As an an animal lover and outdoorsman, I am often plagued by guilt after a successful hunt, and I often ask myself whether it's time to give it up. A discussion on hunting and morality.
It largely depends on your local hunting culture. In the 1940's a minister of agriculture from Hungary visited a large dairy farm in the US and was appalled. He was used to a tradition that judged peasants by how well they treated their animals, and he was appaled by the suffering at the factory farm.
Similarly to very traditional, very old animal welfare concerns in farming, there is also a huge tradition all over Central Europe that hunters must absolutely kill painlessly and instantly, wounding animals without killing or killing them slowly is the greatest shame ever and can lead to the loss of license, no one ever is allowed to shoot animals before they demonstrate their skill at shooting at paper, hunting must be largely trophy and not for the pot, so female and kid deer are not to be shot (adult males are simply more expendable, most of them will not reproduce anyway, but they are not good to eat) and forresters assign quotas and seasons and manage the whole thing so that it does not destroy the ecological balances. It is mostly group hunting because it is sort of an aristocratic social event (game is rare here, hence the whole thang super expensive), and there are lots of safety rules, basically guns stay loaded for the shortest possible amount of time and pointed up unless there is a valid target right in front of the hunter.
What are your local rules and traditions? It really depends on that. Was a duck ever winged and escaped wounded without serious social consequences for the hunter?
Thanks for your interesting info about hunting in Europe!
It is VERY different here in New Zealand. Deer are not native, and have no natural predators (our largest carnivores are a bat and a small falcon). So deer (also goats, pigs, chamois and tahr) become far too numerous, and damage our ecosystem. For this reason, we have no season (you can hunt whenever you want) and no rules on what you can shoot (in fact, very often we are actually encouraged to shoot the females to help limit breeding), and there is no bag limit (you can take as many as you want). This is why I am able to live almost entirely on wild venison rather than farmed meat.
There are norms among most hunters here to be ethical and never take risks with your shooting which might result in injury of the deer. But this norm does differ by people (there are idiots everywhere in the world and we have our fair share here). I however am very careful. If there is too much wind, or the animal is moving, or I have any reason to doubt the perfectness of my shot, I don't take it.
For this reason I don't personally duck hunt, because the whole point is to shoot at animals as they move, using very small pellets, and very often wounding can occur. I don't have the stomach for it. But it is done in New Zealand.
I like the idea behind the article, especially the virtues that come along with hunting, but your argument falls apart at times, largely because it is written from a defensive frame.
Examples:
"Likewise, even if one was to eat a vegetarian or vegan diet, the kind of agriculture required to produce the amount of calories and nutrients found in meat would still require large-scale intensive farming, widespread pesticide and fertiliser use, pest control (which very often requires killing mammals, birds, and insects), accidental animal death during harvest, damage to waterways and aquatic life, and so on. Thus, even a vegetarian diet fails compared to hunting, under both the ecological and least harm welfare principles".
Wanting to frame hunting as superior to veganism here has led you astray. The animals killed through crop agriculture are wild animals which have lived there lives according to their own animal instincts, just as wild game has. Instead of one being superior to the other we can see that they are actually equivalent from a moral standpoint but with one large difference: scalability. It is simply impossible to hunt enough animals to feed billions of people, however it is not impossible to grow enough soy beans etc. to feed billions of people; we already grow that much. The takeaway from this for me is that sustainable hunting is permissible in all but a strict definition of veganism.
"Second, under the least harm principle, farming again does not succeed over hunting. No one would assert that farmed and commercially slaughtered animals suffer less than a wild animal which lives freely and is interfered with only in its final moments".
Above this quote you've rightly pointed out that wild animals do not live lives of harmony. Even where predators are not an issue like for you in New Zealand or I in Ireland animals still suffer from disease from parasites etc., and brutality at the hands of intraspecies competitors etc. The fact that farm animals receive protection from predation (where that is an issue) and vaccination from disease as well as treatment when injured etc. suggests that many farm animals if raised scrupulously can have lives better than that of wild animals in many aspects and perhaps overall. Thus if we are comfortable eating wild animals and killing wild animals for crop agriculture, there does seem to be some standard of animal agriculture we can be comfortable with. However, again the issue of scalability must be confronted. There is likely not enough land for the level of meat consumption globally today to be met by these high welfare animals only. As such, i think we end up with an ethical omnivorous diet with vastly less meat consumption than current being the preferred diet of those of us who are philosophically inclined. This is a diet packed with tofu to be clear.
