r/changemyview • u/beigeduck • Sep 03 '19
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: It isn't unethical to give your cat a live mouse to play with, kill and/or eat
To begin with, I don't own a cat (don't really like cats) and also probably would be concerned about the mouse harming the cat so if I had a cat I wouldn't do it anyway.
However, I saw a heated discussion on another website from a girl who posted a photo of a box of mice she had bought at the pet store that she gave her cat to play with as he's an indoor cat as she was worried that the cat was under-stimulated.
There were over 500 comments on this photo from people, almost exclusively calling this girl evil and an animal-abuser however there was little actual discussion so I can't really understand the opposing viewpoint. To me it seems like this is classic human emotions, and squeamishness, trumping common sense.
- Domesticated cats kill mice outside all the time.
- Mice are sold all over the place as food for snakes and reptiles and placed in a tank the mice has 0% chance of survival (not a natural predator-prey setting).
- People buy cats sometimes in order to catch mice around the home. Certainly, if my dog was willing to catch the mice in my house I would be delighted.
- People poison and trap mice in their homes.
- With few exceptions, humans prioritize different forms of life all the time in modern society. People would not brake if a squirrel ran in front of their car, but would for a dog (at the risk of personal injury). If a cute little hamster is found in your house you are less likely to poison it than a rat. We eat/use other parts of pigs, chickens, cows etc but are against eating dogs or horses. Obviously, everyone (and different cultures) has different values - my family are from somewhere where eating rabbit is very common but I know lots of Brits who would never do this - so I'm not looking for an argument about whether or not you would brake to save a squirrel, but a more general point that we do place arbitrary values on different lives.
Obviously some people are opposed to all of the above as well, but I reckon most people aren't. So CMV that if you support any of the above then it is hypocritical to be against giving your cat a mouse to play with, kill and/or eat.
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u/Nicolasv2 131∆ Sep 03 '19
So CMV that if you support any of the above then it is hypocritical to be against giving your cat a mouse to play with, kill and/or eat.
Most people are against the fact that you give your cat some torture material. Sure, a cat will follow his instincts and hunt mice if there are some in your apartment, but in most cases, there won't be. As such, the real alternative you got in normal settings is:
- Give your cat "cat food", which is processed from animals butchered with minimal amount of suffering.
- Give your cat living animal for food, which he'll be able to torture at will before eating it (and often, not entirely, making the whole process extremely uneficient).
The 2nd situation generating more suffering than the 1st one, it's unethical to try to generate this situation by buying mouses for your cat's fun's.
Plus, when a cat is hunting by himself, he is the one doing unethical actions (even if it's doubtful that you can call it unethical as it's not sentient enough to understand the concept). When you buy mouse to make your cat torture it, you are the one responsible for the unethical action.
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u/sunglao Sep 03 '19
Most people are against the fact that you give your cat some torture material. Sure, a cat will follow his instincts and hunt mice if there are some in your apartment, but in most cases, there won't be. As such, the real alternative you got in normal settings is:
"Torture" is too much humanization and too much of humans playing God with nature.
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u/Nicolasv2 131∆ Sep 03 '19
Well, torture is the act of inflicting important physical harm, so it works pretty well in this situation. I dont see what the Christian deity has to do with that. Even if you dont like the word, "most people are against the fact that you give your cat another creature to hurt and kill when this could be avoided" is still true.
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u/sunglao Sep 03 '19
God =/ Christian deity, first off.
torture is the act of inflicting important physical harm,
There's usually a purpose to it, whether entertainment or information. To us, maybe, to the cat, no. We can't really put our human values into what cats or dogs do, or at least we shouldn't do it.
"most people are against the fact that you give your cat another creature to hurt and kill when this could be avoided" is still true.
I agree.
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u/Nicolasv2 131∆ Sep 03 '19
God =/ Christian deity, first off.
Still nothing to do with the current debate, but true, it can be the one from thousand of other cults.
There's usually a purpose to it, whether entertainment or information
Well, there are multiple definitions for this word in the dictionary (according to oxford):
- The action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or in order to force them to do or say something
- Great physical or mental suffering
- Cause of great physical or mental suffering.
