howa243
Well-Known Member
Except it is a cheap way of getting in front of the mass market. Its even used by politicians. It would clearly need to be a moderated account to ensure no stupid photos.
Let's build a coherent philosophical and ethical case for hunting.
- Thread starter Pine Marten
- Start date
Except it is a cheap way of getting in front of the mass market. Its even used by politicians. It would clearly need to be a moderated account to ensure no stupid photos.
Pine Marten
Well-Known Member
WARNING: this post ends with a rather surprising and unexpected recommendation.
Summary 2: “OK, but why do YOU want to kill it?”
Assumption: our notional anti has accepted the previous arguments around why it is acceptable for people to hunt animals. What he or she isn’t happy with is that a hunter would take pleasure in doing so and therefore want to do it themselves.
Having hopefully adequately answered the questions around whether it’s even OK to hunt an animal at all, we move onto the potentially more difficult question of why an individual wants to do so in the first place. As Klenchblaize and others have mentioned, the fact that in the end we do this for pleasure (of various forms) is the difficult elephant in the room that we tend to shy away from. It’s not an easy topic, it rapidly becomes very personal (I’ll come back to that) but ignoring leads to some of the idiotic statements we saw around the time of the foxhunting ban with people claiming that foxes enjoyed being chased for example. This sort of self-defeating nonsense has to be avoided as GZL has touched on.
So, recognising that most people make choices based on several factors, what drivers combine in different proportions to make an individual want to hunt? Tell me if I’ve missed any, but I think it’s because of a combination of some of the following motivations:
1. Meat – this is the simplest, most basic driver, but quite frankly there can’t be many of us for whom it’s the main reason for hunting (as opposed to a moral justification)
2. Crop protection, species management, pest control – these are clearly things that need to be done and the main driver for some, but again few would choose to do this work for the money, so it’s an insufficient explanation on its’ own.
3. Upbringing, availability, broadly cultural reasons – I think a lot of people are in the position of hunting because they grew up in an environment where that’s what people did, and they follow suit, almost for some as a default activity rather than as a positive choice. At one end of the spectrum I see a lot of this in France where hunting was traditionally an easily accessible, cheap means of obtaining meat, recreation and a social activity. But it does tend to make for hunters who aren’t actually particularly passionate, invested or thoughtful about the whole thing. At the other end of the scale, I think that perhaps this area overlaps with some of the perceptions around class mentioned in posts #98 and #101 by Hereford and Tulloch. There are also very wealthy, privileged people who shoot because that’s what people in their circle do, and they have the access.
4. For sport, the challenge, status: this is a problematic area because if at one end you have what Willie_Gunn describes in post #103, catching a trout on a dry fly or shooting a fast, high pigeon, which are a test of skill and fieldcraft, at the other end you have those who fly to Africa to shoot Cecil the Lion (he’s not going to leave this discussion, there’s a lion in the room next to the elephant…) and put him on the wall. This may well make conservation and financial sense, but it’s clear that it sits uneasily. Most hunters are delighted to have put a woodcock in their game bag, but there are undoubtebly those who view a trophy as similar to a Ferrari or a big golden wristwatch. So this point runs the full gamut of moral judgements from being admirable and noble, to being greedy and callous. Tough one.
5. A means to access and use firearms – there are those who primarily like shooting, the hunting is secondary. Which isn’t a good or bad thing as such, just part of the mix.
6. They like to kill things – again, as a sole motivation, this is pretty unpleasant, but it’s an ingredient.
7. Instinct – several of you have alluded to this last one, perhaps most eloquently Buckaroo8 in post #76 and Klenchblaize in post #78. It’s not a choice so much as part of an integral part of who and what the hunter is.
I’m going to spend a little time on this specific point as it’s a potential argument winner as part of the mix.
