For instance, I keep chickens and let them free-pasture until the day I butcher them. I think they enjoy their time out there as much as any animal would. Depending who or what you believe, the end is very quick for them, so the suffering is minimal.

I realize this isn't the norm, though. I'm sure the "joy" experienced on many factory farms is some kind of dystopian thing, like being happy you got extra gruel last Tuesday.

But it doesn't have to be that way. Just something to think about.

Taken to an extreme, we could have those animals be humans that are somehow born masochists, desperate to get consumed by cannibals.

Hmm. I think it's morally dubious to make them in the first place. Past that, we're talking about fulfilling their desires. If someone wants to die (say they're suffering from some slow, terminal illness or maybe incurable depression), is it ethical to keep them alive and deny them euthanasia? That seems like the same scenario. I say no; you should have the right to die if you want to in the most painless way possible. I think the Universe suffers a loss with the loss of your consciousness because it's an amazing thing, but your subjective suffering is more salient. I make that call on absolutely no rational ground; it's just my silly emotions. Silly emotions from a silly consciousness. :3 And it's that element of silliness that makes my position on this itself, or anyone else's, PERHAPS EVEN ALL THOSE MEAT ANIMALS' SUFFERING, seem sickeningly irrelevant in the grand, inscrutable, uncaring scheme of things. But that's morality for you.

We've gotta be careful here.

I'm so close to bringing up how maybe the self is a lie and how moral relativism justifies the worst levels of suffering imaginable.

The cow in question repeatedly assures the protagonist that the entire process is very humane and that it desires nothing more than to be eaten and enjoyed by others. It's actually quite offended when Arthur only orders a salad.