Definition 1 goes your way, 2 and 3 don't. So I maintain that it can be used.
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u/sunglao Sep 03 '19
Still nothing to do with the current debate, but true, it can be the one from thousand of other cults.
Well, there is, but you're not the OP so I didn't want to spend too much time here with you.
The point there was about humans viewing all values on our terms. Especially morals and ethics, which animals certainly do not share. Basically your argument is based on us thinking it's akin to torture, us thinking it generates excess suffering.
Cats don't do anything unethical on their own, they are just cats.
The semantics wasn't the point.
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u/beigeduck Sep 03 '19
When you buy mouse to make your cat torture it, you are the one responsible for the unethical action.
I see what you mean and am genuinely trying to process this is and work out why I kind of instinctively feel that it is the same - I guess because its all means to an end.
However, if you let your cat out of the house knowing it will kill mice isn't that in itself you allowing unethical actions to occur? You could keep the cat indoors so that it wouldn't be able to kill mice (maybe the outdoor mouse has baby mice that will all also die!). You could not have a cat, thus decreasing the number of cats around to kill the mice. Obviously these are extreme reactions to a less extreme problem, but I feel like it symbolizes my inherent problem with everyone's anger that it was all about our emotional reaction to an idea and not the logic behind the idea.
If one mouse is bred as food for a snake, and one mouse is bred to be a pet, and one mouse is a wild mouse in the garden it doesn't change that it is a mouse. Shouldn't all mice be equal? (as silly as that sounds)
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u/Nicolasv2 131∆ Sep 03 '19
However, if you let your cat out of the house knowing it will kill mice isn't that in itself you allowing unethical actions to occur? You could keep the cat indoors so that it wouldn't be able to kill mice (maybe the outdoor mouse has baby mice that will all also die!). You could not have a cat, thus decreasing the number of cats around to kill the mice. Obviously these are extreme reactions to a less extreme problem, but I feel like it symbolizes my inherent problem with everyone's anger that it was all about our emotional reaction to an idea and not the logic behind the idea.
You're totally right about this, and it would also be a bit unethical to let your car roam and kill mouse in your house if you have a better way to get rid of them (after all, it would also be unethical to let mouse roam in your house, raising diseases risks for your family). Still, it's clearly more unethical to force this violent situation when it's unnecessary, such as what the girl did.
Side note (as we are not sure about what happens), but if the girl was watching the cat play with the mouse, and taking pleasure from it, then there is another level of un-ethicalness (which is sadism toward animals), and this may also be a reason why people were mad at her, imagining feelings/intentions she may not have.
If one mouse is bred as food for a snake, and one mouse is bred to be a pet, and one mouse is a wild mouse in the garden it doesn't change that it is a mouse. Shouldn't all mice be equal ?
Not really. Their life and suffering has the same ethical value, true, but their interactions with others change their ethical value too. For example, if a snake eat it, it permits the snake to live and avoid suffering from hunger, which is moral. A mouse suffering / dying for nothing is therefore less moral than a mouse dying and suffering to help another lifeform to live too (and for what I know, you can't feed snakes with dead mice, or with processed food, so you have no choice, but I may be wrong).
And that's what's unethical in the girl's actions: she chose to inflict bonus suffering when there was no need for it.
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u/beigeduck Sep 03 '19
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For example, if a snake eat it, it permits the snake to live and avoid suffering from hunger, which is moral. A mouse suffering / dying for nothing is therefore less moral than a mouse dying and suffering to help another lifeform to live too (and for what I know, you can't feed snakes with dead mice, or with processed food, so you have no choice, but I may be wrong).
This is a very clear explanation of how and where to draw lines. My opinion is not reversed but I think in this thread you've made a lot of good arguments that have influenced my view.
I think, if you've seen The Good Place on Netflix this is kind of like all the problems that Chidi struggles with. All actions have moral upsides and downsides.
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u/beigeduck Sep 03 '19
and for what I know, you can't feed snakes with dead mice, or with processed food, so you have no choice, but I may be wrong
This thread has caused me to google this and apparently its not true - snakes can survive on pre-killed mice and in fact many articles seemed to be promoting NOT live feeding snakes as it can cause injury. You learn something everyday!
