Factory Farming Cases: An Analysis

In the book titled, “Ethical Choices: An Introduction to Moral Philosophy with Cases” by Richard Burnor and Yvonne Raley, there is a phrase that states, “The good of the many outweighs the good of the few, or the one”(119). This phrase, describes exactly what Act Utilitarianism is about. The case presented in chapter seven of this book about the suffering of animals in the process of factory farming is a perfect example of how, when one, based on the consequences or effects of the each choice, can analyzes each possible choice, so one can figure out which will be the best choice that will produce the greatest amount of overall utility and solve the problem. If one applies the theories of Act Utilitarianism to this case, one can come to the conclusion that, factory farming creates the greatest amount of overall utility. Therefore, factory farming is morally right, because the benefits that this type of farming brings, or in other words, the amount of overall utility that factory farming brings to humans, outweighs the suffering that this type of farming might cause to the animals. First of all, this case presented, can be analyzed using Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarian approach. This approach takes a look at the choices that could be a possible solution to the problem. In this case, the problem is that the animals are suffering in the process of factory farming, and the choices are that, either humans keep using this type of farming and ignore the suffering of animals, or they stop using it and find an alternative way to not make the animals suffer. Then for each choice, ones takes a look at how many individuals are affected by the act, the length of time that the effect might last, the intensity that the effect can cause to the individuals being affected and lastly, the probability that the effect might actually happen. The first choice would be to keep doing factoring farming. By doing this, the lives of millions of consumers would not be affected since they would continue to buy that food without any problem, as they were doing before, the people working in the farms would still have their jobs and the business would keep making profit. Instead, the ones affected would be the billions of animals that will continue to be killed. The problem with the idea that the animals are suffering is that, as a humans being, one is inclined to anthropomorphize and think that the animals are going through this huge amount of pain when the truth is that animals are not capable of knowing or being aware, the same way humans are, about the pain that using factory farming is going to cause them, or about what they are going to experience during this process. This leads to a question. Should this problem even be considered a moral one? The experience that the animal goes through should not even be considered in a moral evaluation of factory farming because regardless of how much pain or suffering the process might cause to the animals, that suffering could not be compared to the pain that a human being would feel if they were being treated and processed the same way the animals are. Moreover, although the process of killing the animal is done in steps, the process is done fast, and the animal does not has much time to suffer. Therefore, the length of time in which they are being killed and presumably, suffering, is done as quick as possible and is not lengthy at all. Additionally, giving the fact that Act Utilitarianism turns everything into a moral issue, this objection, should be applied in this …show more content…
Therefore, the process of killing the animals is considered morally right, even though the animals might possible experience some sort of pain and or suffering. Not to mention, the benefits that factory farming brings such as affordable prices, savings for the consumers and higher profits for the business owner, outweighs the outrageous consequences that not using this type of farming, could cause.These animals being killed feed millions of Americans, and their death produces the greatest overall utility that benefit almost all of the American