It may make a big difference here whether one is coming from a “commonsense” moral perspective (on which brutal killing is intrinsically wrong) or a more consequentialist perspective (on which an overall positive life is better than no life at all, as also discussed in this comment).
Of course, we can all agree that it would be better to prevent net-negative lives from existing in the first place. But the strict anti-killing stance that would oppose even net-happy farmed lives does not strike me as “more effective at helping animals”. IMO, you don’t help someone by preventing them from having an overall happy life, even if that overall happy life also contains some bad experiences. We should only want to prevent bad experiences all else equal, not when it entails also preventing greater positive experiences for that same individual.
I oppose creating “net-happy farmed animal lives” when animals will be killed by humans because when someone is created to be used their whole life and then murdered, I don’t see that as an optimally happy life. It’s like a woman giving birth to a child only to murder them at age 3. It’s better not to plan to have the child and not to conceive them in order to murder them later.
If I have a child and love them my whole life, help them, and never want to use them for anything, then this is an optimally happy life. Also, I have cats and never want to use them for anything that they would not want. I only give them unconditional love and feed them a vegan diet according to information I got from a veterinarian who specializes in cat nutrition. So my cats have optimally happy lives.
I believe humans should stop breeding other individuals in order to use and murder them. It’s better overall if humans focus on helping others who already share the planet with us or who will be born in the future and help them live optimally happy lives. As for farmed animals who are already born, humans should help them live out their natural lives as optimally as possible and not kill them. This would be overall best net outcome for everyone.
It may make a big difference here whether one is coming from a “commonsense” moral perspective (on which brutal killing is intrinsically wrong) or a more consequentialist perspective (on which an overall positive life is better than no life at all, as also discussed in this comment).
Of course, we can all agree that it would be better to prevent net-negative lives from existing in the first place. But the strict anti-killing stance that would oppose even net-happy farmed lives does not strike me as “more effective at helping animals”. IMO, you don’t help someone by preventing them from having an overall happy life, even if that overall happy life also contains some bad experiences. We should only want to prevent bad experiences all else equal, not when it entails also preventing greater positive experiences for that same individual.
I oppose creating “net-happy farmed animal lives” when animals will be killed by humans because when someone is created to be used their whole life and then murdered, I don’t see that as an optimally happy life. It’s like a woman giving birth to a child only to murder them at age 3. It’s better not to plan to have the child and not to conceive them in order to murder them later. If I have a child and love them my whole life, help them, and never want to use them for anything, then this is an optimally happy life. Also, I have cats and never want to use them for anything that they would not want. I only give them unconditional love and feed them a vegan diet according to information I got from a veterinarian who specializes in cat nutrition. So my cats have optimally happy lives. I believe humans should stop breeding other individuals in order to use and murder them. It’s better overall if humans focus on helping others who already share the planet with us or who will be born in the future and help them live optimally happy lives. As for farmed animals who are already born, humans should help them live out their natural lives as optimally as possible and not kill them. This would be overall best net outcome for everyone.
I think happy animal farming (breeding, killing and eating animals who had net-positive lives) is not permissible (except if the animal would be extremely happy). See population ethical arguments against happy animal farming: https://www.pdcnet.org/enviroethics/content/enviroethics_2022_0999_10_26_45
https://stijnbruers.wordpress.com/2016/11/05/can-we-eat-happy-meat/