You need to consider the counterfactual in its entirety. Ending factory farming increases net welfare if being inhabit the space of the factory farms have more positive welfare than the beings on the factory farms.
I find it incredibly hard to believe that any alternative to factory farming will have an even lower level of welfare, regardless of whether factory farmed animals have lives worth living or not.
I agree factory-farmed animals having positive lives is not sufficient to justify continuing factory-farming. If one is confident that i) wild animals have positive lives, ii) the effects of factory-farming on wild animals are much larger than those on farmed animals, and iii) factory-farming decreases the number of wild animals (as animal products usually require more land than plant-based ones), then ending factory-farming would be good to increase animal welfare when accounting for both farmed and wild animals. However, I am not arguing for reaching positive factory-farming, and then maintaining it forever. I am arguing for having the ultimate goal of increasing animal welfare, which I think is robustly good, unlike ending factory-farming or maintaining positive factory-farming forever.
I also think that focussing on increasing the welfare of factory-farmed animals (instead of ending factory-farming) is more conducive to making people care about the welfare of wild animals. People justify ending factory-farming as a way of perserving nature, but I believe this may well backfire because wild animals may have negative lives. There is huge uncertainty about whether wild animals have positive/negative lives, so I would say it is more prudent to have the robustly good ultimate goal of increasing welfare.
You need to consider the counterfactual in its entirety. Ending factory farming increases net welfare if being inhabit the space of the factory farms have more positive welfare than the beings on the factory farms.
I find it incredibly hard to believe that any alternative to factory farming will have an even lower level of welfare, regardless of whether factory farmed animals have lives worth living or not.
Thanks for the comment, Tristan.
I agree factory-farmed animals having positive lives is not sufficient to justify continuing factory-farming. If one is confident that i) wild animals have positive lives, ii) the effects of factory-farming on wild animals are much larger than those on farmed animals, and iii) factory-farming decreases the number of wild animals (as animal products usually require more land than plant-based ones), then ending factory-farming would be good to increase animal welfare when accounting for both farmed and wild animals. However, I am not arguing for reaching positive factory-farming, and then maintaining it forever. I am arguing for having the ultimate goal of increasing animal welfare, which I think is robustly good, unlike ending factory-farming or maintaining positive factory-farming forever.
I also think that focussing on increasing the welfare of factory-farmed animals (instead of ending factory-farming) is more conducive to making people care about the welfare of wild animals. People justify ending factory-farming as a way of perserving nature, but I believe this may well backfire because wild animals may have negative lives. There is huge uncertainty about whether wild animals have positive/negative lives, so I would say it is more prudent to have the robustly good ultimate goal of increasing welfare.