Does Ethical Meat Eating Maximize Utility?

In this paper, I argue that utilitarian vegetarians are obligated to substi-tute for some ofthe commercially harvested vegetables they consume themeat of grazing animals and any home-grown vegetables they can pro-duce. The argument in brief is that such a policy would generate moresatisfaction of desire in humans and animals than either our present prac-tices or universal vegetarianism would generate.

I first define my terms, make clear my background assumptions, statethe argument, and discuss its premises. Then I summarize the utilitariancase for vegetarianism, construct a response on behalf of utilitarian vege-tarians, and show how the response fails to make the case for vegetarian-ism. Finally, I show that, absent specific evidence of disutility, the prac-tice of eating a small supply of grazing animals coupled with an other-wise universal vegetarianism will maximize the probability of achievingthe most favorable balance of pleasure over pain.

Terminology

When I use "animals" I have in mind mammals, birds, reptiles, and am-phibians to the extent that they are sensate. By "grazing animals," I meanbeef cattle, goats, and sheep. "Factory farms" refers to those plants wherelarge numbers of animals, who live a miserable and even terrified exis-tence, are raised in confined spaces for purposes of minimizing the costsof meat production. By "utilitarianism" and its cognates, I mean the viewthat we are morally obligated to choose the policy affording the greatestsatisfaction of desires of humans and animals, though I leave open thequestion of whether any given animal desire has the same value as anyhuman desire. When I make claims about a policy having a utilitarianjustification or bringing about the greatest satisfaction of desire or great-est amount of pleasure, the claims apply to totalist and averagist com-parisons of utility between two policies. Comparisons of the latter takeinto consideration only the overall difference in satisfaction of desires,regardless of how many or few animals and humans experience them,whereas averagist comparisons take into account only the average

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amount of pleasure generated for each animal and human.I argue that, on utilitarian grounds, a diet morally superior to univer-

sal vegetarianism is what I dub "ethical meat eating." It consists inchanging our eating habits so that we eliminate factory farms and sup-plement our diet of commercially harvested vegetables with any home-grown vegetables we can feasibly raise and with a small supply of themeat of grazing animals (well treated and relatively painlessly killed).Harvesting home-grown vegetables, as we will see, does not have thedeleterious effects that commercial vegetable harvesting does, and thesupply of meat must be small because too great a reliance on grazinganimals would reduce the food supply due to the inefficiency of animalprotein conversion.' In other words, once the number of grazing animalsbecomes too great, raising grazing animals for painless slaughter loses itsutilitarian justification.

Background Assumptions

My argument makes three background assumptions. One has to do withthe availability and suitability of land for commercial harvesting of vege-tables; another, with the necessity for commercial harvesting of crops foruniversal vegetarianism; the last, with transition costs. First, I presumethat, of all the land available for agriculture, it is all suitable either forraising vegetables for humans or for allowing animals to graze. My ar-gument offers a solution as to how best to allocate land available for ei-ther purpose interchangeably. However, there appears to be some mar-ginal land that is suitable only for grazing but not for crops that humanscan consume.^ Nevertheless, I ignore this favorable prospect to face themore difficult question of how to trade off harvesting vegetables for hu-mans with pastureland for grazing animals.

Second, I assume that there is no way to provide sufficient vegetableprotein for a universal vegetarian diet other than by commercial harvest-ing (which has adverse effects on the environment, which I describe ingreater detail later). Should we discover a way of meeting such proteinrequirements without having the deleterious effects of commercial har-vesting, then the problem raised here would disappear.

'"U.S. livestock, in addition to consuming forage, eat an estimated 20.5 million tonsof plant protein suitable for human consumption. These livestock in tum produce 6.4million tons of animal protein." David Pimentel and Marcia Pimentel (eds.). Food, En-ergy, and Society, rev. ed. (Niwot, Colo.: University Press of Colorado, 1996), p. 78.

^"Cattle, sheep, and goats will continue to be of value because they convert grassesand shrubs on pastures and rangeland into food suitable for humans. Without livestock,humans cannot make use of this type of vegetation on marginal lands." Pimentel andPimentel (eds.). Food, Energy, and Society, p. 290.

