Let's build a coherent philosophical and ethical case for hunting.
- Thread starter Pine Marten
- Start date
I tried to convey this with perhaps a little more 'sugar' than Gzl but it is indeed what it comes down to. If you think not I suggest you forego the expense of firearms, FAC plus stalking Guide and find a local deer farm to get your venison fix.
You might write a treatise as per a brief that Carl Linnaeus would be proud of but it ain't gonna help answer the singular question of why must it be YOU that looses the firing pin?
Get into woods with that squirrel rifle or a Milbro catapult while you still can.
K
Precisely, no need for philosophy I would suggest.
To add to that during the phessie season, how many pricked birds go off and die a lingering death after being shot up the proverbial. If it's animal kind that's part of your Raison d'être off you go and fill your time despatching the countless wounded!
Mike et al man up and just tell the truth.
before you all jump to the wrong conclusion I have shot all, run a game dealing business in the past and still get enormous pleasure from shooting.
neutron619
Well-Known Member
I've appreciated reading (and re-reading) all 7 pages of this as it currently stands and agree with much of it.
The word I'm not seeing a lot of is "responsibility". People have approached it with comparisons between stalking and slaughterhouses and the conditions / approaches there, but I think the reason it pleases me to shoot and kill an otherwise - one assumes - happy and contented animal is "responsibility".
By that I mean literally, the responsibility of saying "I killed this to eat it" as well as the moral responsibility for the animal's death.
It's hard to make this argument without falling into a religious viewpoint - something I don't actually possess myself - but it does illustrate the approach all the same. Imagine one discovered at some point, be it at our own deaths or otherwise, that there is actually a creator God to whom we have to account for our actions. I'd far rather stand in front of him and say "I chose to kill this creature because I wanted to eat it and use it for my own benefit; I selected it, looked it in the eye and killed it, whilst ensuring it didn't suffer needlessly" than say "I let the slaughter man kill for me" or perhaps worse "I killed it because it was an inconvenience, not because I had need of it".
I think that when you get down to it, most humans are killers in one way or another, and more than that we're the most efficient and capable predator the world has ever seen. Once you get past that realisation, there is only what we kill, how we kill and the reasons we do so. I actually think that at the heart of most "antis" as we like to call them, is the inability to accept that killing is a fundamental part of human nature - it's what we're made / what we evolved for (depending on one's viewpoint).
I suspect a large part of the loathing these "antis" apparently hold for us is really a loathing of themselves - they know deep down that our success and our very identity as a species has come about because we, above any other species, were cleverer, faster and all round better killers than any of the species they might try to protect. It is only the acceptance of that fact - without prejudice - that can release any of us - hunters or antis - from any guilt we might feel either way on the issue.
To return to the how, what and why questions, compare the hunter who shoots a deer and wastes none of it, with the nonchalant swatter of spiders and flies. It is hard to argue that any spider or fly - even the unpleasantly poisonous ones - are a genuine threat to humans when they are so easily trapped and removed or killed. Why do some of us run around in fear of them, hysterically batting them with rolled up magazines at every opportunity? Are their lives worth less than ours, or less than a deer's? A hard question, but my instinct says no, though I haven't the time or effort to argue that point.
The deer hunter and the fly-swatter are both killers. The moral judgement is therefore not about whether to kill or not but how and why. A deer killed instantly with a bullet and a fly squashed with a magazine are probably equally humane killings, though there are other methods available for both tasks which would be less so. We can therefore judge the morality of the method of killing according to the degree of suffering caused. It is reasonable to argue that it is more moral to cause less suffering - most humans will concur with that (although no moral system can be absolute, except by consent). A slaughterhouse may be less humane; other methods even less so. Perhaps this is why the killing of geese with Gin, precipitating an agonizing death from liver failure, is specifically prohibited by law?
The "why" of the killing of a deer and the killing of a fly can also be judged from a moral standpoint. If I kill the fly to use it's carcass to feed a carnivorous plant, or to further laboratory research or to achieve some such similar aim, I give the killing a purpose. The same is true if simple convenience is achieved - I do not have a fly bothering me by buzzing round my head because I have killed it. However, that purpose may be judged less worthy by an observer, if it seems to fail to value the life taken. The how and the why are interconnected, of course, but it remains to us to justify not the killing itself but the means and the intentions by which it was achieved.