This statement from Buckaroo8 raises the very valid possibility that less than 10,000 years of agriculture (much less than that in most of Europe) has left a lot of people with an urge to pursue animals and fish to eat that has not yet been removed by evolution. Now there are many other traits that could be like that, and the neverending dispute around the contributions that nurture and nature make to human behaviour remain unresolved. Having had a word with an evolutionary biologist this weekend, I’ve been told that work on human behavioural evolution is inconclusive and generally pretty bad, so although this can’t be proven, it’s a very valid conjecture.
Klenchblaize makes it clear that to him, hunting is an existential matter. We’re back on solid philosophical ground that Camus and Sartre would be familiar with here. It’s nothing less than a way of validation one’s existence.
The reason for which the above are in my view so important is that they set up a framework for discussion that would be familiar to anyone who has for example ever had a discussion about gay rights. Before you shout me down, think about how far that conversation has come. There are clear parallels: a minority group defined by something that is just a part of them, but is misunderstood, ignored or violently reviled by much of the rest of society for whom it is alien at best, sinful/morally wrong at worst, sometimes reacted to completely disproportionately. Often this group was (or still is in many countries) criminalised for something that‘s just a part of them although it does no harm to anyone, and most choose to deal with this by staying out of view of the public. But it’s only through confronting the prejudice or ignorance that they manage to change the mainstream view. What we have here is a precedent and an example we can draw from.
Have a good laugh about it, throw in a few quips, but I think that approaching this as at least in part a civil liberties or rights argument is not only valid but a potential long-term winner.
Summary 2: “OK, but why do YOU want to kill it?”
Assumption: our notional anti has accepted the previous arguments around why it is acceptable for people to hunt animals. What he or she isn’t happy with is that a hunter would take pleasure in doing so and therefore want to do it themselves.
Having hopefully adequately answered the questions around whether it’s even OK to hunt an animal at all, we move onto the potentially more difficult question of why an individual wants to do so in the first place. As Klenchblaize and others have mentioned, the fact that in the end we do this for pleasure (of various forms) is the difficult elephant in the room that we tend to shy away from. It’s not an easy topic, it rapidly becomes very personal (I’ll come back to that) but ignoring leads to some of the idiotic statements we saw around the time of the foxhunting ban with people claiming that foxes enjoyed being chased for example. This sort of self-defeating nonsense has to be avoided as GZL has touched on.
So, recognising that most people make choices based on several factors, what drivers combine in different proportions to make an individual want to hunt? Tell me if I’ve missed any, but I think it’s because of a combination of some of the following motivations:
1. Meat – this is the simplest, most basic driver, but quite frankly there can’t be many of us for whom it’s the main reason for hunting (as opposed to a moral justification)
2. Crop protection, species management, pest control – these are clearly things that need to be done and the main driver for some, but again few would choose to do this work for the money, so it’s an insufficient explanation on its’ own.
3. Upbringing, availability, broadly cultural reasons – I think a lot of people are in the position of hunting because they grew up in an environment where that’s what people did, and they follow suit, almost for some as a default activity rather than as a positive choice. At one end of the spectrum I see a lot of this in France where hunting was traditionally an easily accessible, cheap means of obtaining meat, recreation and a social activity. But it does tend to make for hunters who aren’t actually particularly passionate, invested or thoughtful about the whole thing. At the other end of the scale, I think that perhaps this area overlaps with some of the perceptions around class mentioned in posts #98 and #101 by Hereford and Tulloch. There are also very wealthy, privileged people who shoot because that’s what people in their circle do, and they have the access.
4. For sport, the challenge, status: this is a problematic area because if at one end you have what Willie_Gunn describes in post #103, catching a trout on a dry fly or shooting a fast, high pigeon, which are a test of skill and fieldcraft, at the other end you have those who fly to Africa to shoot Cecil the Lion (he’s not going to leave this discussion, there’s a lion in the room next to the elephant…) and put him on the wall. This may well make conservation and financial sense, but it’s clear that it sits uneasily. Most hunters are delighted to have put a woodcock in their game bag, but there are undoubtebly those who view a trophy as similar to a Ferrari or a big golden wristwatch. So this point runs the full gamut of moral judgements from being admirable and noble, to being greedy and callous. Tough one.
