I don't know much about horses, but the concept (or at least the language) of "breaking" a horse always made me a bit uncomfortable. Though perhaps it doesn't sound so bad from a skim of this:
Interesting. My wife and I were just discussing the life of a neighborhood horse we see each day on our walks. Beautiful, friendly, and seemingly intelligent animal. Obviously cared for and well fed. But it seems solitary, and we couldn’t help but wonder if it must be lonely and bored. It just stands all day. This is not intended as a rebuttal of Richard’s essay. I agree with it. But I do think that the pluses and minuses of domestication, from the animal’s point of view, are potentially complicated and likely not binary.
yeah, the arguments in question are seriously bad. but I'm not convinced that this provides me with a reason to be skeptical of views that give rights great noninstrumental significance. Responsibility plays a huge noninstrumental role in ethics (which is why standard utilitarian ethics is untenable)
We obsessively center autonomy and agency, thus (implicitly and explicitly) universal equality thus seeing ANY power asymmetry as inherently contradictory to well being of the being with less power, to the degree that we are not only borderline incapable of imaging a happy-ish peasant or a woman under old fashioned patriarchy but even a happy pet cat.
And of course that most nihilistic stance, antinatalism, is a natural (if extreme) consequence of that. Because whatever we do, we cannot get rid of the power asymmetry between children and adults: if I can't parent fully by consent, I better never parent at all.
(I have two cats and produced two humans, and I'm viscerally anti-anti-natalist).
((I also have a lot of Big Thoughts on consent ethics in this context but that's derailing))
I assume the effect of pets on overall wellbeing is heavily influenced by what they’re eating. Many pets eat factory-farmed meat (often offal/byproducts of factory farming, but raising the demand for byproducts still increases the incentive for, and capacity to engage in, factory farming by making it more profitable!); I think this is, in particular, a reasonably compelling reason to, say, adopt cats rather than allow cat populations to increase. (Plus cats that are let out without much care/oversight can, on top of being risks to themselves, cause immense damage to bird and other animal populations.)
Good post! The idea that people are exploiting their pets or exercising unjustified power over them is extraordinarily persuasive. But I found the arguments here more persuasive than I expected:
Also seems like the starving parasite ridden stray is an inescapable consequence of early stage domestication, in which we make commodities out of animals, breed a surplus, and fail to adequately regulate - legally, socially, morally, what have you - pet ownership. The stray is the well-kept animal's price of admission into a loving home. This need not be the case forever, but could we have really said, ex ante, that it would all have been worth it?
I agree with respect to well-cared for pets, as would any sane person - but at least under present conditions, we don't seem capable of having those and only those. A "flea-bitten stray"'s life is plausibly (not definitely, but plausibly) not worth living - and also a fairly direct consequence of the existence of pets. I think the sum probably still works out to be positive, but it's not prima facie ridiculous to think otherwise.
Agree with the broader principle but I think the empirical issue of whether well cared for pets live good lives is more of an open question. Drew Housman wrote about this: https://open.substack.com/pub/expandingcircle/p/the-dark-side-of-pet-ownership
Further on the empirical point: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/dog-anti-anxiety-meds-treatment/675715/
I don't know much about horses, but the concept (or at least the language) of "breaking" a horse always made me a bit uncomfortable. Though perhaps it doesn't sound so bad from a skim of this:
https://www.wikihow.com/Break-a-Horse
Interesting. My wife and I were just discussing the life of a neighborhood horse we see each day on our walks. Beautiful, friendly, and seemingly intelligent animal. Obviously cared for and well fed. But it seems solitary, and we couldn’t help but wonder if it must be lonely and bored. It just stands all day. This is not intended as a rebuttal of Richard’s essay. I agree with it. But I do think that the pluses and minuses of domestication, from the animal’s point of view, are potentially complicated and likely not binary.
yeah, the arguments in question are seriously bad. but I'm not convinced that this provides me with a reason to be skeptical of views that give rights great noninstrumental significance. Responsibility plays a huge noninstrumental role in ethics (which is why standard utilitarian ethics is untenable)
We obsessively center autonomy and agency, thus (implicitly and explicitly) universal equality thus seeing ANY power asymmetry as inherently contradictory to well being of the being with less power, to the degree that we are not only borderline incapable of imaging a happy-ish peasant or a woman under old fashioned patriarchy but even a happy pet cat.
And of course that most nihilistic stance, antinatalism, is a natural (if extreme) consequence of that. Because whatever we do, we cannot get rid of the power asymmetry between children and adults: if I can't parent fully by consent, I better never parent at all.
(I have two cats and produced two humans, and I'm viscerally anti-anti-natalist).
((I also have a lot of Big Thoughts on consent ethics in this context but that's derailing))
Nice post, Richard! Can I crosspost it to the EA Forum in 2 months or so? Of course, feel free to do it yourself.
Thanks for the encouragement - I've crossposted it here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/tWyh28NPX4i4H4uLK/don-t-void-your-pets
I assume the effect of pets on overall wellbeing is heavily influenced by what they’re eating. Many pets eat factory-farmed meat (often offal/byproducts of factory farming, but raising the demand for byproducts still increases the incentive for, and capacity to engage in, factory farming by making it more profitable!); I think this is, in particular, a reasonably compelling reason to, say, adopt cats rather than allow cat populations to increase. (Plus cats that are let out without much care/oversight can, on top of being risks to themselves, cause immense damage to bird and other animal populations.)
Thank you. I felt compelled to write a reply piece to Healey, but you put it more eloquently than I would have
Good post! The idea that people are exploiting their pets or exercising unjustified power over them is extraordinarily persuasive. But I found the arguments here more persuasive than I expected:
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/4/11/23673393/pets-dogs-cats-animal-welfare-boredom
Extraordinarily *unpersuasive*
ha, yeah, I figured that's what you must've meant :-)
Also seems like the starving parasite ridden stray is an inescapable consequence of early stage domestication, in which we make commodities out of animals, breed a surplus, and fail to adequately regulate - legally, socially, morally, what have you - pet ownership. The stray is the well-kept animal's price of admission into a loving home. This need not be the case forever, but could we have really said, ex ante, that it would all have been worth it?
Fwiw, I have 3 cats.
I agree with respect to well-cared for pets, as would any sane person - but at least under present conditions, we don't seem capable of having those and only those. A "flea-bitten stray"'s life is plausibly (not definitely, but plausibly) not worth living - and also a fairly direct consequence of the existence of pets. I think the sum probably still works out to be positive, but it's not prima facie ridiculous to think otherwise.
Maybe, but - to be clear - that's a very different argument from those I'm engaging with here.