Hunting! Is it wrong in modern society?

Great Debates
1

So, I was reading Scylla’s Vegetarian thread, and an interesting thought began ruminating in me. What if I took up hunting? I’d do it with a bow and knife, as I don’t really like guns, and I’d get me some recreation, spend some time in the forest, and get some food while I’m at it. The main thing that sparked the thought is that any meat I killed would be free (or nearly so) of additives, hormones, and what have you. I’ve always loved all things outdoorsy; to me this was just an extension of it all, something else to do in the woods, with the added advantage of feeding myself while I was out there. Hey, if I really learned to do it I could go camping and not even bother bringing food.

Now, I have zero qualms about death. I’m a big fan of nature, and of the natural view. I tend to reject modern society’s views of a lot of things. As such, killing another creature in order to eat it is quite an innocuous concept to me. It happens in nature constantly, and it has since… well, almost since things began eating other things. Death is just another part of life to me. I’m not afraid of it. I dont see it as evil. I dont know what’s beyond the veil, and I dont care; I’ll find out soon enough just like everyone else. As such, the death of things dosn’t tend to stress me out. Oh, with the notable exception of a lot of human-made deaths - creatures in nature don’t tend to kill for reasons other than food or self-defense. Those two are fine, anything else dosn’t sit right with me.

The SO, however, seems to vehemently disagree. I mentioned my new idea to her just now, and she’s quite simply disgusted with me. She dosnt see it as hunting for food, you see, since I dont need to hunt. I could just as easily go down to the supermarket. I see it as hunting for food because, in getting that meat, I wont have to go to the supermarket. I still eat the same amount of animal, the only difference is that in hunting, I do the killing myself.

It’s a view that I can’t quite understand. Either way, something dies so I can eat it. I have no qualms about doing the killing myself; indeed, I see that as being somewhat better. I’m feeding off something’s death, I may as well get my own hands ‘dirty’, as it were.

She says I’m doing this just for recreation, and that killing for fun is wrong. She likens me to a murderer. Me, I say that since I fully intend to eat it, as well as use any other bits I can, I’m killing it for food. She disagrees since I dont strictly need that food.
And my head hurts. I’m not very good at debates.

Help me out here. Gimme every point of view you’ve got. But use small words… I’ve got to sort this out in my own skull as well.

oi.

2

Don’t feel bad. Your wife’s arguement confuses me, too. :slight_smile:

I grew up in a family of hunters. I hunt (well, I used to). Believe me, there are a thousand things I would rather do then clean a deer. Fun? Hardly. We eat what we kill and if it was legal to hunt year round, I would live on venison.

So, according to the wife, if I wanted to grow my own pears, it would be wrong because I could just go to the store and buy them? I would be murdering innocent pears! [sub]joke, people. Don’t string me up[/sub]

I think she’s being silly

3

I’m not a hunter, but I’m an omnivore, and I’ve fished plenty and cleaned and eaten my own catch, and I see hunting as a real valid way to truly get the idea of where meat comes from, and to experience it on a visceral (sorry, no pun intended) level. Otherwise you go thru life with the intellectual appreciation of where your big Mac comes from, but emotionally, you think it comes out of a paper wrapper.

4

Well, if killing and eating an animal makes you a murderer, eating meat killed by others for her makes your SO the hirer of an assassin.

I hunt often, and would do it even more if I was able. We are not sepparate from the natural order, and I do not wish to be. I would much rather be a participant as fully as possible.

Do I get off on killing? I don’t think so. I fish, and often release everything I catch. However, catch and release with a black bear is pretty tough to pull off. I also don’t kill everything I have the opportunity to put down. I usually make meat quality the first priority in deciding whether or not to kill something I have hunted.

I feel more focused and aware, alert and sharp when I am hunting, especially something that can bite ME! Maybe not everyone feels what I do when I am hunting, but I feel that this is a big part of me. I am a predator, and I try to be good at it.

5

I’ve had similar discussions with the wife. I said the only difference is that some one else has done the hunting. Some of the arguments presented below are not 100% sound in their logic…I like presenting an illogical rebuttal to an illogical argument. That way, if the SO says “that doesn’t make any sense” you can say “that’s how I feel about your position.”
**

Yes, but you’re not killing for fun. You’re killing for meat. Why does she want to separate herself from the process? Being willing to eat the animal without being willing to go out and kill it yourself is cowardly.
**

Humans are hunters. Thanks to modern convenience, each individual in the species no longer needs to hunt, but there is nothing immoral about it.

Which is more murder, man v. deer in a one-on-one, or steer v. slaughterhouse? The deer has a chance, and if he’s smart enough, quick enough, etc. he’ll survive and breed with other smart, quick deer, contributing to their ability to survive. The steer doesn’t have that chance. The steer is bred from day 1 to sit out in a nice fenced-off field until slaughterday comes, then he’s rounded up and stuffed into a truck, taken to the SH and living steer is turned into ribeye. That’s somehow better than hunting?

The deer can get away if he’s quick and/or observant enough. The bear can fight back. It’s not much different from a lion taking down an antelope. The cow never stood a chance.

6

I think that hunting is much more honorable and honest than buying it at the store. It’s really easy just to look at the meat case and think of it as some sort of nebulous “food” that doesn’t harm anything. Truth of the matter is, some cow or pig or chicken died so you could have dinner. Does that mean you shouldn’t eat it? I honestly don’t know. But if you do eat it, I think it’s important to remember with some respect that you took a life in order to do so. And it’s easy to do what your wife does, to believe that if you’re not the one holding the knife, you aren’t guilty, and you can enjoy your steak with a clear concience. But Curdog is right, the only difference is you’ve paid someone to do the dirty work.

