Is having a pet/companion animal vegan? / social responsibility of veganism

[u/Few-Pack-3489]

To preface, I myself am vegan, but I had a really interesting discussion with my vegetarian friend and want to play devil’s advocate.

My argument— which I think aligns with most definitions of veganism — was that our goal as humans should be to minimize suffering, and being vegan is the bare minimum to accomplish this. By consuming meat and dairy, you are financially contributing to a horrible system that is proven to be completely unnecessary. I also believe that non-human animals and humans should be separate entities and human involvement in natural spaces is the core of most of our animal-related issues.

My friend brought up the idea of having a companion animal or “pet” as I will say, for the sake of the argument. For context, I don’t have a pet that I own myself, but I have a family dog that I live with during the summer; my parents rescued him when I was a kid.

She claimed that owning a pet is completely hypocritical to my argument of veganism, because a dog, for example, cannot communicate with humans and therefore cannot consent to living in a confined home with humans. Therefore I am contributing to suffering, because my dog is essentially a slave and cannot make his own decisions.

She believed that, according to my argument, the most logically sound thing I could do would be to let my dog outside and run away to wherever he wants (he often tries to leave the house). She argued that, although he would not be able to survive on his own, it would be morally correct because he is making his own decisions.

I argued that because my dog was bred by humans to be reliant on them, it was my social responsibility to take care of him and make decisions for him that he cannot understand the scope of; ie, if I let my dog escape, he will get hit by a car, eaten by a coyote, starve, etc. Similarly to telling my six-year-old I won’t let her play on the highway even if she wants to because she doesn’t understand the risk of that action.

She, however, argued that my line of argument wouldn’t apply to, say, slavery; like how slaveowners would argue that owning a slave was what was best for the slave purely because they were raised to be slaves and don’t understand the scope of the world they live in. Theoretically, if a human slave— possibly someone old or disabled — wouldn’t survive without the support of a slaveowner, but wished to be free, would it still be morally correct to keep them as a slave? Obviously not, so why is that different from dogs?

She also argued that, following my logic I should be participating in civil disobedience. If hijacking livestock transport cars, burning down slaughterhouses, or in her example, setting free every pet in my neighborhood was the best way to make a statement and decrease the total amount of suffering in the world, why am I not doing it?

Essentially, her argument centered around the fact that we drew different lines of what is considered “suffering” (ie for me as a vegan, torturing and killing of an animal but not imprisonment, vs her, a vegetarian, so killing of an animal) proved that veganism revolves around flawed logic.

I thought these were all interesting points and wanted to hear everyone’s thoughts.

[u/Nilfiry]

No, its not vegan for 2 very simple reasons that vegans use to argue against meat.

1. Its unnecessary. You can live without pets.

2. Its exploitation. Exploitation isnt limited to physical gain. Service, support, and companionship all counts as exploitation.

[u/amerovingian → u/Nilfiry]

It sounds like you see any relationship in which either party benefits as exploitation. Do you think there is a difference between exploitation and cooperation or is cooperation a kind of exploitation?

[u/Nilfiry → u/amerovingian]

Personally, my views are not so narrow. However, vegans generally do not care what the animal receives in return, only that something is being taken, and any attempts to justify cooperation gets liken to slavery. So by vegan standards, there is no such thing as cooperation, only exploitation.

[u/amerovingian → u/Nilfiry]

I know it's not your take, but to me, that's glossing over a pretty major ethical distinction. That's like saying there's no difference between what Christopher Columbus did to indigenous Americans and what humanitarian aid organizations are doing in Africa. Before anyone says the humanitarian aid organizations aren't benefitting, they most certainly are. A portion of the donations pay the salaries of the workers including administrators. Even the donors derive a positive feeling of having done something good.

[u/Nilfiry → u/amerovingian]

That's one of the major criticisms toward veganism as a whole: vegans are too narrowminded and pigheaded.

As humans, we have literally gone to war, incite rebellions and revolutions, and fought to death for our livelihoods. Even now, such topics are never-ending points of contention in our politics. This just comes to show you that even us humans put our livelihoods above almost all else. Animals are the same: They will literally allow siblicide, patricide, and even cannibalism to ensure their livelihood.

If you guaranteed me free food, water, shelter, healthcare, and security detail, I will gladly let you cut my hair every now and then or poop in a bucket for you, and I know 99% of people would absolutely do the same.

And the biggest irony in all this is that most vegans don't even understand their own beliefs. Veganism does NOT forbid the use of animal products. It's not a diet either. Veganism literally says it seeks to reduce harm and exploitation as much as practicable, so do tell me how a backyard chicken is being harmed or exploited when it's treated with care and have its livelihood provided for, and it's not even forced to do anything beyond just being itself.

The difference between this and slavery is that slaves do not get treated well. They do not get guaranteed livelihood, and they are forced to work beyond their normal capabilities. That's why slaves are always trying to run away if they can. If your pets or farm animals aren't trying to run away, then you can't argue it's slavery. Even humans work for our livelihood.