Jeremy Bentham's Ethical Utilitarianism

Day in and day out, vicious and heinous crimes are being committed on factory farmed animals due to the demands of food from this obese generation of people. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, nearly 10.2 billion land animals were brought up and killed for food in the United States throughout 2010. Plus, per person, an American meat-consumer is responsible for the suffering and death of 28 land animals per year (“Number of”). Animals have little to no rights when it comes to protection than that of humans. Therefore, humans often do whatever they want to animals for meat—knowing that they will get away with it. Of the estimated 10.2 billion land animals killed in 2010, roughly 91% were chickens raised for meat; this just goes
to show what type of destruction humans can cause when left with few laws concerning land animal safety (“Number of”). Innocent animal lives are being taking away by ruthless, ungrateful workers, owners and companies whose main focuses are on earning money and conducting researches but not the animals that are being raised. The senseless acts of murder and torture committed by factory farmers around the world are morally wrong and have been discussed by numerous philosophers; but the ones who stood out the most were; Jeremy Bentham and Peter Singer.
It was not until the 1800s where the respect for animal rights had grew due to the influence of Jeremy Bentham; who helped changed the minds of people towards their views and treatment of animals. He had made a case for his perspective on this particular issue by implementing his ethical utilitarianism to animals—and his definition of utilitarianism is “the greatest happiness or greatest felicity principle” (Nietzche 1). Bentham furthers his argument when he made the claim that “our laws should grant animals the right not to be inflicted with suffering” (Fieser 1). This society has come to a point where most people have become blind to the constant pain and struggles that animals have to go through on an everyday basis. From one great mind to another—Peter Singer had and has continued to advocate on the issues of animal rights, animal feeding operations and animals in research through his talks at various different universities and also his website. Many of what Peter Singer mentions throughout his argument I agree to a certain extent. The agreement lies upon Singers strong remarks towards animal experimentation and how negative it has been, but through the mist of this, I would still have to say that, although these experiments have been cruel in
some ways—they are still needed in-order to find cures for diseases and also advance our society for the future. Reverting back to Jeremy Bentham and his stance, it was extremely interesting how he incorporated his style of philosophy in Utilitarianism—“The right course of action is the one that will produce the greatest possible amount of happiness among the greatest number” (Oxford 1), into helping people open their minds and understand the importance of animal rights.
With his background at a philosophical standpoint, he states that “because animals suffer, their happiness and wellbeing is relevant and that it is the capacity of suffering that gives all sentient beings the right to equal consideration” (Nietzsche 1) and also how there has been such “disregard for animal suffering is similar to the disregard that people in some countries have for the suffering of slaves” (Fieser 1). Looking back at history, people had considered slaves as property and did not look at them as though they were human beings. The same goes for animals, owners and people in general use them for the benefits that they present such as security and comfort, but once they do not follow orders; they become victims of abuse and a multitude of heinous crimes. Abuse and intolerable acts are committed not only in the United States but around the world—mainly due to the profits that are gained from it. Example being, in the United States, buffalos and cows are constantly being killed for their meat because of how today’s society is shaping up to be with fast food restaurants around every corner that rely heavily
on meats. Whereas in countries like China, Thailand, and my homeland of Vietnam—dogs are kidnapped, murdered and roasted every day because of how much nutritional value that they present. Growing up in Vietnam, it was awful to see dogs being sold for food every day and realizing how inhumane the situation really was once I had arrived to the United States to see how many people felt about the wrong doing that countries in Asia have committed upon dogs in particular. Although this incident was not happening in the U.S with dogs; it was occurring with different animals like cows, chickens and other farm animals—and that really is a bit hypocritical. Laws need to be made to protect all animals from these cruel and unusual punishments—if humans have this, then why not animals. For reasons such as these and much more, I firmly believe that the human race has gotten to a new level of injustice and should be considered as the lowest level of animal, this meaning the selfishness, pride, and greed that are instilled within people. The ones who have a major contribution to this would be factory farmers with their constant involvement in the slaughtering, mutilation, and poor living conditions that they provide for their animals. One of the many compelling reasons why humans should be considered the lowest level of animal is because factory farm workers and their owners are constantly involved in the slaughtering of their land animals. Slaughtering truly began in 1856, when a prophecy by a teenage Xhosa girl, Nonqqawuse, said that the slaughter of cattle and destruction of crops would most certainly bring back ancient Xhosa chiefs—whose purpose was to push the whites back to the sea (Boddy-Evans). Another incident of slaughtering that caught the attention of locals took place in the Mississippi River, west of the Rocky Mountains throughout the 1870s. This was where waves of settlers were trappers and traders who relied on selling meat. With that being said, they slaughtered nearly every single buffalo in the Native American territory and shipped the buffalos’ meat eastward each year; 1.5 million pounds were sent in total back east. Instead of making an effort to save the remaining buffalos in the country, U.S. government officials promoted the idea of bison herds as a way to destroy the Native Americans and push them out of the country (“American Buffalo”). Once government officials, a nations leader, agrees with such idea—it is now clear that the human race has gone downhill.
The rates at which farm animals are being slaughtered are at an all-time high each year, and leaders around the globe are not taking actions in preventing this issue. Animals such as cows are often fed bone meals and waste products from other cattle infected with the disease known as Mad Cow Disease (M.C.D) “A transmissible, slowly progressive, degenerative, and fatal disease affecting the central nervous system of adult cattle” (WebMD). Once the cows are fed with other cattle waste product, they are then killed for the meat and shipped to various countries for people to eat. Because they consume that meat, humans will also begin to catch the disease. In 2010, studies suggest that up to 200,000 people were affected by this disease, and this is just Great Britain alone (OliphantIII 1). Moving along, with roughly 60 billion farm animals being slaughtered for meat and distributed each year; sooner or later, the world’s population will become obese due to the amount of meat they are consuming. Look at this, about 250 cows are killed every hour at the typical beef slaughterhouse because workers are in a state of panic to stay on schedule. When employees are rushing to complete their deadline, they tend to not take the necessary steps in successfully killing the cow. For example, workers do not normally stun the cows fully before killing them so what happens is, the cows are being hung upside down while conscious—and then get their throats cut (“Ten Fast”). These awful actions would never occur in nature. For example, animals such as Pandas would not slaughter or maliciously kill anything in its possession because it has no intention of doing so.