this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2024
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That’s still owning an animal when it hasn’t consented to being owned.
In medicine there is a concept called "implied consent". Suppose you come across a human who is dying, they are not able to say that they would like you to save their life. You are assumed to have consent to try, assuming they have specifically not refused consent (e.g. through an advanced care directive) because there is the implication that they would prefer to live than die.
There is not really a good reason to apply this concept only to humans. For example, if you saw a train bearing down on an oblivious wombat moving the wombat off the tracks (or scaring them off or whatever) is obviously something you should try, despite generally having moral reservations about interfering in their life, because wombats generally aren't trying to commit suicide.
We can assume most abandoned animals that were formerly pets (or in entertainment industries or whatever) would like to go on living given that they continue to try staying alive. Although approaching that as ownership is definitely non-vegan, like if you take one into your life with a mindset that you can just stop caring for them or sideline their needs when inconvenient that is not vegan.
Veganism is centered around minimizing harm either directly or indirectly. Why are you so focused on consent?
Maybe the better question is why don’t you care about consent?
Well I do, but my cat really doesnt. She never consented to any of the food ive given her now I think of it. She just eats regular friskies though, cause she's a sloppy bitch and thats the way she likes it.
We have a cat.
We let the cat out the door.
The cat keeps coming back.
Is it? I can open my front door, and my dog will just stand there and look out. If there's a squirrel, she'll chase after it, but then come right back.
That seems like consent to me.
Have you ever seen a photo of a huge elephant tied by a rope to a stake in the ground? If you have you might have wondered how that tiny stake and rope could hold such an enormous, powerful creature.
You might have thought it was some high-tensile steel rope with the stake buried 10 feet into the ground. But then you look, and no. It’s just a wooden stake and a frayed-looking rope.
How can this be?
While young and weak an elephant is tied by a heavy chain to an immovable steel stake. No matter how hard the young elephant tries to pull the stake from the ground or break the chain, it cannot. From then on no matter how big and strong the elephant gets it believes that when it’s tied to a stake it cannot move.
As long as the stake is there it is powerless.