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This is one thing I really don't understand, how can you think someone should go to jail for beating a dog, but be happy to fund the slaughter of hundreds of animals over your life.
Wait…
Do your dogs not eat meat?
Mine don't.
Unlike cats who are obligate carnivores, dogs are "opportunistic carnivores". They are able to digest plants, and a high quality vegetarian dog food is actually significantly healthier for them than the " grain-free" diets that have become so popular in the last few years and have been linked to increased heart disease.
After looking into it, I seems this is highly disputed by most of veterinary science, but I’ll admit it’s not well studied and maybe you’re right. But we do know meat is okay for dogs. We do not know if a meatless diet isn’t harmful. I can’t imagine why lean animal protein would be bad for an animal bread from wolves.
And yes, cats absolutely need meat.
I completely understand your reasoning for opposing the meat industry, but I saw one argument that I'm curious what ethical vegans would think about:
What if there is an animal product that has already been harvested, is it unethical to then utilize it? Like, stealing meat(which would actually hurt the meat industry), or being at an event where there are meat dishes that would otherwise go to waste. Those forms of consumption aren't supporting the slaughter of the animals.
"Utilize" implies that animals are a resource for consumption instead of living things with their own right to live. As another comment pointed out we don't "utilize" humans after they have been murdered. A goal of veganism is to stop factory farming but it is not what veganism is. If you consider all animals as having a right to life you then wouldn't consider their bodies as resources after they were murdered but instead as victims.
Yes we do. Medical cadavers, organ donation, are the two most obvious ways.
I care about my own life, but not my lifeless body once I did.
Medical cadavers and organ donors are, first of all, volunteers not raised for that purpose, and second of all, we do not view them as commodities. There are rituals of respect when working with medical cadavers. I have heard of the families of organ donors visiting the recipients in emotional meetings.
Of course, but in the situation I gave. You aren't the one doing that.
Yeah if you guys wanna "utilize" my corpse have at it. Being useful after death seems like a win to me.
This is a nonsensical statement that contradicts itself. If all animals have a right to life, then you wouldn't see any issue with a lion murdering a gazelle and then feasting on the victim's body. Alternatively, if you condemn carnivorous animals as murderers, you don't consider carnivores to have a right to life.
Even if we consider this only applies to humans -- what about our pets? Cats are obligate carnivores. How can we feed our pet cats without being complicit in murder and feeding our cats the bodies?
Lions have to eat meat to survive, humans don't. Humans are also moral agents, animals are not.
I’m pretty sure there are vegan pet foods with similar nutritional profiles
do all living things have a right to live?
Why would they not?
all is the keyword in that sentence.
Exactly, why do all animals not have an inherent right to live?
I didn't say "animals"
There are social and intrapersonal reasons to avoid eating meat even if doing so doesn't lead directly to more animals being slaughtered. It is still treating the dead bodies of animals as a commodity, something we don't do to the bodies of dead humans. And it will take a cultural shift in how we see animals in order to end their oppression.
And the issue of eating "wasted" (weird way to talk about it as a vegan) meat is more concrete when you are eating meat at a function or the leftovers of a friend. The next function is going to have just as much meat if not more because it all got eaten. Your friend isn't going to think about reducing their meat consumption because they were left with too much, they might even get more satisfaction from you eating it because of pity. People who regularly consume animal products often think going without them must be suffering.
I don't agree with freegans, though I also don't really care what they do. As long as they understand there is a clear distinction between something like dumpster diving and a potluck.
By definition, Vegans would not. People who would typically define themselves as "Freegan".