I applaud the OP for trying to get to the bottom of this and to construct something useful to us to explain why we do what we do. Ultimately, I agree with those that say there is no "proof" which shows why deer stalking is a moral good. I don't think an activity, per se, can carry that kind of moral argument. However, I do believe that the way in which an activity is carried out and the true intentions of those carrying it out are areas in which a moral judgement can be made: our strength, if we have any upon which to stand is that the vast majority of us stalk deer for the best reasons (ranging from food production to the outright spiritual) and try always to do it in the best possible way (humane, clean killing). Most of us, at least, do not kill deer (or anything else) simply because it is convenient or without reason, or approach the killing without giving the animal the respect it deserves.
On a personal note, it is the internalization of this approach which allows me to rescue bugs from pavements or rooms in which they have become trapped, where they might otherwise be killed (by others) to no good purpose; or which allows me to find fascinating deer, geese and the many other species whose appearance and behaviours interest me, and yet still pick up a gun and kill them in their turn. My work colleagues cannot, for instance, understand why I refuse to let them kill wasps, and then risk picking them up to remove them from a room: I ask them what purpose the killing would serve when it can be removed and released without harm and they never have an answer. They do however respect me as a hunter, and - I hope - as a moral person.
The word I'm not seeing a lot of is "responsibility". People have approached it with comparisons between stalking and slaughterhouses and the conditions / approaches there, but I think the reason it pleases me to shoot and kill an otherwise - one assumes - happy and contented animal is "responsibility".
By that I mean literally, the responsibility of saying "I killed this to eat it" as well as the moral responsibility for the animal's death.
It's hard to make this argument without falling into a religious viewpoint - something I don't actually possess myself - but it does illustrate the approach all the same. Imagine one discovered at some point, be it at our own deaths or otherwise, that there is actually a creator God to whom we have to account for our actions. I'd far rather stand in front of him and say "I chose to kill this creature because I wanted to eat it and use it for my own benefit; I selected it, looked it in the eye and killed it, whilst ensuring it didn't suffer needlessly" than say "I let the slaughter man kill for me" or perhaps worse "I killed it because it was an inconvenience, not because I had need of it".
I think that when you get down to it, most humans are killers in one way or another, and more than that we're the most efficient and capable predator the world has ever seen. Once you get past that realisation, there is only what we kill, how we kill and the reasons we do so. I actually think that at the heart of most "antis" as we like to call them, is the inability to accept that killing is a fundamental part of human nature - it's what we're made / what we evolved for (depending on one's viewpoint).
I suspect a large part of the loathing these "antis" apparently hold for us is really a loathing of themselves - they know deep down that our success and our very identity as a species has come about because we, above any other species, were cleverer, faster and all round better killers than any of the species they might try to protect. It is only the acceptance of that fact - without prejudice - that can release any of us - hunters or antis - from any guilt we might feel either way on the issue.
To return to the how, what and why questions, compare the hunter who shoots a deer and wastes none of it, with the nonchalant swatter of spiders and flies. It is hard to argue that any spider or fly - even the unpleasantly poisonous ones - are a genuine threat to humans when they are so easily trapped and removed or killed. Why do some of us run around in fear of them, hysterically batting them with rolled up magazines at every opportunity? Are their lives worth less than ours, or less than a deer's? A hard question, but my instinct says no, though I haven't the time or effort to argue that point.
The deer hunter and the fly-swatter are both killers. The moral judgement is therefore not about whether to kill or not but how and why. A deer killed instantly with a bullet and a fly squashed with a magazine are probably equally humane killings, though there are other methods available for both tasks which would be less so. We can therefore judge the morality of the method of killing according to the degree of suffering caused. It is reasonable to argue that it is more moral to cause less suffering - most humans will concur with that (although no moral system can be absolute, except by consent). A slaughterhouse may be less humane; other methods even less so. Perhaps this is why the killing of geese with Gin, precipitating an agonizing death from liver failure, is specifically prohibited by law?
The "why" of the killing of a deer and the killing of a fly can also be judged from a moral standpoint. If I kill the fly to use it's carcass to feed a carnivorous plant, or to further laboratory research or to achieve some such similar aim, I give the killing a purpose. The same is true if simple convenience is achieved - I do not have a fly bothering me by buzzing round my head because I have killed it. However, that purpose may be judged less worthy by an observer, if it seems to fail to value the life taken. The how and the why are interconnected, of course, but it remains to us to justify not the killing itself but the means and the intentions by which it was achieved.
