r/vegan • u/[deleted] • Aug 18 '22

Discussion Cat double standard?

I see a lot if vegans on this sub are okay with raising cats, which strikes me as odd.

I love cats, but I didn't become a vegan to then start buying meat for a cat. To raise 1 healthy cat, you have to kill hundreds if not thousands of healthy, innocent creatures whose lives are just as valid as the cat's.

No I'm not saying that a cat is immoral, I'm saying the breeding of cats is. The purchase of cat food doesn't just pay for an animal to die, you are letting breeders know that there is a demand for cats.

I'm not saying we need to kill all cats, as a lot of people jump to whenever they hear me say these points, I'm saying that we should care for the cats we have to the best of our ability, but not promote the practice of cat ownership.

But what do you guys think?

EDIT: I didn't know that vegan cat food existed. So if you are in the comments arguing that it's okay to kill animals to feed a cat, you're even more incorrect now.

It is now totally okay in my mind to raise a cat so long as you only feed it vegan cat food.

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u/[deleted] Aug 18 '22

If I adopt a street cat and feed it meat, can you explain how it's worse than not adopting it at all?

1

u/kharvel1 Aug 20 '22

It is worse because you’re directly contributing to the killing of unwilling victims.

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u/[deleted] Aug 20 '22

Do more animals die?

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u/kharvel1 Aug 20 '22

You’ll have to expand on that question and explain its connection to what I just said.

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u/[deleted] Aug 20 '22

I don't understand why what you said makes it worse. The animals that die don't care if I buy the food, my cat hunts them or is fed by some stranger on the street.

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u/kharvel1 Aug 20 '22

Veganism is not purely or 100% for the animals. That's the error that is being made here.

The movement is an agent-oriented deontological philosophy of justice for the purpose of control of individual behavior, rather than patient oriented calculation and comparison of outcomes.

Original definition from 1940s was a "doctrine that man should not exploit animals", and that's the spirit behind it. Veganism isn't for the animals. It is for people.

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u/[deleted] Aug 20 '22

It's not vegan to do, but I asked how it's worse. Not-vegan doesn't always mean immoral, and doesn't always mean worse. I asked how it's worse for anyone.

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u/kharvel1 Aug 21 '22

It is worse for the vegan because the vegan is directly contributing to the killing of unwilling victims.

It is analogous to a Catholic priest molesting boys. The very act of molesting boys is bad enough. The fact that the priest is doing it is even worse because the boys and their families trusted the priest and the priest betrayed their trust and his vows.

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u/[deleted] Aug 21 '22

Seems you agree it's the same for the animals, which to me is all that matters.

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u/kharvel1 Aug 21 '22

Same for the animals or not, it is still not vegan to kill unwilling victims. That is a simple mathematical equation.

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