Animals and the Harm of Death - Killing Happy Animals: Explorations in Utilitarian Ethics - page 37

and something for which there is no obvious motivation. Preference
utilitarianism should be formulated to cover only the former, as
follows: We should satisfy, to the greatest extent possible, the prefer-
ences a being has, except that we should not satisfy a preference that
results from errors of reasoning or errors about matters of fact. 5
So, adjusting actual desires for errors is sanctioned by the informed desire
account. Attributing desires to a being that is not capable of having any
desires, however, goes too far. I agree that attributing desires to a being
that is not capable of having any desires at all goes too far. After all,
the informed desire account is an account of welfare. Those who do
not have feelings and desires have no welfare at all, according to this
account. However, attributing the desire to stay alive to a being that
is capable of having desires does not go that far. It does not attribute
desires to a being that has none. Even if an animal does not consciously
or directly desire to stay alive because it has no concept of life and death,
it might desire other things. Staying alive might be instrumental for the
fulfilment of these desires. Ascribing desires to go on living goes further
than correcting existing desires for errors. It means taking into account
a desire of which the being in question is not aware, provided that the
fulfilment of that desire is instrumental for the fulfilment of the desires
of which the being is aware. It seems to me that this is not obviously
ruled out by preference utilitarianism. After all, staying alive can be
considered a preference the being has , even if it has this preference rather
implicitly. As I said, staying alive is instrumental for the fulfilment of
more explicit preferences.
A possible counterargument might be that some desires do not presup-
pose staying alive. Examples are the desire to stop hunger or the desire
for the cessation of pain. If this is what an animal desires, death might
serve this goal. 6 It seems to me that by desiring food animals do not only
desire the cessation of hunger. They do also desire the positive feeling
that goes together with fulfilling their desire for food. Fulfilling a desire
for food does not only cancel out a negative feeling, it can and usually
does add something positive. This holds for other seemingly 'negative'
experiential desires as well. Animals seem to positively enjoy what they
necessarily have to do. This positive aspect of fulfilment is missed if the
hunger problem is 'solved' by killing the animal. Furthermore, even if
some desires do not presuppose staying alive, others might. At least for
the fulfilment of these desires, staying alive would be instrumental.
Against the argument that even animals that have only short-term
desires have (instrumentally) the desire to stay alive, it can be said that