Agriculture Reference
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animal after that time. The distribution for each animal is put in a sepa-
rate row.
The animal is killed and replaced by another animal at t
5
:
(Ω
1
, 4
2
, 4
3
, 4
4
, 4
5
, Ω
6
, Ω
7
, Ω
8
, Ω
9
, Ω
10
, Ω
11
Ω
1
, Ω
2
, Ω
3
, Ω
4
, Ω
5
, 4
6
, 4
7
, 4
8
, 4
9
,Ω
10
, Ω
11
)
This sequence of killing and replacing animals could go on, as the new
animal can be killed and replaced as well, and so on. The crux is that the
total amount of welfare remains unaffected by the killing, provided that
the killed animal is replaced, as illustrated above.
Utilitarianism in general holds that it is permissible to kill an animal
provided that this action maximizes welfare. The Replaceability
Argument takes into account the welfare that could be gained by adding
a new animal that would not otherwise exist. In other words: Killing an
animal with a pleasant life is permissible if and only if the lost welfare
is compensated by bringing into existence another animal, which is at
least as happy and would not otherwise have existed.
3 The conditions of the Replaceability Argument
After having offered a first idea of what the Replaceability Argument is
about, I will now strive for a more formal definition of the argument.
I will build on definitions that have been proposed by Sapontzis and
Pluhar, as these, to my knowledge, are the only formal definitions
that have been brought forward in the literature. Sapontzis defines the
Replaceability Argument as follows:
It is permissible,
ceteris paribus
, to use an animal and to kill it (for food
or research or anything else), provided that the following conditions are
met:
(a) the life of the animal is on balance a life worth living;
(b) the animal otherwise would have no life at all (would not exist); and
(c) the animal will be replaced, at or after death, by another animal in
the case of which conditions (a) and (b) hold.
2
I will explain why I will deviate from this definition. First, Sapontzis
suggests that the Replaceability Argument is about the permissibility of
'using and killing' an animal. Yet, I want to focus on the Replaceability
Argument as an argument for justifying the killing of animals. By talking
about using and killing, Sapontzis lumps together two arguments, which
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