One would think you’d have to be consistent, and regard certain people in your heart as you would a dog, if they don’t meet that standard, even if they should be afforded a level of normal legal rights.

Go far enough down, do enough damage, and they are less.  

And that hurts.  You still remember what they were before.  To be reduced in such a way is a half-death.

You can still see the spark.  The dying embers of the flame, isolated moments when some greater fragment of who they once were can rise to the surface.  You desperately try to keep those fragments, until they, too, fade, and the person you cared for is gone.

Why should that damage be possible?

“Free Will” is a handwave, a copout.  If infinite resources for mind engineering are available, there is no excuse that can retain omnibenevolence while remaining what religions now are.  Something different, something exotic would be required.

On some level, you must know this.  You must know that it doesn’t make sense.

The alternative is that sociopaths, unbound by empathy, have more free will than ordinary people.  That they are more worthy than ordinary people.