Is it immoral to keep pets?

[CrazyGirl17]

...Yeah, I'm gonna say no on this one, especially since my family adopted a pitbull mix who is very loving and protective of me and the rest of the family...

 

[spartandude]

My cat was allowed out whenever he wanted really, he would go out and explore and even hunt, meaning he got his food (even though we did feed him) yet he would always come back and enjoyed us

hell one time my mum and sister went to france giving me the house to myself for a week so. about a day without seeing them my cat (while happy with me) seemed to be sad with them gone, he wasnt eating as much, seemed to be less actice and was even spending alot of time in their rooms and where they usually sit because he missed them

 

[Rblade]

our cat could run away at any time she wants. For some reason she decides to come back who feed her when she wants, pet her when she wants and clean up when she is to lazy to step outside to take a dump.

Think of it as adopting a child from a 3th world country. There is going to be people that treat those children badly. But almost everyone else is going to treat them the best way they can. And if the child really doesn't like it he/she could eventually leave. The only difference is a pet is a little harder to communicate with.

I do think people should stick with dogs cats guinea pig and fish and the like. Monkey's, birds of prey(like owls) and bigger reptiles are not something an untrained person can take care of.

 

[GonzoGamer]

I don't have any pets right now (I spent too much time taking care of the humans I love) but I'm not against the idea.
Also, dogs have been domesticated for so long that they're better off with humans than in packs. I bet there are many breeds of dog that at this point couldn't survive on their own: I'm thinking mostly about the ones small enough I can imagine a large seagull flying off with it.
....
Cat's would probably survive on their own...they hardly seem to notice most of the humans they live with anyway.

 

[Stu35]

I think this quote from a TV Show I watch makes a good point on this topic:

Sharpe: What've you got there Harper?
Harper: Just a wee wild bird.
Sharpe: Won't it fly away?
Harper: No. It trusts me.
Sharpe: But you're gonna put it in a cage.
Harper: It knows it'll get a few crumbs in a cage.
Sharpe: I thought wild things like their freedom.
Harper: Freedom to starve is no freedom.

Seriously...

Referencing Richard Sharpe (or indeed, any Sean Bean character) should result in an instant thread win.

Also, what everyone else has said. Animals simply do not reason the same way we do. If we reasoned the same as dogs, we'd all be naked and would constantly trying to lick our crotch.

Should I not be?

 

[The_Echo]

Two of the most common domesticated animals are dogs and cats (as far as I know). So, let's take a look at being a pet from their eyes.

Dogs grow up by being left alone. Therefore, a pet dog never mentally grows up--it stays a puppy forever. They never have to fend for themselves or really even learn anything (probably why most dogs seem derped out beyond belief). Now obviously if a pet dog ever found itself in a situation wherein it must do things for itself, it might be fucked. But staying a pet doesn't seem all that bad.

Cats, on the other hand, turn the tables and basically make humans their pets. Cats don't meow to other cats; that's just for us. They can create over 100 noises, and at least one of those has in part a similarity to a human infant's cry. They use this to get our attention and essentially train us to take care of them. There's probably some other stuff, but I've forgotten it at the moment. Basically, cats live a pretty good life in our care.

So, I don't think it's immoral to keep pets. Maybe I'm biased, having always had pets in my life, but I don't really see a lot of negatives here.

 

[shrekfan246]

I mean this in the nicest way possible.

Dogs, cats and other pets are too stupid to know that they're pets.

Also, my dog seems very happy with her life.

Better food than in the wild, better healthcare than in the wild, better beds than in the wild.

The wild seems kind of lame

While I agree with what you're saying, hypothetically speaking, assuming the existence of a hyper-advanced alien race that wishes to keep humans as pets, we'd be seen as too stupid to know that we're pets, too.

Of course, that's also assuming a slightly different situation than the OP has described. I'm imagining something more like what if the Earth had already been predetermined as the best place to house humans in a long-term, large-scale type deal and they just watch over us in amusement Sims-style.

 

[DANEgerous]

Picture this, I let my dogs or any dogs i will have starve to death or be ripped open by other animals. Yeah all domestic strays have a very shit life to be honest my dogs would never run off simply due to how fantastic their life is, i let the run free wi absolutely nothing to stop them and they have never not returned.

So no, case closed.

 

[WanderingFool]

I agree with everything but that first point. Humans, even the most stupid ones are much more clever than any animal. But really, the dumb parts of dogs and cats are part of their charm. They don't know any better, whereas if a human is dumb they are probably that because they didn't pay attention in school. Also, the loyalty of dogs is amazing, it's the reason so many homeless people have dogs instead of a friend to keep them company during the cold days and nights. A human would judge them, or be condescending to them, or just ignore them completely. Whereas a dog, with the proper care will give you the most unconditional love possible.

