Does Ethical Meat Eating Maximize Utility?

In this paper, I argue that utilitarian vegetarians are obligated to substitute for some ofthe commercially harvested vegetables they consume the meat of grazing animals and any home-grown vegetables they can produce. The argument in brief is that such a policy would generate more satisfaction of desire in humans and animals than either our present practices or universal vegetarianism would generate. I first define my terms, make clear my background assumptions, state the argument, and discuss its premises. Then I summarize the utilitarian case for vegetarianism, construct a response on behalf of utilitarian vegetarians, and show how the response fails to make the case for vegetarianism. Finally, I show that, absent specific evidence of disutility, the practice of eating a small supply of grazing animals coupled with an otherwise universal vegetarianism will maximize the probability of achieving the most favorable balance of pleasure over pain. Terminology When I use "animals" I have in mind mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians to the extent that they are sensate. By "grazing animals," I mean beef cattle, goats, and sheep. "Factory farms" refers to those plants where large numbers of animals, who live a miserable and even terrified existence, are raised in confined spaces for purposes of minimizing the costs of meat production. By "utilitarianism" and its cognates, I mean the view that we are morally obligated to choose the policy affording the greatest satisfaction of desires of humans and animals, though I leave open the question of whether any given animal desire has the same value as any human desire. When I make claims about a policy having a utilitarian justification or bringing about the greatest satisfaction of desire or greatest amount of pleasure, the claims apply to totalist and averagist comparisons of utility between two policies. Comparisons of the latter take into 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 universal vegetarianism is what I dub "ethical meat eating." It consists in changing our eating habits so that we eliminate factory farms and supplement our diet of commercially harvested vegetables with any homegrown vegetables we can feasibly raise and with a small supply of the meat of grazing animals (well treated and relatively painlessly killed). Harvesting home-grown vegetables, as we will see, does not have the deleterious effects that commercial vegetable harvesting does, and the supply of meat must be small because too great a reliance on grazing animals would reduce the food supply due to the inefficiency of animal protein conversion.' In other words, once the number of grazing animals becomes too great, raising grazing animals for painless slaughter loses its utilitarian justification. Background Assumptions My argument makes three background assumptions. One has to do with the availability and suitability of land for commercial harvesting of vegetables; another, with the necessity for commercial harvesting of crops for universal vegetarianism; the last, with transition costs. First, I presume that, of all the land available for agriculture, it is all suitable either for raising vegetables for humans or for allowing animals to graze. My argument offers a solution as to how best to allocate land available for either purpose interchangeably. However, there appears to be some marginal land that is suitable only for grazing but not for crops that humans can consume.^ Nevertheless, I ignore this favorable prospect to face the more difficult question of how to trade off harvesting vegetables for humans with pastureland for grazing animals. Second, I assume that there is no way to provide sufficient vegetable protein for a universal vegetarian diet other than by commercial harvesting (which has adverse effects on the environment, which I describe in greater detail later). Should we discover a way of meeting such protein requirements without having the deleterious effects of commercial harvesting, then the problem raised here would disappear.
'"U.S. livestock, in addition to consuming forage, eat an estimated 20.5 million tons of plant protein suitable for human consumption. These livestock in tum produce 6.4 million tons of animal protein." David Pimentel and Marcia Pimentel (eds.). Food, Energy, 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 grasses and 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 and Pimentel (eds.). Food, Energy, and Society, p. 290.

