Towards Freedom

The question on display here is:

If you are a vegan, should you be feeding your cats vegan?

Feeding your cats a vegan diet has nothing to do with whether you are a vegan or not.

Vegan diets for cats are well-established for more than three decades. These diets are clinically approved and offered by various companies. (See Vecado for example.)

The notion that cats are carnivores and therefore have to eat meat, is a fictitious one that does not apply the carnivore taxonomy appropriately. A carnivore is a classification based on certain physiological traits such as canine teeth, and short intestinal tracts. These traits enable carnivores to process animal products more easily than say herbivores. There is no necessity for meat consumption though (as one of many such examples, see Jed Gillen's book Obligate Carnivore). Cats require specific nutrients, not specific delivery systems (see Vegan Cats 101 article).

Those that cattack vegan diets for cats usually do a catwalk along this yellow brick road.

• Embark with cats cannot survive on a vegan diet.
• When the above is shown to be false empirically, the goal posts are moved to, cats may survive on a vegan diet, but they can't thrive.
• After again being foiled by empirical evidence showing thriving vegan cats, the last flail insists it's not natural for cats to be on a vegan diet.

The problem with this 'Appeal to Nature' is that it is a logical fallacy (see definition or a more extensive article Natural = Good?). Note the effort falls apart when confronted with the fact that it is also not natural for cats to be eating kibbles or tinned food much of which actually has vegetable ingredients in it, by the way, as well as synthetic taurine. Cats are healthier and live longer (see Study Shows Cats Are Living Longer… ) than they did 40 years ago due to people doing unnatural things to cat food.

Filled with dead ideas that keep crawling out like zombies, the proselytizing centers around:

If you are a vegan but don't feed your cats vegan, should you be allowed to insist that people coming to your house eat vegan?

Well it is your house right? Do you not make decisions on your own turf?

You really don't have to justify your actions using the common ‘we have a choice to be vegan but cats don't due to limited vegan options’. The argument is a moderately good one, but is not ubiquitously meaningful since cats really don't have a choice other than the one you make for them.

If your friends, neighbors, family members, random visitors, or the carnivorous vegan police, don't like your decisions, you should welcome them with open arms not to come to your house.

Cattacks here can follow these primary paths (responses are suggested in italics):

• You are bringing non-vegan food into your house for your cat, therefore, I should be able to do the same!
  Okay, I completely agree, that you should be able to bring my cat non-vegan cat food. Here are the brands that my cat likes …

• You let your cat eat non-vegan, therefore I should be able to as well!
  Here is a reality check: you are not a cat. Despite your wishfoolness, you really aren't a cat. Even if you employ technology to promote such an idea as in the video below, you are still not a cat! Okay? So get over it! However, if it means that much to you, I will order some extra tins of cat food and you can share the same dinner with my cat.

  • You are a hypocrite because you do non-vegan things yet claim you're a vegan!
    Well this one is actually an attempted Kobayashi Maru gotcha to catapult a capitulation: If you are a vegan, and you feed your cat vegan, you are imposing your will upon your cat. However, if you are a vegan, and you feed your cat non-vegan, you are being a hypocrite. Notice the common element here has nothing to do with the cat or the cat's diet. It has to do with your being a vegan!

Imposing your will is something that guardians do anyway as part of the job of bringing up cats, dogs, children, parents, or even a spouse. Doing so is part of being responsible and so long as your will benefits the subject, there is nothing wrong in such imposition.

The hypocrisy accusation though is more interesting.

First, one should understand that there is no logical fallacy of hypocrisy. So behaving as a hypocrite, does not make your argument incorrect. While your personal credibility may diminish with some, hypocrisy does not bear any consequence upon the argument itself.

For instance, even an animal abuser is correct when speaking out against animal abuse. The activities the individual engages in, have no bearing on the correctness of what is being spoken (ie that animals should not be subjected to abuse).

Activists often fall prey to the hypocrisy accusation, because they are under the misguided illusion that they must behave perfectly or what they say has no merit. On such matters, if you engage in earnest self-flagellation, you might as well stop breathing because you are killing microbes every time you inhale! In fact, such reasoning is gleefully catcalled thus: You aren't vegan because you kill microbes, therefore I can eat corpse.

However, the above pout is merely an illustration of the Tu Quoque (you too) fallacy, explained in this Nobody Is Vegan example.

So, despite many being conditioned into believing that "Do as I say and not as I do" is a bad attitude, it needs to be understood that one's personal actions do not alter the morality/validity of a statement.

Second, do realize that the 'holier than thou' attitude you are being accused of, is a result of the 'holier than thou' attitude that is already present in your accuser. In other words, I am so holy, that you are not entitled to accuse me of not being so holy, just because you're a vegan! It is irrelevant whether you actually made any such accusation, because your being vegan becomes the accusation itself!

This of course leads to the reality that your accuser already knows that he or she is not very holy. Usually, to buffer such self-awareness, the accuser resorts to reciting numerous acts of Heavy Holiness such as:

• I have a foster child in Africa
• I gently take out spiders in my house
• I only eat corpse parts once a week

Or in case of serious desperation, some conjure up a direct connection to the supreme being of their choice, announcing that "God gave us dominion over animals" which of course is just a precursor to not just speciesism, but its subsequent applications justifying racism, sexism, ableism, etc. Admittedly, having some god on your side can be of considerable convenience as Joan Baez' beautiful singing illustrates:

We have often seen holiness play out with serious consequences. As one example, a Jehovah's witness couple who used to visit us, went vegan advised by the wife's doctor to restore her constitution. They complained to us that their usual circle attacked them mercilessly for such dietary blasphemy, to their total astonishment! They hadn't even gone vegan for ethical reasons, but it seems some people really covet their neighbors’ greater holiness.

Knowing the terms of engagement in any encounter is important. However recognizing when these terms are being violated through fallacious argumentation, improper imposition, and frantic self-image validation is even more important.

Too often some allow bullies, intellectual or otherwise, to ram their views through while accusing you of doing the same. The saying "With friends like these, who needs enemies" becomes increasingly apparent in such situations.

Fortunately, recognition of the way the game is being played can be helpful and healthful, not only for your own peace of mind, but also if one hopes to instill some understanding in others.