Let's build a coherent philosophical and ethical case for hunting.

[Redneck]

Got to agree strongly with Mungo`s last two posts. After enjoying more than 40 years of field sports I cannot see a reason why I have to justify doing something perfectly legal to people who only want to condemn the " bambi hunters " without considering the hunters point of view.

Its great fun if you enjoy this type of activity and also a much needed exercise in many ways but reading some of the posts on this thread makes me feel some of the posters are feeling guilty and need to seek some higher moral ground.

We have nothing to feel any shame about.

 

[pitnie]

I shoot because it is a challenge that I enjoy.
In my head it takes me back to a hunter gather state, a state we humans evolved from. It takes me away from the plastic urban sanitised life, society tells me I should live.
It makes me question my morals, my own morals. Not those dictated to me from so called religion or some social history or fluke of place of birth.
If each time I can live with my decision to end the life of a deer or pheasant, then I will continue to do so. That final approach to a shot deer or the stoop to pick up that fantastic coloured bird, both of which are no longer living due to me, is the point I confront my morals. It is not a time I enjoy but it is the point of acceptance of the act of killing.
The larger population never face that point, but feel happy to question me over the dinner table and a glass of fizz. Happy in not facing the question as someone has already done the killing for them. But also happy with full stomach and rosy cheeks to pontificate the view from the position of the perceived majority. To some anti’s just the thought of it as abhorrent, but they have thought about it, and made a stance which I respect. I ask for the respect of my stance back but that is not always reciprocated.
I eat what I shoot; I share what I shoot, to the enjoyment of myself and others. When I sell what I shoot, I like to think others that cannot step out of the plastic urban sanitised life, can enjoy the rewards of doing so.
The final act is to have family and friends sat around the table. Knowing that from the woodcock on toast to the Sika Wellington with chantrels and sloe gravy. I have brought all that together, through chance, craft and effort.
I enjoy it right up to the washing up.
I have my morals which are tested frequently, test yours and then you may question mine.

 

[Pine Marten]

Hello Pitnie.

I think your personal manifesto is very nicely written, thank you. Actually I think that a collection of these heartfelt "vox-pops" would be quite powerful as a tool. Not a piece of PR, not an advert, just ordinary hunters saying what they feel.

Edit: erm, well, admittedly there are some feelings that are not always expressed all that eloquently... I mean it would take a little curating.

 

[Gzl]

I shoot because it is a challenge that I enjoy.
In my head it takes me back to a hunter gather state, a state we humans evolved from. It takes me away from the plastic urban sanitised life, society tells me I should live.
It makes me question my morals, my own morals. Not those dictated to me from so called religion or some social history or fluke of place of birth.
If each time I can live with my decision to end the life of a deer or pheasant, then I will continue to do so. That final approach to a shot deer or the stoop to pick up that fantastic coloured bird, both of which are no longer living due to me, is the point I confront my morals. It is not a time I enjoy but it is the point of acceptance of the act of killing.
The larger population never face that point, but feel happy to question me over the dinner table and a glass of fizz. Happy in not facing the question as someone has already done the killing for them. But also happy with full stomach and rosy cheeks to pontificate the view from the position of the perceived majority. To some anti’s just the thought of it as abhorrent, but they have thought about it, and made a stance which I respect. I ask for the respect of my stance back but that is not always reciprocated.
I eat what I shoot; I share what I shoot, to the enjoyment of myself and others. When I sell what I shoot, I like to think others that cannot step out of the plastic urban sanitised life, can enjoy the rewards of doing so.
The final act is to have family and friends sat around the table. Knowing that from the woodcock on toast to the Sika Wellington with chantrels and sloe gravy. I have brought all that together, through chance, craft and effort.
I enjoy it right up to the washing up.
I have my morals which are tested frequently, test yours and then you may question mine.

perfectly put.