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Third, I presume from a utilitarian perspective that costs of making the transition from present factory farm practices to an ethical meat eating arrangement will not be so great as to outweigh the benefit. Here briefiy are good though not definitive reasons for making this presumption. There are three types of transition costs: greater pain to animals, greater pain to humans, and other morally undesirable effects. Now, from the utilitarian perspective the last category is an empty set, since only pain and pleasure are relevant. There are no significant costs in the first category, because given the avoidance of pain associated with factory farms (along with whatever inconsiderable pleasure factory farm animals experienced) and the enjoyment grazing animals experience, there should be a higher total pleasure for animals in the transition. Moreover, assuming the grazing animals live lives on average at least as satisfying as the lives of presently existing animals, there are no significant transition costs to animals from the averagist perspective. Though many meateating humans, accustomed to cheap meat fi-om factory farms, could experience a decline in average and overall happiness, some at least will accept a more limited diet knowing that the animals whose meat they consume do not suffer as the factory farm raised animals did. However, vegetarians and vegans will be quite content during the transition. I presume, then, that the avoidance of animal pain, the pleasure that grazing animals experience, and the contentment of vegetarians will outweigh the frustration meat eaters experience in the transition. The Argument The argument for ethical meat eating has two premises, the truth of both of which it is the purpose of this paper to show. (1) We are morally obligated to adopt any practice that would maximize the likelihood of the greatest satisfaction of desires of animals and humans. (2) Without sacrificing anything of greater moral value, ethical meat eating would most likely reduce animal suffering and increase human and animal pleasure more than either (a) universal vegetarianism or (b) present dietary practices. (3) Therefore, we are morally obligated to adopt a policy of ethical meat eating.

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Discussion of the Premises Premise 1 is couched in terms of likelihoods because I presume that there cannot be certainty in predicting the consequences of policies on humans and animals but that utilitarianism morally obligates us to adopt policies that maximize the likelihood of bringing about the greatest satisfaction of desire. This premise presupposes that there is some point at which the total amount of pain animals must endure becomes too great to justify the resulting small amount of human pleasure. Thus, premise 1 remains plausible to utilitarians whether they accept or reject an "equality of interests" principle, which values animal pleasure equally as highly as human pleasure.^ Mill, of course, did not subscribe to an equalify of interests principle, though his distinction between higher and lower pleasures has arguably speciesist overtones."* The second premise is true if the policy of ethical meat eating would most likely result in a balance of pleasure over pain more favorable than the balance resulting from either (a) present meat eating practices or (b) a policy of universal vegetarianism. The case for the superiority of ethical meat eating is twofold: it would eliminate the suffering caused by factory farms in (a) and decrease the suffering of field animals during harvesting and cultivation of food crops in (b). Peter Singer has already made the case against (a) by detailing the well documented animal suffering accompanying the factory farms.^ Thus, the absence of factory farms under an ethical meat eating policy means, thanks to Singer's arguments, that ethical meat eating would most likely increase desire satisfaction more than present practices. Because grazing animals would exist under ethical meat eating but not under universal vegetarianism, ethical meat eating eliminates some suffering imposed by universal vegetarianism (which would disturb more field animals on land that would be undisturbed as pastureland in an ethical meat eating society) while adding pleasure (enjoyed 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 may come, when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny ... But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant 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. Can they 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 the lower pleasures are "lower animals," the "ignoramus," "the fool, the dunce, or the rascal," whereas those who enjoy the higher pleasures include the "intelligent human being," "instructed person," and "person of feeling and conscience." John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, 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 suffering that field animals undergo because cultivators and harrows destroy fewer dens and burrows and entangle fewer animals in the blades, and it brings grazing animals into a world in which they would satisfy their desire to graze and satisfy the desires of humans who enjoy raising them or the taste of their meat or both. These significant utilitarian advantages deserve further discussion. First, ethical meat eating avoids some of the suffering and painful deaths in the plowing, planting, and mowing required for commercial harvesting of vegetables. The animals living in the fields where vegetables are harvested include "opossum, rock dove, house sparrow, European starling, black rat, Norway rat, house mouse, Chukar, gray partridge, ring-necked pheasant, wild turkey, cottontail rabbit, gray-tailed vole, and numerous species of amphibians."