@lesliestarrohara asks a fascinating question of vegans: do they consider pets to be slaves?
I'm not a vegan - or even a vegetarian - so I'm not qualified to answer.But as with all good questions, it sure got me thinking about a bunch more:
Here to talk philosophy or steal my lunch?
If the animals we breed to be our pets are "slaves," and slavery is ethically wrong, is it really more ethical not to bring these pets into life in the first place? What about the joy experienced both by the pets and the owners? Does the concept of slavery make this kind of happiness immoral?
What about children? They had no choice in their creation. Isn't it just as immoral to create a child to satisfy our instinctual, biological needs for fulfillment?
If a pet only seems to love us because we provide it with food and affection, how is that different from the way our children seem to love us?
And what about our spouses and romantic partners? Sure, they "chose" us. But what if we manipulated them into choosing us, by dressing and behaving in a way they found attractive, and then providing them with the same support and feedback we use to manipulate our pets?
And here on Steemit: do the minnows really love the whales, or do they simply behave in a manner suggesting they do, to garner valuable votes?
(And just to clarify my own position on that point: I love you, whales! Have a coffee!
Image credit: @donnadavisart
I read an SF story once where aliens came to earth and discovered that the dominant life-form on the planet was... corn. Because corn had tricked the big monkeys into cultivating it until it was the stronger than any other plant and covered the greatest part of the planet's surface. And as we prepared to venture into space, we'd be taking corn with us. In what's really a blink of geological time, corn would dominate the galaxy!
As for our pets, they seem to have it pretty easy. Here I go, cooking chicken for the dog and making sure the cat has a steady supply of toilet water to drink. (We're supposed to leave the seat up, in our house.)
Pet supplies are a $63 billion industry in the US alone. Do our pets really give us that much in return?
How do we know that the pets aren't manipulating us, and we're the slaves?
Very interesting article, we are selfish humans we are. We procreate offspring for our own selfish reasons. We have pets for the same reason.
Dogs have masters, cats have staff. I would like to think I have control over my cat ...but no. .....he is the boss
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Interesting extrapolations. These are some of the same arguments that came to mind for me while pondering the questions in my post. I didn't get many responses from actual vegans here on Steemit, but I posted a similar thing on Facebook and got a few. I found that the answer is: "Depends on the vegan."
One woman said no pets aren't slaves, and that even milk cows aren't slaves if they're raised under certain conditions.
One person said that yes, pets are slaves but it's a tough ethical question because most domestic pet breeds were basically engineered by humans to have crappy, sometimes even grotesque disabilities that would prevent them from being able to survive in the wild. (This person was in favor of taking in pets as rescues, but not supporting the pet breeding industry, and always spaying/neutering.)
Yet another vegan said that he would never have a pet because it made him feel like a slave.
So apparently there is no consensus, as of yet.
Thanks for the resteem and the follow up post! Glad to get your wheels spinning!
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Thanks for bringing back your observations from Facebook!
Veganism does have the trappings of a new religion, doesn't it? The desire for behavioral prescriptions, the fractious and fracturing interpretations of belief, and the whole morality shaming thing.
I get the feeling a lot of vegans really just want to belong to a church, but they've been told "religion is bad" so they latch on to this instead.
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Great read. And I'm more than convinced it is the other way 'round, as you say in the last line. No cat has done half as much for me (except massive amounts of loving, which really SHOULD be one of the most important things around this big ball we call home. So maybe this direction I am traveling is leading to a large 'nevermind'.)
I was going to say, I seem to do more for Stinky the Cat and others that inhabit this area of the world, than they do for me. But one of the advantages of being a human bean, is we can recognize potential 'wrongatude', and change our minds. I think I'm changing mine. My leanings are more towards a mutual back scratching.
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Hasn't it been shown that stroking a cat releases endorphins in the human brain? Maybe the deal is keep a cat around, get a little high.
Then there the Tosoplasma Gondi bacteria they carry around which makes us crazy.
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Moxie is definitely the boss here. That's all I know.
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In the 17th century Tulips were our masters.
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And now we have Bitcoin!
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dogs have masters.
cats have staff.
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Perhaps some philosophical questions are a luxury created by those with too much time on their hands? That sounds terribly harsh, and we must think about life. I don't do logical thought easily, I am more a feeling type of person. To me if something feels right, that's good enough. Because the alternative (feeling wrong) is terrible to me.
What does disturb me though, is the unforgivably cruel way we treat our "food" animals. I'm a meat eater, but I feel guilt. Maybe enough for me to become vegetarian. I don't know yet.
As for are we slaves? ~ does it matter if we are happy?
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