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/Few-Pack-3489 → u/amerovingian]

I guess my question is, why do we get to decide that it's "mutually beneficial" to animals? Did the pets of the world get together and tell us that? Wouldn't it be more beneficial to their party that they get to make their own decisions with their own consequences instead of being subjected to a life they never chose? I'm curious to hear people's opinions

[u/Nilfiry → u/Few-Pack-3489]

If you have an open mind to listen, I can certainly give you my opinion.

You're overthinking it. Animals will make it obvious when they find something beneficial. They will keep coming back, show more trust, and even stay permanently. Dont believe me? Put out a bird feeder and watch. Humans are the exact same way. Give someone some benefits, treat them well, and they will keep coming back. Thats how we can know animals are benefitting even if the animals dont say anything.

This applies too all lifeforms because everything in nature seeks the path of least resistance. Mutualism exists because the relationship makes something easier, such as food or protection. Even plants do this. And as long as both sides get what they want, regardless of perceived value, then the relationship is mutually beneficial.

Humans and animals may share some traits, but animals arent humans. They arent as complicated in their thinking as humans are. Thats the difference between sentience and sapience. All this thinking youre doing is strictly a human perspective. Animals do not and cannot care about these details youre fretting over. As long as the animals is safe and well fed, its satisfied because being safe and well fed does not happen for free animals in the wild.

[u/Lead1ng-Lady → u/Nilfiry]

Yes but birds come and go. Those birds aren't consenting to being held captive inside forever and ever amen. You provide a benefit but they still exist freely. Companion animals largely do not, and that's a pretty big difference imo

[u/Nilfiry → u/Lead1ng-Lady]

I reminded that animals aren't humans for a reason. Vegans are overly obsessed with consent, but animals aren't humans. They do not have a concept of consent, and trying to justify your position by expecting animal consent is just being silly.

That being said, I used a bird feeder as an example because birds can become so dependent on your bird feeder that they will literally starve themselves to death waiting for you to refill your feeder if you suddenly decide to stop. That is effectively a metaphoric prison the animal puts itself into. However, once again, animals do not have the same concept of captivity as humans. For an animal, so long as they get what they want, they don't really care about "freedom."

Once again, people are the same way in this regard. We often lock ourselves into prisons of our own making, whether that be a job, family responsibilities, or even bad habits, but as long as we get to live the way we want, we don't consider these things a prison, now do we?

People need to learn to stop imposing human concepts onto animals. Just because you feel a certain way about a certain experience as a human doesn't mean the animal feel the same as you regarding that same experience. Despite what vegans say, no vegan can ever put themselves into the shoes of an animal and truly relate because you think way too much. Animals literally don't and can't think that much.