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Third, I presume from a utilitarian perspective that costs of makingthe transition from present factory farm practices to an ethical meat eat-ing arrangement will not be so great as to outweigh the benefit. Herebriefiy are good though not definitive reasons for making this presump-tion. There are three types of transition costs: greater pain to animals,greater pain to humans, and other morally undesirable effects. Now, fromthe utilitarian perspective the last category is an empty set, since onlypain and pleasure are relevant. There are no significant costs in the firstcategory, because given the avoidance of pain associated with factoryfarms (along with whatever inconsiderable pleasure factory farm animalsexperienced) and the enjoyment grazing animals experience, there shouldbe a higher total pleasure for animals in the transition. Moreover, assum-ing the grazing animals live lives on average at least as satisfying as thelives of presently existing animals, there are no significant transitioncosts to animals from the averagist perspective. Though many meat-eating humans, accustomed to cheap meat fi-om factory farms, could ex-perience a decline in average and overall happiness, some at least willaccept a more limited diet knowing that the animals whose meat theyconsume do not suffer as the factory farm raised animals did. However,vegetarians and vegans will be quite content during the transition. I pre-sume, then, that the avoidance of animal pain, the pleasure that grazinganimals experience, and the contentment of vegetarians will outweigh thefrustration meat eaters experience in the transition.

The Argument

The argument for ethical meat eating has two premises, the truth of bothof which it is the purpose of this paper to show.

(1) We are morally obligated to adopt any practice that would maximizethe likelihood of the greatest satisfaction of desires of animals andhumans.

(2) Without sacrificing anything of greater moral value, ethical meateating would most likely reduce animal suffering and increase hu-man and animal pleasure more than either (a) universal vegetarian-ism or (b) present dietary practices.

(3) Therefore, we are morally obligated to adopt a policy of ethicalmeat eating.

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Discussion of the Premises

Premise 1 is couched in terms of likelihoods because I presume that therecannot be certainty in predicting the consequences of policies on humansand animals but that utilitarianism morally obligates us to adopt policiesthat maximize the likelihood of bringing about the greatest satisfaction ofdesire. This premise presupposes that there is some point at which thetotal amount of pain animals must endure becomes too great to justify theresulting small amount of human pleasure. Thus, premise 1 remainsplausible to utilitarians whether they accept or reject an "equality of in-terests" principle, which values animal pleasure equally as highly as hu-man pleasure.^ Mill, of course, did not subscribe to an equalify of inter-ests principle, though his distinction between higher and lower pleasureshas arguably speciesist overtones."*

The second premise is true if the policy of ethical meat eating wouldmost likely result in a balance of pleasure over pain more favorable thanthe balance resulting from either (a) present meat eating practices or (b) apolicy of universal vegetarianism. The case for the superiority of ethicalmeat eating is twofold: it would eliminate the suffering caused by factoryfarms in (a) and decrease the suffering of field animals during harvestingand cultivation of food crops in (b). Peter Singer has already made thecase against (a) by detailing the well documented animal suffering ac-companying the factory farms.^ Thus, the absence of factory farms underan ethical meat eating policy means, thanks to Singer's arguments, thatethical meat eating would most likely increase desire satisfaction morethan present practices. Because grazing animals would exist under ethicalmeat eating but not under universal vegetarianism, ethical meat eatingeliminates some suffering imposed by universal vegetarianism (whichwould disturb more field animals on land that would be undisturbed aspastureland in an ethical meat eating society) while adding pleasure (en-joyed by the grazing animals who would not otherwise exist and by the

'Bentham argued that the pain of animals should have equal status: "The day maycome, when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never couldhave been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny ... But a full-grown horse ordog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than aninfant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old. But suppose the case were otherwise,what would it avail? The question is not. Can they reason? nor. Can they talk? but. Canthey suffer?" Jeremy Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation , chap. 17, sec. 1, n.2, http://www.constitution.org/jb/pml_l 7.htm.

•"For Mill, the lower pleasures are the "beast's pleasures," and those who enjoy thelower pleasures are "lower animals," the "ignoramus," "the fool, the dunce, or the ras-cal," whereas those who enjoy the higher pleasures include the "intelligent human being,""instructed person," and "person of feeling and conscience." John Stuart Mill, Utilitari-anism, ed. Oskar Priest (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957), pp. 12-13.

