Utilitarianism and Animal Husbandry - Killing Happy Animals: Explorations in Utilitarian Ethics - page 30

What can this justification be? For an action (including omission) to be
morally permissible, it must at least score equally well in terms of welfare
consequences as alternative options. Killing a happy animal is a welfare
loss, as compared to not killing it. So, it is impermissible, unless the loss
is at least compensated. Now, we have seen that in the case of animal
husbandry, possible ways of compensation as discussed under (a) and (b)
might not do the job. Let us assume that this is indeed the case: the welfare
loss due to the killing of happy animals is neither compensated by any
sufficiently high welfare gain, nor is it necessary in order to prevent an
even higher welfare loss. We seem to be stuck with a welfare loss. Are we?
Another way of compensating for the welfare loss caused by killing
happy animals in animal-friendly animal husbandry seems to be avail-
able. We have learned that utilitarianism is concerned with welfare,
and it does not matter whose welfare it is. The welfare loss of a being
can be compensated by welfare gains of another being . Now, in animal
husbandry, a new animal usually replaces every animal that is killed.
The existence of this new animal in a way depends on the killing of the
first. The whole idea of animal production is to turn animals into animal
products. This holds obviously in the case of meat production. Also in
case of the production of dairy and eggs, animals are used to produce
animal products and then killed. It is only because animals leave the
process by dying that new animals enter it. The killing of each animal
goes together with the production of a new animal, which would not
have otherwise existed. It has been suggested by utilitarians that adding
this new happy animal can be seen as an addition of a certain amount
of welfare, which can compensate for the welfare loss that is caused by
the killing of the previous animal. 31
This argument is called the Replaceability Argument. It presents an
alternative way of compensating for the welfare loss that is caused by
the killing of a happy animal. This argument reinforces one of the major
criticisms that has been brought forward against utilitarianism, to which
I shall now turn.
5 A major criticism of utilitarianism
A major criticism of utilitarianism that I want to mention here is known
as the 'separateness of persons' criticism. That criticism is usually traced
back to John Rawls (1921-2002), who in A Theory of Justice expressed the
following concern:
The most natural way, then, of arriving at utilitarianism...is to
adopt for society as a whole the principle of rational choice for one