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!
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?