The Moral Defensibilty of Pet Ownership.

To address the question of whether or not owning pets is moral, i will if permitted employ the strategy Regan used in morally discounting zoos and aquariums. According to Utilitarians, to assess whether pet ownership is moral we have to take into account the interests of the animals we call pets as well as the interests of the people directly or indirectly affected by someone having or not having a pet. This as we concluded earlier is information that far exceeds what humans can apprehend and those based on these shortcomings, we can't morally justify ownership of pets.
Secondly, i now employ the theory of holism or what some may call an environmentalist theory. According to holists, the community or group is valuable than the individual thus from time to time, we can sacrifice the individual interests for the the community or species. Now lets apply this to pet ownership; does having a pet put the interests of all animals of that specie at the forefront? I beg to differ that it does because i fail to see how having a goldfish protects the interests of goldfishes in the sea. With the same token, we now try to find a correlation between pet ownership and the rights view. Th rights view suggests that we treat animals with respect and in so doing respect their right to freedom. Pet ownership to the best of my knowledge infringes on the freedom of these we call pets as we find new ways of keeping various animals closer to our homes by means of leashes, fences and cages etc.

With this, i come to a conclusion that although pet ownership has and is a major part of our lives (one to which i have fallen prey to myself), it isn't morally defensible atleast according to utilitarians, holists and various animal ethicists of different dominions.

Animal Consciousness

Through my readings involving animal ethics and the allocation of rights to animals, one question which keeps appearing has been the question of animal consciousness? Do animals have a sense of awareness or a sense of being? Do they know of their existence like we do above all, how does this help us make an argument towards their moral integrity and value? In the same light, while watching a documentary on animal behavior in my 'animal and ethics' class it dawned on me that they might have a sense of being and awareness as i watched the reactions of both wild and domesticated chimps,baboons and even dolphins to mirrors they encountered.

A group of chimps in the wild stumbled upon a trash dump where they found pieces of mirrors and were fascinated by it. Some of these chimps thought their reflections in the mirrors were another monkey and as their curiosity and eagerness to find the monkey in the mirror grew, they finally realized there was no monkey and stopped looking. Whether they stopped out of hopelessness for not finding the other monkey or because they realized it was an image of themselves can only be speculated upon but that's a topic for a different conversation. One way mirrors where installed in dolphin tanks at an aquarium and the dolphins where observed to not react to the image in the mirror. Their calm and somewhat playful behavior after seeing the image of themselves suggested to the experts that they knew it was themselves and not another dolphin which may have brought about a much more excited and jubilant behavior. But some say the dolphins' responses and recognition to the mirror images are to be expected thanks to their evolved brain systems.

Domesticated chimps on the hand; those exposed to human relationships and experience had a similar response to the images in the mirror like the dolphins and although their well-developed may have played a role in this, it is safe to say that their observation of their "owners" , made it a lot easier. Seeing a human open a box with a key will make a intelligent observant monkey look for a key to open the same box if previous attempts to open it without the key fail! Nonetheless, these aforementioned instances bring us to the question of animal consciousness. Are animal conscious of themselves like being able to tell that they are looking at a reflection of themselves and not at some other monkey? Also, are they aware of the fact that they are other animals similar or dissimilar to them (specie wise) and do not just respond to prey and mates on just safety, livelihood instincts and pheromones alone?

Animal Experimentation: a cost-benefit analysis

"Several countries have taken the lead in requiring a cost-benefit analysis that links animal pain (and other harms) to the scientific worthiness and social significance of the experiment's purpose... The concept of making a cost-benefit analysis sounds reasonable but is difficult to apply because the costs and benefits are incommensurable."

When an entrepreneur or regular man or woman embarks or plans on investing in any business of their choice, they do a cost -benefit analysis as they investigate to see how much they would spend (cost)- cost of production, payments of workers, making the products or services available to the public and how much they will make out of this endeavor; benefit-profit. We all do something similar on a daily basis as we make decisions after taken into consideration the most profitable course of action. The above quote from Barbara Orlans' essay National regulations on animal experiments tries to do the same. It suggests to the reader that some countries and individuals in an attempt to justify animal experimentation have sought out to develop a cost-benefit analysis to evaluate animal experimentation; is the benefit of these experiments to humans worth the cost of the animal lives or better yet, could these benefits trump the cost of animal lives so much so that animal experimentation could be morally defensible?