Thanks for your feedback!! Your comments are helpful, and your comment about the scalability of hunting is clearly correct. I would never assert that everyone should hunt—it's not feasible. I only provide an argument which those who can, and are inclined to hunt, can use to think about the morality of the decision.
A few replies:
RE: "The animals killed through crop agriculture are wild animals which have lived there lives according to their own animal instincts, just as wild game has." -> This is absolutely true. However, the difference here is that to farm an area doesn't only require you to kill the few individual wild animals that one consumes, but requires the wholesale suppression and killing of entire populations of animals in a given area. Additionally, they are very often killed by starving them of the natural local vegetation, by poisoning, by being crushed and mutilated by harvest machines, etc. So while that is still killing wild animals in the way that hunting is, they die in a very different manner, and the scale of death is much larger.
RE: "The fact that farm animals receive protection from predation (where that is an issue) and vaccination from disease as well as treatment when injured etc. suggests that many farm animals if raised scrupulously can have lives better than that of wild animals in many aspects and perhaps overall." -> This point I absolutely agree with you on too. I agree with your whole premise really, that with a few changes and a bit more care, farming and ag are morally acceptable ways to produce food.
The point of the essay was more that, many people have an inclination towards a personal connection to their food through hunting, a (potentially ancient) desire to interact with nature and feel as if they are having a first-hand relationship with their ecosystem and their food. And these people are very often the target of vitriol and accusations of sadism or immorality (or like myself, just my own guilt at killing an animal). So my argument here was that, for those of us with this inclination to hunt, there is a good moral argument that it is as valid a way of life and sustenance as any other. And in some cases has advantages over the others, while also having disadvantages, as you noted.
Cheers for the read! Looking forward to watching the All Blacks play Ireland later this year!
It largely depends on your local hunting culture. In the 1940's a minister of agriculture from Hungary visited a large dairy farm in the US and was appalled. He was used to a tradition that judged peasants by how well they treated their animals, and he was appaled by the suffering at the factory farm.
Similarly to very traditional, very old animal welfare concerns in farming, there is also a huge tradition all over Central Europe that hunters must absolutely kill painlessly and instantly, wounding animals without killing or killing them slowly is the greatest shame ever and can lead to the loss of license, no one ever is allowed to shoot animals before they demonstrate their skill at shooting at paper, hunting must be largely trophy and not for the pot, so female and kid deer are not to be shot (adult males are simply more expendable, most of them will not reproduce anyway, but they are not good to eat) and forresters assign quotas and seasons and manage the whole thing so that it does not destroy the ecological balances. It is mostly group hunting because it is sort of an aristocratic social event (game is rare here, hence the whole thang super expensive), and there are lots of safety rules, basically guns stay loaded for the shortest possible amount of time and pointed up unless there is a valid target right in front of the hunter.
What are your local rules and traditions? It really depends on that. Was a duck ever winged and escaped wounded without serious social consequences for the hunter?
Thanks for your interesting info about hunting in Europe!
It is VERY different here in New Zealand. Deer are not native, and have no natural predators (our largest carnivores are a bat and a small falcon). So deer (also goats, pigs, chamois and tahr) become far too numerous, and damage our ecosystem. For this reason, we have no season (you can hunt whenever you want) and no rules on what you can shoot (in fact, very often we are actually encouraged to shoot the females to help limit breeding), and there is no bag limit (you can take as many as you want). This is why I am able to live almost entirely on wild venison rather than farmed meat.
There are norms among most hunters here to be ethical and never take risks with your shooting which might result in injury of the deer. But this norm does differ by people (there are idiots everywhere in the world and we have our fair share here). I however am very careful. If there is too much wind, or the animal is moving, or I have any reason to doubt the perfectness of my shot, I don't take it.