^ Peter Singer, Animal Liberation (New York: Avon Books, 1975), pp. 96-132.

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meat eaters). In other words, ethical meat eating reduces the sufferingthat field animals undergo because cultivators and harrows destroy fewerdens and burrows and entangle fewer animals in the blades, and it bringsgrazing animals into a world in which they would satisfy their desire tograze and satisfy the desires of humans who enjoy raising them or thetaste of their meat or both. These significant utilitarian advantages de-serve further discussion.

First, ethical meat eating avoids some of the suffering and painfuldeaths in the plowing, planting, and mowing required for commercialharvesting of vegetables. The animals living in the fields where vegeta-bles are harvested include "opossum, rock dove, house sparrow, Euro-pean starling, black rat, Norway rat, house mouse, Chukar, gray par-tridge, ring-necked pheasant, wild turkey, cottontail rabbit, gray-tailedvole, and numerous species of amphibians."^ The harvesting operationsinclude plowing, disking, harrowing, planting, cultivating, applying her-bicides and pesticides as well as harvesting. "Although accurate esti-mates of the total number of animals killed by different agronomic prac-tices from plowing to harvesting are not available, some studies showthat the numbers are quite large."^ One study documented that a singleoperation, mowing alfalfa, caused a 50 percent reduction in the gray-tailed vole population.^ On the other hand, on land devoted to grazing, nofield animals would suffer from the effects of harvesting machines, andeven though there will be some harvesting of forage for grazing animals,field animals will suffer less than they would living on land devoted tocommercial harvesting, because "pasture forage production requiresfewer passages through the fields with tractors and other farm equip-ment."'

One scientist calculated that 450,000,000 fewer animal deaths wouldoccur each year in the U.S. under a system in which half the land avail-able for harvesting was devoted to raising grazing animals for slaughter(with the other half devoted to crops for humans) than under a veganmodel in which all the land was devoted to harvesting plants for humanconsumption.'" It is unclear whether such a high percentage of land couldbe set aside for grazing animals and still supply sufficient protein to the

Steven L. Davis, "The Least Harm Principle May Require that Humans Consume aDiet Containing Large Herbivores, Not a Vegan Diet," Journal of Agricultural and Envi-ronmental Ethics 16 (2003): 387-94, p. 389. The amphibians that Davis has in mind heremay not be "animals" in my usage ofthe term if they are not sensate.

'Ibid.*Ibid., citing W.D. Edge, "Wildlife of Agriculture, Pastures, and Mixed Environs," in

D.H. Johnson and T.A. O'Neill (eds.), Wildlife-Habitat Relationships in Oregon andWashington (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2000), pp. 342-60.

'Davis, "The Least Harm Principle," p 390'"Ibid.

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human population, but the calculation serves to remind us of the highutilitarian cost paid for a vegan diet, in view ofthe fact that the deaths offield animals will be painful."

In addition to reducing the suffering of field animals due to the com-mercial growing and harvesting of vegetables, ethical meat eating wouldadd to the balance of satisfaction of desire the pleasure that otherwisenonexistent grazing animals experience, the pleasure that the humanswho enjoy raising them would take, and the pleasure that those humanseating them would experience. The grazing animals would be painlesslykilled, would take some pleasure in their lifetimes, and would give addi-tional pleasure to ethical meat eaters. Their lives would be similar inmorally relevant respects to the lives of free range chickens, whose eggsutilitarian vegetarians do not object to eating. Singer, for example, saysthat "the ethical objections ... are relatively minor." "They will be killedwhen they cease to lay productively, but they will have a pleasant exis-tence until that time."'^

We can conclude that ethical meat eating would achieve greater de-sire satisfaction than vegetarianism, whether one holds a totalist or aver-agist view of utilitarianism. In contrast to universal vegetarianism, itwould increase the total number of animals, the additional animals wouldhave positive levels of utility, and their existence would raise the overallpleasure of humans, since some humans would enjoy the pleasure of eat-ing meat that they would forgo under universal vegetarianism. Total util-ity would be higher than it is under present practices for a different rea-son, namely, the absence of factory farms. Though factory farms increasethe total number of animals in the world and satisfy the desires of largernumbers of meat eaters, the negative utility that the miserable conditionson the farms creates is not likely in the long run to raise total utility towhat is enjoyed in a world of ethical meat eaters.