I applaud the OP for trying to get to the bottom of this and to construct something useful to us to explain why we do what we do. Ultimately, I agree with those that say there is no "proof" which shows why deer stalking is a moral good. I don't think an activity, per se, can carry that kind of moral argument. However, I do believe that the way in which an activity is carried out and the true intentions of those carrying it out are areas in which a moral judgement can be made: our strength, if we have any upon which to stand is that the vast majority of us stalk deer for the best reasons (ranging from food production to the outright spiritual) and try always to do it in the best possible way (humane, clean killing). Most of us, at least, do not kill deer (or anything else) simply because it is convenient or without reason, or approach the killing without giving the animal the respect it deserves.
On a personal note, it is the internalization of this approach which allows me to rescue bugs from pavements or rooms in which they have become trapped, where they might otherwise be killed (by others) to no good purpose; or which allows me to find fascinating deer, geese and the many other species whose appearance and behaviours interest me, and yet still pick up a gun and kill them in their turn. My work colleagues cannot, for instance, understand why I refuse to let them kill wasps, and then risk picking them up to remove them from a room: I ask them what purpose the killing would serve when it can be removed and released without harm and they never have an answer. They do however respect me as a hunter, and - I hope - as a moral person.
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Having spent years, tryin to explain to anti,s, vegetarian students, why we farm or hunt, I can say veggies can change there mind, but anti hunting/ shooting will not. (Unless you were head of the LACS and there's money in it )
As society changes the struggle will be up hill all the way, the majority of UK people have lost contact with the real countryside and farming, and reading some of the comments , so have some of the stalking community, but it's ok shoot deer on there land.
I have farmed beef / pigs and sheep for meat production, delivered and watched them be killed, none were treated
any worse than the deer I shot, and I showed no less respect to the foxes or other vermin I hunted.
As society changes the struggle will be up hill all the way, the majority of UK people have lost contact with the real countryside and farming, and reading some of the comments , so have some of the stalking community, but it's ok shoot deer on there land.
I have farmed beef / pigs and sheep for meat production, delivered and watched them be killed, none were treated
any worse than the deer I shot, and I showed no less respect to the foxes or other vermin I hunted.
howa243
Well-Known Member
There is a significant body of work detailing the stress levels of animals being loaded, transported and slaughtered. Assume you accept that your involvement in this process creates stress which is not evident in a wild animal until it gets hit by a projectile?
PM’s original question was about establishing a moral case for the killing of a particular animal for meat and how difficult it is to construct one. I wonder if this is because it is quite hard to create a moral case for an individual action; but it is easier to establish evidence for why a particular act is immoral. Those acts we consider immoral are usually those that create some harm or loss. The argument put forward in the programme was that depriving an animal of its future life is the immoral act (the harm) because the animal has some understanding of the future.
In shooting an individual animal, I’m comfortable that I am not performing an immoral act. While I am depriving that animal of future life, that animal does not know of that future. In fact, the only being to know that the animal has a potential future is me.
Should, in the future, we can truly understand animal thinking and learn that they do perceive the future; I might have to revise my opinion.
In shooting an individual animal, I’m comfortable that I am not performing an immoral act. While I am depriving that animal of future life, that animal does not know of that future. In fact, the only being to know that the animal has a potential future is me.
Should, in the future, we can truly understand animal thinking and learn that they do perceive the future; I might have to revise my opinion.
western woodsman
Well-Known Member
I think that Buchan is right, deer do not know they are going to die, at least in my estimation and experience. So deer are are quite blessed compared to humans in this regard. Deer do sense danger and try to evade that they usually do all quite well. If one deer is shot, the others do not quite know what happened only that they should get away. With anti's there is always the supposition that deer are just like us- that is like humans. This is not true. They are deer and wish to remain so. Trying to make them into humans does them and us no good whatsoever.
Pine Marten
Well-Known Member
I didn't have in mind that this could be used in this form to persuade many people of our point of view, but what I hope may happen is that it could provide a really solid grounding for any public-facing communication that we produce. Something like the opposite of the mish-mash of often contradictory and sometimes insane stuff that was trotted out to defend foxhunting back in the day. As regards advertising, it has its' place but it only ever delivers short-term, tactical gains at best. I mean, when is the last time that you saw a Coca-Cola advert and as a result went to buy a can? Or perhaps in a more relevant context, have you ever seen a Green Party leaflet and thought "My God, they were right all along!"? However I bet that at some point in the last twenty or even ten years, some things that they amongst others espouse has made it into the mainstream and filtered through to you. And that's probably as a result of having a coherent case that has made it through different forms of media, grass roots, word of mouth, to find fertile ground in your mind.
