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sudo wrote

A few years ago, I thought I heard a kid crying for their mother outside my apartment. I went out to see what was going on, and it turns out it's a cat meowling, not a kid. I called it over to me, and it hesitated at first, but eventually came over, and let me pet it. I went back in to get it some food and water, since it seemed to be in poor shape. It ate the food and drank the water, then scratched and meowed at the front door, indicating it wanted to go in. I didn't let it in, because I didn't want to have another pet at that time, and because I noticed it was missing a piece of its left ear (this is a sign the cat has been spayed, so I thought it must be someone else's cat). But every day afterwards, it showed up at my door for food and water, and asked to be let in. Eventually, I decided that its needs were more important, so I let her in, and she's stayed with me since then.

The point is, there are some animals who prefer to live with humans than to live on their own in the wild. You're correct that pets aren't our property, but saying that people shouldn't have pets is wrong. If the pet consents to living with a human, then it's fine.

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[deleted] wrote

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sudo wrote

Other animals can't consent to us owning them.

I'm not talking about ownership. I'm talking about living together.

They only seem happy because they were conditioned - brainwashed

On an individual level? How?

and because of their history of eugenics making them docile.

Eugenics is deliberate - this was natural selection. But regardless of how cats and dogs came into a mutualistic relationship with humans, the fact remains that they are in a mutualistic relationship with us. We provide them the basic needs of life and some happiness, and they provide us happiness in return. Would you break that relationship, thus forcing domesticated animals back into the wild where life would be much harder for them, just because you object to the way the relationship began? Even if a atrocities were committed to bring about domestication (which they weren't), you'd be committing another atrocity by abandoning domesticated animals, and forcing them into an environment they're not adapted to.

This idea that animals can consent can be used to justify bestiality or carnism; are you sure you want to use that argument?

But I am not using it to argue for those things. If I did argue for those things, I would be wrong, because animals can't consent to sex with humans, or consent to being eaten. They can consent to living with humans - I've seen it firsthand. There is no reason to believe that living with animals will lead to bestiality or carnism - to say that it will is a slippery slope fallacy.

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