Animals and the Harm of Death - Killing Happy Animals: Explorations in Utilitarian Ethics - page 34

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Animals and the Harm of Death
1 Introduction
Even if animals are accorded equal moral status, treating them differently
can be justified if they have different interests. From a utilitarian perspec-
tive, granting all sentient beings equal moral status means that their
welfare is taken equally into account. Imagine, for example, a woman who
has a child and a dog. Taking their welfare equally into account means to
provide them with the food and shelter they need. Taking their welfare
equally into account is compatible with sending the child to school, but
not the dog. The reason is that the dog would not benefit from being sent
to school. So, different interests can justify different treatment.
Can this fact about utilitarianism provide the clue for a defence of
animal-friendly animal husbandry? One might argue that both humans
and animals benefit from not being caused pain. However, one might
continue to argue, painlessly being killed harms humans, but not animals.
If this were the case, this would explain why we are not allowed to kick
an animal, while we are allowed to (painlessly) kill it. In this chapter,
I will explore the utilitarian stance on the question whether death is
indeed a lesser harm for animals than for human beings. We will see that
this is controversial. I will discuss the main utilitarian positions on the
harm of death and explore what these positions imply for the question
whether animal-friendly animal husbandry can be justified.
We are concerned with the harm that death is for the being that dies.
Effects on others are not considered. In order to capture the harm of
death as such, one should imagine that the being is killed painlessly
while asleep. In this way, fear of death and other otherwise impor-
tant side effects that death might have are left out of consideration.
Of course, these things count in a complete utilitarian calculus, but
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