Don't farm animals only exist because we breed them? They'd never have lived otherwise.

The objection

“These animals would never have existed if we didn’t farm them. No one breeds pigs for fun, they exist because we want meat. So in a real sense we give them life. A short life is better than no life.”

The answer

Grant the premise, it’s true. Most farmed animals are brought into being precisely because we mean to eat them. The question is whether causing a being to exist gives you the right to end its life. The argument breaks in two places.

First, you can’t do a favour for someone who doesn’t exist yet. To benefit someone, there has to be a someone to benefit. Before the animal exists, there is no waiting individual being deprived of life, no one in a void hoping to be born [1]. Non-existence harms no one. “They’d never have lived otherwise” is true but empty: the alternative for this animal was never a worse life. It was simply not creating a being into a system built to kill it. And you certainly can’t bank that “gift” as a credit against later taking everything from them.

Second, the reasoning proves far too much. If creating a life earned the right to take it, breeding any being for any purpose would justify itself. Someone who bred animals specifically to fight or torture them would not be excused by “but I gave them life.” Same with children: bringing one into the world confers responsibilities towards them, not ownership over whether they get to keep living.

And the framing hides what the life actually is. Pigs are cognitively complex, socially rich, and capable of suffering and of valuing their own lives [2]. The “gift” on offer is a fraction of a natural lifespan, ended at a slaughterhouse, for a product no one needs. If merely creating a life licensed us to take it, what cruelty couldn’t be defended that way, and would you accept that defence from anyone but yourself?