Average utilify will be greater under ethical meat eating than in eitheraltemative for similar reasons. On the one hand, factory farms under pre-sent practices depress average utility below the average for any altema-tive without such farms, because the farms produce negative utility forthe animals and there are many more animals over whose lifetimes wemust calculate the average than in either altemative. The only positiveutility of factory farms is the easy satisfaction of the human taste formeat. But it is clear that there will be less frustration of this desire onaverage in an ethical meat eating sociefy than under universal vegetarian-

" Presumably, the field animals killed or frightened by the machinery will enduremore pain than they would if the land on which they lived were devoted to grazing.Though this cannot be known precisely, I present reasons for believing it to be tme in thelast paragraph of this essay.

Singer, Animal Liberation, p. 180.

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ism, which causes field animals to experience much more negative utilifythan they would living in pasturelands that would be more plentiful in asociefy of ethical meat eaters. In addition, grazing animals will enjoylives relatively undisturbed, so their existence should raise average util-ify.

Now, it might be said that there is no philosophical issue here, be-cause the problem disappears once advanced technology permits raisingvegetables commercially without causing field animals to suffer. How-ever, even if the situation becomes moot, it nonetheless raises an interest-ing utilitarian question that is worthy of philosophical analysis. Whethera problem raises philosophical issues should not depend on the possibil-ity that the problem will disappear due to advances in technology, or inthis case due to sophisticated agricultural techniques.

Though of philosophical interest, it might be said that this will nolonger be a pressing live issue should a way of harvesting vegetableswithout causing suffering to field animals be discovered. However, theissue remains live until that discovery, and the more remote the prospectof that discovery the more pressing the issue. There is no reason to be-lieve a method of commercially harvesting vegetables that causes no suf-fering to field animals will ever be found. There is no effort underway todiscover such a method. Even a reduction in the suffering of field ani-mals will not remove their welfare from the utilitarian calculus. The con-cems raised here are unlikely ever to be entirely moot.

Despite all the calculations that favor ethical meat eating, utilitarianvegetarians still have misgivings about eating the meat of animals whoare not mistreated, but I will show that these qualms do not alter the bal-ance of pleasure and pain I have described here. Let us first lay out theutilitarian argument for vegetarianism. We will then address misgivingsthat utilitarian vegetarians have about meat eating.

The Utilitarian Vegetarian Response

Singer's arguments provide a basis for a totalist utilitarian case for ethi-cal meat eating. First, he makes it clear that he subscribes to classicalutilitarianism, which "aims at minimizing pain and maximizing pleas-ure."'^ Second, he subscribes to the principle of "equalify of interests,"that human and nonhuman interests must have equal weight in the calcu-lus of determining overall pleasure and pain: "the interests of every beingaffected by an action are to be taken into account and given the same

"Peter Singer, "Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism," Philosophy and Public Affairs 9(1980): 325-37, p. 328.

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weight as the interests of every other being ..."''' The willingness ofsome utilitarians to weigh the desires of animals equally in the balancecan be traced as far back as Bentham.''

Given these principles. Singer believes the first question to answer is"whether the undoubted suffering caused animals by the present systemis enough to outweigh both the pleasures people get from eating animalsand the dismption abolishing factory farms would cause ..." ThatSinger balances total animal suffering in factory farms against the dis-utilify of abolition ofthe farms shows that total utilify rather than averageutilify is the measure of whether the overall balance of pleasure is favor-able. Though he cannot prove that overall utilify will be higher, he as-serts that he has begun to make the calculations and is confident that thequestion has an affirmative answer.

Next, Singer asks what we should do once we have made the calcula-tions. His answer is that we are obligated to be vegetarian because beingvegetarian "is the most practical and effective step one can take towardending both the killing of nonhuman animals and the infliction of suffer-ing upon them,"" thereby promoting the greatest overall desire satisfac-tion. On his view, vegetarianism "is a form of boycott,"'^ and is morallyanalogous to consumer boycotts of "lettuce and grapes, because the sys-tem under which those particular lettuces and grapes had been producedexploited farm laborers ..." ' '

We can summarize his use of these principles as follows.

