Zaina (Year 12)
Editor’s note: Zaina wrote this essay during her time in Year 12, successfully submitting it to the Lincoln University Philosophy Essay Competition. As the judges noted, “I am delighted to announce that your paper has won second prize. Congratulations! There were more than 50 excellent submissions from 9 countries and you should be extremely proud of this accomplishment. A list of prize winners will be published at the University’s website shortly, and I will forward you your prize soon.” CPD
In this essay I will be arguing that living with pets[1] is morally acceptable. I will be assuming that pets in this case are happy, genetically healthy animals, with ample space, physical and emotional needs met (e.g. exercise, human interaction), as well as a variety of food and medical support readily available[2]. I will be considering three main ethical concerns of having pets: property, freedom and dependency.
One ethical concern raised with having pets is the ‘ownership’ of the pet. Animals[3] have intrinsic value as they are sentient, conscious beings. The fact that we are able to buy, sell, and ultimately ‘own’ pets utterly undermines this. ‘Owning’ pets places solely extrinsic value upon the pet as ‘property’. As it is agreed that ‘owning’ and placing monetary value upon humans is immoral, to be able to legally ‘own’ animals suggests that they are of lesser value than humans. Singer would argue it is an example of “speciesism”, where one species is preferred to another. ‘Property’ is often treated as a replaceable accessory, and legal ownership gives the owner complete rights over the pet, including being able to leave them at a shelter, with no repercussions. The right for humans to be able if they desired to exploit pets for their materialistic or fleeting desires in this way is unethical. Some may argue that legal ownership is not wrong when the family does not treat the pet as ‘property’, but rather loves them as much as they would their own family (90% of UK cat and dog owners said they considered their pet to be a part of their family). Despite this, the action of owning an animal is intrinsically wrong. An alternative would be to ‘adopt’ animals and be their legal “guardians”, similar to children who, like pets, are reliant upon adults. Although Francione argues that this is a “meaningless” change, I would argue that this would give pets legal rights similar to that of children – to have their best interests considered at all times – thus the decision to adopt a pet would be treated with much more gravity. This change would lead to the better treatment of pets as there would be more understanding towards the needs of pets. Therefore, if pets were not assigned monetary value, I see no issue with having pets on this account.
Now moving on to consider how the limitation of freedom impacts pets. Pets have their freedom restricted in two ways, a) through living in a human environment and b) not being able to act upon all of their desires in their environment. With regards to a), I would argue that keeping animals who have been displaced from their natural habitat (thus deriving no pleasure from living with humans) is immoral, as the relationship between human and pet is entirely one sided. This is true for animals such as birds and fish, as it is against their nature to be confined by walls or a tank, as they cannot act in accordance with their desires, causing distress. When looking to cats and dogs, it is critical to note that they have been companions to humans for thousands of years, and evolved to become domesticated animals. PETA objects to the institution of pet ownership, saying that “in a perfect world” cats and dogs would be able to follow “their natural instincts in their native environments”. However, as Hilary Bok states “our homes are the ‘native environment’ of cats and dogs”. In this way, these pets would not be displaced from their habitat by being a pet, and are able to thrive in this environment. To allow cats and dogs to live ‘freely’ without human intervention would be much more damaging, as they would be at risk of threats such as starvation, disease and poor weather conditions, and are unsuited to these environments as a consequence of evolution and domestication. Feral cats and dogs have short and difficult lives. According to the Humane Society of the United States, half of all feral kittens die without human intervention, showing how humans can provide a better quality of life for pets. Looking to b), I would argue that the limitation on freedom that pets receive is in either in their best interests, or a reasonable request of the human carer (e.g. not allowing a cat onto a counter when preparing food for hygiene purposes). Restrictions[4] allow the animal to live a better life, although they may not understand the reasoning behind them (e.g. restricting a cat’s food intake to reduce the risk of obesity). This is similar to how parents care for young children. No one would argue that this reasonable limitation is cruelty as it is acting with the best interests of the pet in mind, which is a right that pets should always be given. Considering this and the alternative (living ‘freely’), it is morally acceptable to have domesticated animals pets as the human environment would allow them to thrive.
Finally, there is the ethical issue of the domestication of animals, as they are completely dependent upon humans. However, the domestication of cats and dogs, though I would argue is immoral, began thousands of years ago, and Bok states “that ship has long since sailed”. Present day cats and dogs have evolved to be completely domesticated, so rather we should focus on the effects of this: pets being dependent on humans. Jessica du Toit raises the point that some may believe it to be “morally problematic” to allow a creature to exist that would be “perpetually dependent on another” for the satisfaction of its “fundamental needs”, and that if we were to do this to humans, many would regard this as wrong as it puts them in an extremely vulnerable position. However, the difference to consider here is some humans are not dependent, and you would be creating one at a significant disadvantage to the rest, whereas all cats and dogs are equally dependent upon humans. Francione suggests that this makes them “animal slaves” and that because of this, the relationship could never be “natural”, and believes that these animals should not be bred or exist altogether. Nathan Winograd argues that to stop keeping pets altogether would be a violation of the animals’ right to exist. Du Toit also points out that this concern of a pets dependency would only be of concern if the demand for pets exceeded the population of pets and, currently, there are far too many pets living appalling lives, our primary focus should be to abstain from breeding pets and allowing them to breed with one another and continue to care for the pets that already exist.
To conclude, I believe that for some animals, mainly cats and dogs, being kept as pets is in their best interests. I agree with Jessica du Toit that our present, moral obligation is to care for the pets that already exist, and try to provide them with a better quality of life. In suitable environments with suitable carers, I believe that pets are able to thrive through living with humans and it can add joy to both human and pet’s lives, and therefore is ultimately a positive decision.
References
Gary L Francione, ‘The Case Against Pets’, September 2016
Jessica Du Toit, ‘Is Having Pets Morally Permissible?’, August 2016
Hilary Bok, ‘Keeping Pets’, October 2011
Yvonne Black, ‘I Was A Vet For 15 Years. Then I Realised Keeping Pets Is Immoral’, March 2021
Corey Lee Wrenn, ‘Pets: is it ethical to keep them?’, April 2019
[1] Pet – a nonhuman animal who lives with a human animal as a companion.
[2] I will not be considering abusive situations as this is clearly immoral, rather I will focus solely on the ethical concerns raised with having pets.
[3] Nonhuman animals. As ‘humans’ are technically ‘human animals’, ‘animals’ are ‘nonhuman animals’. In this essay, I shall use the term ‘human’ as shorthand for ‘human animals’ and ‘animals’ for ‘nonhuman animals’.
[4] Not considering abusive situations.
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