"... the cost and benefits are incommensurable", incommensurable is just a flashy way or saying you can't add, subtract, multiply or divide apples and oranges. The cost-benefit analysis as Orlans' points out may be reasonable or a great tool for clarifying ethical choices but as i pointed out earlier it is incommensurable; we can't evaluate both aspects of this analysis since they lack the same unit of measurement. A cost-benefit analysis could be done for a business inventive because we could evaluate costs and profit in money value (dollars) but they same can't be done for animal lives and human benefits. Apples and oranges to some extent are even commensurable as we can evaluate them based on one unit "fruit units" since they are both fruits and this goes again to show the difficulties of doing so for animal experimentation. Given all these, lets say we could generate a reasonable and reliable cost-benefit analysis of animal experimentation, how do we put value on the lives of these animal? It is relatively easy to evaluate the benefit end of this analysis because we are the beneficiaries but how do we put ourselves in the animals shoes when we can't even value them as ends to themselves rather means to an end-our ends!

Ethics in Practice

To borrow a great passage from the essay titled; " multicriterial value incrementalism" by David Johnson and Matthew Silliman,

" No intelligent and sensitive person, we suspect would let her neighbor drown to avoid harming a frog or dog-but neither would she feel totally indifferent to the animal's sacrifice..."


Although this passage was aimed at explaining why a moral theory that addressed both "basic moral concern for a wide range of sentient life, and significant moral differences among those beings", i think it is vital for this entry because it helps me address the moral theory behind what is normally considered an act of common sense. If made to choose between saving the life of a cat and fellow human being, irrespective of our relationship to the partied involved, the obvious answer will be the human being but this decision has more to do with our moral obligation and societal expectations rather than a common sense decision. No let's examine the moral basis of this claim. Why is it morally defensible to save a child over a pet you love dearly, why is it morally acceptable to chose if forced to save your child over your pet or better yet some stranger over your beloved animal companion?

Children and domestic animals like cats and dogs on the basis of the egalitarian view are both sentient beings and should have an equal moral value thus treated equally. In the same light, animal rights activist and members of the general public will display their displeasure if you choose to save an animal over a human stranger irrespective of your relationships to either one -human or non-human! The decision to save the human being over the non-human animal prima facie (for their face value) is a great example of ethical values being rooted in our daily actions so much so that we do the morally right thing without much deliberation and pondering.

Animal Therapy?

Recent studies and observations at prisons for pedophiles, sex-offenders and other high-rate criminals reveal decrease in the violent nature and otherwise negative behavior in these criminals over time. Close observations at a maximum facility in Orlando reveal that the criminals exposed to or those who interacted with the farm animals around the prison grounds became subtle and a little more friendly than the rest of the inmates. This got prison officials and experts involved with behavioral trends as well as animal ethics thinking, do animals have a calming effect on these individuals, do these animal interactions simulate human interactions, is it a wild stretch to say animal interactions could lead to positive animal therapy?

As the documentary; To love or To kill: Man vs Animal points out, these criminals barely had any human interactions with the outside world as the spent most of their time with fellow inmates and prison guards and the like. This lets us to believe that their interactions with the farm animals they had to feed filled the void of human relationships and obviously it worked for both parties since the inmates became a lot more calm and subtle behavior wise. Animal therapy or anything in that light may sound like a far stretch, but is it really? Why do we get pets, why do we love our pets and get attached to them the way we do? As we learn from the documentary, people are far more trusting of animals as the employ them to be pets and aids around the house rather than hire humans! Handicap people would employ the help of monkey, dogs or some other well trained animal rather than a human being. The same goes to people who just get pets for the companionship. Some people would whole-heartedly admit to the fact that in their busy lives, human-human relationships are hard to build let alone sustain thus resort to animal-human relationships with pets who soon become a part of our lives and more than just a pet.

This goes to show us how much more valuable animals are or could be once we realize this inherent value. This is a slippery slope as i dare say that they are valuable but do not suggest that we use them or continue to use them to further our own agendas. Animals are more than just sources of hide for leather products, food or laboratory test subjects. The world will be a better place if we realized that animals are passive moral valuers whose subject of a life criterion gives them inherent value of their own thus shouldn't be used as mere receptacles or an ends to a means but as passive moral valuers who deserve to be treated with humanely with respect and justice.