^ The harvesting operations include plowing, disking, harrowing, planting, cultivating, applying herbicides and pesticides as well as harvesting. "Although accurate estimates of the total number of animals killed by different agronomic practices from plowing to harvesting are not available, some studies show that the numbers are quite large."^ One study documented that a single operation, mowing alfalfa, caused a 50 percent reduction in the graytailed vole population.^ On the other hand, on land devoted to grazing, no field animals would suffer from the effects of harvesting machines, and even though there will be some harvesting of forage for grazing animals, field animals will suffer less than they would living on land devoted to commercial harvesting, because "pasture forage production requires fewer passages through the fields with tractors and other farm equipment."' One scientist calculated that 450,000,000 fewer animal deaths would occur each year in the U.S. under a system in which half the land available for harvesting was devoted to raising grazing animals for slaughter (with the other half devoted to crops for humans) than under a vegan model in which all the land was devoted to harvesting plants for human consumption.'" It is unclear whether such a high percentage of land could be set aside for grazing animals and still supply sufficient protein to the
Steven L. Davis, "The Least Harm Principle May Require that Humans Consume a Diet Containing Large Herbivores, Not a Vegan Diet," Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 16 (2003): 387-94, p. 389. The amphibians that Davis has in mind here may 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 and Washington (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 high utilitarian cost paid for a vegan diet, in view ofthe fact that the deaths of field animals will be painful." In addition to reducing the suffering of field animals due to the commercial growing and harvesting of vegetables, ethical meat eating would add to the balance of satisfaction of desire the pleasure that otherwise nonexistent grazing animals experience, the pleasure that the humans who enjoy raising them would take, and the pleasure that those humans eating them would experience. The grazing animals would be painlessly killed, would take some pleasure in their lifetimes, and would give additional pleasure to ethical meat eaters. Their lives would be similar in morally relevant respects to the lives of free range chickens, whose eggs utilitarian vegetarians do not object to eating. Singer, for example, says that "the ethical objections ... are relatively minor." "They will be killed when they cease to lay productively, but they will have a pleasant existence until that time."'^ We can conclude that ethical meat eating would achieve greater desire satisfaction than vegetarianism, whether one holds a totalist or averagist view of utilitarianism. In contrast to universal vegetarianism, it would increase the total number of animals, the additional animals would have positive levels of utility, and their existence would raise the overall pleasure of humans, since some humans would enjoy the pleasure of eating meat that they would forgo under universal vegetarianism. Total utility would be higher than it is under present practices for a different reason, namely, the absence of factory farms. Though factory farms increase the total number of animals in the world and satisfy the desires of larger numbers of meat eaters, the negative utility that the miserable conditions on the farms creates is not likely in the long run to raise total utility to what is enjoyed in a world of ethical meat eaters. Average utilify will be greater under ethical meat eating than in either altemative for similar reasons. On the one hand, factory farms under present practices depress average utility below the average for any altemative without such farms, because the farms produce negative utility for the animals and there are many more animals over whose lifetimes we must calculate the average than in either altemative. The only positive utility of factory farms is the easy satisfaction of the human taste for meat. But it is clear that there will be less frustration of this desire on average in an ethical meat eating sociefy than under universal vegetarian" Presumably, the field animals killed or frightened by the machinery will endure more 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 the last paragraph of this essay. Singer, Animal Liberation, p. 180.

