Most people agree that inflicting unnecessary suffering upon animals is wrong. Many fewer people, including among ethicists, agree that painlessly killing animals is necessarily wrong. The most commonly cited reason is that death (without pain, fear, distress) is not bad for them in a way that matters morally, or not as significantly as it does for persons, who are self-conscious, make long-term plans and have preferences about their own future. Animals, at least those that are not persons, lack a morally (...) significant interest in continuing to live. At the same time, some argue that existence itself can be good, insofar as one’s life is worth living. For animals, a good life can offset a quick, if early, death. So, it seems to follow that breeding happy animals that will be (prematurely) killed can be a good thing overall. Insofar as slaughter and sale makes it economically sustainable to raise new ones, who would otherwise not exist, raising and killing animals for food who will have lives worth living is good overall. It benefits them as well as consumers, and makes the world better by adding to the sum of happiness. The process of raising and killing animals with positive welfare produces a sequence of replacement that maintains or increases overall welfare, all else being equal (assuming in particular no overall negative impact on the welfare of other parties). Call this the Replaceability Argument (RA) and the ensuing controversy the Replaceability Problem (RP). This is a problem at the crossroads of the ethics of killing, agricultural ethics, procreation ethics, and population ethics. (shrink)

This article presents an argument for veganism, using a formal-axiomatic approach: a list of twenty axioms are explicitly stated. These axioms are all necessary conditions to derive the conclusion that veganism is a moral duty. The presented argument is a minimalist or core argument for veganism, because it is as parsimonious as possible, using the weakest conditions, the narrowest definitions, the most reliable empirical facts and the minimal assumptions necessary to reach the conclusion. If someone does not accept the conclusion, (...) logical consistency requires that s/he should be able to point at axiom on which s/he disagrees. The argument exposes hidden assumptions and provides a framework for an overview of the philosophical literature on animal rights and vegetarianism / veganism. (shrink)

Totalism states that one population is better than another iff it has higher total welfare. One counterintuitive consequence is the Repugnant Conclusion (RC). Totalism also entails that a very large population of animals with lives barely worth living is better than a smaller population of happier humans. Furthermore, the strategies that have been used to avoid the troubling normative implications of the RC do not work in the animal case, so we may have reason to bring about such a population. (...) I introduce the notion of ‘Efficiency of Welfare Production’ – that animals of different species vary in the efficiency with which they convert resources into welfare. If we want to maximize total welfare, without any speciesist bias, we should identify which species is most efficient and try to maximize the population of that species. This has counterintuitive implications whether we accept hedonism or a more sophisticated theory of welfare. (shrink)

This book explores the economic institutions that determine the nature of animal lives as systematically exploited objects traded in a market economy. It examines human roles and choice in the system, including the economic logic of agriculture, experimentation, and animal ownership, and analyses the marginalization of ethical action in the economic system. -/- Animals and the Economy demonstrates that individual consumers and farmers are often left with few truly animal-friendly choices. Ethical participants in the economy must either face down an (...) array of institutional barriers, or exit mainstream markets entirely. This book argues that these issues are not necessary elements of a market system, and evaluates a number of policy changes that could improve the lives of animals in the context of a market economy. (shrink)

In his reply to the Nobis-Graham review of Tibor Machan's book, Putting Humans First, John Altick defends Machan's and Rand's theories of moral rights, specifically as they relate to the rights of non-human animals and non-rational human beings. Nobis and Graham argue that Altick's defense fails and that it would be wrong to eat, wear, and experiment on non-rational—yet conscious and sentient—human beings. Since morally relevant differences between these kinds of humans and animals have not been identified to justify a (...) difference in treatment or consideration, it is wrong to harm animals for these purposes also. (shrink)