Response to Finnivan's: Labeling Products

I think Avery makes a very strong point here. If our language is corrupted insofar as identifying animals, who is to say that it stops there alone? Can our manipulation of language be detrimental to arrivng to precise moral conclusions also? For example, we may say that it is justifiable to kill another animal when there is nothing else to eat on a stranded island because we have a right to live. However, this is truly dependent upon intent. Knowing that we are capable of higher moral abstractions, we can say an animal is no better than a mentally ill human being. If we were on an island with a mentally ill human being instead of an animal, should we kill him or her for survival?