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ism, which causes field animals to experience much more negative utilify than they would living in pasturelands that would be more plentiful in a sociefy of ethical meat eaters. In addition, grazing animals will enjoy lives relatively undisturbed, so their existence should raise average utilify. Now, it might be said that there is no philosophical issue here, because the problem disappears once advanced technology permits raising vegetables commercially without causing field animals to suffer. However, even if the situation becomes moot, it nonetheless raises an interesting utilitarian question that is worthy of philosophical analysis. Whether a problem raises philosophical issues should not depend on the possibility that the problem will disappear due to advances in technology, or in this case due to sophisticated agricultural techniques. Though of philosophical interest, it might be said that this will no longer be a pressing live issue should a way of harvesting vegetables without causing suffering to field animals be discovered. However, the issue remains live until that discovery, and the more remote the prospect of that discovery the more pressing the issue. There is no reason to believe a method of commercially harvesting vegetables that causes no suffering to field animals will ever be found. There is no effort underway to discover such a method. Even a reduction in the suffering of field animals will not remove their welfare from the utilitarian calculus. The concems raised here are unlikely ever to be entirely moot. Despite all the calculations that favor ethical meat eating, utilitarian vegetarians still have misgivings about eating the meat of animals who are not mistreated, but I will show that these qualms do not alter the balance of pleasure and pain I have described here. Let us first lay out the utilitarian argument for vegetarianism. We will then address misgivings that utilitarian vegetarians have about meat eating. The Utilitarian Vegetarian Response Singer's arguments provide a basis for a totalist utilitarian case for ethical meat eating. First, he makes it clear that he subscribes to classical utilitarianism, which "aims at minimizing pain and maximizing pleasure."'^ Second, he subscribes to the principle of "equalify of interests," that human and nonhuman interests must have equal weight in the calculus of determining overall pleasure and pain: "the interests of every being affected 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 of some utilitarians to weigh the desires of animals equally in the balance can 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 system is enough to outweigh both the pleasures people get from eating animals and the dismption abolishing factory farms would cause ..." That Singer balances total animal suffering in factory farms against the disutilify of abolition ofthe farms shows that total utilify rather than average utilify is the measure of whether the overall balance of pleasure is favorable. Though he cannot prove that overall utilify will be higher, he asserts that he has begun to make the calculations and is confident that the question has an affirmative answer. Next, Singer asks what we should do once we have made the calculations. His answer is that we are obligated to be vegetarian because being vegetarian "is the most practical and effective step one can take toward ending both the killing of nonhuman animals and the infliction of suffering upon them,"" thereby promoting the greatest overall desire satisfaction. On his view, vegetarianism "is a form of boycott,"'^ and is morally analogous to consumer boycotts of "lettuce and grapes, because the system under which those particular lettuces and grapes had been produced exploited 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 wrong from the utilitarian perspective, then we ought to boycott the practice of raising animals for slaughter. 52. Being a vegetarian is the best way to boycott the raising of animals for 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 a condition sufficient to obligate utilitarians. S2 is the factual premise setting 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 we ought to do M. How the Argument is Mistaken All these premises are flawed. If SI is tme, it is only because both the antecedent and consequent are false, reducing it to trivialify. Raising animals for slaughter is not wrong on utilitarian grounds so long as there is a favorable balance of pleasure over pain. But even if there were no such favorable balance, it does not follow that utilitarians should boycott all practices of raising animals for slaughter. Indeed, utilitarians should encourage practices with a favorable balance of pleasure over pain. S2, claiming that being vegetarian is the most effective way to boycott raising animals for slaughter, ignores the pain inflicted on field animals in providing additional vegetables for vegetarians and the pleasures that grazing animals and eaters of their meat experience. S3, though correct in holding that the tmth of SI and S2 obligates us to be vegetarians, embodies in its antecedent the flaws in SI and S2, ignoring the cost to field animals and the pleasures that grazing animals and their consumers experience. Throughout the premises. Singer's preoccupation with the pain of animals raised for slaughter interferes with a full appreciation of both the pain that commercial harvesting of vegetables causes field animals and the pleasures associated with human consumption of painlessly slaughtered grazing animals. We should note that the mere fact that an animal dies is not of utilitarian signiflcance. What counts is whether the animal's death renders the world happier overall when it dies. For