Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2019
A long-standing view holds that animals benefit from the fact that we eat them. So long as the animals in question are well treated, proponents of this view suggest, it is better for them to come into existence than not. If so, then we should embrace some form of meat eating to advance this outcome. The view is known as the Logic of the Larder, or the larder argument for short. In recent decades it has drawn support from arguments in population ethics that maintain that the best state of affairs is one in which well-being is maximized. I challenge the larder argument for creating food animals by defending a new principle applicable to population ethics. It holds that a necessary condition of an outcome being morally good (i.e., morally obligatory or supererogatory) is that failing to bring it about will be bad for someone. If this principle is true, then the Logic of the Larder is drained of its force, as the theory of population ethics on which it depends is not cogent. After defending my principle from objections I briefly discuss a variation of the Logic of the Larder argument put forward by Jeff McMahan.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.