Conclusions - Killing Happy Animals: Explorations in Utilitarian Ethics - page 145

that those babies are granted pleasant lives and are killed painlessly, and
provided that nobody else suffers significantly from this practice, using
those babies as a source of spare organs might not only be morally justi-
fied, but even morally required as an option that maximises welfare. This
would just be another application of the Logic of the Larder.
Prior Existence Utilitarianism does not accept the Logic of the Larder.
In order to be a coherent utilitarian view, Prior Existence Utilitarianism
must deny that bringing an animal into existence can benefit that
animal. After all, Prior Existence Utilitarianism does not take into
account the welfare of contingent beings. This is only consistent with
the utilitarian duty to neutrally maximise welfare, if one evaluates
outcomes in terms of harms and benefits for sentient beings and if one
accepts that bringing a being into existence cannot harm or benefit
that being. Only then it makes sense to disregard the possible welfare
of contingent beings in striving for neutral welfare maximisation. Thus
Prior Existence Utilitarianism does not accept that bringing into exist-
ence can benefit a being. Killing a being that could otherwise have had a
pleasant life, harms that being. Therefore, Prior Existence Utilitarianism
does not accept the Logic of the Larder.
In conclusion, whether practices of killing and replacing animals,
such as meat and dairy production, aquaculture, sport hunting, sport
fishing or breeding animals for animal experimentation are accept-
able from within utilitarianism depends on whether one accepts Total
Utilitarianism or Prior Existence Utilitarianism. I have presented the
assumptions and implications of both versions of utilitarianism. In
short, Prior Existence Utilitarianism is not impersonal but truly person-
affecting. It provides animals, both human and non-human, a stronger
protection against killing.
Hence, in opposition to what is typically brought forward in the class-
rooms and in the literature, there is more to utilitarian animal ethics than
Singer's position. Utilitarianism is correctly recognised as being the moral
theory that, historically, has contributed most to the recognition of animal
suffering as an evil. However, the utilitarian concern with animals is not
restricted to the avoidance of suffering. Utilitarianism has the resources
to oppose the routine killing of animals as practiced in animal husbandry
and in the other above-mentioned practices of animal use.
2 Remaining questions
I have explored the assumptions and implications of Total Utilitarianism
and Prior Existence Utilitarianism. This might make one wonder which, if