Do you remember your first dog or cat? Perhaps even your first boa constrictor? Whatever your preference, pets can play a huge role in our lives, even becoming full-fledged family members. But is domestication really in an animal’s best interest? Does pet ownership create a loving bond between human and animal, or does it only serve our own interests?
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where is the line?
The line
The line with respect to rights is drawn around the interests of the right-holder. We are duty-bound to do the best we can to meaningfully respect other animals' interests, rather than merely serving our own. I would submit that, if the cats were feral to begin with, they ought to have been left alone in the first place. While we are duty-bound to avoid harming feral cats we may encounter, we are not duty-bound to feed and shelter every single one of them, nor to encourage or discourage their procreation by doing so.
- Eric Prescott
August 27, 2008 9:24PM
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and if
and if I see a feral cat that is injured and likely to freeze to death in the coming winter I should "leave it alone"?
Attempting to draw these clear and absolute lines will break down very quickly.
regarding my relative, he left the cats alone in every way except one. He gave them food. They choose to hang out under his shelter on their own. Either way it is impossible to have "left them alone". He either had to kick them out of his shelter (I'm not sure how this could have be accomplished humanely) or let them stay there by their choosing. If they stay, as they did, then he has to deal with them breeding or spay and neuter them. Either way he couldn't "leave them alone".
Again, attempting to draw absolute lines gets silly really quickly.
- reckoner
August 28, 2008 11:28AM
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Help, but first, do no harm
I don’t think AR Blog is trying to “draw clear and absolute lines”. Reckoner, you ask, “Where to draw the line?” and then answer your own question that “clear and absolute lines” can’t be drawn. AR Blog gave a good answer that applies to the vast majority of cases.
When we think about ethics, we often legitimately make general, all-other-things-equal statements as principles to follow; however, given unusual situations (such as the injured feral cat or injured human) we may decide to intervene to help. The important thing is to “first, do no harm”, and then, if we know we can help and decide to go ahead and help, then wonderful, go ahead and help.
- dan August 29, 2008 9:29AM
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do no harm
is "do no harm" an absolute? I agree with everything you say, but if you read the other comments around here you'll see that many AR advocates are attempting to draw absolute lines with only two binary choices. Read some of my comments that discuss "using" or not "using" animals and the replies from the AR people.
- reckoner
August 29, 2008 12:01PM
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Do no harm is prerequisite, not an absolute
“Do no harm” is not an absolute, but far too often, I see people helping *some* animals by rescuing them from harm, which is good and right, but then contributing – directly or indirectly – to the harm inflicted on *other* animals.
It would be much better if people “first, did no harm” by leaving animals alone: that is, going vegan and not breeding domesticated animals, even if they did *nothing* whatsoever to help animals outside of merely leaving them alone. After we refrain from harmful actions such as consuming animal products (we torture and slaughter 12 billion in the US; 53 billion worldwide) and breeding animals into a US society that kills tens of millions of domesticated animals annually, THEN we can make sense of helping animals in other ways. Until we overcome that absurd inconsistency, our “helping animals” is an absurd notion.
- dan August 29, 2008 12:52PM
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for the record
I'm a vegetarian and have been for over a decade. I completely agree about our industrial food supply, but I don't see the clear wrong with breeding animals generally (outside of the industrial system).
- reckoner
August 29, 2008 1:31PM
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You beg the question
"but I don't see the clear wrong with breeding animals generally (outside of the industrial system)"
Don't ask what is wrong with breeding animals for our purposes.
Ask what is right about such a practice, and see if you can answer that question.
To me, imposing our choices over more important preferences of our beings (companion animals, in this case) is reason enough to say that pet breeding is immoral and unjustifiable.
P.S: You say you are vegetarian. I take it that you are not Vegan and that you meant lacto/ovo/lacto-ovo vegetarian. If that is the case, then it does not matter whether you are "vegetarian" or not. In my eyes a meat-eating non-Vegan is the same as milk-drinking non-Vegan is the same as a leather-purchasing non-Vegan.
- Sandy
August 30, 2008 8:33AM
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Response to Reckoner
We got into this in the debate on eating animal products. You appear to hold two views:
1. That the killing of animals (as opposed to the imposition of suffering on animals) does not raise a fundamental moral issue.
I have yet to hear you or anyone else--on Opposing Views or anywhere else--come up with a coherent justification for the position that we are justified morally in using and killing animals as long as we do not make them suffer. Although torturing and painfully killing an animal (human or nonhuman) is worse than painlessly killing an animal without the prior torture, killing the animal per se involves the imposition of a significant harm.
Moreover, *any* system--industrial or not (however those terms are understood)--will involve pain and suffering. The argument that I recall you offering (and I apologize if this was someone else) that life invariably involves suffering and death does not work to morally justify bringing beings into existence for the sole purpose of using them as commodities for human consumption.
2. That there is a morally dispositive difference between what you call "the industrial system" and systems that are "outside" the industrial system.
Putting aside that I am not sure how you would distinguish "industrial" and "non-industrial" systems, you do not appear to understand or appreciate the problems presented by the status of nonhumans as economic commodities. This status as a very practical matter limits the sort of protection for animal interests that will be purchased as such protection is not cost-justified once it exceeds what is necessary for efficient exploitation. Even if you have a friend who raises animals in a situation similar to a high-end country club, that situation could never satisfy even a scintilla of a fraction of the demand for animal products. Morever, your position begs the question about the justification for killing per se.
