> That's just utterly and completely backwards.

Yes, he says exactly that explicitly, that in his view we should look backwards.

> We (at least, most people) avoid inflicting unnecessary pain on animals because they are conscious beings that can feel pain.

I can agree that we say that we care because of consciousness, but still I'm not convinced, to me it looks very much like a rationalization.

Some people care about animals and to that end they claim that animals possess consciousness, because if they do everyone should care about animal welfare. These animal welfare activists do not start with some insight about animal consciousness, they start with caring about animals, and then they invent an argument that can persuade others. It is exactly as the author of the article says: caring comes first, declaration of consciousness comes second.

Honestly, I do not know what consciousness is, I'm in doubt, but playing a devil's advocate, it looks very much like a concept that was invented to prove that Homo Sapience is something special, more than a mere animal. To demarcate animals and humans, so when we denied animals any rights we had a great sounding excuse for that: "people possess consciousness, mere animals don't".

> Is this guy really, truly, seriously arguing that we first decide to care for an animal, and then because we care about it, we believe that it's conscious, able to feel pain and other emotions?

Exactly. Animal welfare activists care about animals' feelings and emotions and therefore they claim that animals possess consciousness. Meat eaters don't want to be inconvenienced by thoughts of suffering animals, so they claim that animals do not possess consciousness. Both claims have little to do with actual consciousness, it is just a political game. I care about my pets, and it doesn't matter whether they possess consciousness or not, I would care about them in any case. I don't need any great sounding excuses to care about them. But at the same time I don't need to talk others into caring about my pets, if I needed it, probably I'd start talking about animal consciousness too.

> This is so intuitively obvious that I am stunned that someone would argue the opposite.

That guy may be wrong, but if I'm allowed to give advice, I'd suggest you to stop and try to understand what he says. I'm really worried a bit about how consciousness debates unfold sometimes. They tend to slip into a political side and people mostly don't notice it. People saying "consciousness" while implying "human/animal rights" or obligations. It is just muddying the water.

If we want these debates to progress constructively, we have to be very careful with references to consciousness, maybe just forbid them completely in these debates. One can't measure consciousness, one can't even state clearly what consciousness is, but still they say "consciousness" to make their words sound more objective. And the worst part of it: it often works.