The Price of Freedom

The killing of animals have been justified or at least attempts at this justifications have been made based on our needs to test products on them, need for animal proteins and other nutrients from animal meat and produce etc. However, we have taken this killings to an extreme as animal martyrs have been linked to political holidays like labor day and so forth! In Pennsylvania, labor day is celebrated by killing hundreds of pigeons as people take turns shooting pigeons with guns. Also, we have canned hunting; hunting of deers and other wildlife in fenced in areas sweeping the nation as a favorite pastime for locations proximal to forests or some wildlife.
Some experts explain that these activities like pigeon shootings on labor day or canned hunting every other weekend or so are taking a life of their own and they are result of our freedom. Our freedom as Americans and humans to bear arm and be able to hunt what and sometimes when we want is responsible for this animal brutality.

Holiday celebrations aren't the only celebrations that require animal torture nowadays as killing in the name of religion has been a dominant practice since Adam and Eve first walked the planet. Killing animals as offerings to some higher spirit, as a symbolism for some feast like the break of the past period or in remembrance of some Saint are just a few examples of killing in the name of religion. The Andalusian and most of Spain celebrate certain Christian Saints feast days by torturing bulls,the bulls is stuck with darts and spears as it runs through the town making its way to the church where it is later on killed.

Whether as a celebration of religion or our freedom like through holidays like labor day or whatever, putting animals through such torture is sadistic and cruel!!!!!!!!!!!

The Benjamin Franklin Objection: When Reality Clashes with Theory

In his article 'practical ethics', Peter Singer points out one of the famous critics of animal ethics point of view when it comes to eating animals and the sorts. According to Peter Singer, Benjamin Franklin was a vegetarian who denounced his way or life and decided to start consuming animal produce including meats when he saw his friends cut open a fish to fry just to find a smaller fish within its stomach and in his own words; "Well, if you eat one another, I don't see why we may not eat you" and from then started consuming animal flesh and other produce. Applying Regan's reasoning of moral agency and patiency, we see why Benjamin Franklin's objection is invalid here because as moral agents, humans are held accountable for the morality of the actions and the same can't be said for animals like the fish he mentioned in his autobiography since they are moral patients. Peter Singer also uses a similar train of thought to discredit Benjamin Franklin's point in the aforementioned story of the fish when he term humans "reasonable creatures" giving us the ability to ponder upon the implications of our action before we act.
The response to Benjamin Franklin's point isn't the topic of conversation for this entry but i brought it up because it brings out a crucial point in implementing the theories of animal ethics. As Paxton George stipulated to earlier as to how vegetarian diets couldn't be realistic for women, children and the elderly, i think Benjamin Franklin does the same here as he points out how people have to deal with the uncommon and not-so-natural (for lack of a better word) form of eating. I term vegetarianism a not so natural form of dieting because it proposes a idea that is new, one which contradicts the natural food chain respected by most ecosystems. Benjamin Franklin points out this difficulty in his story of fish eating another fish and then decides to start eating meat too saying "...if they could eat one another, why shouldn't we". He may have sounded ad-hoc or lets say mundane in his argument but suggesting of a theory this sorts that takes away from what we have grown accustomed to, could be a tricky switch.
This situation brings me to my present dilemma, how do we care for animals, treat them with respect and all that and still eat meet or use products that where made from animal hide or even worse through animal testing and research? Is that hypocritical?

Diet Discrepancies: A Response to Paxton George

A publication by Animal Agriculture Alliance recently addressed the supposed myth that " a vegetarian diet is healthier than a diet that includes meat, milk and eggs" but whether or not this is a myth or not is not a topic for this blog and we leave it at that. Nonetheless, this dispute of vegetarian diets over diets of animal produce and vice versa has plagued animal ethicist over the years especially when they propose a meat free diet of any source as a universal concept to be adopted by everyone irrespective of age, sex, race or creed.
Kathryn Paxton George addresses one of the major criticisms of the proposed universal vegetarian diet in her book " A feminist Critique of Ethical Vegetarianism" as she addresses the difficulties women face maintaining a vegetarian diet amongst other health issues it may pose. Kathryn points out how the proposed norm of vegetarianism is a "male physiological norm that discriminates against females, children and the elderly". She points out that women have to face the pressures of eating alone, eating with others and preparing food for families which could be coupled with the extra burden put on women to diet on a regular basis as well as expecting mothers who have to account for the nutrition of the growing fetus within her.
She also points out that a vegetarian diet might not be realistic for growing kids who require the nutrients from animal produce for proper growth and physical development. The same argument is made for the elderly who calcium and other essential animal derived nutrients for their health.
To this dilemma, Paxton George suggests a semi vegetarian diet which in her words; " [calls] for a reduction in animal cruelty, improve the conditions under which animals are raised, to encourage gratitude for their association with us, and to recognize their membership in a community with us. We should not eat them wastefully but only in a portion that balances the needs of family members....".
I think this idea of semi vegetarianism is definitely realistic and it atones for the nutritional needs of all people irrespective of their gender and or age and although it isn't necessarily the best solution to the treatment of animals, it is definitely a step in the right direction; consideration of animals vital parts of our community.

