You could keep one as a pet, which you argue later gives them a higher value.
Not for you and not for some Chinese when evaluating dogs.
Most people do not present much value to me, but I don’t eat them and would refuse to. Am I confused?
It would be impossible to expand the spheres of our valuing to include the whole world, this is why we care more about people we know than people we do not know, and this is perfectly rational to do. It is simply a limit in how we are made, how valuing works. And consciousness is based on valuing. We actually are able to care about what/who we actually… care about. It’s basic stuff, but many people do not even understand this.
AGain most people are not valuable to you. Would you have only practical objects to nuking Madagascar?
Values are ordered into hierarchies. It is irrational to ignore a higher-order value for a lesser-order value. If cows were able to be valued by us on a higher level than as our meal, then we would value them like that. But they aren’t. So the fact that the cow is alive and doesn’t want to die and doesn’t want to suffer isn’t much relevant to us, even though we know those are highly relevant to the cow.
Me personally, I would get more out of a pet cow, if I had land, than a pet cat. The cows eat grass, are really quite friendly, are less selfish than cats, do not kill songbirds, do not cause allergies, do not carry parasites that cause a lot of neurological issues, often in people who never diagnose this and are more loyal. That’s me of course, but you are projecting what you value onto the pets you consider pets, following the culture you likely grew up in.
Given what you have said above you have facets of utilitarianism, because you universalize your values to include all individuals of categories.