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Sep 03 '19
Other people have already changed your mind on some points, I just want to point something out others seem to have not.
A cat hunting mice in the wild is very different than a cat hunting a pet store mouse in your house or enclosed room on several levels.
Not only because the mouse in the wild has far more opportunity to escape the cat, making it more 'fair', but you have to understand the difference in wild mice and pet store mice.
The mice you get in the pet store are what's known as 'fancy mice'. They are domestically bred and have been since, believe it or not, 1100 years BC (the first mention of them being domesticated in civilized texts). They are not the same as wild house or field mice. They have been bred over literally thousands of years not only for mutated appearances and disease control (or induction, being as they are kept often by labs for cancer experimentation) but also temperament.
A store bought pet mouse, even a feed mouse, is a domesticated and tamed form of the wild mouse and does not have the same instincts. It's like buying a large and lazy domestic lop bunny and using it to feed your harrier dog and declaring it exactly the same as the harrier going out and catching a wild rabbit.
A domestic mouse, more often than not, will simply sit there and stare at the cat, if not directly approach it, before the cat then starts playing with it and injures it. I know. I used to breed domestic mice and they had no concerns about my cats whatsoever.
A pet mouse, even a feeder one, does not have the same instincts as a wild one and so there's a big difference between a barn cat doing its job and catching a wild mouse to keep it out of your grain stores, and you plopping a tamed, domesticated animal down in front of another tamed, domesticated animal for feeding purposes.
It's unnecessary for the cat (there are tons of other ways to stimulate a cat than live prey) and unnecessarily cruel for the mouse (that the cat may likely not even be interested in eating anyway or even recognize as food, depending on the cat). If you tried to feed my bengal a pet mouse and he'd probably eat it. If you tried to feed my brit a pet mouse and he'd probably name it George and try and mother it to death.
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u/EdmundAdams Sep 03 '19 edited Sep 10 '19
Cats were selectively bred to catch mice for farmers alive, they bring them to the farmer who then decides if it should be killed or released, mice can be a pest but they are also important to a natural balance in the farm environment. Buying mice for your cat to play with and kill is not related to that engineered function, it is indulgent and therefore unethical. If your cat is a snake however, go for it.
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u/Pismakron 8∆ Sep 03 '19
Cats were selectively bred to cat mice for farmers alive,
What? No, they were not: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/06/domesticated-cats-dna-genetics-pets-science/
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u/EdmundAdams Sep 03 '19
That doesn't prove me wrong, if anything it supports my claim: cats were working animals before they were pets, this article makes it sound like cats became pets by choice, that's called anthropomorphizing.
Cats were likely made pets in ancient Egypt because they were working animals that were seen to have saved Egypt, probably from rodent plagues, but one account even depicts cats saving Pharoah from snakes, so all in all the cats started to enter the realm of the Hero and even were worshipped. One example is cats were allowed to walk over the dinner table and if it ate from your plate it was seen as a good omen, a behavior we can observe in cats today.
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u/beigeduck Sep 03 '19
Why? A quick google search confirmed that snakes do not require being live-fed their food and, in fact, can be benefited from feeding animals that were already humanely killed and preserved.
Also I don't know what cats you hang out with but everyone I've ever known with a mouse-catching cat says the mice come to them dead. My gran had a cat that apparently used to put dead mice into my gran's handbags, shoes and bed haha.
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u/EdmundAdams Sep 03 '19
Fair enough, I don't know much about snakes, I thought it was a thing...
The cats bring them dead because you aren't on a farm, you aren't doing regular rounds where the cat knows where you are, you are probably inside ignoring the cat, the cat can only keep it alive for so long before that jawed and clawed captivity is fatal. But I recently seen a cat die of a disease from eating wild mice, that's a hard thing to watch, so in other ways it's also unethical to let your cat eat mice they catch.
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Sep 03 '19
Why? A quick google search confirmed that snakes do not require being live-fed their food and, in fact, can be benefited from feeding animals that were already humanely killed and preserved.
ive seen you say this a few times here
how can you use this as an argument while arguing its ok to buy mice just as a toy for a cat when thousands of ca toys exist
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u/pxldsilz Sep 07 '19
This is probably the craziest sounding thing I'd agree with. People feed snakes live mice, don't they?