5. A means to access and use firearms – there are those who primarily like shooting, the hunting is secondary. Which isn’t a good or bad thing as such, just part of the mix.
6. They like to kill things – again, as a sole motivation, this is pretty unpleasant, but it’s an ingredient.
7. Instinct – several of you have alluded to this last one, perhaps most eloquently Buckaroo8 in post #76 and Klenchblaize in post #78. It’s not a choice so much as part of an integral part of who and what the hunter is.
I’m going to spend a little time on this specific point as it’s a potential argument winner as part of the mix.
This statement from Buckaroo8 raises the very valid possibility that less than 10,000 years of agriculture (much less than that in most of Europe) has left a lot of people with an urge to pursue animals and fish to eat that has not yet been removed by evolution. Now there are many other traits that could be like that, and the neverending dispute around the contributions that nurture and nature make to human behaviour remain unresolved. Having had a word with an evolutionary biologist this weekend, I’ve been told that work on human behavioural evolution is inconclusive and generally pretty bad, so although this can’t be proven, it’s a very valid conjecture.
Klenchblaize makes it clear that to him, hunting is an existential matter. We’re back on solid philosophical ground that Camus and Sartre would be familiar with here. It’s nothing less than a way of validation one’s existence.
The reason for which the above are in my view so important is that they set up a framework for discussion that would be familiar to anyone who has for example ever had a discussion about gay rights. Before you shout me down, think about how far that conversation has come. There are clear parallels: a minority group defined by something that is just a part of them, but is misunderstood, ignored or violently reviled by much of the rest of society for whom it is alien at best, sinful/morally wrong at worst, sometimes reacted to completely disproportionately. Often this group was (or still is in many countries) criminalised for something that‘s just a part of them although it does no harm to anyone, and most choose to deal with this by staying out of view of the public. But it’s only through confronting the prejudice or ignorance that they manage to change the mainstream view. What we have here is a precedent and an example we can draw from.
Have a good laugh about it, throw in a few quips, but I think that approaching this as at least in part a civil liberties or rights argument is not only valid but a potential long-term winner.
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It is entirely a civil liberties argument.
Every other argument has logical or ethical weaknesses (or both).
Unfortunately, civil liberties arguments can very easily be lost when a majority decide they don't like that particular liberty. The comparsion with gay rights is very interesting in this respect: there, despite very strong initial opposition based on tradition, religion and ignorance, the underlying logic forced people to accept the liberty. The underlying logic was clear and unambiguous: homosexuality harms no one, and no rational case can be made against it.
Hunting is in a different position: the underlying logic is much more subjective. A case can clearly be made that harm is done (something dies, some pain is unavoidable). We spend a lot of time implicitly aknowledging this when we talk about 'minimising' the pain and suffering. We all make an arbitrary decision that we tolerate this because we feel the benefits (both personal and general) outweigh this harm.
howa243
Well-Known Member
Just to play the devils advocate here but if a characteristic is innate then how does one differentiate between them?
Pine Marten
Well-Known Member
Well I've thought of this and as Mungo suggests, on its' own, it's an insufficient argument. For example I daresay that paedophiles could claim that their preferences are an innate characteristic. However as its' practice is demonstrably and inarguably very harmful, it's absolutely legitimate to forbid it. With consenting adults, it's a different matter entirely. In the case of hunting an animal, it's not so clear cut but we've tried to answer it earlier on.
howa243
Well-Known Member
Personally I believe the gathering of food to be an innate characteristic, one that cannot be expunged from us completely. Sex is surely another one. We do it even though we are not doing so to procreate. The guardianistas love this argument.
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Pine Marten
Well-Known Member
I think perhaps we need to be careful not to go off on too much of a tangent here and stick to the topic at hand...
So in an attempt to do that, I'll throw in a personal perspective on this innate desire to hunt.