Multifactorial Theory of Animal Ethics: An Eclectic Theoritical Orientation

Over the last few months as i grew accustomed to the theories and arguments set forth by animal ethicist and other concerned individuals, i realized that they all had one thing in common; they propose a single reason origin for the value of animals and consequentially the claim for their equal treatment. Be it the subject of a life criteria introduced by Tom Regan, the hypotheses of active or passive moral valuers by Mathew Silliman or better yet, the concept of emotions are stipulated by Josephine Donovan, they all argue to some degree that those independent concepts are primarily the sole origins for the moral value of animals and those why we should treat them with respect and justice. This got me thinking, why should we limit a concept of such gravity to one or two well supported concepts? Wouldn't it be better that we maintained an eclectic theoretical orientation school of thought like the one adopted by psychologists engaged in theories of human development?
This concept of mutifactorialism as applied to animal ethics is to my suggestion a much more valid argument for the value of animals because it proposes the concepts of subject of a life, moral valuers, emotions (love),moral agency or patiency and even "ends in themselves and not means to an ends" (Immanuel Kant) collectively as the source of animal value rather than either one or the other independently. Animal value as a product of this multifactorial theory is difficult to refute because of the collective strengths of the independent theories arguing as one.

Practical Ethics: The Bottom Line

“There’s no rational basis for saying that a human being has special rights. A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They’re all animals.”— Washingtonian magazine, 8/1/86

The above quote is from Ingrid Newkirk and i use it to introduce the topic of concentration for this entry because it think it summarises essentially the basis of the animal rights fight and justifiably so. No matter what distinction we give ourselves due to our evolution and what not, doesn't take away from the fact that we are all animals and the biologists (myself included) will attest to that; that's why we are in the animal kingdom of classification.
Mattew Silliman may have giving us the qualification of being active moral valuers; we have the ability to value and be valued in return and Tom Regan may have distinguished us with the credentials of being moral agents but when the dust settles, we are all animals and posses inherent values thus shouldn't be treated as some "means to ends"; to borrow Kant's terminology.
Peter Singer in his essay; " Practical Ethics" brings out a very interesting point when he questions why we can't use human beings of the same consciousness level as mice in researches and as food as we do to other animals. This may seem absurd to the average reader but we can nonetheless see the validity in his remarks! Take Regan's moral agency and moral patients principles for example, where he qualifies non-human animals, children and disabled( mental, social, physical) adults as moral patients. We see from these comparisons that children and infants as well as rabbits and mice are all valuable equally so why don't we use children or retarded people as test subjects? Why do we resent stem cell research ( potential humans used for research) and have no qualms with hundreds of mice or guinea pigs subjected to torture daily? Better yet, why do we resent the thought of eating human flesh (cannibalism) but celebrate our achievements with feasting tables filled with meat choices of numerous varieties except human that is ?

Moral Status: Agents,Patients and or Quasi-agents!

