Veganism versus Animal-Friendly Animal Husbandry - Killing Happy Animals: Explorations in Utilitarian Ethics - page 131

The Logic of the Larder is compatible with Total Utilitarianism. If
proponents of Total Utilitarianism also believe that causing a being to
exist can benefit or harm that being, then they will accept the Logic
of the Larder. If proponents of Total Utilitarianism do not believe that
causing an animal to exist can benefit that animal, then they will still
hold that adding happy animals to the world is obligatory, if it is the
most efficient way of maximising the quantity of welfare in the world.
They will, as it were, accept an impersonal version of the Logic of the
Larder: even if adding happy animals to the world does not benefit those
animals, it is a morally good thing to do, if it maximizes the overall
quantity of welfare in the world.
When we ask ourselves whether it is morally acceptable to keep and
kill animals, the possible animals in question do not yet exist. Whether
they will exist depends on our answer to the very question we are
contemplating. Thus, those animals are contingent beings. Proponents
of the Logic of the Larder presuppose that the possible welfare of
contingent beings counts. This is the same presupposition on which
the Replaceability Argument is based: the Total View. It is denied by
the Prior Existence View, which does not count the possible welfare of
contingent beings. Thus, the Logic of the Larder is compatible with Total
Utilitarianism but incompatible with Prior Existence Utilitarianism.
Total utilitarians may, however, dismiss the Logic of the Larder for
practical reasons. For instance, Peter Singer dismisses a corresponding
argument by the nineteenth-century British philosopher Leslie Stephen,
who wrote:
Of all the arguments of Vegetarianism none is so weak as the argu-
ment from humanity. The pig has a stronger interest than anyone in
the demand for bacon. If all the world were Jewish, there would be
no pigs at all. 7
Singer responds to Stephen's argument by pointing out that animals do
usually not lead pleasant lives in animal husbandry. Furthermore, Singer
explains that proponents of this argument should not defend animal
husbandry at all, because 'with the possible exception of arid areas suit-
able only for pasture, the surface of our globe can support more people if
we grow plant foods than if we raise animals.' 8 Furthermore, according to
Singer, a greater number of happy animals could live if one reduced the
number of human beings in favour of a greater number of happy mice.
Remarkably, Singer does not distinguish between the Logic of the
Larder and the Replaceability Argument. Singer claims that one 'may call