So OP, until you've actually owned a pet and felt the amount of love you have for them you can say NOTHING about it being immoral. Sure, if a pet owner beats their pet and leaves it alone in the dark then yeah, they're immoral twatbags who should be put in jail. But if you actually care for a dog, why should it be immoral?

To be honest, the first point was in jest (I had a Darwin's Awards book beside me at the time).

 

[Orekoya]

is it really morally okay to keep animals as pets or do animals deserve the right to be free?

It is morally okay to keep animals as pets.
"deserve the right to be free" is a silly thing to say. Deserving legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom also means they have to have the intellect and awareness to act and react responsibly with said freedom without impugning others same rights, which has not been displayed in any pet. Humans who fail to display this also end up in prison having their rights of freedom revoked temporarily (or permanently as the case may be).
When initialing writing this post, I started by detailing everything wrong with your scenario and its comparison to pet ownership but deleted all of it because frankly even if you fixed it it would still have this underlying problem to it - pets are not as intelligent, self-aware, and sentient as human children.

 

[EMFCRACKSHOT]

The thing is, most animals that are kept as pets now (especially dogs) have been domesticated over thousands of years and many would probably find it very difficult to survive on their own. It would probably actually be very dangerous to let them all loose.
And at least as pets they are looked after.
If you ask me, it would be far more immoral now to let all of our pets go free.

 

[spartan231490]

No it's not immoral to keep pets. They do not have the same level of awareness as we do and there is no reason to contemplate how we treat them as they do.

 

[Allthingsspectacular]

I've had my cat for a while and I can say for certain he loves his life where he is.

I can tell when he wants something and when he wants just love and attention.

When he wants something, he gets clever by knocking stuff off tables and staring at me from across the room. Basically just ways to get me to stand up and kick him off so that he can lead me to his food and water dish.

When he wants attention, he just climbs up on my shoulder or lays on top of my keyboard.

 

[Navvan]

B) This assumes that the animals lead a life worse or less fulfilling than they would on their own. This is not the case assuming proper care.

Now think about what humans consider fulfilling in their lives. Yeah, *that* staple of the boring 9 to 5 job you don't like keeps you from being homeless, but it's generally regarded as less fulfilling.

As an animal perhaps I would enjoy nature a lot more despite having to work harder for my food.

I'm not against pets, I just read your post and had to disagree. Animals have all reasons to fill unfulfilled assuming they have ever experienced nature.

surrounded by thousands of other creatures bigger them in and in a constant state of paranoia

That's what you think as a human. Let's face it, all animal species have done exactly the same thing. The ancestors of the modern rodents shared their space with effing dinosaurs!

Proper care means proper exposure to the outdoors/exercise and giving your animal what they need to be content (fulfillment). If you're treating the animal properly they do not act out/behave inappropriately (assuming you've trained them to know what is appropriate). For example if a Husky does not get enough exercise they tend to start acting out regardless of how well trained they are. There is direct evidence that animals act out if they are not receiving proper care, and the fact that when an animal does receive proper care they do not exhibit this behavior suggests that they are capable of expressing discontent with conditions.

All of my past pets have lived in the country, got all the exercise and freedom they could ever want so I'm a bit biased in that I was/am capable of providing that where as someone who lives in a town/city would not be able to. However I have no reason to believe a properly cared for pet isn't fulfilled/content. Likewise certain species of pets that have literally been breed for domestication are domesticated in every sense of the word. This goes for quite a few species of canine, and there is no reason they would prefer to be in the wild just as there is no reason a 2 year old child would prefer to be in the wild.

 

[Ashadowpie]

i treat my pets better than i treat humans, my cat eats healthier than i do for christ sakes he also goes to the doctors waaayyy more than i do for checkups and to see if he's healthy. he is like my child, since i dont want to breed XD

crocodile tears, when my cat died of old age a few years back i actually went through depression for a year and i still struggle on his death day, i actually visit his little grave in a nice little patch of forest just like i visit late family members graves.

the only animals that would suffer by being a pet is an animal born and raised in the wild without any past domestication like a wild fox or something. dogs and cats have been domesticated for thousands of years and if let free would die of starvation, by the elements and or disease and never live a full life.

 

[unoleian]

Most cats and dogs (especially dogs) are too domesticated to have any chance of survival without human intervention (I think cats are, by nature, much better equipped overall), especially if they aren't working dogs and are bred with undesirable survival characteristics (but desirable appearance characteristics), like pugs and bulldogs. Which, I think that kind of breeding is immoral, but that's not in the scope of this conversation. (But, if you must know, it has to do with purposefully giving an animal a significantly lower quality of life through forced genetic mutations, just so we can enjoy their snuffles and caved-in snouts, among other things.)

