Is "owning" a cat vegan?

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vegan81vzla
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Re: Is "owning" a cat vegan?

Post by vegan81vzla »

my personal opinion on this is that I don't think owning animals is vegan, period. Feral cats can be dangerous to wildlife so they should be euthanized.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Is "owning" a cat vegan?

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PsYcHo wrote: Not my favorite, but they can be tasty. I try to stay open minded, so I'm also not adverse to insects. (meal-worms, ants and larvae, crickets, even spiders) I'm aware they could be considered sentient, but the environmental impact alone is vastly less harmful than common livestock, along with the health benefits as compared to traditional meat.
Definitely true of insects and oysters. Insects are probably only slightly sentient, so it's much less of a harm.

One good reason to prefer oysters, though, is availability. Seems like people, particularly in the West, eat a lot more oysters compared to insects.
Another is that oysters aren't just low impact, rope grown oysters require no food input at all from agriculture (where insects still have to be fed) because they're filter feeders, and rope grown oysters may even have benefits to the environment since they can clean waters.

I would be concerned about consuming spiders, though, because they can not be farmed, so if you collect them wild you could harm your local biodiversity. Spiders may play an important role in keeping small flying insect populations in check. Spiders are also far more sentient than most insects: some actually very intelligent (although they may not look it).

http://www.dichotomistic.com/mind_readi ... minds.html
PsYcHo wrote:And regarding arachnids, an argument could be made that by consuming them, hundreds of other small creatures would be spared being consumed.
Perhaps, but I would suspect that their prey are usually a few orders of magnitude less sentient than they are (due to the unusual level of intelligence in spiders, which is not true for larger animals, wolves and deer being pretty close in intelligence). Also, spiders may have ecological importance we can't underestimate (since there's no really viable way to farm them to increase their numbers).
PsYcHo wrote:I travel a lot, and gas-station cuisine is my main source of food when I am working. I first discovered Indian food in California, and that made me realize I could actively enjoy a meal with no meat. Not ready to make the change to Vegan, (and honestly I think Vegetarian is my limit), but this forum has made me consider it. :shock:
That's great.

Bitesized vegan actually made a pretty good gas station video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI8uNCMs2pY

(she's not as rational as some others, she focuses too much on honey which isn't very important, but that video was pretty good)

When I'm out, my go-to foods are usually nuts (easy to find), pretzels (a rare non-fried carb), and canned beans (fat free refried are the best, but most beans will work in a pinch) or bean dip. You can also usually find apples and peanut butter at gas stations, which is great. And vegetable juice, or V8, is good for vitamin A.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Is "owning" a cat vegan?

Post by brimstoneSalad »

vegan81vzla wrote:my personal opinion on this is that I don't think owning animals is vegan, period.
Why?
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vegan81vzla
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Re: Is "owning" a cat vegan?

Post by vegan81vzla »

brimstoneSalad wrote:
vegan81vzla wrote:my personal opinion on this is that I don't think owning animals is vegan, period.
Why?

Because I am vegan to break with animal-human parasitic relationship, not to sustain it
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Is "owning" a cat vegan?

Post by brimstoneSalad »

vegan81vzla wrote:
brimstoneSalad wrote:
vegan81vzla wrote:my personal opinion on this is that I don't think owning animals is vegan, period.
Why?

Because I am vegan to break with animal-human parasitic relationship, not to sustain it
The relationship can be symbiotic, when it is one of care and companionship.

"Ownership" has nothing to do with it, as long as people aren't harming them.

Cats, of course, aren't ideal since they are obligate carnivores, but it seems reasonable enough just not to breed them and adopt instead. If we feed them vegan, or lower animals, we can care for them and let them live out their lives compassionately without causing great harm.
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PsYcHo
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Re: Is "owning" a cat vegan?

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I notice you said it it better to euthanize (polite word for murder) feral cats. What about sterilization, as opposed to euthanization?
Alcohol may have been a factor.

Taxation is theft.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Is "owning" a cat vegan?

Post by brimstoneSalad »

PsYcHo wrote:I notice you said it it better to euthanize (polite word for murder) feral cats. What about sterilization, as opposed to euthanization?
I think he wants to kill the cats to save the mice and birds that the cats would kill if left wild.

Sometimes feral cats kill so many birds as to make local populations threatened, so there is some environmental argument for that too.
I can kind of understand it. Cats also are not well suited for the wild, so feral cats don't always live very good lives.

But it's much more kind of adopt the cats into warm and safe homes, as pets, rather than to kill them.
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Lightningman_42
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Re: Is "owning" a cat vegan?

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brimstoneSalad wrote:Consequentialists will usually keep a cat indoors. While the cat may not prefer it, it's safer for the cat, and saves local wildlife.
A deontologist would consider that imprisonment, and would release the cat even if it were murdering neighborhood children.
:lol: Hahaha! What? Really? Do you think that even the most devout Franciobots would allow animals to kill neighborhood children, in order to avoid violating their "inherent rights"? :shock:

Perhaps you were exaggerating the behavior of deontological vegans to demonstrate the flaws of their philosophy, but I don't think they'd go that far. Even the god of deontological veganism himself, Gary Francione, sometimes appears to try to substantiate his stances with consequentialism. It's like he somewhat realizes that his ideology is flawed and will turn of skeptically-minded people. :?
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Is "owning" a cat vegan?

Post by brimstoneSalad »

ArmouredAbolitionist wrote:
brimstoneSalad wrote:Consequentialists will usually keep a cat indoors. While the cat may not prefer it, it's safer for the cat, and saves local wildlife.
A deontologist would consider that imprisonment, and would release the cat even if it were murdering neighborhood children.
Hahaha! What? Really? Do you think that even the most devout Franciobots would allow animals to kill neighborhood children, in order to avoid violating their "inherent rights"?
It was kind of a joke, but yes, I think so.
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PsYcHo
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Re: Is "owning" a cat vegan?

Post by PsYcHo »

ArmouredAbolitionist wrote:
brimstoneSalad wrote:Consequentialists will usually keep a cat indoors. While the cat may not prefer it, it's safer for the cat, and saves local wildlife.
A deontologist would consider that imprisonment, and would release the cat even if it were murdering neighborhood children.
:lol: Hahaha! What? Really? Do you think that even the most devout Franciobots would allow animals to kill neighborhood children, in order to avoid violating their "inherent rights"? :shock:

Perhaps you were exaggerating the behavior of deontological vegans to demonstrate the flaws of their philosophy, but I don't think they'd go that far. Even the god of deontological veganism himself, Gary Francione, sometimes appears to try to substantiate his stances with consequentialism. It's like he somewhat realizes that his ideology is flawed and will turn of skeptically-minded people. :?
I mean this with no disrespect as I am in the process of learning the difference of deontologist vs consequentialist, but could you more in depth into why a deontlogical vegan would be against this? You mention the "flaws" of deontological philosophy, and I would like to hear both arguments.
Alcohol may have been a factor.

Taxation is theft.
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