Yes, I agree, domesticated animals are a messy edge case. They were evolved, thus they have a lot of self-interested drives and behaviors all through their nature. Then we started tinkering with them by selective breeding, and started installing creator-interested (or in this case it would be more accurate to say domesticator-interested) behavioral patterns and traits in them, so now they’re a morally uncomfortable in-between case, mostly evolved but with some externally-imposed modifications. Dogs, for instance, have a mutation to a gene that is also similarly mutated in a few humans, and in us causes what is considered to be a mental illness called Williams-Beuren Syndrome, which causes you to basically make friends with strangers very quickly after meeting them. Modern domestic sheep have a mutation which makes them unable to shed their winter fleece, so they need to be sheared once a year. Some of the more highly-bred cat and dog breeds have all sorts of medical issues due to traits we selectively bred them for because we though they looked cool: e.g. Persian or sphinx cats’ coats, bulldogs’ muzzles, and so forth. (Personally I have distinct moral qualms about some of this.)
Yes, I agree, domesticated animals are a messy edge case. They were evolved, thus they have a lot of self-interested drives and behaviors all through their nature. Then we started tinkering with them by selective breeding, and started installing creator-interested (or in this case it would be more accurate to say domesticator-interested) behavioral patterns and traits in them, so now they’re a morally uncomfortable in-between case, mostly evolved but with some externally-imposed modifications. Dogs, for instance, have a mutation to a gene that is also similarly mutated in a few humans, and in us causes what is considered to be a mental illness called Williams-Beuren Syndrome, which causes you to basically make friends with strangers very quickly after meeting them. Modern domestic sheep have a mutation which makes them unable to shed their winter fleece, so they need to be sheared once a year. Some of the more highly-bred cat and dog breeds have all sorts of medical issues due to traits we selectively bred them for because we though they looked cool: e.g. Persian or sphinx cats’ coats, bulldogs’ muzzles, and so forth. (Personally I have distinct moral qualms about some of this.)