a totalist utilitarian such as Singer, it would be wrong to kill the animal if and only if the total desire satisfaction would have been greater had the animal been allowed to live longer. Hence, Singer's preoccupation with killing large numbers of animals, whether in the slaughterhouse or in the fleld, is misplaced from a utilitarian perspective, because death in itself is not a disutilify. Even if this were not so, the important utilitarian consideration is the pleasure that occurs during the animal's lifetime. Further Qualms about Ethical Meat Eating Two utilitarian worries about ethical meat eating are that ethical meat eating cannot provide a commercial source of meat and that pursuing such a policy could lead us down a slippery slope that retums us to factory 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 objection to the use of some kinds of animals for food, these are not the circumstances of those of us who must rely on the usual commercial sources of meat."^ His version ofthe slippery slope argument is that "no matter how humane our original intentions, as long as we continue to eat animals there is a danger of our sliding back into the methods of treating animals in use today." However, neither of these misgivings constitutes a sacrifice of anything of significant utilitarian value. His slippery slope argument refers to two different risks: the risk that a society might backslide or the risk that an individual might. One risk is that a society that adopts ethical meat eating could backslide into allowing factory farms. The other is that ethical meat eaters living in a society with factory farms might cease to resist the temptation to buy the meat of animals raised on factory farms. I am more concerned with the first risk, but the mistake is the same in both: concem about backsliding does not of itself entail disutility. It can of course lead to disutility, but whether that has utilitarian significance depends on probabilities. There is no real risk of disutility in the second sense so long as consumers discriminate between the meat of grazing animals and that of animals raised on factory farms. And Singer expresses no such qualms about ethical vegetarians making discriminations in relevantly similar contexts. For example, the procedure he recommends for determining whether eggs sold in stores were laid by free ranging chickens is quite burdensome, but he nevertheless trusts his readers to do their research.^^ Similarly, a society that abolishes factory farms in favor of ethical meat eating might backslide into one with factory farms just as a vegetarian society might, but there is no reason to believe that the risk of backsliding is greater for one society than for the other. If there were a reason, then that would be one utilitarian consideration among many in preferring one practice to the other. Absent specific evidence of a greater risk in one case than in the other, there is no reason to give greater weight to this possibility in the utilitarian evaluation of ethical meat eating. Hence, his slippery slope worry does not render ethical 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 Liberation, p. 180. In short, the ethical meat eater faces the same quandary that Singer believes the ethical vegetarian faces: the boycott of factory farm meat may not eliminate the practice; similarly, the boycott of both commercially raised vegetables and factory farm meat may not eliminate both practices. We can expect that the prospect of an ultimately unsuccessful boycott will have the same utilitarian value for the ethical meat eater as for the ethical vegetarian.

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The utilitarian significance of his first misgiving cited above that we cannot utilize the usual commercial sources to obtain meat from well treated animalsis not clear. As with the worry about backsliding, it might be a concem relevant to adopting universal vegetarianism or' to individuals living in a society with factory farms who choose to be ethical meat eaters. On the former interpretation, its upshot may be that it is impossible to satisfy the demand for meat with the limited supply that ethical meat eating affords. To be a significant utilitarian objection, we must suppose that the demand for meat is quite strong; if it were not then the limited supply should be sufficient to satisfy the demand. Given a strong demand and a limited supply, there needs to be some system of rationing, which entails some disutility. As such, this needs to be taken into account in choosing between ethical meat eating and universal vegetarianism. However, absent specific evidence to the contrary about human demand for animal meat, there should be less disutility in a society of ethical meat eaters than in a vegetarian society. This is because ofthe following: partial satisfaction of a strong demand for any commodity C entails less disutility than total refiisal to satisfy the demand for C, ceteris paribus. An example might be the disutility entailed by regulated consumption of alcoholic beverages, as opposed to total prohibition.^^