For this reason I don't personally duck hunt, because the whole point is to shoot at animals as they move, using very small pellets, and very often wounding can occur. I don't have the stomach for it. But it is done in New Zealand.
Great article.
Thanks a lot!!
I like the idea behind the article, especially the virtues that come along with hunting, but your argument falls apart at times, largely because it is written from a defensive frame.
Examples:
"Likewise, even if one was to eat a vegetarian or vegan diet, the kind of agriculture required to produce the amount of calories and nutrients found in meat would still require large-scale intensive farming, widespread pesticide and fertiliser use, pest control (which very often requires killing mammals, birds, and insects), accidental animal death during harvest, damage to waterways and aquatic life, and so on. Thus, even a vegetarian diet fails compared to hunting, under both the ecological and least harm welfare principles".
Wanting to frame hunting as superior to veganism here has led you astray. The animals killed through crop agriculture are wild animals which have lived there lives according to their own animal instincts, just as wild game has. Instead of one being superior to the other we can see that they are actually equivalent from a moral standpoint but with one large difference: scalability. It is simply impossible to hunt enough animals to feed billions of people, however it is not impossible to grow enough soy beans etc. to feed billions of people; we already grow that much. The takeaway from this for me is that sustainable hunting is permissible in all but a strict definition of veganism.
"Second, under the least harm principle, farming again does not succeed over hunting. No one would assert that farmed and commercially slaughtered animals suffer less than a wild animal which lives freely and is interfered with only in its final moments".
Above this quote you've rightly pointed out that wild animals do not live lives of harmony. Even where predators are not an issue like for you in New Zealand or I in Ireland animals still suffer from disease from parasites etc., and brutality at the hands of intraspecies competitors etc. The fact that farm animals receive protection from predation (where that is an issue) and vaccination from disease as well as treatment when injured etc. suggests that many farm animals if raised scrupulously can have lives better than that of wild animals in many aspects and perhaps overall. Thus if we are comfortable eating wild animals and killing wild animals for crop agriculture, there does seem to be some standard of animal agriculture we can be comfortable with. However, again the issue of scalability must be confronted. There is likely not enough land for the level of meat consumption globally today to be met by these high welfare animals only. As such, i think we end up with an ethical omnivorous diet with vastly less meat consumption than current being the preferred diet of those of us who are philosophically inclined. This is a diet packed with tofu to be clear.
Thanks for your feedback!! Your comments are helpful, and your comment about the scalability of hunting is clearly correct. I would never assert that everyone should hunt—it's not feasible. I only provide an argument which those who can, and are inclined to hunt, can use to think about the morality of the decision.
A few replies:
RE: "The animals killed through crop agriculture are wild animals which have lived there lives according to their own animal instincts, just as wild game has." -> This is absolutely true. However, the difference here is that to farm an area doesn't only require you to kill the few individual wild animals that one consumes, but requires the wholesale suppression and killing of entire populations of animals in a given area. Additionally, they are very often killed by starving them of the natural local vegetation, by poisoning, by being crushed and mutilated by harvest machines, etc. So while that is still killing wild animals in the way that hunting is, they die in a very different manner, and the scale of death is much larger.
RE: "The fact that farm animals receive protection from predation (where that is an issue) and vaccination from disease as well as treatment when injured etc. suggests that many farm animals if raised scrupulously can have lives better than that of wild animals in many aspects and perhaps overall." -> This point I absolutely agree with you on too. I agree with your whole premise really, that with a few changes and a bit more care, farming and ag are morally acceptable ways to produce food.
The point of the essay was more that, many people have an inclination towards a personal connection to their food through hunting, a (potentially ancient) desire to interact with nature and feel as if they are having a first-hand relationship with their ecosystem and their food. And these people are very often the target of vitriol and accusations of sadism or immorality (or like myself, just my own guilt at killing an animal). So my argument here was that, for those of us with this inclination to hunt, there is a good moral argument that it is as valid a way of life and sustenance as any other. And in some cases has advantages over the others, while also having disadvantages, as you noted.
Cheers for the read! Looking forward to watching the All Blacks play Ireland later this year!