51. If raising animals for slaughter only to be eaten by humans is wrongfrom the utilitarian perspective, then we ought to boycott the practiceof raising animals for slaughter.

52. Being a vegetarian is the best way to boycott the raising of animalsfor slaughter.

53. If SI and S2 are true, then we ought to be vegetarians.

54. Therefore, we ought to be vegetarians.

Let us note briefly the justification for each premise. SI merely sets out acondition sufficient to obligate utilitarians. S2 is the factual premise set-ting out the optimal way to stop or reduce the raising of animals for

'"Singer, "Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism," pp. 328-29.''See n. 3 above."Singer, "Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism," p. 332.'^Singer, Animal Liberation, p. 165.'*Ibid.,p. 166."ibid., p. 167.

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slaughter. The justification for S3 is a mle something like the following:if we ought to do A, and M is the only means of achieving A, then weought to do M.

How the Argument is Mistaken

All these premises are flawed. If SI is tme, it is only because both theantecedent and consequent are false, reducing it to trivialify. Raisinganimals for slaughter is not wrong on utilitarian grounds so long as thereis a favorable balance of pleasure over pain. But even if there were nosuch favorable balance, it does not follow that utilitarians should boycottall practices of raising animals for slaughter. Indeed, utilitarians shouldencourage practices with a favorable balance of pleasure over pain. S2,claiming that being vegetarian is the most effective way to boycott rais-ing animals for slaughter, ignores the pain inflicted on field animals inproviding additional vegetables for vegetarians and the pleasures thatgrazing animals and eaters of their meat experience. S3, though correctin holding that the tmth of SI and S2 obligates us to be vegetarians, em-bodies in its antecedent the flaws in SI and S2, ignoring the cost to fieldanimals and the pleasures that grazing animals and their consumers ex-perience. Throughout the premises. Singer's preoccupation with the painof animals raised for slaughter interferes with a full appreciation of boththe pain that commercial harvesting of vegetables causes field animalsand the pleasures associated with human consumption of painlesslyslaughtered grazing animals.

We should note that the mere fact that an animal dies is not of utilitar-ian signiflcance. What counts is whether the animal's death renders theworld happier overall when it dies. For a totalist utilitarian such asSinger, it would be wrong to kill the animal if and only if the total desiresatisfaction would have been greater had the animal been allowed to livelonger. Hence, Singer's preoccupation with killing large numbers ofanimals, whether in the slaughterhouse or in the fleld, is misplaced froma utilitarian perspective, because death in itself is not a disutilify. Even ifthis were not so, the important utilitarian consideration is the pleasurethat occurs during the animal's lifetime.

Further Qualms about Ethical Meat Eating

Two utilitarian worries about ethical meat eating are that ethical meateating cannot provide a commercial source of meat and that pursuingsuch a policy could lead us down a slippery slope that retums us tofactory farms. Singer expresses the flrst qualm this way. "Now while I

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accept that in certain circumstances there may be no direct utilitarian ob-jection to the use of some kinds of animals for food, these are not thecircumstances of those of us who must rely on the usual commercialsources of meat."^° His version ofthe slippery slope argument is that "nomatter how humane our original intentions, as long as we continue to eatanimals there is a danger of our sliding back into the methods of treatinganimals in use today."