Tom Regan did a splendid job in identifying what Mattew Silliman once called " Moral Valuers" as "Subjects of a life" (SOAL), but he took it a step further as he further qualified SOALs as either being moral agents or moral patients. Moral agents according to Regan "have the ability amongst others to bring impartial moral principles to bear on the determination of what, all considered, morally ought to be done and, having made this determination, to freely choose or fail to choose to act as morality, as they conceive it, requires". In contrast, he defines moral patients as "those who lack the prerequisites that would enable them to control their own behavior in ways that would make them morally accountable for what they do. In other words, moral agents can do wrong whereas moral patients can't cause harm since they can't do what is wrong!
As Regan expatiates, moral agents include fully conscious mature humans while most non-human animals, children and or handicapped(mental, social or physical) adults classify as moral patients. Some non-human animals as we have come to learn from media exposure or personal experiences due to intensive training have moved a step up from being just moral patients evident in their prowess in acquiring and communicating in human language; no matter how limited it may be. This special group of patients can't be awarded moral agency just yet especially since these abilities are products of external factors much more than internal mental capacities and for such a new term t describe them; quasi-moral agents.
At the forefront of these classification scheme is animal rights activist Steve Sapontzis; author of "Morals, Reasons,and Animals". Quasi moral agency may seem as a very gigantic step from moral patiency but it just goes to show us how very much alike non-human animals are to children and i don't think any mature fully conscious moral agent out there will support labs testing shampoo products or new drugs and medications on 5 year olds.

The Morality of the Life-Boat Riddle.

Ever heard of the riddle " What do you do or who do u save when you have three people and a dog to put on a lifeboat that can only take three people (the dog counts as one person) at once?" Well as a kid, that riddle meant nothing more to me than just a riddle and as such i relied on my common sense to provide me an answer. Nonetheless, if placed in such a situation,most of us wouldn't hesitate to leave the dog out of the life-boat so as to save the three humans.
Not until a few days ago, i would have still applied "common sense" and saved the three people but now i think i know better! The answer to this riddle entails more than just common sense, it is a moral question; one which treads on the fine line between inherent values of humans and non-human animals alike, one which addresses the concerns of doing whats better for the few or for the many and most importantly one which talks of the principles of morality.
As Regan points out in his theory on animal ethics from the book " The Animals Ethics Reader", the inherent value of humans and non-humans or humans and humans or better yet non-human and non-humans alike shouldn't be evaluated as to which is or more importance or what not only when and only when they are in direct conflict with each other-like in the life boat scenario. According to Regan, the life of a dog and that of a human should be considered of equal importance based on their inherent values except when, one has to be sacrificed for the other to live and for times like these, he beckons we call on the miniride or worst-off principles.
Usually i present answers or my thought on my blogs but this time i think i will do it differently, i think i will ask questions and hopefully, you guys answer them or at least voice your opinions on the matter. Taking the miniride and worst off principles, could there be a situation in which a human's life could be of less importance? Is there a possibility where a dog's life due to the miniride or the worst off principle could be important enough to replace that of a human on the life-boat?

Pain, Suffering and Hope

Recently, the world of sports found itself involved in an age old battle; one involving the "euthanasia of animals" and like all such conflicts many people were saddened and others questioning. Babaro, a highly trained race-horse was euthanised sometime last month after successive surgeries to treat his broken leg failed. It was agreed upon by his owners, trainers and doctors that this was the right thing to do; the same people who a few months back were willing to see him recover and weren't ready to part ways with him, bringing me to my question of concern.
When do we call it a day and resolve to intentionally killing an animal to put it out of its "suffering"? This decision has plagued the medecine field for as long as i can remember and affects but human and non-human patients alike. The very definition of euthanasia (the intentional killing of a human and in some cases other animals) suggests cruelty but is it really cruel to "pull the plug" as they say on a family member diagnosed as being clinically dead (vegetative state) or killing a pet who may have been a victim or some tragic event.
When push comes to shove, this decision is a difficult one be it a human or non-human animal and for once i have no clue on what camp i will favor in this instance! We all want to be optimistic that some miracle might happen but when the dust settles, reality reares it "ugly" face and the truth becomes evident.

