Introduction - Killing Happy Animals: Explorations in Utilitarian Ethics - page 11

According to these approaches, the duty to care well for animals is not
strictly speaking something we owe to animals . Rather, not caring well
for animals is considered a shame for the human race and/or a sign
of disrespect for certain moral and spiritual realities. 26 Immanuel Kant
(1724-1804) is known for having suggested that mistreating animals
should be avoided because of its effects on humans. These lines of argu-
ment imply that any duties we might have with regard to the treatment
of animals are not duties towards the animals. Animals are not accorded
moral status. This is opposed to the idea that animal welfare matters
because it matters for animals.
Others have supported the goal of animal-friendly animal husbandry
on the basis of a kind of relational moral theory. Such a theory holds that
our moral duties towards others are based on the relationships that we
have with them. For instance, our relationship to pets is different from
our relationship to laboratory animals or to wild animals. Animals that
are kept in animal husbandry are considered a separate category. The
diverse practices are taken as a given. Any moral duties towards animals
are thought to arise from these practices. It is certainly true that, for
instance, a mouse is treated differently depending on whether it is seen
as a pet, a laboratory animal, or a pest. The question that this approach
faces is whether this differential treatment can be morally justified, and
if so, how. Critics may claim that such an approach is not suited for
critically assessing the very practices that are taken as a given. Such an
approach seems to preclude the question whether animal husbandry as
such is compatible with our moral duties towards animals.
The approach of the former Dutch minister of agriculture is illustra-
tive. She claims:
For me, it is a given that human beings keep animals and have
domesticated animals in the course of the time. This means that,
with respect to the kept animals, we cannot go back to the situation
with the appropriate natural behavior, in which the animals move
freely in nature and are being hunted as food for humans. 27
This starting point for a moral evaluation of animal husbandry restricts
beforehand what is accepted as a possible outcome of the moral evalu-
ation. The alleged arguments, however, do not provide a sufficient
justification for the practice of animal husbandry. It is a fact that some
humans are actually keeping animals and have domesticated them in
the course of history. This fact, however, does nothing to morally justify
the (current) practice of animal husbandry. Furthermore, it is misleading
to depict the situation as an oppositional choice between sending all