Abusing pets or fulfilling only their most basic needs (if that) is certainly immoral. One should NEVER take on a pet unless they're willing to go the distance with that creature. I cry silently inside every time I see a dog chained to a tree for the better part of its existence. That's not a life. And, judging by the plaintive barks of the dog, it's pretty clear it's fully aware of that, too.

 

[BNguyen]

Animals really, really like being pets. They love being it. Domestic animals =/= humans.

Not to pick on you in particular but I was anticipating this point coming up and I have to ask: how do you know they like being a pet? It's not like they can tell you in words and as a university biology student I can tell you that body language isn't universal across species, for examples chimps "smile" when they're angry.

that's pretty much their way of saying
"you're about to get fucked up"

I saw a program telling of chimp group aggressive behavior towards members that interupt the communal flow of life - they pretty much gang up on one and beat it to death

 

[Cyfu]

Picture the scene. You're just a human kid minding your own business when suddenly without warning, super-intelligent aliens take you away from your mother and into a strange new place run by other aliens. You can't understand more than a word or two of their language and most of it's simply unlearnable by human ears for various reasons, yet they scold or hit you whenever you do something against their arbitrary rules which to you make no sense. You are fed either scraps from the table, or second rate food they buy specially. You have to pretend to be eager and be a "good human" when your masters return if you want to ever get any treats. If you're unfortunate, they may live in an environment which you can't survive in and so the rest of your life will be confined to one small tank.

When they go out, you are left alone or in the car or tied up outside, or if you're lucky you might get to come along with a rope tied around your neck so you can't escape from your "family". If the aliens keep more than one human of different genders, then there's a good chance that they'll have you castrated to prevent the inevitable, or perhaps worse maybe use you as a breeder and then take your kids away before they're grown. The aliens have far longer a lifespan than humans and so when you get old and too expensive to keep, they have you euthanatised, cry a few crocodile tears and then forget about you when they go buy a new pet human. That is your life.

.

This may sound like a horror story but in fact it's the grim reality of the millions of animals kept by us humans as "pets". I often see discussions about the morality of eating animals, or farming them for fur, but rarely this question comes up so I ask you Escapists today, is it really morally okay to keep animals as pets or do animals deserve the right to be free?

Edit: I'll be away from the Escapist for a while for the time of writing, so I won't be able to reply to any more quotes on this thread from 10pm UK time onwards, just a head's up. Feel free to keep discussing the thread matter though ;-)

It's not immoral, because if you know a little bit about how the wolf society then you would know that how they are treated by us are many times better than they would have been treated in the wild.
seriously, ONE small thing that the higher ranked wolves find wrong and you'll be bitten. no matter how small and insignificant it seems.

 

[Sejs Cube]

1. Animals do not have the same emotional or cognitive range as humans do. On the whole they cannot think in the abstract beyond a very limited context. The alien example is not comparable. It's flawed on many, many levels.

2. Do not overly romanticize life in the wild. "Oh boy, it sure must be better than being domesticated because freedom!". Freedom in the broad, non-immediate sense isn't something most animals can even grasp. More than that, living in the wild is not a pleasant experience. You are constantly exposed to the elements. For practically any kind of animal that humans keep as pets, you are in constant threat of danger. The drive for food is your overwhelming, almost solitary, concern because being able to eat it neither easy nor is it guaranteed. Your average pet-type animal living in the wild would live out every single day cold, starving, and afraid for its life.

3. Social grouping. Animals do not have some sort of secret pre-domestic ideal life that they long for any time their human keepers are not around. Animals are not that socially complex. If you own a dog, you know how your dog sees you? As a dog. You're part of its social group, you fill the role of caretaker and provider, obviously you are also a dog. You're basically its parent. It's much the same across pretty much any other species. Animals aren't that complicated. If you put lion cubs with a golden retriever that's had puppies, she will automatically assume those lions are baby dogs and go into her mother-routine behaviors. If you dress up piglets in little tiger stripe blankets and put them with a tigress who's had cubs, she will automatically assume they're baby tigers and care for them accordingly. If you behave like an animal's parent, providing food, shelter, and security, it assumes that's what you are. Social groups aren't abstract things for animals, they're quite simple and they're quite real.


Animal cruelty is intolerable and monstrous.

Keeping animals as pets is not cruelty, nor is it immoral.

 

[Sagacious Zhu]

Immoral to feed and provide care for animals? No

OP's example doesn't hold much water. Dogs and cats aren't intelligent in the same way people are intelligent. They are capable of thought and reason to an extent but aren't self aware; they don't worry about much more than their surroundings. Dogs get along well with humans because it satisfies a pack instinct and cats are just happy to get a free meal.

Also, it is my experience that you can't really "keep" cats so much as you can persuade them to stick around with food and shelter.