Elliott Mellor wrote: ↑Tue Aug 23, 2022 10:56 amWhat's your opinion on keeping pets?
This is really quite complicated. Sorry to issue the same old disclaimer again but on any of the more nuanced topics that cross into animal 'rights' rather than just animal welfare and basic morality I feel it's important to stress this: this is a nuanced topic, I am offering my opinion on it and you may disagree. I certainly have a lot of thinking and learning left to do on it. But if you disagree with me, or even if I'm flat out wrong, on these more complicated questions, that doesn't mean the basics of my philosophy with regards to animal welfare are wrong too. Maybe I'm wrong about the nuances of what one's attitude should be towards a beloved family dog. That doesn't mean it's okay to gas pigs or slit cows' throats so that we can eat their corpses instead of any of the other readily available tasty and nutritious food that doesn't entail such wanton violence. Anyway, with that said...
In most cases, 'pet' animals such as cats and dogs are very happy and live great lives full of love and joy and relative luxury. Therefore it's quite hard to make any serious ethical objection to "keeping pets" based on a philosophy of enhancing individual experience and reducing suffering,
so far as that individual "pet" animal is concerned.
However, I think there are
two main problems with "keeping pets", or at least with the commonly held attitude towards this practice. The first is a consequential ethical one and the second is more philosophical.
Firstly, while 'your' "pet" might be happy and have a great life, there might be other animals who have their lot in life greatly reduced as a result of your "keeping pets".
The most obvious way this happens is to the animals 'your' "pet" animal eats. I have seen meatless "pet" food out there so maybe cats and dogs, just like humans, don't need to eat other animals to be healthy but I don't know enough about this to be sure. If they do, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't as you're either paying for farm animals to be tortured and killed to feed 'your' "pet" animal, or you're being cruel to 'your' "pet" by not giving them the food they need. If cats and dogs don't need to eat animal protein to be healthy then this problem could be negated so long as you feed them exclusively plant foods. But of course most "pets" do eat other animals. People who 'keep' "pet" snakes often even feed
live mice or rats to the snake. These mice and rats are
bred into existence purely to be used as "pet" food, which is obviously very cruel, no matter how nicely you treat 'your' beloved "pet" snake. Also, domestic cats are notorious for causing devastation to local mice and birds. The common defence of this behaviour is that it's 'natural', which of course it is
from the cat's perspective, but for the birds and mice it is not at all natural for a fearsome predator to be artificially placed in their environment, in which that predator is themself artificially safe from predation in turn.
So while we greatly care for 'our' cats and dogs (and snakes), our proliferation of these species comes at the expense of other species (birds, mice, and the animals whose corpses are contained in "pet" foods) and certainly causes a net increase in suffering, despite how pleasant things may be for the "pet" animal.
But it's not just other species that suffer from our "keeping pets"': other cats and dogs suffer as a result of this practice too. If you buy an animal from a breeder rather than adopt from a sanctuary, that creates
all sorts of problems. There are more than enough cats and dogs around to meet human demand for "pet" animals. The excess animals are 'destroyed' or left to fend for themselves on the streets. Buying from a breeder causes more of these animals to be bred into existence, thus increasing - or at least failing to reduce - the number of excess animals, thus allowing more suffering to take place.
And while there are plenty of nice people out there who care for the animals they breed, animals bred for the "pet" trade are selected for their desirable traits, often to an extent that is detrimental to the health and experience of the animal. For an example, look up how the ridiculously enlarged heads of bulldogs now mean most of them
cannot be born naturally and instead have to be delivered by Caesarean section, or how
the foldy faces of pugs cause them severe breathing problems. These traits have been selected for by breeders because they are 'attractive' to humans, even though they cause the animals to suffer. It's not just farm animals who are bred to be profitable Frankensteins at the expense of their wellbeing, "pet" animals are too.
Which leads into the
second, more philosophical, objection to "keeping pets": a sentient being is
not a commodity to be traded, toy to be enjoyed, or property to be owned, by someone else. Animals (human or otherwise) are
not here for your entertainment. Selective breeding is the grotesquely perfect example of how deeply we have misunderstood this principle in regards to non-human animals. Even when we claim to love them, we breed traits into them that cause them to suffer just because of the pleasure we gain from the appearance of their face or taste of their flesh.
My objection to the idea that one sentient being can be owned by, or exist for the entertainment of, another is why I have put quotation marks or inverted commas around phrases such as "pet", "your", and "keep(ing)" throughout this post. I don't believe any of our fellow animals can be 'yours' or 'mine', that we can "keep" them, and believe that the word "pet" implies a relationship defined by dominion or at least servitude. For this reason I prefer the term 'companion (animal)'.
So living with and caring for (not "keeping") a companion animal (not "pet") is to me something that requires a lot of very serious ethical and philosophical consideration. To do so without such prior consideration likely means you will be causing a significant amount of suffering, if not to your companion animal then to numerous other animals. That's why I have said before that I think the decision to acquire and care for a companion animal is to me very similar to the decision to acquire and care for a human child.
Essentially, you should treat a relationship with a non-human animal as you should treat a relationship with a human. It should be mutually beneficial to both parties within the relationship. If one party within a relationship, particularly the party that holds more influence or power, exploits the other party for pleasure at their expense, that is an abusive relationship. Similar to with young children, because of the relative lower intelligence capability of non-human animals you will naturally take on a great deal of responsibility when entering into a relationship with one. You will be responsible both for their care and wellbeing, and for not allowing the needs or behaviour of the animal to bring harm to others (e.g. through what they eat).