A Utilitarian Approach to Animal Consumption

By Hilmi Abou-Saleh

Should animals be sacrificed for our consumption? If so, to what extent should be indulge in this long practiced tradition.

I believe that humans should be free to eat any animals they desire, and the only circumstances which reckon it unacceptable are when the animal is killed unjustifiably or when the animal is not used to its complete extent (lots of waste). During the course of this paper I argue for a reduction of waste and redistribution of food to those who are struggling to make ends meet. I also argue about animal cruelty and how equality and justifiability are the two reasons to deem it acceptable to eat animals. While arguing against animal cruelty, a line is drawn such that vegetarianism while an option, is an option I am against. I finish by discussing a few issues with animal cruelty and why that is a major concern to individuals.

Humans produce an average waste of 10% per American household. This means every ten households you will have a family that can be fed. For simplicities sake there is a little over 100 million households in America. That is 10 million households that can be fed each month. There are roughly 5 million children that die each year to malnutrition. All of that wasted food in America can be used to feed those children and their families multiple times over. By taking James Rachel’s advice in reducing our overabundance of wasted food we can use the food to help those who need it. Thus increasing the quality of life in the world and additionally putting less strain on a lot of industries, such as waste and pollution. Waste and pollution is an issue that is becoming more problematic here in recent years as landfills fill-up. It’s catching up with us, and that 10% of waste can be used to help others, this means 10% of the trash we throw is going to good use. This is why I believe if an animal is killed it is to be used to its complete extent. When an animal is used to its full extent there will be no waste, so less strain on industries and a large portion on individuals who live in malnourished areas would be aided. To conclude this argument, I believe that in the circumstance that humans are to eat an animal, one of the conditions to deem it acceptable is that the animal must be used to its complete extent.

Rachels brings up another interesting point that Singer also argues for, animal cruelty. Both philosophers agree that animal cruelty is wrong, and both bring up reasons to become vegetarians. I argue to keep our choice in our food, however I agree that animals should be considered with equality and their sacrifice must be justifiable to make it acceptable to consume animals. Let us breakdown this statement by first looking at equality and then justifiability:

My view on equality is similar to the arguments against racism, and gender that Singer argues. Equality must be based on matters that are relevant. Let us suppose the opposite — Equality should be based on any matter that is irrelevant. For example, should a dog be given the right to vote? Of course not, because a dog can’t vote. So animals should be considered on things they can experience. Such as their ability to experience pain and pleasure. So by being considered with their ability to experience pain and pleasure an animal’s sacrifice must be done to greater benefit the society.

To benefit society as an overall is what I mean by justifiably. Singer argues in favor of a utilitarian system in which each member is not more important than another. However, suppose a scenario where 5 members of society are without food and are all starving. We have two options (1) they sacrifice one member and the four others live long enough with hope to find another food source, (2) they all die from malnutrition. Statement (1) would be considered utilitarian and would be justifiable. Statement (2) while still utilitarian would not be justifiable because the pleasure of one human isn’t greater than three others in any utilitarian system.

I believe animals should be treated with the same consideration. In the same scenario substitute one of the humans for a cow, with (1) those 4 members of society will have food for next few months, and have shelter and warm clothes. Taking a step back from this simple example in modern society, using an animals to its fullest extent could solve so many more problems (however would be very cost inefficient) such as poverty. Without reiterating what I stated earlier in this paper, the uses of a cow include some of the following: fertilizer, paper, toothbrushes, soaps, some medicines. The uses of cattle are endless and would be extremely helpful to underprivileged areas. Unfortunately a good portion of the cattle that is harvested today is used only for a singular purpose, the rest is left to rot. While this may seem as an overall gain to society, in reality this puts a scarcity on certain parts of cows which are not as cost effective and makes simple things like toothbrushes and soap expensive if not nonexistent to those in poor areas. In the second scenario where all the humans perish and the cow dies eventually, that cow’s life is not worth any more than anyone else, so therefore it is wasteful to allow three humans to die, for one third of the pleasure possible in example (1). So by justifiably sacrificing an animal under circumstances that the animal is considered equally I believe that it is acceptable to eat the animal.

Finally I would like to bring to light a few issues with animal cruelty. Earlier I argued for equal consideration for experience between animals, humans or not. So when we take a utilitarian approach to this and consider each individual equal in weight. Using this approach, and sort of cruelty or harm to an animal must be justified. On average more than 56 billion animals die every year for our consumption, of that 56 billion, 3.9 billion animals die in slaughterhouses inhumanely. 3.9 billion animals is not quite the world’s population, but this number is excluding sea creatures, so for the sake of this argument let us conservatively say that the world’s population is equal to those animals that are inhumanely slaughtered for our sake. Let us also suppose that each individual is living their life with a net balance of pleasure. This means that each and every human’s pleasure is balanced by the pain and suffering of the animals we are killing. Now obviously there are some humans whose lives end with a net experience of more pain than pleasure. Therefore this makes what we are doing on the world just through the killing of animals inhumanely causing a more pain then pleasure. That is a very valid reason to be vegetarian! However by simply killing animals justifiably and using the animal to its complete extent we completely get rid of this problem. The animal’s net balance of pleasure and pain when considered by their experiences in humane facilities will be leaning towards pleasure. Now obviously we can’t define what an animal enjoys very well, but we do have a pretty thorough understanding of how they behave in the wild and we can use that as a criteria to judge what an animal finds as pleasure and what I define as humane. So ultimately by treating animals humanely, considering their experiences equally and approaching this utilitarianly, it makes sacrificing animals more justifiable which results in what I believe as an acceptable approach to eat animals.

So should animals be sacrificed for our own consumption? Definitely, we should be indulging in the practices our ancestors all practiced. As our population increases, our footprint on this earth increases, and as such we should be more aware of the waste we produce. So killing animals is becoming substantially more of an issue with respect to leaving waste. Additionally when sacrificing an animal, its life’s experience should be considered equal to that of a humans, all while justifiably killing animal. So ultimately when viewed through the lens that each animal, human or not, is equal and the animal is killed justifiably and used completely it should definitely be deemed acceptable for our own consumption.