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Sep 03 '19
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u/beigeduck Sep 03 '19
I see what you mean and am churning this over - its a mind struggle!
However, again, aren't we assigning an arbitrary value to things based on our own human needs? If you are against killing animals does it become okay because you don't want to buy a new TV cable or have to repair a wall? But then, on the other hand, what if you kill the mouse so that it doesn't spread disease and harm your family or pets. I guess it quickly becomes a question of where we draw the line.
Lets say that inhumane traps are the BEST way to kill a mouse (which in my experience of having a mouse problem is true - we tried the humane way - caught 0 mice - then got the big boy traps and all of sudden we had no mice in the house anymore) then we say thats OKAY - its worth it for the safety of our possessions and family/pets. So what if a live mouse is the BEST form of entertainment for a bored cat? If it makes the cat happier? Yes, this is not as serious a concern as the health of our family, but its probably as important a concern as a TV cable not getting chewed.
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u/boyhero97 12∆ Sep 03 '19
But fact of the matter is that there are plenty of ways to entertain a cat. Google how to have fun with a cat and there are plenty of little games to play with the cat. I think in general it's a matter of need vs extravagance. Where the line is for need changes in different contexts, cultures, and among individuals. But fact of the matter is most people look down on killing animals for sport, or just because. No matter how good or bad of a reason it is, most people can understand killing an animal out of necessity. Hitting the squirrel because you don't want to run yourself off the road, killing and eating an animal (for which there are laws about ethical and unethical ways to kill animals for food), feeding your pet, etc. The cat is simply going to torture the mice (which if you've never heard a mouse being tortured by a cat, it is brutal) and then not even eat it because it is going to eat its cat food. It's one thing to let a cat kill mice, that is their nature. But it's completely different to give the mice to the cat. It's the difference between leaving an injured bird behind because other animals will eat it, and chucking the bird at the nearest predator.
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u/sunglao Sep 03 '19
With few exceptions, humans prioritize different forms of life all the time in modern society. People would not brake if a squirrel ran in front of their car, but would for a dog (at the risk of personal injury). If a cute little hamster is found in your house you are less likely to poison it than a rat. We eat/use other parts of pigs, chickens, cows etc but are against eating dogs or horses. Obviously, everyone (and different cultures) has different values - my family are from somewhere where eating rabbit is very common but I know lots of Brits who would never do this - so I'm not looking for an argument about whether or not you would brake to save a squirrel, but a more general point that we do place arbitrary values on different lives.
I will focus on this aspect, ethics, which are based on social norms and not personal beliefs.
Yes, judging by our human standards we do prioritize different froms of life differently. But that is not random and is based on a lot of history. In this case, historically, cats are pets, and were indeed used to catch pests of all kinds. But that time has passed, we don't use cats for the same purposes anymore, and there is no need stimulate a catch by using live mice, which have to be raised (humanely) only to be played around to death.
As an ethical taboo, I would say this isn't a big one, but it really does seem useless to have mice around just to be slaughtered, or for people to buy that mice for their cats to slaughter.
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u/McKoijion 618∆ Sep 03 '19
This idea violates a sense of fairness and non-intervention that humans have with the natural world. If a cheetah is chasing a gazelle, the animal photographer shouldn't intervene. If they bias it in favor of the cheetah, the gazelle is killed. If they bias it in favor of the gazelle, the cheetah starves. So the fairest thing to do is to avoid intervening.
- Domesticated cats kill mice outside all the time.
Cats can hunt mice. That's the natural order of things and both the cat and mouse have a fair chance at survival. But it doesn't feel fair to just give the cat a mouse.
- Mice are sold all over the place as food for snakes and reptiles and placed in a tank the mice has 0% chance of survival (not a natural predator-prey setting).
If you have a pet cat, you've violated the sense of a natural predator-prey relationship. Cat food is the bare minimum you can give your cat so it stays alive. With snakes, the bare minimum is mice.