There is almost no reason whatsoever in terms of background or upbringing that would make me want to hunt. No-one on my family hunted, none of their friends, none of my friends or their families either, no-one. And I had no opportunity to interact with the hunting world other than theoretically until much later. But I do know that aged about 10, I was daydreaming in an uninformed way about hunting, and by 14 I was absolutely champing at the bit. And it would be another six or seven years before I was able to set out after game for the first time. I am a patient man.
What I found out later is that with the substitution of a few words, this is almost the exact same story as how a very good friend of mine found out that he was gay, and in fact the fear of alienation and how your friends and family will react to finding out is also very similar!
So in an attempt to do that, I'll throw in a personal perspective on this innate desire to hunt.
There is almost no reason whatsoever in terms of background or upbringing that would make me want to hunt. No-one on my family hunted, none of their friends, none of my friends or their families either, no-one. And I had no opportunity to interact with the hunting world other than theoretically until much later. But I do know that aged about 10, I was daydreaming in an uninformed way about hunting, and by 14 I was absolutely champing at the bit. And it would be another six or seven years before I was able to set out after game for the first time. I am a patient man.
What I found out later is that with the substitution of a few words, this is almost the exact same story as how a very good friend of mine found out that he was gay, and in fact the fear of alienation and how your friends and family will react to finding out is also very similar!
howa243
Well-Known Member
It would be interesting to know how easy it is to separate oneself from the method of hunting. I feel it to be an essential characteristic, I am drawn to it. But I would not do it with a knife or a bow or spear. So maybe the method has an impact as well.
Crosshair243
Well-Known Member
As I said earlier in a post nobody seemed to notice, for me, it's personal responsibility. For us to eat, other stuff has to either die or be deprived of food it could have eaten. We hide our consumption of flesh and other animals food supplies behind the broad term 'farming'.
By hunting, I come face to face with the realities of depriving another creature of life- and that eat or be eaten (or starve) mentality that is actually what helps us survive so successfully. So by participating honestly in the game of life, I earn my right to eat the spoils of others hard work (farmers and butchers) because I could kill a cow and eat it myself.
I thought this was quite relevant:
The BBC is right to toughen up Countryfile | James Rebanks | Comment is free | The Guardian
By hunting, I come face to face with the realities of depriving another creature of life- and that eat or be eaten (or starve) mentality that is actually what helps us survive so successfully. So by participating honestly in the game of life, I earn my right to eat the spoils of others hard work (farmers and butchers) because I could kill a cow and eat it myself.
I thought this was quite relevant:
The BBC is right to toughen up Countryfile | James Rebanks | Comment is free | The Guardian
howa243
Well-Known Member
It has been mentioned already. Close to anyway. Post 21
Crosshair243
Well-Known Member
No, that's not the point I was making. My point is not about alternatives- it's about responsibility.
It's logically impossible to oppose someone else killing something (ie be an anti) whilst eating stuff that someone else has killed for you. People are practically so far from their food that they skew the morals involved.
howa243
Well-Known Member
Oh I see. Agreed but I don't think it will change other peoples attitudes. Logic is something which should be at the heart of convincing others of your point of view. In my experience, its rare that it does. After all, some folks voted Labour for a second time after TB had gone to war for reasons that nobody believed then, let alone now. I do think that the recent trend of television chefs to use game and talk about provenance has helped. There is a council run deer park close to me that used to sell the cull to Highland Game. Now they process all of the cull themselves and sell it through their own farm shop. I understand that they have had zero negative feed back. Good news and maybe grounds for optimism.
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Pine Marten
Well-Known Member
There's something in this too. In my experience, people have a sense of fair play when it comes to discussing hunting or fishing, but they also know next to nothing about how hunting is conducted. So whereas you jump straight to the weapon used and method of despatch, I've spoken to quite a few people who are perfectly happy with individuals hunting, a perceived one-on-one Man Pitted Against Nature situation, but are deeply suspicious of any collective form of hunting. This is perceived as less fair somehow. Now fairness again is a subjective concept, but if we bring up our dear departed friend Cecil, part of the outrage stemmed from a perception that a semi-tame lion was lured to his cruel death from the safety of a national park. I bet you that if the story had been that a Masai warrior went into the bush after a different lion single handed with nothing but a spear, people wouldn't have reacted the same at all. Closer to home, a friend who lives in semi-rural France was asking me about this and jokingly said "You guys look ridiculous walking in a line through the fields. I mean what are you trying to do? Scare a rabbit so that someone can shoot it? That's not hunting. Alone with your dog though, that's proper hunting."
