>>11948485I'm not doubting that pokemon cannot be willing companions of humans, or even that some pokemon might enjoy the thrill of combat.
But it's like this:
Boxing/MMA/etc is a sport people engage in because they like to fight. But that doesn't make assaulting any person you meet on the street okay.
Some people like rough sex, but that doesn't mean forcibly raping someone in an alley is okay.
(Informed) consent is the measure of morality in all things, and it is individual, not universal. That some individual pokemon like fighting does not make it okay to force pokemon to fight, because the reality of some mons' willingness cannot be extrapolated outward without limit.
GameFreak has not given us a mechanic for battling pokemon outside of the capture-control system. Even if pokemon battling itself is not, theoretically, a universal moral wrong (and it probably isn't, really) that doesn't mean that the way we are made to conduct it isn't reprehensible. The fact that pokemon and humans can interact, living and working together for mutual benefit, does not mean that enslaving any pokemon of your choosing and forcing it to do your bidding is somehow justifiable.
