When one draws their attention to the gruesome conditions under which meat is produced, creophages/creophagists[1] always have ready to hand the argument of the essential advantage of existence over non-existence: it is not to be denied, they say, that the raising, feeding-up and slaughtering of animals involves significant suffering for these latter; but it must also be considered that, in so far as they function as “meat stock”, there is at least accorded to these animals a certain span of life, instead of no life at all; without the human demand for meat, in other words, these animals would never have been bred, i.e. would never have existed at all – something which, it is contended, would not have been an acceptable alternative. Better a bad life that ends horribly than no life at all – so runs this strange “carnedicy”[2].
In order to provide their anthropodicy, pronatalists too assert a supposed essential advantage of existence; but they overlook thereby the fact that it is impossible to actually specify and name someone for whom it might be “advantageous” to begin to exist.
[1] Human beings who, despite the existence of alternatives, consciously decide to remain consumers of animals bred, fattened up, tortured and slaughtered to just this end.
[2] See Akerma: Carnedizee – Philosophie als fleischlastiges Denken statt brotlose Kunst, in: Tabula rasa. Zeitung für Gesellschaft und Kultur, Februar 2011
