Total View versus Prior Existence View

Abstract

As has briefly been mentioned at the end of the previous chapter, the Replaceability Argument works only if one takes into account the welfare of an animal that will be brought into existence if and only if an existing animal is killed. That animal does not exist while the choice about killing the existing animal is made. It might possibly exist in the future, namely in case the first animal will be killed. As its existence depends on the killing of the other animal, it is a so-called contingent being: whether it will exist at all is contingent upon the moral choice under consideration, i.e. upon whether or not the other animal will be killed.¹ This is the definition of ‘contingent being’: it does not exist yet, and whether it will exist at all depends on the moral question under consideration. The animal whose killing is considered is therefore not a contingent being. It is an actual, existing being. The fact, if it is one, that this animal exists only because it is part of a practice in which animals are brought into existence in order to be used and ultimately killed is irrelevant here. The existing animal whose killing is contemplated is not a contingent being, because it is not a possible, but an actually existing being. It already exists when the moral choice about whether or not to kill it is contemplated and therefore its existence does not depend on this decision.² As explained, the Replaceability Argument depends on counting the potential welfare of contingent beings — namely the possible newly created animal — in the aggregation of welfare. Should the possible welfare of contingent beings count? This question is controversial within utilitarianism.