 

[Pine Marten]

Do people want to try and poke anymore holes in the argument so far, or do you think we're about ready to try and bring this all together into a coherent whole? I'm thinking of attempting something pictorial.

 

[Greymaster]

Got to agree strongly with Mungo`s last two posts. After enjoying more than 40 years of field sports I cannot see a reason why I have to justify doing something perfectly legal to people who only want to condemn the " bambi hunters " without considering the hunters point of view.

Its great fun if you enjoy this type of activity and also a much needed exercise in many ways but reading some of the posts on this thread makes me feel some of the posters are feeling guilty and need to seek some higher moral ground.

We have nothing to feel any shame about.

You don't have to justify yourself but in order for you to prevent a large number of people imposing their will in you, out of over sentimentality or whatever, then if you cannot win enough over to live and let live, your freedom to do as you please will be severely curtailed. This is not an academic argument on a panel show. If there are votes to be gained, the politicians will go with the majority view.

Many on here have elaborated their motivation on a spiritual level, but it is probably the case that if deerstalking was a religion, then the right to practise your beliefs would be enshrined, as are halal and kosher practices.

 

[Kernow_Stalker]

To be honest, unless they are a vegan then they don't really have any valid argument against hunting. Even a vegan should be able to accept that humans have evolved to be omnivores, so in actual fact they are doing the least natural thing to humans which is to only eat one food source. Now the only people who dont beleive in evolution would be creationists, so logically the only people who can now really genuinly object to hunting are vegan creationists......

Which lets face it, evolution is a fact, so half their argument is invalid before it even starts....

 

[Pine Marten]

Even a vegan should be able to accept that humans have evolved to be omnivores, so in actual fact they are doing the least natural thing to humans which is to only eat one food source.

We've covered this somewhere in the previous pages but having evolved to be omnivores is not in itself an argument. The fact that the notional vegan is alive and well is a sufficient counter-example. The sustainability of everyone being a vegan is valid counter-argument. However, this doesn't justify hunting as such, it's around eating meat generally. Part of the argument, or rather of the boundary conditions (we assume that a hight proportion of humans eat meat and will continue to do so), but not directly part of the pro-hunting argument.

 

[HuN73R666]

What a refreshing change to read (not all of it yet, I admit) an attempt at a dialectic, as opposed to rhetorical discourse regarding hunting. Good call Pine Martin. Craggy told me about this thread and my initial response was that the primary thesis for the justification of hunting in general is, "Is it morally permissible to kill any animal and eat it?". If the answer turns out to be yes, then the case for hunting over farming is already well made as far as I see it.
I owe it to the contributors so far, to finish reading all of your comments before I jump the gun (so to speak), but I will just say that in order to attempt to prove the premise we must first pin down what it is to be moral or exactly what morals are. There are those that will revert to some defaults handed down by their particular flavour of God, but that is theology (arguably not a subject worthy of contribution), and not philosophy.
So this aside, I would like to suggest that morality as a phenomenon, is the measure of well-being in conscious creatures and how ones own actions affect this. Its a difficult thing to pin down, but just because the details are difficult (maybe impossible) to arrive at in all cases does not mean that the concept is incorrect. (An example would be that we all know that we should eat "healthy" food, but exactly what constitutes "healthy" is far from an easy question to answer in all specific cases of food. That does not mean that there are not indeed "healthier" diets than others). Same goes for moral actions.
I would then put on the table that the "well-being" of a specific creature largely depends upon its level of conciousness and ability (or lack thereof) to contemplate its own existence and emotional state (if "emotional" is even a valid term to use in many cases).
I read an article by a self proclaimed "philosopher" last week, asserting that "when we kill a cow we are depriving it of it future 'happy' existence. How dare we?" Firstly, I would question this guys credentials as a philosopher but moreover on what grounds does he project the emotion of "happiness" upon a creature such as a cow, let alone the concept that this creature may well be able to contemplate its own future existence, or lack thereof? There is no evidence to suggest (which I am aware of) that cows have any such cognitive ability of complex foresight, let alone that they experience what we humans would regard as the emotion of "happiness". In this case I believe that the onus of proof lies with him. He presented no such proof.