Finally, in the other discussion, I argued that there is no difference between flesh and dairy or eggs. Indeed, to the extent that you do not eat flesh but eat more dairy products, you may be responsible for more suffering as there is probably more suffering in a glass of milk than in a pound of steak. There certainly is no meaningful moral distinction that you can make between meat and dairy (or eggs, etc).
GLF
Gary L. Francione
Professor, Rutgers University
- Gary L Francione
August 30, 2008 11:27AM
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The clear wrong with breeding other animals.
Hey Reckoner. I agree with Sandy, and I'll take the time to explain.
The fact that you're a vegetarian, and not a vegan, helps me understand why you aren't against pet ownership. This is clear since, to sustain your ovo-lacto vegetarianism, you must, directly or indirectly, "own" and "use" other animals (cows and hens in this case) for you to get those "products". Hence, you support the property status of other animals.
The parallels for me are clear. Meat, eggs, dairy and honey are all products of slavery. They all involve treating other animals as mere means to our ends, as "things". For those using them, those animals have no inherent value; only the value that the owner gives to them or to the "products" they steal from them. The owner can do almost anything he wants with them. It's up to her/him. The interests of the slave are always under the mercy of the owner. No rights. No respect.
This is why human slavery was abolished. Not because all slaves were tortured, mistreated, or killed, but because they were someone else's property. That's the underlying problem, and the cause of both, the "nice" forms of exploitation and the "most-cruel" ones. You can't get rid of one and not the other, cuz the differences are just bound to the choices of the slave owner.
That's the AR position, and it doesn't seem so crazy to me. Slavery is slavery, no matter how the slaves are treated. We already recognized the immorality of it when it comes to humans (no matter the gender, ethnicity, intelligence or any other characteristic of the human). Since all of us, sentient beings, share at least the same basic interests, those interests should be protected equally. That protection must entice the abolishment of their property/slave status, no matter the species, intelligence or any other characteristic of the sentient being.
Best,
Samuel.
"There's no love without respect, nor respect without freedom."
- Liberacion Igualdad
August 30, 2008 10:55PM
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but what if
but what if the feral cats are killing the native wildlife?
do you kill the cats, or spay/nueter them or try to relocate them?
In my opinion, it would be better for the cats to be dead than to exist as a domestic animal forced to live ferally in a wilderness or alley that were never meant to live in.
Or you could look at it this way.
The cats are being forced to live outside of their natural habitat , which since they have been changed by their 1000's of years of domestication, no longer exists.
Because they have no natural habitat, they can no longer live anywhere in the wild because there is no place where they could live that would not harm the ecosystem (since they would be an invasive, introduced species).
So therefore it would do the least harm LONGTERM to kill every feral cat on sight. You would end the cats' suffering (from dogs, cars, rain, hunger, fleas, ticks, fights, cruel kids , cold, posions, and more) and prevent the native wildlife from suffering from their predation.
- gatorgirl7563
April 23, 2009 3:10PM
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Trap, Neuter, Return
The only way I see us humans ethically intervening with the lives of animals of a different species to our own is when they need our help.
There is a group called Alley Cat Allies. They use a technique called TNR -Trap, Neuter, Return. Feral cats are stuck in a nether world. They can never be pets in a caring home because they are too wild and they can never be wild and independant animals because they are too tame and do not have the life skills to survive on their own. Rather than killing the feral cats which is ineffective because it allows new feral cats to move into the same area and repeat the populating, it is wiser and ethical to let them live out their lives without being able to breed.
Wild animals should be left alone. But if a human stumbles upon an orphaned or injured animal in their natural habitat or even in a suburb, I believe we should be obliged to take him in and nurse him back to health. Then these animals should be returned to where they were found if that is safe, or to a sanctuary if they can no longer live where they were found. For wild animals who can no longer survive in the wild, we should if possible, provide a safe santuary for them to live the rest of their lives. Animals should never live in zoos.
Just about any animal who lives in the wild, whether they are native or feral, would take a human up on the offer of a free meal. But this is wrong because it is interfering with their natural life. These animals or birds will quickly become dependant on the food and may die if the feeder moves away or dies. More importantly, the artificial feeding of feral or native animals will alter their natural behaviour, possibly jeopardising their survival or well being. What is acceptable however, is providing a natural habitat in one's own garden to support the animal/bird's natural diet. For example a flowering, seeded bush for birds, or a tropical fruit tree for possums and bats. These trees will only fruit and seed for a short time during their season.
- Desert Girl
December 29, 2008 3:19AM
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Duty bound?
Where exactly does this duty come from? I don't think it is my duty to either take care or ignore any animal, except of course the ones I have taken as pets , and therefore accepted that responsibility.
And I would be reluctant to say that I am duty bound to ignore feral cats and dogs, considering that many of them end up scrounging in garbage and at the dump for subsistence. Is it really better to let them live this sort of life on the edge than to feed them and make them more comfortable?
If so, why am I also duty bound to feed the homeless people? Animal rights activists often state that animals have the same rights as humans, so either we feed them both or ignore them both. I will err on the side of compassion, and feed them both. I really don't see how you can fault someone for that.
- LagerHead
June 23, 2009 1:41PM
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Feral cats are domestic cats with the same health problems
I disagree. It actually cruel to let feral cats be feral. Feral cats are still domestic cats who became feral. Unlike true wild cats they do not have immunity to feline aids and leukemia and many are infected and infect other cats including non-ferals. Once infected without proper care they die horrible deaths from immunodeficiency. It is less cruel to get veterinary treatment and to enclose a feral cat than to let it die from leukemia which means it succombs to tumour after tumour.
- sor666
August 31, 2009 1:15PM
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