Philosophical Vegan Forum

and im srry on where to put this, in fun, or this, but can you give me your own opines

Yes. Humans should adopt dogs from shelters.

Particularly older humans, who need companionship, and younger ones who need to learn responsibility, and have a faithful friend to play with and teach them that non-human animals have emotions, and feel pain, suffering, and sadness like we do.

Dogs should be fed on a vegan diet, which is easy for them (like humans, they can eat all meat, all plants, or some of both -- but an all plant diet also seems to be healthier for them, particularly for longevity and age related health issues). Cats are difficult to feed vegan, and they have issues with captivity which dogs respond better to (cats like to roam, far, and don't naturally stay around their "pack leader" as dogs do), so I don't recommend them.

I say generally no, however with the exception of rescues.

@brimstoneSalad
I'm a bit confused about your position. I can remember quite clearly the discussion we had over here where you took a pretty strong stance against having adopting from shelters since most of the time they aren't fed a vegan diet. You even rejected advocating it when making sure it's being done in an ethical manner (with a vegan diet). To quote you, you said that it's better not to advocate something that is "inherently prone to abuse". Could you please clarify for me why you are now doing exactly this?

P.S. don't take this as an attack; just want to know where you're actually standing.

Volenta wrote:@brimstoneSalad
I'm a bit confused about your position. I can remember quite clearly the discussion we had over here where you took a pretty strong stance against having adopting from shelters since most of the time they aren't fed a vegan diet.

I was saying I don't think it's true that shelters do meaningful good, and that I don't think adopting an animal is a meaningful or effective form of charity.

I've always advocated adopting from shelters instead of from a breeder. I just do not see it as an act of particularly useful charity.

I advocate adopting a dog in the same way I advocate... let's say watching Game of Thrones.

You're not doing the universe any profound moral favors, given the expense of caring for a dog and the minuscule cosmic good it does and suffering it prevents at that expense.

It has elements of personal benefit, like companionship, just as Game of Thrones provides the personal benefit of entertainment and social currency.
For a child, it has the added benefit of education (a dog, or even Game of Thrones; it's a reasonably classy work of art as far as TV goes).

If you don't care about animals, then adopting an animal may be a way to foster compassion and learn that other species of animals have feelings.

If you already care about animals and are looking for ways to help them, adopting a dog (or cat) is NOT a way to do that.

If you want to adopt a dog and have him or her sit on your lap while you watch Game or Thrones, enjoy. But don't fool yourself into believing you're some great champion of the animals because you have a dog. That was my point.

Volenta wrote:You even rejected advocating it when making sure it's being done in an ethical manner (with a vegan diet).

As a form of charity, no, I do not advocate it. I also oppose the notion of telling people these are acts of charity, because it results in them being misinformed. It's not charity.

I also don't advocate watching Game of Thrones as a way to save the world.

I don't advocate adopting pets as charity, because it isn't. It's less useful than giving out bibles for the cost vs. impact ratio, and coming from me that's saying a lot.

At best, with a dog on a vegan diet, you spend some tens of thousands of dollars over the lifetime of the dog to save one life. It's insulting to compare it to charities that are actually cost effective.

If you care about animals, you care about helping them in the most effective manner possible. If you care about Africans, you don't send them bibles, you teach them how to dig wells and irrigate.

That said, supporting the adoption of a dog for a senior home would be charity -- to the seniors, not to animals. Likewise, for an orphanage, or something along those lines -- in the case of dogs for children, as for zoos, there are educational elements that may have an indirect positive effect on animals through inspiring ethical action in the next generation, but that's a peripheral benefit. So, there is a possible argument there. But supporting shelters or adopting dogs in itself isn't real charity -- certainly not an animal charity.

Volenta wrote:To quote you, you said that it's better not to advocate something that is "inherently prone to abuse". Could you please clarify for me why you are now doing exactly this?

I said that about alcohol, and about slavery/for-profit animal agriculture.

http://theveganatheist.com/forum/search ... e+to+abuse

Here:
http://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewto ... buse#p5540

and here:
http://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewto ... abuse#p409

I don't know where you think I've ever said anything like that about pets.

