Great point, I have definitely noticed this in my own family. The elders are not only against "wasting" money above the minimum required for sustenance, but they get openly and visibly angry about it when someone else does. For some reason, this particular issue crosses over from "well I wouldn't do it, but to each his own", to seeing it as a fundamentally immoral act. It surprised me in the beginning.
Personally I can't understand the logic. Who cares what species something is, it's just a question of level of consciousness. A dog is pretty much a 2 yr old child. Why have no concern for such a consciousness, whether it's an animal, android, human, or whatever.
So is a pig, so this logic really only applies to vegetarians. There is still something else that motivates meat eating people to care more for their pets.
> So is a pig, so this logic really only applies to vegetarians.
The quality of life of farm animals should also be respected. If they live their lives in suffering, that shouldn't be taken lightly.
At the same time all animals will die at some point, with or without human intervention. If that death happens at a slightly different time for the reality of the way nature works, that's not inconsistent.
Keep in mind that wild animals don't generally die of old age gracefully on a golf course. More often than not they're ripped apart by some other animal, or starve to death from injury, or are consumed by disease, etc. Death by human hands is probably one of the less cruel fates.
A free-range animal on a cruelty-free farm (if that really exists), with the benefits of human medicine, and a precisely implemented death, is probably one of the happier existences an animal can have.
Only if you put down any pet immediately when it becomes sick with something non trivial (what we do with farm animals). However, that's not the case when people spend thousands on a pet to keep it alive with complex treatments.
It's pretty clear that the mental abilities or atributes of the animal is not the primary differentiation between 'something like family' and 'something like food.' The differentiation is in the emotional attachment a person has to other animals that belong to the same class as the animal in question.
I mean, I'm not saying this is right or wrong, just that this is how most people see the matter.
To provide the devil's advocate position, why does mere ownership suddenly imply a much higher duty of care? It would be morally abhorrent if we started euthanizing millions of toddlers who we couldn't find homes for yet we're fine doing the same to pets. What, morally, should be the difference between "pets we can find a home for" and "pets we can't find a home for"?
I think most people would be more repulsed if a child's own parents mis-treated them, rather than if an orphanage did. The whole scale is just shifted up for humans. Bias towards "ownership" still exists.
Personally I can't understand the logic. Who cares what species something is, it's just a question of level of consciousness. A dog is pretty much a 2 yr old child. Why have no concern for such a consciousness, whether it's an animal, android, human, or whatever.