Pet ownership is surging, with the number of pet cats and dogs outstripping the number of human children in countries from the US to Japan. Yet we rarely ask whether pet keeping is morally justifiable. Philosophers Angie Pepper and Richard Healey argue that it is not. Even owners who love their pets control almost every aspect of their lives, and they are kept primarily to serve these owners’ interests. We breed and raise pets to need us, manufacturing their vulnerability and stripping them of their ability to control their own lives. Without a justification for this power dynamic which appeals primarily to the interests of pets, rather than their owners, we should abolish pet keeping altogether.

Half of the world’s population lives with a pet, from cats, dogs and fish to birds, lizards, and guinea pigs. Our love of pets has reached the point that in nations as diverse as the US, the UK, Brazil, Japan, and Spain, the number of cats and dogs alone now significantly outstrips the number of human children. And our love of pets shows no signs of slowing. The global pet care industry was worth $259 billion in 2024 and is on track to hit $427 billion by 2032. Pet keeping is a central feature of modern family life.

We typically view the decision to bring a pet into our lives as a purely personal choice. So long as a person is capable of providing care and has no history of abuse, their right to animal companionship goes largely unquestioned. Yet, thinking about pet keeping in this way obscures important political and moral questions.

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Pet keeping involves huge asymmetries in power between pet owners and pets. Guardians determine more or less everything important about a pet’s life.

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It is widely agreed that the animals we keep as pets matter morally. After all, they are sentient creatures who experience things as going well or badly for them. They feel the pain of a broken leg and enjoy the pleasure of a delicious meal. Moreover, like all animals, pets are agents: they can act in the pursuit of their own preferences and goals. Consider, for instance, dogs playing together, or trying to find their favorite treats, cats hunting, gerbils constructing burrows, and rabbits grooming one another. All this means that pets have morally significant interests that we must consider when thinking about how they should be treated.

The interests of these animals are foundational to modern anti-cruelty legislation and fuel the public outrage that inevitably follows reports of abuse. Yet, a staggering disconnect remains between our recognition that these animals have morally significant interests and the daily reality of mistreatment and neglect that is alarmingly widespread. Besides acts of deliberate cruelty where animals are intentionally hurt, pets are often harmed in less deliberate, more insidious ways. Some are the victims of indifference, where owners simply don’t care very much about the animals they are responsible for. Obvious examples are the hamsters, rabbits, and goldfish purchased for children who have since grown disinterested in them. But even when owners deeply love their pets, they can nevertheless fail to satisfy even their most basic interests. For instance, they might provide an inadequate diet or fail to recognize the complex social needs of their companion—such as the fact that rabbits are social creatures who require the companionship of their own species, and so shouldn’t be kept alone in hutches.