(no subject)

[iceinyourmusic]

hi! hello! question! vegetarianism/veganism & pet ownership: how do they mesh?

eta: and, okay! before anyone actually tells me that pets aren't for eating, let me clarify that i'm mostly wondering about the issue of feeding your carnivorous-type pet animal. if it is an issue?

Comments

[mandysbitch.livejournal.com]

I know my cat would eat me if she had the chance. I say I should be allowed to eat her first.

but seriously (folks), I ponder long and hard (dirty!) about my cat and making decisions for my cat. For example, I take my cat to the vet yearly to give her injections against a whole bunch of diseases including feline flu and AIDS and to get an annual check-up. She hates this, of course, and given that she doesn't know it's for her own good, she can't possibly see it as anything but torture. Is it kinder to do this to her every year (for her own good) or to let her die from a disease? You have to ask, what right do you have to make this decision? When we talk about animal rights, what rights can an animal have if they can't assert them? Is a rights discourse even suitable here?

The animal rights issue is a fantastic philosophical debate. I mean, ask a vegetarian/ vegan how they feel about abortion, for instance.

I feel like I've been cut loose from truth based discourses - due to a steady diet of post-structural and post-modern theory - but it makes me wonder how I can do anything, believe anything let alone something so discursively fraught as animal rights and veganism. Yet Foucault went on civil rights marches - what do you suppose it all means?

Which is to say, I feed my cat meat. I don't have a philosophy behind it - except she's damned fussy and attempts to feed her rice, cheese and pumpkin (apparently, cats are supposed to like pumpkin) have been unsuccessful.