The Compassion–Consumption Paradox in Pet Care Markets: Rethinking Inclusion in Multispecies Consumer Policy

Abstract

Paradox theory conceptualizes paradoxes as persistent and interdependent tensions between elements that are logically inconsistent yet simultaneously present and enduring within organizational and institutional systems (Smith and Lewis 2011). Pet care markets have expanded dramatically over the past two decades, reshaping how humans understand responsibility, affection, and obligation toward nonhuman companions. Yet beneath the glossy imagery of ethical consumption and responsible ownership lies a structural contradiction at the heart of contemporary pet care economies. Consumers invest emotionally and financially in the well-being of specific animals, often shaped by attachment, responsibility, or routine care practices, while the products required to maintain that care often depend on extractive, polluting, or ethically fraught supply chains that harm other species, ecosystems, and communities (Sayers, Martin, and Bell 2022). This commentary positions this tension as a compassion–consumption paradox: a systemic contradiction that emerges when market logics collide with moral commitments in human–animal relationships. Drawing on paradox theory (Carmine and De Marchi 2023; Smith et al. 2017) and recent work on the tensions of care under capitalism (Yalkin and Özbilgin 2024), we argue that resolving this paradox requires a reimagining of inclusion beyond the human to embrace ecological and multispecies justice. Multispecies inclusion in this argument refers to the interdependent positioning of companion animals, livestock embedded in feed supply chains, affected wildlife populations, and the ecological systems sustaining these relations, all implicated in the same pet care consumption infrastructure (Erbil and Güngördü Belbağ 2024). In this context, paradox refers to a persistent structural tension (Smith et al. 2017) in which practices that express care for one being are materially entangled with systems that generate harm elsewhere. The tension operates independently of individual intent or awareness and instead emerges from the ways market systems organize production and value. In this commentary, inclusion refers to the consideration of how market structures shape the well-being of companion animals, other species, and ecological systems. Nonhuman animals cannot participate directly in market decisions; their interests are represented through owners, regulatory frameworks, and institutional design (Srinivasan 2022). Inclusion therefore concerns whether production systems, marketing practices, and policy arrangements materially account for these mediated stakeholders.