Animals and the Harm of Death - Killing Happy Animals: Explorations in Utilitarian Ethics - page 38

when these animals are asleep, they might not have these short-term
desires. Thus while asleep they do not retain desires. Unlike persons, they
do not have any desires for the time after they have woken up. So, killing
them while asleep would not frustrate any desires. Killing these animals
painlessly while asleep would indeed not frustrate any desires if these
animals do really not have any desires while asleep. Obviously, animals
do not have conscious desires while they are sleeping (unless they have
them in their dreams). However, desires that are not in the forefront of
one's mind count as well. The animal might have such desires: it might
desire do go on sleeping, to stay in the company of others (such as parents
or offspring) to smell or feel certain things (such as the warmth of the
sun). There always seem to be at least some dispositional desires. Staying
alive is instrumental for the fulfilment of these desires.
So far, I have described a prominent account on the harm of death, based
on the desire-fulfilment account of welfare. According to this account,
death is a lesser harm to animals because they lack the desire to go on
living and have little or no other future-oriented desires. I have shown that
it can be questioned whether the desire account must deny that animals
desire to go on living. After all, the account does not focus on actual desires,
but on 'ideal' desires. Thus, for instance, desires are corrected for errors
of reasoning or errors about matters of fact. Furthermore, dispositional
desires are taken into account along with actual desires. One might also
take into account implicit desires, if their fulfilment is instrumental for the
fulfilment of other desires that the being has. Even animals that lack the
conception of life and death but desire other things have an implicit desire
to go on living, which can be taken into account. As animals have at least
some desires, including dispositional desires while being asleep, and - if
one is willing to accept this - also an implicit desire to go on living, death
harms them. However, if the harm of death is defined in terms of the frus-
tration of the desires that the being has when killed, it is true that those
with less or weaker frustrated desires are harmed less by death. Therefore,
according to this account, death is a lesser harm for animals (as well as for
babies, infants, and some mentally less developed people).
An alternative account of the harm of death does not focus on the
frustration of what the being wants at the moment of its death, but on
the loss of what would have been valuable for the being. This alternative
account of the harm of death is compatible with the desire-satisfaction
account of welfare, and also with every other account of welfare. Thus,
unlike the account that has been presented above, the alternative to be
presented in the following section is not linked to any particular view
of welfare.