Anyway, that is my mental "dump" for now. I shall read the rest of your comments tonight and I apologies in advance if you guys have already covered the points I mention. I also apologise for my grammar/spelling. I am mildly dyslexic.

Happy Hunting

 

[HuN73R666]

In terms of the morality of killing animals for meat generally I'm going to answer the question with a question - Does it have to be morally justified?

As we humans class ourselves as "moral" beings, I think yes. Any argument which is going to stand up against opposition from other humans must be morally cogent.

That said, I do not disagree with any of your points stubear. All well made.

 

[Pine Marten]

I am mildly dyslexic.

Happy Hunting

As you said at the start of your post,
a dyalexic is a refreshing change! Also, that's the most high brow example of a smiley-based joke I've ever seen, congratulations.

 

[HuN73R666]

In my role as a remedial company I have killed probably millions of wood booring beetle lavie in peoples homes.

That's an interesting point worthy of keeping in the light for a moment. My understanding is, that in the UK, invertebrates (with the exception of some honorary vertebrates such as the octopus) are not classed in law as animals when it comes to animal welfare legislation. That is interesting to my point. Why was the status of octopi raise to that of a vertebrate in law? My understanding is that they are deemed to be of a specific level of intelligence and thus possibly capable of higher cognitive awareness not observed in other invertebrates. Capable of suffering I would assume.

 

[HuN73R666]

As you said at the start of your post,
a dyalexic is a refreshing change! Also, that's the most high brow example of a smiley-based joke I've ever seen, congratulations.

You had me there. I had to go back and check my spelling!! LOL

 

[Greymaster]

That's an interesting point worthy of keeping in the light for a moment. My understanding is, that in the UK, invertebrates (with the exception of some honorary vertebrates such as the octopus) are not classed in law as animals when it comes to animal welfare legislation. That is interesting to my point. Why was the status of octopi raise to that of a vertebrate in law? My understanding is that they are deemed to be of a specific level of intelligence and thus possibly capable of higher cognitive awareness not observed in other invertebrates. Capable of suffering I would assume.

Because on a show of hands, the octopussies won hands down?

 

[Pine Marten]

I just received this email from the Countryside Alliance which I think highlights the usefulness of the exercise we're doing, particularly the sentence I've highlighted towards the end. However, this article caricatures and simplifies the "antis" as much as they do us, and so I don't think they've really quite hit the nail on the head here...

It’s time to take hysteria out of the hunting debate

It is very difficult to have a sensible conversation about wildlife management at the moment – what with proselytising pop stars and TV presenters, the rise of the keyboard warrior and the ease with which local issues become international petitions. There is a great deal of noise, but little clarity.

Early November marks the start of the season for the 289 registered packs of hunting dogs across Britain which were set up to provide an important service for farmers and landowners by managing the population of foxes, hare and deer.

Discussion of this subject, however is almost impossible because of the near hysteria it provokes. Take the small amendments to the Hunting Act that were to come before Parliament in July, which would have varied the number of hounds allowed to be used by hunts when flushing mammals out to be shot. Despite evidence that being able to use more dogs is more effective, and potentially more humane, the response to the tweaks was frenzied.

The Government was “planning repeal of the hunting act by the back door”, they screeched. Brian May started singing, Bill Oddie donned a fox mask, Ricky Gervais tweeted cute pictures of sleeping fox cubs and all sense went out of the window.

The SNP – who until then had cited legislation covering hunting in England and Wales as a prime example of the issues they would not vote upon, as it did not affect Scotland – now scented blood and realised this was a cause they could use to emphasise their new-found power in Westminster. They did not care a jot about fox hunting but wanted to rile the Government. No discussion would be broached and the vote was off.