As regards the law and government, well governments change, politicians are opportunistic and need to try and please as many of the electorate as they can, and they're as suggestible as everyone else is. If enough people talk to them in good terms about hunting, you'll find a lot of them agreeing. As for the law, well that too changes, and laws can be bad or good. Just because a thing is legal, doesn't make it right, and vice-versa. Which is why I'm trying to talk in universal terms here and prove insofar as possible that hunting is fundamentally morally sound. Obviously this isn't mathematics, so it can't be proven definitely, but you can recentre the debate to persuade more people.
Pine Marten
Well-Known Member
Now I know that you need to be sparing with your posts for now as you're cooking up something special for the 5000th, but fair point. I think we're all quite well versed in the practical necessity or deestalking and the environmental benefits of managing land to maximise use for sustainable hunting and so on. So instead, let's move on from the following proposition. Our notional anti has heard everything we've said so far and broadly agrees that it's OK to shoot the deer, that perhaps it sometimes even has to be done, that no serious suffering is caused and that the impact on the environment may even be positive and so on. But he or she returns to this sticking point: "But why do YOU personally have to do it, or want to do it?".
They're not at all happy with the idea of allowing someone to kill an animal for pleasure as they would see it. So how do we argue in favour of it? I think this is where the civil liberties argument comes in. If we accept that it has to be done, or at least isn't harmful, then why not let those who want to do it, do so? No-one else is forced to. It is perfectly legitimate to have no desire to kill animals yourself. We also need to look into the nature of the enjoyment, which has been touched on before. Because if it was just about killing, you could go and work in a slaughterhouse.
Pine Marten
Well-Known Member
Well the SD is social media! But I think that a dedicated Twitter or Facebook account wouldn't have the impact or influence of a community of many users just talking about hunting, who connect to many more people who don't. But again, people have to be coherent. Also, it only takes one idiot posting a picture of a messed-up disemboweled fox accompanied by some macho triumphalist comment to undo the good work of hundreds of other people. That doesn't mean it's hopeless though. You'd probably need to focus on pictures of live animals that you've taken and stuff about food. Posting a lot of pics of dead animals won't help.
Again, social media is only one touchpoint, just another way of communicating the same ideas.
Again, social media is only one touchpoint, just another way of communicating the same ideas.
So what you are proposing is a Disney like web site where you hide the true facts of stalking, then someone releases a picture of a dead animal ( as that is what you are doing killing animals) and you are back to square one, you have to tell and show the truth from day one, people who hunt, hunt because they like it, it's a adrenalin rush when you pull the trigger, you can deny it as much as you like, but it will not change.
Pine Marten
Well-Known Member
No, I was sidetracked, I don't want to talk about how to put our case forward at all in this thread. I just want to work out exactly what our case is.
I will give my answer to these questions.
We each justify our actions only unto ourselves. What I deem to be acceptable is not necessarily acceptable to someone else.
I don't feel the need to justify anything to anyone else.
For me, hunting is not a choice. I do not choose to be a hunter. I was born a hunter. It is a totally natural thing.....how can that be bad? When I look back through my life, my earliest memories are all of gathering fruit, fishing and learning about hunting/gathering in all its forms. I am basically "programmed" to hunt and kill, to eat and to protect. It is a primeval process, some people even see hunting as a "spiritual" experience, as Klenchblaize pointed out. There is nothing else like it. I guess it all boils down to one thing: INSTINCT
Other species hunt animals without having their morals judged. Why should I be any different?
Crosshair243
Well-Known Member
I think it is acceptable for me to take an animals life because I believe in personal responsibility. By farming out (pun intended) our food production, people can either remain blissfully ignorant of the blood, guts and gore involved or occassionally make themselves feel by supporting some campaign or another promoting animal welfare or by buying some 'higher welfare' category of meat.
By killing animals myself, I have earned the moral right to eat them.
What really annoyed me in some 'Cecil the Lion' debates I've been involved in, is that the comparison gets made between '10hr death by cruel hunter' on the one hand against 'fluffy cute Lion running the plains and posing for photos' on the other.
This is not correct. Animals rights enthusiasts forget that everything dies. There are not many pleasant modes of death in Africa.
So then, compared to starvation; blood loss from mortal combat; disease; being crunched to death as a cub by a hyena; speared or snared by an angry goat farmer; etc etc the hunter option starts looking as humane or better (especially with a better shot placement) than the options Mother Nature puts on the table.