However, neither of these misgivings constitutes a sacrifice of any-thing of significant utilitarian value. His slippery slope argument refersto two different risks: the risk that a society might backslide or the riskthat an individual might. One risk is that a society that adopts ethicalmeat eating could backslide into allowing factory farms. The other is thatethical meat eaters living in a society with factory farms might cease toresist the temptation to buy the meat of animals raised on factory farms. Iam more concerned with the first risk, but the mistake is the same inboth: concem about backsliding does not of itself entail disutility. It canof course lead to disutility, but whether that has utilitarian significancedepends on probabilities. There is no real risk of disutility in the secondsense so long as consumers discriminate between the meat of grazinganimals and that of animals raised on factory farms. And Singer ex-presses no such qualms about ethical vegetarians making discriminationsin relevantly similar contexts. For example, the procedure he recom-mends for determining whether eggs sold in stores were laid by freeranging chickens is quite burdensome, but he nevertheless trusts hisreaders to do their research.^^ Similarly, a society that abolishes factoryfarms in favor of ethical meat eating might backslide into one with fac-tory farms just as a vegetarian society might, but there is no reason tobelieve that the risk of backsliding is greater for one society than for theother. If there were a reason, then that would be one utilitarian considera-tion among many in preferring one practice to the other. Absent specificevidence of a greater risk in one case than in the other, there is no reasonto give greater weight to this possibility in the utilitarian evaluation ofethical meat eating. Hence, his slippery slope worry does not render ethi-cal meat eating any less attractive from a utilitarian point of view.

^"Singer, "Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism," p. 331.^'Ibid, p. 332."He tells his readers "to ask your health food shop for the name and address of their

supplier and check it [the claim that the eggs are free range] out." Singer, Animal Libera-tion, p. 180. In short, the ethical meat eater faces the same quandary that Singer believesthe ethical vegetarian faces: the boycott of factory farm meat may not eliminate the prac-tice; similarly, the boycott of both commercially raised vegetables and factory farm meatmay not eliminate both practices. We can expect that the prospect of an ultimately unsuc-cessful boycott will have the same utilitarian value for the ethical meat eater as for theethical vegetarian.

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The utilitarian significance of his first misgiving cited above that wecannot utilize the usual commercial sources to obtain meat from welltreated animals—is not clear. As with the worry about backsliding, itmight be a concem relevant to adopting universal vegetarianism or' toindividuals living in a society with factory farms who choose to be ethi-cal meat eaters. On the former interpretation, its upshot may be that it isimpossible to satisfy the demand for meat with the limited supply thatethical meat eating affords. To be a significant utilitarian objection, wemust suppose that the demand for meat is quite strong; if it were notthen the limited supply should be sufficient to satisfy the demand. Givena strong demand and a limited supply, there needs to be some system ofrationing, which entails some disutility. As such, this needs to be takeninto account in choosing between ethical meat eating and universal vege-tarianism. However, absent specific evidence to the contrary about hu-man demand for animal meat, there should be less disutility in a societyof ethical meat eaters than in a vegetarian society. This is because ofthefollowing: partial satisfaction of a strong demand for any commodity Centails less disutility than total refiisal to satisfy the demand for C, ceterisparibus. An example might be the disutility entailed by regulated con-sumption of alcoholic beverages, as opposed to total prohibition.^^

The upshot of this concem, interpreted as a worry about individual meat eaters isunclear, but there are several possibilities: it could be that (1) ethical meat eaters have' topay more for their meat, (2) they have to be creative in satisfying dietary needs or (3)ethical meat eating will have little effect on the practice of factory farms None of theseexpresses a sacnfice of anything of significant utilitarian value. The higher price is notsignificant in itself. Indeed, eggs from free-ranging chickens have a higher price thanthose from caged animals, but that fact is not for Singer a serious objection to purchasingthem. Nor is the creativity required for this kind of diet significant. Singer is not deterredfrom his own commitment to vegetarianism by the creativity necessary for it Rather thanexpress similar qualms about the commitment required, he includes recipes in his Appen-dix to assist the reader.

The third interpretation is more meaningful: even though the ethical meat eater isparticipating in the boycott of meat from factory farms, such discrimination will havelittle effect. This might seem significant fi-om a utilitarian standpoint, but Singer is confi-dent that a boycott has value even if it is unsuccessf\jl in eliminating the practice boy-cotted. Interestingly, Singer reassures his readers who might be discouraged by the lackof success of a boycott that perseverance would be worthwhile. He says for examplethat "we do achieve something by our individual acts, even ifa boycott as a whole shouldnot succeed." He is confident that individual acts do have an effect. "Although we cannotIdentify any individual animals whom we have benefited by becoming vegetarian, we canassume that our diet has some impact on the number of animals raised in factoA' farmsand slaughtered for food." Singer, Animal Liberation, p. 168.

