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date: 06 July 2022

Abstract and Keywords

Consequentialism is thought to be in significant conflict with animal rights theory because it does not regard activities such as confinement, killing, and exploitation as in principle morally wrong. Proponents of the “Logic of the Larder” argue that consequentialism results in an implausibly pro-exploitation stance, permitting us to eat farmed animals with positive well-being to ensure future such animals exist. Proponents of the “Logic of the Logger” argue that consequentialism results in an implausibly anti-conservationist stance, permitting us to exterminate wild animals with negative well-being to ensure future such animals do not exist. We argue that this conflict is overstated. Once we have properly accounted for indirect effects, such as the role that our policies play in shaping moral attitudes and behavior and the importance of accepting policies that are robust against deviation, we can see that consequentialism may converge with animal rights theory significantly, even if not entirely.

Keywords: animal rights, conservation, farmed animal welfare, wild animal welfare, two-level utilitarianism, effective altruism, meat paradox, population ethics

Tyler M. John

Tyler M. John is a PhD student in philosophy at Rutgers University–New Brunswick. His main areas of research are distributive ethics, political philosophy of the long-term future, and animal moral, legal, and political philosophy. He is a coauthor of Chimpanzee Rights: The Philosophers’ Brief (2018) and of articles appearing in Ethics and Economics and Philosophy.

Jeff Sebo

Jeff Sebo is Clinical Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, Affiliated Professor of Bioethics, Medical Ethics, and Philosophy, and Director of the Animal Studies M.A. Program at New York University. He works primarily on bioethics, animal ethics, and environmental ethics. His coauthored books Chimpanzee Rights and Food, Animals, and the Environment are currently available from Routledge, and his book Why Animals Matter for Climate Change is currently in contract with Oxford University Press. Jeff is also on the Board of Directors at Animal Charity Evaluators, the Board of Directors at Minding Animals International, and the Executive Committee at the Animals & Society Institute.

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