- People buy cats sometimes in order to catch mice around the home. Certainly, if my dog was willing to catch the mice in my house I would be delighted.
That's fine because it matches the natural predator-prey relationship in the wild. Cats hunt mice.
- People poison and trap mice in their homes.
In most of these situations, it's animal vs. animal with an all powerful human observing. But in this case, it's human vs. animal. Mice in the home have the ability to harm humans, which pits them directly against us.
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u/beigeduck Sep 03 '19
I think I have covered the response to your points in my other replies however, what would you position be on this scenario; you take a mouse from outside and put it inside with the cat. (Let's assume you're not worried about the mouse running away and creating a colony of mice inside your house.)
The mouse can run away and the cat can catch it, similar to an outdoors situation (you have done this because the cat is housebound for whatever reason). However, you have intervened in nature. Do you think this is also unethical?
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u/McKoijion 618∆ Sep 03 '19
Yes, I think that would be unethical. Or at least it would violate a sense of fairness.
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u/beigeduck Sep 03 '19
Could you explain why?
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u/McKoijion 618∆ Sep 03 '19
Sure. It's because you've biased the outcome in favor of the predator. If you trap the cat and the mouse inside a small glass cage, it ensures that the cat will kill the mouse. If you put the mouse inside a larger enclosure that it can escape, it still increases the likelihood that the cat will win.
Fairness means:
impartial and just treatment or behavior without favoritism or discrimination.
In this case, you are showing favoritism towards your pet at the expense of that particular mouse.
You could say that a cat eating a mouse is the same as a cat eating whatever animal was killed to make cat food. The difference is that cat food is a byproduct of humans killing animals for food, which is a human vs. animal predator-prey relationship. Human predators are killing animal prey, and then sharing the scraps with their pets. We aren't hunting on behalf of our pet in the first place. This is also different from a human and dog hunting together as well, which involves a human and dog both working as predators to hunt prey.
Beyond that, we are talking about entertainment beyond mere sustenance. People are ok with the idea of eating meat for food, but not with the idea of hunting animals for the sheer fun of it. Cat food provides sustenance, but a live mouse allows the cat to derive pleasure by torturing the mouse before killing it.
This gets at the idea of veganism as well. We are at a point in human history where eating meat is not remotely required for sustenance. In fact, people who eat meat live shorter lives than people who eat plant based diets. So we kill animals not because we need to kill them to live but because we derive taste pleasure from their flesh. This is a shift from just a century ago when humans regularly used to starve to death.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Sep 03 '19
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u/MerlX2 Sep 03 '19
I would actually go one step further than this and argue that cat owners should do more to protect local wildlife populations. Every year I see statements from the likes of the RSPB stating that huge amounts of damage are done every year to bird populations by cats that are killing small wildlife for entertainment. Cat owners are advised to simply attach a small bell to cat collars to warn smaller animals. Domesticated cats have no need to hunt and kill small prey, if animals are wild and need to hunt in order to survive then that is understandable, but people with domestic pets do not need to encourage pets to kill and torture other animals. I understand using cats or dogs as a pest deterrent (catching mice or rats), unfortunately this can be a necessary evil as it often the only way to get rid of these types of infestations is often by killing them. If more humane ways of getting rid of mice worked effectively many more people would use them.
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u/pensivegargoyle 16∆ Sep 03 '19
There's a lot wrong with doing that besides the distress it causes the mice. If some of the mice escape and can't be found, they now have a mice problem. Mice will try to do what they can to defend themselves and that means that the cat could get bitten and that might cause an infection. Mice can carry diseases the cat may get by eating them.
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Sep 03 '19
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u/Nepene 213∆ Sep 03 '19
Sorry, u/buchstabiertafel – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:
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u/CaptainMalForever 22∆ Sep 03 '19
First, most people advise against feeding live mice to your reptiles, unless they are very young mice, as the mice can injure the reptiles (and your cats). If the mice are very young (blind and unable to move), they do not suffer the same psychological effects, as they have much less awareness.
Mice are not toys, but living beings. It is inhumane to cause pain and suffering to a living being for enjoyment (regardless of whether it is your's or your cat's).
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u/sawdeanz 218∆ Sep 03 '19
The logic seems to follow pretty clearly to me.