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Limited Land Use and Other Unknowns

In sum, totalist utilitarians such as Singer should accept the argument forethical meat eating. Qualms about ethical meat eating do not rise to thelevel of serious utilitarian problems for the proposal. Utilitarians adopt-ing ethical meat eating would devote only a small percentage of land tograzing, because devoting too much land to it would risk starvation dueto the inefficiencies of animal protein conversion compared to plant pro-tein. Nevertheless, given efficiencies in food crop harvesting, the diffi-culties in planting food crops on some land that can be used for grazing,and other contingencies, society could devote some limited amount ofland to grazing. If it did so, the result would most likely be greater total(and average) utility than under universal vegetarianism.

Universal vegetarianism will always require harvesting more cropsfor human consumption than would ethical meat eating pursued in a utili-tarian way, and hence will always entail greater disutility. Analysis of aspecific example will reveal the more general point. If, under a policy ofethical meat eating, we devoted some small percentage of land, for ex-ample, 20 percent of land that would otherwise have been devoted tofood crops under vegetarianism, the ethical meat eating policy would besuperior from a utilitarian perspective. The additional pleasure to fieldanimals, grazing animals, and humans would be sufficient to outweighwhatever unhappiness ethical meat eating would cause, because the pol-icy would result in 20 percent fewer field animals suffering painful deathor injury from harvesters and tractors, and, in addition, grazing animalswould experience pleasure they would not experience under universalvegetarianism (since they would not exist in such a world), and meat eat-ing humans would enjoy pleasure they would not have under universalvegetarianism. Now, if the percentage of land devoted to grazing rises sohigh that there is not enough food for the human population, the total oraverage utility would decline. However, so long as the percentage ofgrazing land remains low, it would appear likely that total and averagedesire satisfaction will always be greater.

We can therefore say with reasonable confidence that if a small per-centage of agricultural land is devoted to grazing animals while the restis devoted to harvesting vegetables, greater utility will result than fromuniversal vegetarianism, because we could meet human nutritional needs,all the while increasing both human and animal pleasure more than wewould satisfying those needs under universal vegetarianism. Now, thereare other relevant utilitarian factors that one can question in the scenarioI have painted for a society of ethical meat eaters, but ethical meat eatingshould nevertheless hold the best prospect for achieving the most favor-able balance of pleasures over pain. The following is a helpful rule of

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thumb in situations like this where some relevant information is notavailable: if a utilitarian must choose between two practices, X and Y,and there is reason to believe that practice X will most likely have moreutility than practice Y and no reason to believe otherwise, the utilitarianought to adopt X. Unknown but relevant to our utilitarian calculus is thedifference between the pleasure and pain that field animals who are ex-posed to predators in pasturelands will experience and what pleasure andpain they would experience living in cropland exposed to tractors andharvesters. There are undoubtedly other unknowns, but utilitarians mustnevertheless choose what is most likely to lead to the greatest desire sat-isfaction. By choosing ethical meat eating and setting aside a small per-centage of land for grazing, we risk setting aside too small a percentagewith the result that more animals could have been consumed had the pas-tureland been larger, but that result is preferable to setting aside toomuch land for pasture with the attendant food shortages. On the otherhand, choosing universal vegetarianism would devote all the potentialpastures to crops for humans and thereby (1) risk greater disutility tofield animals and (2) certainly result in the loss of (a) any pleasurablelives grazing animals would have had and (b) the pleasure that humanmeat eaters enjoy in consuming the meat of grazers. Given the certainlosses along with the risks of universal vegetarianism, on the one hand,and the risks but absence of certain losses of ethical meat eating, there isreason to believe that ethical meat eating will more likely have greaterutility than universal vegetarianism and no reason to believe that it willnot. If the percentage of land is limited in a utilitarian way, the uncertainprobability of disutility with a policy of ethical meat eating will outweighthe certain losses and the potential disutility of universal vegetarianism.̂ "*

George SchedlerDepartment of Philosophy

Southern Illinois University, Carbondalegeosched@siu.edu

to the incisive criticisms and suggestions of Stephen Kershnar, this paper is farmore tightly argued than it was in previous versions. The comments of two anonymousreaders of this joumal enabled me to strengthen the fmal version.