Two common views
Many people believe two things:
- it's okay to kill animals for food, testing, or other purposes;
- we don't need to spend resources to save animals' lives, for example from diseases or disasters.
The usual justification is: "Humans are harmed more by death than animals are."
The author tries an experiment: let's suppose, just for the sake of argument, that this were true. Would both views be justified even then? The answer is no.
"Suffering less" isn't "not suffering"
If A loses more than B by dying, that doesn't mean B loses nothing. To justify both views, you'd have to show that animals lose almost nothing when they die. And this volume has already shown that they lose a lot.
Does losing more justify killing someone else?
Even if A lost more by dying than B, that wouldn't give anyone the right to kill B to save A. Among humans, how much each person loses by dying also varies a lot, and nobody thinks it's right to kill an old person to save a young one.
And if this wouldn't be justified even to save a life, it's even less justified for unnecessary purposes, like eating the animal.
What about numbers?
Now imagine each human lost 100 times more by dying than each animal. Even so, there's a number of animals beyond which saving the animals would do more good. With the same money, you can sometimes save thousands of animals instead of one person.
In short
- Being harmed less isn't the same as not being harmed.
- Losing more by dying doesn't justify killing someone else, let alone for food.
- Depending on the number of lives, saving animals can be the best choice.