‘Considerations: (1) cats are carnivores; (2) pet food is derived from factory farmed animals; (3) factory farming has implications for the suffering of animals and the environment. As someone committed to reducing animal suffering but also loves a couple kittens he’s fostering, I’m pretty stuck on this.’
I can relate very much to this question. Its careful elaboration shows the intricacy of making ethical decisions in the context of a society with contradicting practices and values. More importantly, I am myself the proud caretaker of two beautiful rescue kittens. I hope my bias will not hinder the value of this sincere attempt to answer the question.
There is a sense in which adopting an animal is clearly a good thing: you decide to take responsibility and provide a home for a living being that may not have it easy otherwise. However, this characterization becomes fuzzier once one realizes certain implications of this choice in a bigger, societal picture, such as the desire to reduce one’s environmental impact, or to reduce the suffering of animals. Cats are carnivores, and this in itself might be off-putting for vegans and vegeterians; and sustaining pets such as cats often requires buying “proper” pet food, which is (in the vast majority of cases) the product of intensive farming, and therefore has wider implications regarding the (mis)treatment of animals and a negative impact on the environment.
I believe that there are ways to reduce animal mistreatment and environmental damage without stopping meat altogether. Here opinions will diverge; and given one’s decisions and predispositions, there will probably be disagreement on the solution I try to outline. But to me, this problem shows how the desire to make an ethical decision lays in a landscape of intrinsically contradictory dynamics in our society as a whole, where what looks like an ethical, good-hearted choice often has far-reaching consequences.
In light of this complex scenario, I cannot really provide a straightforward, top-down answer to the question. I think the best thing to do is to focus on the case at hand. The question, then, is not whether it is ethical to adopt a cat, but how to find a compromise where adopting a cat is as ethical as possible.
In this context, I decided to learn how to prepare cat food myself, using locally-sourced meat that doesn’t come from intensive farming, in order to minimise environmental damage. It’s going to be a lot of work: I will need to research how to do it, set a lot time aside, go through a significant trial-and-error process, all the while hoping that my cats will like the food I make for them. It’s not an easy solution, nor does it provide a crystal clear answer to the big questions at play here. But it is a genuine attempt to reconcile the ethical tension between my decision to adopt an animal and my desire to contribute to the wellbeing of the world.
What do you think? Is it ethical to have a pet? Let us know in the comments.
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I did my BA in Rome, Università La Sapienza, where I graduated with a thesis about the contemporary debate on personal identity. I am now doing my Research Master’s in Philosophy of Mind at Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. I am specifically researching how digital environments (and especially social networking sites) influence our understanding of the world and of others. I like Wittgenstein and theories of extended cognition, which argue that items external to the brain can constitute cognitive processes. I am fascinated by the idea of the cyborg and how the digital revolution is changing our understanding of the world.