Americans vs. The World vs. Non-Human Animals

In response to Sebastian - full post here

You bring up a very interesting point. Still, I think the problem is even deeper than looking after the welfare of humans rather than non-human animals. Try to convince Americans, they are the only people to whom I have direct access, that they should value the life of a citizen of a different nation as much as an American citizen. If we can't convince people that citizenship to an arbitrary nation isn't relevant to value of a life, how could we convince them that species is relevant. On a slightly more humorous note: I can imagine some Americans saying that American animals are more important than animals in other nations. Something that is less humorous is that I can imagine some Americans saying that American animals are more important than people from other nations. As it is, we already value the cats and dogs more than we do the more intelligent pigs.

Personally, I try my best to talk to people to help them understand that harm is bad when it befalls anybody and that we should strive to eliminate all harm, regardless of citizenship, skin-tone, sexual orientation, gender, species, et cetera. Depending on the person, I'll occasionally talk about socialism and about how we humans have the resources to take care of everybody, though we lack the drive and motivation or the knowledge.

Pet-Keeping

Is there anything that is inherently wrong with pet-guardianship?

This is a rather difficult question for me to answer. I want to say that there is nothing inherently wrong with pet-guardianship  but I am well aware of the number of problems that we are having in regards to pet-guardianship. Breeding, for instance, just to get better pets is, I think, not morally justified. If one buys a pet at a pet store, one is contributing either towards this kind of breeding or to the very unethical practice of capturing animals from the wild. The problem here is that, while there may be nothing wrong with pet-guardianship, if there is a problem with the means through which we gain access to animals, then the morality of pet-guardianship itself is irrelevant. Pet-guardianship would only be justified if one happened upon an animal in need of guardianship, or if one was taking care of an animal who has already been bred or captured with assurance that that it would not contribute towards the continuation of current practices.

The next question, then, is what do we do with animals who are in pet-stores? What will happen if we don't adopt them? How will we contribute towards the continuation of the industry if we do?