Introduction - Killing Happy Animals: Explorations in Utilitarian Ethics - page 12

actual farm animals into the forests and keeping them in the farm. The
possibility of (gradually) stopping the production of farm animals and
animal husbandry is completely neglected and kept out of the discus-
sion. Therefore, this approach is unsuited for morally scrutinizing our
treatment of animals, including the practice of animal husbandry. 28
Yet others have defended the goal of animal-friendly animal husbandry
by depicting animal husbandry as a mutually beneficial endeavour,
which benefits both humans and the animals that are part of it. 29 The
underlying argument is that the animals in question have good lives,
and they wouldn't exist at all, if it weren't for our consumption. Thus,
or so it is claimed, they are benefited by those who consume them. This
argument, which is also defended by some utilitarians, will be discussed
later on in this topic (in Chapter 9). The argument assumes that having
a happy life is better for the animal than having no life at all. I argue in
Chapter 6 that such a comparison is not warranted.
Finally, some approaches take the idea of mutual benefit further and
claim that animal-friendly animal husbandry would be sanctioned by
an imaginary contract between humans and animals.
We could conceive of the (decent!) keeping of cows, pigs and sheep
for slaughter as a kind of contract between people and farm animals:
human beings care for the beasts, and the beasts give us their products,
such as milk and wool, and finally their lives. In exchange for good
care, their drink and food, cows, pigs and sheep finally give their lives
and we slaughter them for their meat. The contract between people
and farm animals gives duties. Humans have to do their part: care
well for the animals, don't reduce them to bio-machines, milk- and
meat machines; then the animals will give their lives for our meat. 30
At first glance such an approach may sound plausible. People care well
for the animals and get something in return. A problem with such an
approach is that it would need to be shown that animals agree with
a contract that sanctions their being used and killed. Furthermore, it
would need to be shown that making such a contract is ethical. If we
assume that presupposing such a contract with one's possible future
child would be unethical, it would have to be shown why it should be
ethical in the case of non-human animals.
This brief sketch shows that there are other approaches besides utili-
tarianism that have considered the question whether animal-friendly
animal husbandry is acceptable. In this topic, I will focus on utilitari-
anism because I want to explore whether the routine killing of happy