I argued the opposite about dogs as pets here:

http://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewto ... f=22&t=157

Maybe you're confusing the threads? How did you quote me on that?

Although I still don't agree with you, I do think I understand your position better now. Thanks.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Maybe you're confusing the threads? How did you quote me on that?

No, I'm not confused. I did quote you on the alcohol thing, because you made similar arguments there and I thought the quote was more useful. I considered that you thought the same about adopting from shelters, since you stated (and this is a quote from the actual topic) "Usually is what I'm concerned with. You can't define an action by its rare exceptions." and things like that. But correct me if I made a false assumption here.

Volenta wrote:Although I still don't agree with you, I do think I understand your position better now. Thanks.

Do you not agree that taking care of a dog costs tens of thousands of dollars, not agree that this only saves at best one life, or not agree that tens of thousands of dollars per animal saved is not effective charity when a hundred dollars can save thousands of animals through vegan outreach?

Volenta wrote:I considered that you thought the same about adopting from shelters, since you stated (and this is a quote from the actual topic) "Usually is what I'm concerned with. You can't define an action by its rare exceptions." and things like that. But correct me if I made a false assumption here.

That was concerned with shelter operation. Once you adopt a dog, you can feed him or her vegan and there are no pressing issues there. I'm not against the adoption, if you do it for other reasons.

I objected to the 'supporting animal shelters' thing being on the list because it is deceptive. There may be a vegan animal shelter out there somewhere, but most aren't, and even if there is, it's not useful charity.

You might as well add "supporting farms" to the list because of the possibility of there being an ethical farm out there somewhere that doesn't harm its animals; such a farm could even be marginally useful as an educational prototype. Should that be on the list?

It's not the case in practice, so it shouldn't be on a list of charitable things to do to help animals at all, since it's probably harmful (supporting the shelter with donations, not the adoptions themselves).
But even if it's not harmful in some rare case (which the list doesn't specify), it shouldn't be on the list any more than giving out bibles should be on the list of ways to help Africans.

Yes, giving Africans bibles probably technically helps them. They're a good source of sanitary paper, they can be burned for fuel, and for Africans who are learning to read English, they can even provide some material for practice (albeit bad archaic material that teaches them superstition), when they have time and light to do so. These effects are negligible compared to the cost of printing, transporting, and distributing said bibles. If you want to help Africans, there are useful ways to do so.

Giving Africans bibles is not meaningful charity. Sometimes a very small number should be treated as zero, particularly when you're advising people on charitable things they can do, so as not to deceive the public into thinking something is actually useful.

In practice, I consider these nominal charities to be WORSE than doing nothing, because it makes people think they have license to congratulate themselves on making the world a better place when really they aren't. It's like how the idea that celery has negative calories can make people fat because they overcompensate by eating a piece of celery, and a chocolate cake and imagining it balances out.

Somebody may donate to an animal shelter, and then feel that balances out the effect of them eating meat all of the time. No, it doesn't.
Somebody may even adopt a dog, and figure, well I torture and kill hundreds of animals a year for culinary pleasure, but I rescued a dog so I'm a good person! No.

No, especially when you don't bother to care for them, or to train them. My neighbors never trained their dog, and guess who's lawn his bathroom is?

RedAppleGP wrote:No, especially when you don't bother to care for them, or to train them. My neighbors never trained their dog, and guess who's lawn his bathroom is?

Now, there should probably be a licensing system. Just as people have to get a driver's license, there should be pet ownership licenses that require a course and/or a test.

I agree with Brimstone's views. We have five vegan dogs that we have saved either from the brink of starvation or from a life in a cage. I am well aware that the money we have spent on the dogs could have done greater universal good elsewhere. However, the dogs bring us a great deal joy. I (we) make selfish choices several times per day and each time we decided to bring home another dog I knew it was a selfish decision I would probably never regret. I like to justify my "selfish" actions by believing that I will be able to do more good in the world by keeping myself happy.

I agree with the pet ownership license requirement and would also support more legal action towards those who don't take care of their pets, similar to the action taken against those who do not take care of their children.