Hunting

Monday: review.  Study guide is at tab above. Come with questions!

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Laurence Cahoone, "Hunting as a Moral Good"

Is hunting ethical?

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Defending hunting: our non-animalist authors

BIBLE, Genesis 9

ARISTOTLE, Politics Book I, ch. 8

KANT, Lectures on Ethics

CARRUTHERS, "Against the moral standing of animals"

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Defending hunting: Cahoone

• let's assume animals DO matter in the way Singer/Regan think
• proposes a "meliorist principle"--a meliorist is someone who thinks we can make a better place; a reformer or crusader
• meliorist principle: "humanly caused animal death and suffering should be reduced as much as possible, hence allowed only if necessary. 'Necessary' must refer to goods of ecosystems, or human goods or rights, sufficient to justify the animal death or harm." (Cahoone p. 495)
•  Cahoone's goal: show that enough good can come of hunting to justify the death and harm to animals, even if animals do have moral status

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STEP 1: What is hunting?

1. the sport of killing animals--for fun or challenge. (Cahoone: No!)
2. p. 496 -- not a sport, but a "cultural trophic practice"..."a practical approximation of an archaic activity"  -- like gardening, baking bread, knitting

Implications

1. Hunting:  deer hunting (for venison)
2. Not hunting at all: trophy hunting, killing for fun, using ducks as targets

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STEP 2: When does enough good come of hunting to justify it?

No unnecessary death or harm

1. animal eaten, not wasted (p. 498)
2. animal killed quickly (p. 497)
3. death by hunter causes no more suffering, compared to wild death (p. 499)
4. death by hunter causes no more suffering, compared to death associated with plant farming (p. 499)
5. hunters take place of missing predators (wolves, cougars), needed for population control (p. 499)

Positive benefits

1. hunter embodies "self sufficiency" and "trophic responsibility" and "ecological expertise" (p. 501)
2. hunter recognizes place in nature relative to animals, feels respect and graditude (p. 501)
3. hunter is honest about killing animals for food (they "face their food") (p. 502)
4. hunter "does not add to but replaces some part of the massive, anonymous animal suffering caused by unseen consumers, omnivores, and vegetarians, with pain caused personally and directly, in which the anmal's life and death are intimately recognized and responsibility taken." (p. 502)
5. "hunter allows the animal its wild life" .(p. 502)

Unjustified hunting--examples?

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Cahoone: this defense of hunting is compatible with granting animals moral status, in the manner of Regan or Singer.  Is he right? Could the guy in the picture be an animalist?