no the meat isn’t used. The meat is used to feed dogs and cats, so there’s a huge a difference between farming animals for meat vs for their skin. I agree with what Philip says..

Have you ever actually met any of these people? You might find you have a lot in common if you actually gave them the time.

Exactly. The person who wrote this article and all people running or working on fur farms or buying fur products have zero shame, integrity, humanity or conscience!! Absolutely disgraceful!!

They aren’t only used for their fur, their meat and bones are also used, it’s very similar to any other kind of farm.

Fair enough. But as you say, these were hypotheticals, so I’ll also propose that if you asked 1,000 people how they felt about fur, perhaps one would respond “acceptable under any circumstances” and one with “because I hate PETA”. We don’t need to concern ourselves with such views since they are at most extremely rare, and may not be held by anyone.

Surely a dilemma does exist for most people. I’ll keep this specifically to fur. Imagine an opinion poll asking whether it is acceptable to use animals for fur, with five possible answers, ranging from “acceptable under any circumstances” to “never acceptable”. The majority of responses will be something like, “Acceptable if the animals are treated humanely, and are not endangered.” This response immediately raises two dilemmas for each person who chooses it. What is humane treatment? And when is a species “endangered”? There are no hard and fast answers to these questions, and each person must decide for themselves what constitutes humane treatment, and who to trust when it comes to saying whether a species is endangered or not. I call these dilemmas. Do you prefer another word perhaps?

The statement you propose is, “So you don’t deny that your love of fur is more important to you than another beings life?” It’s silly for at least the following reasons. (1) There’s a sliding scale for most people when it comes to taking animal life, be it for clothing or food. Believe it or not, even people within the fur trade have different views on when killing animals for their fur is acceptable. It’s not black and white, where “loving” fur (your word) always takes precedence over an animal’s life. (2) People who support the fur trade are not all fur “lovers” by any means. Some are, but some need it for cold-weather clothing, and some don’t even wear it but see it as a sound choice in terms of sustainability, or support fur because they believe in freedom of choice or simply because they hate PETA. There are many reasons to support fur, not just love of it.

Not quite sure how those dilemmas are comparable, but it does seems like a good tactic for diverting the conversation from the current one we’re discussing. I think you’re trying to “create” a dilemma where one does not actually exist. That’s the only point I’ve tried to make all along. As far as overthinking, I’m not the one who’s trying to create all this positive buzz about an industry that is built on the foundation that material objects are more valuable/desirable than the living beings…seems pretty simple and straight forward.