not different in kind to ours if its intelligence is at least (1-alpha)I, where I is standard human intelligence and for some low alpha. But what about animals of at least (1-alpha)^2 * I intelligence? By this definition, they would be different in kind to us, but not different in kind to a creature not different in kind to us (one with exactly (1-alpha)I intelligence).
The point I'm trying to get at here is that while our intelligence seems different in kind to that of a dog, there might be a reasonably smooth intelligence slope via a number of other species. So I think it might be questionable to assume that our intelligence is qualitatively different.
That said, I do think there are certain emergent phenomena that occur only at higher intelligence. Which, I suppose, could be what you meant in the first place.
Nevertheless, the difference in intelligence (and thus scope of morality) between humans and most animals is so vast in degree that it becomes a difference in kind. Also, I still like eating tasty animals.