Admittedly that statement betrays an almost complete ignorance of how hunting is done. But the perception expressed that there's a level of fair chase that makes it acceptable is an important one. She was also unaware of the crop protection or population management aspects of it. But the initial perception is addressable with some of the arguments we've raised here.
Still, the idea that the hunted animal has a fair chance of escape is important and we need to demonstrate that it is so.
howa243
Well-Known Member
Essentially, we need to prove it is not fun. This is tricky.
BearStalker
Well-Known Member
When one takes a good close look at it, it is man who caused the problem and, as such, it is man who is 'morally obligated' to step in to help. Man has built houses, factories, towns, cities, etc., where the animals once lived. Man expanded and started raising domesticated animals (cattle, sheep, pigs, etc.) and, to ensure they made enough money/had enough to eat, they protected these domesticated animals by killing off the bear, wolf, wild cat, Lynx, etc. These animals kept the numbers down by killing the old, sick, and week.
With the predators being extinct, the deer, rabbits, etc., were left to increase in population. With man taking over their former large feeding areas, the land, that was left, could no longer support the larger populations. As such, man caused the problem, and, as such, man is 'morally' responsible for stepping in and replacing the extinct predators nature had in place and man killed out.
After explaining all of this to anyone who calls me (or other hunters/stalkers) "Bambi Killers", I ask them which is more humane, to kill the animal as quick and painless as possible, take it home and feed the family, or allow them to starve to death and the decomposing remains causing untold illnesses and disease that can, also infect man? When I get them to start thinking, properly, I start on them and the killing and eating of domesticated animals.
I agree, we need to build a strong enough case that will stop the problems with the "Bambi Lovers" and using the statement: "I like to eat meat, so I kill them to eat them." will only anger them more and make them more determined.
Just my 2p worth.
Grant
Pine Marten
Well-Known Member
Not at all, this was hopefully covered in post #123. You can't prove it isn't fun because that isn't true, and trying to do so is therefore counterproductive, especially since it would be a tacit admission of guilt on our part. This is a separate point about the perceived fairness of different forms of hunting.
The exact opposite.
We need to be entirely upfront about the fact that it is fun, and that this is a major part of why we do it. Essentially we are saying 'a substantial number of people gain considerable pleasure from this activity, and that pleasure needs to be counted along with the other positive effects of the activity when making a decision about whether the overall good provided by it outweighs the overall harm'.
Could you clarify why percieved fairness is important?
I'm not sure I can see why. Once you've taken the decision that you want to kill a quarry animal (for whatever reason), then it's unclear why providing it with an opportunity to escape really matters. It may affect your own subjective enjoyment to feel that you've offered it a chance to escape, but when trying to justify hunting in broad philosophical terms, variation in the probability of escape does not seem to add anything to the argument.
My suspicion is that what we percieve as fairness is a way of adding unpredictability to the hunt. It makes the outcome less certain, and therefore more exciting. We use a variety of post hoc rationalisations to justify this - but it's a red herring to the main argument about justifying the act of hunting itself.
Pine Marten
Well-Known Member
Hello Mungo. It's important because many in the general public consider it to be so. And I think that ties into a perception of the skill required to earn the quarry pursued. There's certainly an overlap with the degree of satisfaction derived by the hunter, or at least many hunters. Many people respect the fact that others have achieved something difficult that takes dedication and perseverance. Shooting a dozen pheasants during a drive when other people have done much of the work doesn't tick the box as clearly. But then there's a reason for which in the UK we call that "shooting" and not "hunting".
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