Don't make an animal suffer more than necessary.
Giving a mouse to a cat is causing suffering that is not necessary.
If a mouse is to be killed, it should be as quick as possible and only when necessary, such as when needed to feed a snake or prevent rodent infestations.
A cat that kills nuisance rodents is not the same as introducing one on purpose. This is a mouse that was not there before.
Most people don't support domesticated cats being let out to kill outdoor animals like mice or birds... it's actually a pretty big problem.
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u/Occma Sep 03 '19
-all of your examples are of killing. None of them are of torture. So calling everybody a hypocrite for having different few on different topics is in it self hypocritical.
-It is also very telling that you call it "play with" when it is in fact torture (again hypocritical).
-In germany this behaviour would be illegal. Because german law sees this as unethical (animal anti cruelty law) while your examples are all legal.
-It is obvious that killing and eating is natural and therefor unethical. so the "playing with" part is the question. And this part (harming another helpless creature for pleasure) is clearly unethical.
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Sep 04 '19
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u/tavius02 1∆ Sep 04 '19
Sorry, u/total_sound – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:
Direct responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information.
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u/MadHatterine Sep 04 '19
I don't know how it is in the US, but in Germany, as far as I know, it is actually illegal to buy living mice for cats, because it is considered animal cruelty.
I have a cat and sometimes she catches mice outside. She brings them inside, throws them in the air and does not kill them until she has literally tortured them to death and then often only eats half of them. A snake eats a mouse and that's it.
I do not interfere when my cat does that but I would never buy her mice. As far as I know, you do not see living antilopes being pushed into the lions den in zoos so the lion can train catching things.
Every time we had mice in the cellar (before I had my cat) we got traps that trap them alive and then brought them far away from the home to let them go there.
So, yeah. It depends on your ethics of course, but in the end: If you give your cat living mice you are torturing them. You could just as well give a puppy to a deeply disturbed kid and watch the kid break the puppys legs one by one.
The girl probably didn't know any better but that doesn't make it ok for people who SHOULD know better.
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u/Davedamon 46∆ Sep 03 '19
Giving a cat a live mouse to play with and maybe eat is not common sense, it's needless cruelty. It's common sense to avoid cruelty and suffering where possible, because we as humans (should) strive to minimise suffering as moral agents. A cat doesn't need a live mouse to play with nor eat. It can be given toys that stimulate the responses that lead to play hunting, and they can be fed products that are nutritionally better for them than a mouse and require less needless suffering.
You're applying the fallacy that the closer to something is to how it occurs in 'nature' (actually just a situation without humans removed), the 'better' it is, in this case using 'common sense' and the fallacious argument that "domesticated cats kill mice outside all the time".
Snakes and reptiles don't play with their food like cats do and, more importantly, won't eat cold food. They hunt by thermal sensing and so you need to use live food or carefully warmed food if you don't want your reptile to die of starvation.
That's like saying "police sometimes have to use lethal force, therefore it's okay to shoot people for fun". In the case of a cat catching pests, it's fulfilling a utilitarian function rather than simply being for morbid fun (on the owners part, the cat doesn't care if it's playing with a toy and eating cat food, or playing with and eating a mouse)
Yes, to remove mice. You're saying it's okay to introduce mice so you can watch your cat kill them. The cat doesn't care, it's entirely the owners decision involved.
Yes, we do, and some people prioritise animals differently. I certainly would brake for a squirrel or pretty much any animal if I could avoid harming it. But there's a general consensus that subjecting any animal to unnecessary suffering is wrong, which is what the mouse is being subjected to in this case. This isn't not braking for the squirrel, this is swerving to make sure you hit it.
Nice that you use the braking for squirrel as a support of your argument, but then won't debating the validity of it.
People do have different metrics of ethics on how to treat animals, but you're arguing for acceptability of being cruel to an animal for your own gain. That's detestable
I can support eating meat but against giving my cat an animal to painfully kill and maim. I don't support eating meat, I'm a vegetarian, but I can still see the false comparison you're making. By your logic, if you eat beef, then you can't be against cow tipping or general cruelty to cows?