I always wonder how vegans justify owning animals without their consent.
Adopting non-human animals that would otherwise be killed for lack of facilities to care for them is basically the only way a vegan can end up with individual custody.
That’s still owning an animal when it hasn’t consented to being owned.
Veganism is centered around minimizing harm either directly or indirectly. Why are you so focused on consent?
Is it? I can open my front door, and my dog will just stand there and look out. If there’s a squirrel, she’ll chase after it, but then come right back.
That seems like consent to me.
Outdoor feral cats are terrible for the environment/local fauna, dogs are domesticated so much that an outdoor feral life is miserable for them. It is absolutely compatible with veganism to give a home and care to cats and dogs who would otherwise be out on the streets. Buying specialty/novelty breeds from a breeder is not.
Veganism is less about absolutes, and more about reducing/not supporting animal harm and suffering wherever possible. Most vegans would agree that taking in a cat or dog and feeding them appropriate (meat) food is better overall then letting them roam feral. It is a very utilitarian view with regard to animals’ wellbeing.
Im not vegan but I do have vegan relatives (with cats). Also you don’t need to be vegan to agree with the points I brought up in the first paragraph.
To be fair i frequently consider the ethics of owning pets.
I am not vegan and have multiple pets. There has only be a short section of my life i lived without.
I don’t think i could personally choose to own a dog, though i love the one my partner came with and have fond memories of those from my youth.
its just how restrictive their freedoms are. Almost always in a closed area or on a leash. It’s a conscious adult animal who are we to say its wrong for it to act on its instincts. They cant leave or complain much, Its practically enslavement.
Cats however can roam freely and it’s not uncommon here for cats to visit multiple homes, possible finding a different house to live. Cats only listen if they want to and instinctively act with no regard of your human ideal. So i see much less issue there having them a part of a family.
Now before every online wildlife enthusiast screams at me for not oppressing their roaming space. Wild cats are native where i live… locking them in is locally considered very cruel.
The fact we have to discuss that is an argument for just not owning any pets though.
Outdoor cats kill many native animals and most places consider them an invasive species.
They are only a meaningful problem where no native feline species are present. Asia, Africa and Europe (excluding islands) have native wild cats. House cats are a direct descendant of the African wild cat and have been domesticated and spread since ancient times. They can be a danger to the “genetic distinctiveness” of wild cats in some places. But they mostly are not the same level of danger to native species like they are in America and Australia.
I am aware and the damage they can do is legit, but people seem to automatically assume everyone lives in such place and i have been burned before.
As far as i am aware the concept of the family cat being a wild/stray that decides to just live at your house is an ancient dynamic here.
I once found a cat in need and took it to a vet where they found it had a chip. Returned it to the official owner, they already considered it the neighbors cat more than theirs and those neighbors hadn’t seen it for 3 months. They assumed it found some better place like rich lonely elders.
A friend had a cat move in voluntarily, so guess that would be one way. It’s still an outdoor cat and can come and go as it pleases, it just seems to prefer staying there. It just gets food, scratches, and a place to stay, but is technically pretty much a wild animal. It behaves as if its lived with them for its whole life and tends to sleep next to my friend in her bed at night.
It’s not vegan, that’s all there is to it. Some keep animal companions since it’s less harmful for them than a shelter but considering them “owned” is treating animals like property which is not vegan.
Trying to differentiate between owned pets and animal companions is splitting such fine hairs that it might as well be the same thing.
Ultimately, veganism relies on personal decisions of morality. It’s not fully prescriptive and leaves room for differing opinions. The question here is whether or not the relationship is exploitative.
This leaves some room for nuance. There’s a difference between purchasing a pet from a breeder, which adds further demand, and adopting an animal that would otherwise be euthanized, for example.
Words matter, mindset matters blah blah dont have the time for a “your hairsplitting vs. my careful differentiation” debate rn
If you let a cat outside and they come back, that would be the closest you could get to an animal consenting, without actually talking to them. Also dogs naturally drifted to humans, so dogs chillling with humans is kind of their natural behaviour? The rest would be harder to justify.
But if you let a cat outside and it dies then you’re a murderer with blood on your hands.
If it goes on a murder rampage then you’re an accomplice to murder.
I hope it’s not a pixel fold.
OBLOGATE
Hi, sorry if this is obvious, but I have never heard of ensouled foods, and looking it up just gives me a few random things from games. What is it?
It’s a joke at the expense of people that think cats need meat vs nutrients. en-souled, as in food which has a soul.
I am likening imagining meat has some mystical property that follows it which affects nutrition to the claim that cats need to devour souls.
Best troll I’ve seen in a while. Can be taken either way!
Minus one point for low hanging fruit though, at this point even mentioning “diet” and “cat” in that sub will start a shit storm.