Equality and Categorizations

As i read through Silliman's second and third installments in his book sentience and sensibility, i came across the idea of equality within categories and equalities between categories introduced by one of his characters; Manuel. This stirred up some thoughts in my head and i decided to make it the topic of my next blog entry.
Why do we have to categorize things into different groups? As a scientist, or better yet a student in field of science, i understand that grouping plants and animals under kingdoms,phylum, orders, families and so on help us identify and study them but i don't see why we have to let this segregation affect our moral value and thus morality! We,differentiate these organisms and to some extent support speciesism; organisms on higher evolutionary levels like the angiosperms (flowering plants) and vertebrae (vertebrates) tend to take their evolution as synonymous to superiority. This is topic for a different conversation and maybe a different blog so back to my focus here.
Manuel; one of Silliman's characters in his book talks of equality within categories rather than equality of categories and i disagree with the former and agree with the latter because i think the former to some degree justifies or supports speciecism and is against all what animal ethicist and other equal right activists stand for. To my understanding, equality within categories talks of treating all members of lets say the Canis familiaris (domestic dogs) be it a poodle, pitbull, German Shepard, terrier, retriever and what ever specie we keep as company equally. Meanwhile, equality of all categories at least to my understanding talks of treating members of the the Canis familiaris (domestic dogs) and the Canis lupus (wolves) fairly.
If this is the case then why does an individual of Manuel's stature; one who talks of sentience for rudimentary organism and value for plants and inanimate talk of or at least support subjective equality? Shouldn't we be in favor for an equality that treats all species of the dog fairly, shouldn't we support equality for all animals and not subject some to laboratory usage (guinea pigs and mice) and hold others ( cats and dogs) dear to our hearts? Better yet, why do we even have these categories? Why don't we regard dogs (wolves, foxes, domestic dogs and even hyenas), cats ( domestic cats, lions, jagaurs, sabre-tooths and cheetahs) and mammals (whales, humans, horses, bats) simply as what they are; ANIMALS and treat all equally!!!!

Value

The term value has different meanings to different people in various fields of study but what they all have in common is that value is somewhat synonymous with worth. Value can be instrumental; the kind of value we give to inanimate objects like cars, houses and other "material" possesions. Instrumental value in other words is subjective and thus the value of an object differs from person to person.
The value i am interested in is termed Moral Value and like most things, it is very difficult to define or explain. Silliman in his book Sentience and Sensibility sort of defines moral value as; " pro-active valuing by conscious sentient beings". By this Silliman means moral value is exhibited by moral valuers who value others and in so doing have value themselves. Danney Ursery defined moral value as " value consisting of a moral judgement and moral rule" and by this Ursery reinstates the basis of morality; how are actions or judgements fits in with the general public or the very next person.
Similarly i try to look at moral value as any other value with a sense of morality to it; basically an aesthetic, knowledge-based or instrumental form of value alongside a sense of right and wrong. By this i mean that moral value involves judging the morality of what we consider valuable; is it right or wrong to place value on my car over my sister? Is it rationale to place value on the things we do for the reasons we do?
What differentiates moral value from all other values we might come up with is the fact that it is intrinsic; valuers have no control over this form of value like they might over aesthetic or instrumental value. As organisms with intrinsic moral value, we can't be voided of our value even if other values do not deem us valuable. The source of moral value is also a topic of great debate but that's a topic for a later description.

Human Prejudice: Gender, Race, Class and even SPECIES!!!

" The World of Humanity is like a garden and the different races are the different colored flowers that make up the garden"

This quote is a paraphrase of Baha'u'llah's (founder of the Baha'i Faith/Religion) quote on racial differences in humanity where he expatiates that our different colors of our skin are just like the red, white, blue, yellow etc petals of flowers which go to make a garden beautiful and not a representative of superiority over one another.

Mankind from time immemorial has sought these differences; race, class, sex, species and the list goes on to exert some form of superiority over individuals, a particular gender or even worse over an entire specie! First, the white race sought to exert its "racial superiority" over the blacks and "people of color' leading to years and years of affliction, maltreatment and injustice under slavery and the slave trade as we know it. Then man and by man i mean the male human being decided it could impose the same criteria or superiority over the female human being and after years of this gender prejudice we have come to realize; to a certain degree, that man and women are equal irrespective of what the physical and biological features may stipulate marked by the continuous involvement and contributions of women in politics, education, science and many disciplines previously dominated by the male gender.
Now, we encounter a different kind of prejudice; one between the human specie against all others it considers inferior or of lesser value. We have from time to time downgraded animals from beings of intrinsic value to "means to an end" our ends! We have domesticated animals for our companionship, killed scores and scores of animals in the name of scientific research and even consumed larger amounts as food sources. And as before, we seek the trivial differences like physical features, our supposedly more evolved form as justifications for our actions- since we are more evolved than then we can do with them as we please.
As a guilty partner in the consumption of humans; in reference to keeping pets and eating meat, i maintain that we as humans are not superior over any other animal species and i try to reflect that in treating my pets like i would any other human i consider a companion and most importantly not in support of use of animals as test subjects in labs.