Animal suffering is unjust
This argument is used in the debate Does God exist?.
This argument is a justification of There is too much suffering and injustice for there to be a god.
Summary
Quotes
“And then, long before the appearance of man, there was animal suffering. Billions of animals, in millions of species, have lived by devouring billions of others, whose only fault was to be too weak or too slow to escape. I'm not an SPCA member. But all the same! All you have to do is look at our animal reports on TV: tigers slitting the throats of gazelles, fish devouring other fish, birds swallowing earthworms, insects nibbling other insects... I don't blame them: they're doing their job as living creatures. But how can so much suffering by their prey, and for so long, fit into a supposedly divine plan? Our ecologists are protesting against the force-feeding of geese, and perhaps rightly so. But what about the invention of carnivores? Life, as God is supposed to have created it, and long before the appearance of Homo sapiens, is frighteningly violent and unfair. It's like a long, never-ending carnage. From this point of view, the Buddha's first "holy truth", which teaches that "all life is suffering", sarvam dukkham, seems to me to be much more in tune with our experience, alas, than the teachings of the various monotheisms! Pain is innumerable. Unhappiness is innumerable. That there are also pleasures and joys, I'm not unaware of. But nature is enough to explain that, when God makes horror inexplicable."”
References
Justifications
Objections
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Animals don't suffer -
Animals suffer because of Original Sin
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Animal suffering is not comparable to human suffering
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Animals only suffer because some of their actions are intentional.