The upshot of this concem, interpreted as a worry about individual meat eaters is unclear, but there are several possibilities: it could be that (1) ethical meat eaters have' to pay 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 these expresses a sacnfice of anything of significant utilitarian value. The higher price is not significant in itself. Indeed, eggs from free-ranging chickens have a higher price than those from caged animals, but that fact is not for Singer a serious objection to purchasing them. Nor is the creativity required for this kind of diet significant. Singer is not deterred from his own commitment to vegetarianism by the creativity necessary for it Rather than express similar qualms about the commitment required, he includes recipes in his Appendix to assist the reader. The third interpretation is more meaningful: even though the ethical meat eater is participating in the boycott of meat from factory farms, such discrimination will have little effect. This might seem significant fi-om a utilitarian standpoint, but Singer is confident that a boycott has value even if it is unsuccessf\jl in eliminating the practice boycotted. Interestingly, Singer reassures his readers who might be discouraged by the lack of success of a boycott that perseverance would be worthwhile. He says for example that "we do achieve something by our individual acts, even ifa boycott as a whole should not succeed." He is confident that individual acts do have an effect. "Although we cannot Identify any individual animals whom we have benefited by becoming vegetarian, we can assume that our diet has some impact on the number of animals raised in factoA' farms and 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 for ethical meat eating. Qualms about ethical meat eating do not rise to the level of serious utilitarian problems for the proposal. Utilitarians adopting ethical meat eating would devote only a small percentage of land to grazing, because devoting too much land to it would risk starvation due to the inefficiencies of animal protein conversion compared to plant protein. Nevertheless, given efficiencies in food crop harvesting, the difficulties in planting food crops on some land that can be used for grazing, and other contingencies, society could devote some limited amount of land 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 crops for human consumption than would ethical meat eating pursued in a utilitarian way, and hence will always entail greater disutility. Analysis of a specific example will reveal the more general point. If, under a policy of ethical meat eating, we devoted some small percentage of land, for example, 20 percent of land that would otherwise have been devoted to food crops under vegetarianism, the ethical meat eating policy would be superior from a utilitarian perspective. The additional pleasure to field animals, grazing animals, and humans would be sufficient to outweigh whatever unhappiness ethical meat eating would cause, because the policy would result in 20 percent fewer field animals suffering painful death or injury from harvesters and tractors, and, in addition, grazing animals would experience pleasure they would not experience under universal vegetarianism (since they would not exist in such a world), and meat eating humans would enjoy pleasure they would not have under universal vegetarianism. Now, if the percentage of land devoted to grazing rises so high that there is not enough food for the human population, the total or average utility would decline. However, so long as the percentage of grazing land remains low, it would appear likely that total and average desire satisfaction will always be greater. We can therefore say with reasonable confidence that if a small percentage of agricultural land is devoted to grazing animals while the rest is devoted to harvesting vegetables, greater utility will result than from universal vegetarianism, because we could meet human nutritional needs, all the while increasing both human and animal pleasure more than we would satisfying those needs under universal vegetarianism. Now, there are other relevant utilitarian factors that one can question in the scenario I have painted for a society of ethical meat eaters, but ethical meat eating should nevertheless hold the best prospect for achieving the most favorable 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 not available: if a utilitarian must choose between two practices, X and Y, and there is reason to believe that practice X will most likely have more utility than practice Y and no reason to believe otherwise, the utilitarian ought to adopt X. Unknown but relevant to our utilitarian calculus is the difference between the pleasure and pain that field animals who are exposed to predators in pasturelands will experience and what pleasure and pain they would experience living in cropland exposed to tractors and harvesters. There are undoubtedly other unknowns, but utilitarians must nevertheless choose what is most likely to lead to the greatest desire satisfaction. By choosing ethical meat eating and setting aside a small percentage of land for grazing, we risk setting aside too small a percentage with the result that more animals could have been consumed had the pastureland been larger, but that result is preferable to setting aside too much land for pasture with the attendant food shortages. On the other hand, choosing universal vegetarianism would devote all the potential pastures to crops for humans and thereby (1) risk greater disutility to field animals and (2) certainly result in the loss of (a) any pleasurable lives grazing animals would have had and (b) the pleasure that human meat eaters enjoy in consuming the meat of grazers. Given the certain losses along with the risks of universal vegetarianism, on the one hand, and the risks but absence of certain losses of ethical meat eating, there is reason to believe that ethical meat eating will more likely have greater utility than universal vegetarianism and no reason to believe that it will not. If the percentage of land is limited in a utilitarian way, the uncertain probability of disutility with a policy of ethical meat eating will outweigh the certain losses and the potential disutility of universal vegetarianism.^"* George Schedler Department of Philosophy Southern Illinois University, Carbondale geosched@siu.edu

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