The other aspect oft forgotten, is the finite resources the earth has to offer. Only through death can new life be created. Every deer shot releases a niche for another (or the equivilent biomass) to live. This is where the vegetarian argument falls down. The vast monoculture required to feed people on plants alone would deprive vast populations of wild animals of an existence at all.
By killing animals myself, I have earned the moral right to eat them.
What really annoyed me in some 'Cecil the Lion' debates I've been involved in, is that the comparison gets made between '10hr death by cruel hunter' on the one hand against 'fluffy cute Lion running the plains and posing for photos' on the other.
This is not correct. Animals rights enthusiasts forget that everything dies. There are not many pleasant modes of death in Africa.
So then, compared to starvation; blood loss from mortal combat; disease; being crunched to death as a cub by a hyena; speared or snared by an angry goat farmer; etc etc the hunter option starts looking as humane or better (especially with a better shot placement) than the options Mother Nature puts on the table.
The other aspect oft forgotten, is the finite resources the earth has to offer. Only through death can new life be created. Every deer shot releases a niche for another (or the equivilent biomass) to live. This is where the vegetarian argument falls down. The vast monoculture required to feed people on plants alone would deprive vast populations of wild animals of an existence at all.
This is the bit that gives the antis most 'encouragement' in my opinion as we do struggle to assert a coherent statement. If indeed we offer one at all. So, as you suggest let's not continue bumping into that bloody great elephant as we blindly thumble around the Uncomfortable Room of Truth but rather grab it by the tusks and give it a good shot from the heart:
I hunt with a rifle (bow too if the law allowed) because it provides a degree of spiritual and personal fulfilment that I simply cannot obtain by any other combination of mechanisms. Yes, an element may be achieved by simply being in the woods & meadows with no more than my thoughts but I never obtain that criticall oneness as assails body & soul when a squirrel tumbles into the Autumn leaf litter and a faint whiff of cordite catches my nostrils.
The taking of a life is an integral part that cannot and should not be relegated to an argument of a need to cull but rather see an acceptance that in many of us the desire to hunt remains a constant, close-to-the-surface itch, that must be scratched if life on this planet is to be of meaning beyond simply procreation.
In summary it is not enjoyment/fun as many derive from multiple circuits of Bluewater Shopping Centre on a Saturday but something far closer to the comfort and understanding those given of an accepted religion bath in an society, for the most part at least, affords both tolerance and respect.
Of course this may be different for you but for as long as one may legally shoulder a squirrel rifle I will continue to dive deep.
K
Ps: Failed to also align my allied affinity for suitably Backwoods compliant cutlery:
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Perhaps asking the question: "Why do you want to tell me what I can and can't do?" would be a simple way of sending the ethical or psychological ball to their side of the net.
One might also ask them why they choose to spend their time and energy going into bat for a deer rather than for causes that seek to protect the rights and lives of humans. Their choice: but can they justify it?
I sometimes also argue that if you oppose hunting, but enjoy gardening -uprooting weeds, mutilating grass, shrubs and trees with mowers, secateurs and loppers and piling up the remains to rot in a corner- whether for pleasure "what a pretty garden!" or out of a sense of propriety "I do like to keep things neat!", or as a producer of fruit and veg "It's so much more rewarding! Healthier and tastier too!", then the leg you are standing your anti-hunting argument on ought to feel a bit wobblier than it did before you thought of your actions in those terms, and -more importantly- your mindset and mine have more in common than you thought. [I'll swap you a brace of pheasants for a cabbage, a basket of apples, and a bunch of roses!]
One might also ask them why they choose to spend their time and energy going into bat for a deer rather than for causes that seek to protect the rights and lives of humans. Their choice: but can they justify it?
I sometimes also argue that if you oppose hunting, but enjoy gardening -uprooting weeds, mutilating grass, shrubs and trees with mowers, secateurs and loppers and piling up the remains to rot in a corner- whether for pleasure "what a pretty garden!" or out of a sense of propriety "I do like to keep things neat!", or as a producer of fruit and veg "It's so much more rewarding! Healthier and tastier too!", then the leg you are standing your anti-hunting argument on ought to feel a bit wobblier than it did before you thought of your actions in those terms, and -more importantly- your mindset and mine have more in common than you thought. [I'll swap you a brace of pheasants for a cabbage, a basket of apples, and a bunch of roses!]
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nun_hunter
Well-Known Member
Perfectly said!
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