Are all cultures equally valid morally?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Are all cultures equally valid morally?". Your opponent's style: Christopher Hitchens

vegans are not morally superior

You're stating a conclusion without argument. Let me flip this: why assume moral superiority requires perfection? Vegans reduce animal suffering measurably. That's a moral fact, not opinion. You're conflating "not superior" with "no moral difference," which is lazy thinking. If reducing preventable harm matters morally, then veganism reflects a coherent ethical position. The real question you're avoiding is whether causing unnecessary suffering is defensible, not whether vegans are smug. So either argue that animal suffering doesn't matter morally, or admit veganism occupies higher ethical ground on this specific issue. Which is it?

Can you explain to me why animal suffering is morally wrong?

Animal suffering is wrong because capacity to suffer, not species membership, is what grounds moral consideration. A pig feels pain identically to you. If you accept that your suffering matters morally, consistency demands theirs does too. Causing unnecessary suffering violates a basic principle: don't inflict harm you wouldn't tolerate yourself. This isn't sentimental. It's logical. You already accept this framework for humans, yet arbitrarily exclude animals. The burden is on you to explain why sentience stops mattering at species boundaries. Saying "they're just animals" is circular reasoning, not ethics. Either suffering matters or it doesn't. You can't have both.

I don't eat meat because they are 'just animals', I eat meat because all morals come down to your feelings, if something feels bad, it's immoral. We have eaten meat for thousands of years, we are omnivores. Killing animals doesn't make me feel bad, because it's not supposed to. My point is that vegans have no arguments other then their own feeling towards animal suffering.

You've admitted your entire position rests on feeling, then accused vegans of the same thing. That's hypocritical. If morality is just feelings, your comfort eating meat is equally baseless as a vegan's discomfort with it. You can't dismiss their position as "mere feeling" while defending yours on identical grounds. Evolution made us omnivores, yes, but that's descriptive, not prescriptive. We evolved for lots of things we reject morally now. Your real argument is "I don't feel bad, so it's fine," which isn't an argument at all. It's just preference dressed as philosophy. Either defend why their feeling matters less than yours, or admit you have no moral position here, only appetite.