# Are pets slaves? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 20, 2016, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388 "2016-07-20T03:07:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388/201 "2016-07-22T18:28:09Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > Meh, by Machinaforce’s definition every human being is a slave because we are “forced to obey” our employers, or the police or the government. I am not free to go do whatever I want, I have a bunch of laws and societal conventions that restrict my behaviour, so obviously I must be a slave. > > There has never been this utopia where Animals frolic freely without being forced to obey their pack leaders or live in constant fear of predators. Pre-Flood - except for that pesky rule about the apple tree and a snake. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388/202 "2016-07-22T18:36:29Z")
Pets are disenfranchised! I blame the Republicans! ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388/203 "2016-07-22T20:12:34Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > Your questions are irrelevant to the overall fact that the cat still depends on you for food. Depending on someone else for food does not make one a slave. ---
**Author:** ![spamforbrains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388/204 "2016-07-22T20:46:49Z")
> [@](#): > > Depending on someone else for food does not make one a slave. Children are dependents, not slaves. I don’t classify most pets as dependents because they “work” for their food-they trade certain behaviors for their food. Most people trade for their food rather than growing/catching it themselves, so what is the difference? You dig holes, file paperwork, or drive a taxi and other people give you food (or the means to get food) in exchange. Pets also do things that make humans willing to give them food. The pet is cute and cuddly, or the pet helps the blind person move about better, plays games with the human and makes the human feel good, or helps the human engage in sports and social interactions. Not a dependent, a worker. It apparently is a better strategy for survival than the “catch your own food” approach. Species that trade and work have done far better for themselves than the wild versions. Most cats are perfectly capable of feeding themselves but they choose the work n trade approach. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388/205 "2016-07-22T21:19:59Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Pets are disenfranchised! I blame the Republicans! We need to build a wall, and make our pets pay for it! ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388/206 "2016-07-22T21:24:17Z")
This puts a whole new spin on the master taking a slave to bed with him meme. ---
**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388/207 "2016-07-22T22:08:17Z")
Uh, just to clarify a couple of things that I frankly can’t believe needed clarifying, > [@Hiker](#): > > It seems to me that you and **Skald the Rhymer** are using a different concept of what freedom entails. Orcas, like all living things, follow certain patterns of behavior that have been learned through generations and that have ensured the survival of the species to this day. If humans create a barrier that prevents an Orca from following these patterns of behavior, the Orca will work against it. You can call that “need for freedom”. You should, however, remember that a tree put in a flower pot will break the confinement of that pot for the very same reason. I cannot bring myself to accept that that kind of “need for freedom” is comparable to what a human slave experiences. Okay, forget the Orcas, but concentrate on what I said about dogs, cats and some exotic birds. They will self-mutilate and basically go crazy if left in confinement and unsocialized. But the main point is, apparently because I used one poor example, you assume I agreed with the OP. Which is utterly ridiculous given my opening paragraphs specifically stated that I thought the slavery notion is ridiculous and false. > [@TriPolar](#): > > Some pets being overly confined does not make pet ownership equivalent to slave ownership. Some pets being abused does not make all pet owners animal abusers. A pet wanting to wander loose does not mean it wants to flee it’s home for freedom. Stopping your children from playing on the highway is not enslaving them. Humans, animals, machines, and dirt may be restricted from doing anything particular thing at any time without being enslaved. That is the inherent problem with the OP’s argument, some A are B is not the same as all A are B. Holy shit, I understand my post was long, but I said RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING that I didn’t agree with the OP’s bizarre equivalency of normal pet ownership to slavery. I did so vehemently. It’s a farcical, wrong idea. All I did was argue against **Skald** ’s blanket statement that animals don’t want freedom. I can’t even believe y’all are bringing up the Bill of Rights. Do you seriously think the concept of freedom didn’t exist until the U.S. Constitution?! Or that anyone in the universe (well, maybe the OP and the psycho he linked to) would put forth the argument that animals are clamoring for freedom of the press and the right to worship as they please. **Skald** simply said animals have no concept of freedom. And I (and others) disagree: they sure as hell understand what freedom of movement is, and many desire it enough to maim themselves and go bonkers when it’s denied. That is it. Nothing about “slavery.” The OP is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388/208 "2016-07-22T22:35:55Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Ten, twelve years ago I knew a woman ho felt very passionately that it was wrong for parents to force even their very young children to do anything they didn’t wish to do. By Odin’s wrath, I remember that thread. I’m old. > [@Machinaforce](#): > > -I doubt dogs do things out of malice or anything. When she was a kid Wife’s dog decided she didn’t like a visiting insurance agent, so she pissed on his leg. Never did that to anyone else, but he WAS an insurance agent. > [@watchwolf49](#): > > Dogs are pack animals … is the beta wolf slave to the alpha wolf? He is if he knows what’s good for him. Either you don’t fuck with Big Mama or you move out. Regarding predation on my Gobi Desert Kitchen Midden Dogs, any coyote who tried would suddenly wonder who bit off his balls. They double-team. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388/209 "2016-07-23T00:46:06Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > What makes slavery a moral wrong? > > To my mind, it is the humiliation of forcibly treating a conscious being as less than it is - like a piece of property. > > A human can understand abstract notions such as ‘freedom’ and can feel horror at their lack. If you make a person a slave, how you treat them (kindly or cruelly) is only one aspect of the moral wrong you do the them; even a slave kindly treated has the mental ability to understand what they have been deprived of, the wrong done to them. Even a kindly treated slave can and very often will strike out for freedom. > > Animals, by all evidence, do not possess this ability. Animals can understand kindness and cruelty all right, and animals with the intelligence of dogs and cats can certainly react and communicate pleasure and displeasure. But there is no evidence whatsoever that they understand such abstract concepts as ‘freedom’. That simply does not appear to be part of a dog or cat’s mental universe. They do not understand that they are “owned” like property, because that too is not part of their universe. > > Animals such as dogs and cats understand concepts like family, domination and submission, and territory. That’s the way they appear to look at the world. To a dog, its owner is a dominant member of its family and so it will guard the family’s territory; to a cat, the family property is part of its range. > > These animals cannot be slaves, because they do not know what slavery is, and it is consciousness of one’s own enslavement that makes something or someone a “slave” as opposed to a “pet”, “livestock” or “property”. But what about when they run outside when the door is open or when you take their leash off? Why does one have to be aware of such things in order to be considered a slave? ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388/210 "2016-07-23T01:46:59Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > But what about when they run outside when the door is open or when you take their leash off? > > Why does one have to be aware of such things in order to be considered a slave? Perhaps you answered and I missed it- but, as I asked before, do you consider children to be slaves? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388/211 "2016-07-23T02:11:58Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > . . . Why does one have to be aware of such things in order to be considered a slave? Animals, not being aware of it in any way, can’t comprehend it. They don’t have the philosophical tools to know what it means. It is not relevant to their existence. Animals don’t have laws. They don’t own property. They can’t sign contracts. As asked above, would you charge the fox with murder for killing and eating a rabbit? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388/212 "2016-07-23T03:24:56Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > Your questions are irrelevant to the overall fact that the cat still depends on you for food. That doesn’t make them slaves, though – that makes them _dependents_. After all, children, hospital patients and nursing home residents also depend on others for food – does that make them slaves? In fact, I would say those three have more restrictions on them than pets do, since pets can sleep and play and bath whenever they want, they don’t have to go to school, or listen to lectures from doctors, etc. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388/213 "2016-07-23T03:26:26Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > But what about when they run outside when the door is open or when you take their leash off? Come on. Have your seriously never taken your dogs to somewhere outside where its safe and legal to let them off their leash? I bet that they came back to you after a while didn’t they? Your whole argument seems to be “Pets can’t do whatever they want whenever they want, so they are slaves”. Thats not what a slave is, even disregarding the fact that slavery only applies to humans. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388/214 "2016-07-23T05:20:57Z")
> [@spamforbrains](#): > > Children are dependents, not slaves… > Pets also do things that make humans willing to give them food. The pet is cute and cuddly, or the pet helps the blind person move about better, plays games with the human and makes the human feel good, or helps the human engage in sports and social interactions. Right - I can’t imagine any of those scenarios applying to children. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388/215 "2016-07-23T05:32:07Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Right - I can’t imagine any of those scenarios applying to children. :dubious: Children and pets can both be dependents and workers at various times in the sense it’s been discussed above. The OP hasn’t answered this: If I ground my child and forbid them to leave the house for a period as punishment does that make them a slave? What about if I don’t let them play video games until their homework is finished? Slave? ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388/216 "2016-07-23T06:35:53Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > Come on. Have your seriously never taken your dogs to somewhere outside where its safe and legal to let them off their leash? I bet that they came back to you after a while didn’t they? > > Your whole argument seems to be “Pets can’t do whatever they want whenever they want, so they are slaves”. Thats not what a slave is, even disregarding the fact that slavery only applies to humans. A slave is property, a pet is something you own and is by extension property. Their life is within your own volition. Either way you have control over what they do. Children in a sense are treated like slaves. They have little else but to obey requests. If they are lost they are returned. They have little legal rights. It’s even more plausible because they can withhold consent. You guys seem to be hung up on the emotional negatives that the word slave conjures up. One doesn’t have to be oppressed to be a slave. You can give someone a good life and food and shelter, but as long as you are in control of all that and they’re not, it is essentially slavery. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388/217 "2016-07-23T06:41:39Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > They have little legal rights. It’s even more plausible because they can withhold consent. So hang on lets get this clear, you are saying that children are slaves? Is that what you think. No one is hung up anything. You seem to have created your own personal definition of what a slave is, you’re free to believe this but don’t expect anyone else to agree with you or understand what you mean when you say the word slave or say pets are slaves. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388/218 "2016-07-23T08:35:00Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > A slave is property, a pet is something you own and is by extension property. Ah, Peter Griffin logic: kerosene is fuel; Red Bull is fuel; therefore kerosene is Red Bull. Please stop wasting bandwidth on this nonsense. Think of the cat photographers starving in Africa. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388/219 "2016-07-23T09:02:28Z")
I think the definition of slavery needs to be put forth, a specific one, to be legalistically challenged to correctly answer this. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388/220 "2016-07-23T09:09:27Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > I think the definition of slavery needs to be put forth, a specific one, to be legalistically challenged to correctly answer this. We’ve already been through this. Go ahead and do a google search, both the common meaning of slave and the legal definition of slavery only apply to humans / persons. Now theres a case of a country declaring an Orangutang to be “non human person”, and this might one day be extended to dolphins and chimps. > **[Court Declares Captive Orangutan Is "Non-Human Person"](https://www.iflscience.com/argentinian-court-extends-rights-captive-orangutan-26659)** > > Court Declares Captive Orangutan Is "Non-Human Person" But I think there is zero chance it would ever be extended down to more common animals we keep as pets. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-pets-slaves/760388.md?page=12)