The knee-jerk nature of these campaigns and the power of social media are also demonstrated by weighing the attention the death of a single lion in Africa can command with the day-in, day-out cruelty to the 54,000 horses that are transported in horrendous conditions for thousands of miles across Europe to slaughter each year, which never gets a mention. We can all get purple-faced with rage about the idea of paying to shoot a pheasant whilst tucking into cheap chicken from the Philippines in our ready meals.

But the Hunting Act was never really about saving foxes – it was about stopping people wearing certain clothes riding around the countryside or having fun. The idea that 10 seasons after the act came in hunts still meet at pubs, hunt balls still take place and on December 26 around 250,000 people will turn out in market places and stately homes across the country to support them, really infuriates the antis.

It’s why a picture of a small child being led by a parent on foot in the hunting field posted on social media attracts suggestions that he will grow up to be a paedophile and why a ferry company has now stopped carrying all day-old poultry chicks after the threat of adverse publicity from an animal rights group, rather than attempting to look at the facts.

Ten years after the Act hunts are still meeting and the Countryside Alliance is still fighting for sense to return to the hunting debate and for proper discussion of animal welfare, wildlife management and the role of the hunting dog in that management to be possible.

We are “still here, still hunting” and will be until common sense prevails.

Tim Bonner
Chief Executive

 

[Tulloch]

I am actually quite disturbed by that reply from the Countryside Alliance and I am afraid they DO NOT represent me or my feelings. What that statement does is tell "Anti's" that hunters will keep hunting even if it the law says that we are not allowed, or to put it another way, hunters are above law and legislation.

I go back to saying that the hunting community/industry are good at shooting themselves in the foot.

 

[Pine Marten]

I'm not a huge fan of the CA either. But they have grown a lot better at making their case over the years, they were complete amateurs back in the day. That said, the tone is a little self-satisfied, a little condescending. I know it's aimed at supporters, but nothing online is private. Anyway, I think we've come up with something a lot better here. I still need to pull it all together into a single document.

 

[Taff]

I am actually quite disturbed by that reply from the Countryside Alliance and I am afraid they DO NOT represent me or my feelings. What that statement does is tell "Anti's" that hunters will keep hunting even if it the law says that we are not allowed, or to put it another way, hunters are above law and legislation.

I go back to saying that the hunting community/industry are good at shooting themselves in the foot.

So what is your answer to bend over and take it anyway the anti,s feel like giving it to you, hunting is at the forefront of the battle to protect your right to stalk, if you found that statement disturbing, there is no hope for field sports in the UK, no one has broke the law, but managed to work within the law, which was written so hunting would continue.
The fact is amateur stalking does not have to take place, it's a sport, dress it up as deer management, crop protection etc, in the eyes of the public it is killing bambie.
PM your dreaming, your argument may be logical, but you are not dealing with logical arguments, if you want to read condisending, read some of the posts in this thread.

 

[Pine Marten]

PM your dreaming, your argument may be logical, but you are not dealing with logical arguments

Could well be, and yet...

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible."

 

[HuN73R666]

I don't think that is quite the case Taff. I do not believe that the mass populous sees hunting as "killing bambi", but the anti's certainly do, and they are making a lot of noise. Many people go about their lives not giving a second thought to the topic of hunting and if pressed on the spot would probably go along the lines of "if it does not affect me....". That said, the more noise the anti's make, the more it hands the wider public a "received" perception of hunting along the lines you mention and brings the topic to the front of peoples minds. The anti's certainly are illogical and irrational (generally not worth wasting your breath on), but I do not believe that the majority of the public are. That's why I feel that Pine Martin's attempt at a coherent and cogent argument coving as many thesis and antithesis is a worthy cause.

The fact is amateur stalking does not have to take place, it's a sport, dress it up as deer management, crop protection etc, in the eyes of the public it is killing bambie.
PM your dreaming, your argument may be logical, but you are not dealing with logical arguments, if you want to read condisending, read some of the posts in this thread.