I don’t hunt, but I fish. I don’t enjoy killing the fish–dislike it intensely, in fact. But I really, really enjoy catching it. And trout is yummy, there’s no question about that. I think most responsible hunters are similar–the act of hunting is fun. the killing and cleaning are unpleasant work. Cooking and eating is great.

I’ve never really understood how meat eaters could be against responsible hunting. Vegetarians I understand–it would be consistent with the rest of one’s philosophy. But not someone cruising through the drive through with a burger in their hand decrying the deaths of all those innocent deer. Hey, cows are cute, too. I’ve often thought such people might find a slaughterhouse instructive. Or a visit to one of those huge, industrial farms where they keep the animals all crowded together for maximum profit. At least the deer had a free life and a sporting chance.

But don’t get me started on poachers or trophy hunters.

7

Great Debates or IMHO ? Only your hairdresser knows for sure… :wink:

8

This is Great Debate material if ever there was. Off it goes.

9

People who think hunting for food is wrong including your SO have a distorted and detached view of the world (i’m excluding veagans here even though…). Yes we are ment to hunt and we might even enjoy it (I do) - nothing wrong with that. Also the meat is closer to what we are suppose to eat then farm raised animals.

10

A few years back a number of us in a graduate seminar debated a question that is somewhat germane to this topic. The question at hand, “Is recreational hunting morally justifiable in 20th Century America?” To co-opt a Simpsonsism: [Reverend Lovejoy] "Ooh, short answer, ‘yes’ with an ‘if.’ Long answer, ‘no’ with a ‘but.’ [/Reverend Lovejoy]

For many of the examples provided by other posters, hunting is morally justifiable because it is often a more humane way to obtain the levels of protein one needs to live when the other option is an industrial feedlot and slaughterhouse.

Roughly dividing hunting into two camps–subsistence and non-subsistence–it can very well be argued that an extremely small number of people in 20th Century America would be classified as truly subsistence. Subsistence here refers to the biological necessity to hunt or face severe malnutrition and/or death by starvation. That leaves us with a population of hunters who are very nearly exclusively non-subsistence. Does that mean that they do not use the meat, hide, or whatever? Not at all, in fact, these hunters very often (though not always) do make use of the meat.

That said, any number of hunting motivation studies will illustrate that hunters do not list “To get the meat” as their primary motivation for the hunt. (Citations provided upon request). Most often hunters offer motivations such as, “To be outdoors,” “To experience nature,” “To test my skills” among others.

Note that killing an animal is not mentioned and rarely is mentioned as a motivation for hunting. A popular quote by Jose Ortega y Gasset (oft-cited hunting advocate) goes, “One does not hunt in order to kill; on the contrary, on kills in order to have hunted.” Another quote, by Ann Causey in an article written for the journal Environmental Ethics in 1989 reads, "Death, for the hunter, is a means to an end; it is the goal of the hunt, not of the hunter. The hunter’s goal is to have hunted. (Italics in original).

The unseemliness of hunting appears to rest in the supposed pleasure one takes in killing another living thing. However, most evidence on hunting and hunters shows that the kill is but one necessary aspect of a larger experience. And more, the supposed pleasure is itself wrapped around many different things: successfully testing one’s skills, finishing a job which required many hours/days of hard work, believing that one has fulfilled his/her purpose as a natural (in the biological sense) hunter. So, the pleasure may not be exclusively tied to the death of another living creature, it is simply expressed upon that event.

All of this was kind of long-winded and, perhaps, tangential response to whether hunting is a viable way to put food on one’s table. Personally, I think more folks should experience hunting for those reasons others listed earlier and for those I’ve offered as well.

11

Why do hunters hunt? Why don’t they take pictures?
It seems to me that if you are willing to eat meat, then you should be willing to kill it. I don’t expect someone to kill everything they eat, it’s just not practical, but you need to have some emotional involvement.
In my personal experience, hunters and farmers tend to waste less food than suburbanites.

12

I’ve got a feeling that one of the ancient philosophers (maybe Plato? -pardon my ignorance) said pretty much the same thing.

Personally, I think there’s a part of the human psyche that needs some sort of hunting experience; many people might have converted this into hunting for bargains or stamp collecting, but I suspect there are some that are simply in denial.

13

“Is hunting morally justified in the 20th Century”

Stuff like that is why there is an inevitable backlash or “anti-intellectual” attitude with so many. Just another example of the wussification of the American Male.

Myself, while I’ve never dressed a deer out personally, I can vouch that it isn’t for the squeamish. But I sure do love venison. Anyone who eats meat who is “against” hunting is basically a hypocrite and probably worse. As I find the veggies mostly objectionable for their holier than thou attitude, at least they are consistent.

My guess is the next major global disaster ala The Big Meteor Crash of 2075 will render the “question” heh, academic.

14

Uhhh… yeah.

Let’s see here. First things first, If you’re offering a critique of my post–the least you could do is get the phrasing right: "Is recreational hunting morally justifiable in 20th Century America. These two bolded words may seem unneccessary to you, but they were needed to frame the scope of the debate. Thanks.

Secondly, I’m not quite sure how to respond to the ‘wussification of the American Male’ thing. Are all hunters men? Are men who question the morality of hunting ‘lesser’ men than those who don’t? In short, I’m not seeing how debating something like we did in a class is any different than what we are doing right now. Clarifly please.

15

Whoa. GD. Cool. I made this an MPSIMS thing because it’s half a debate, half a rant about the SO, but hey, here I sit with my first CD thread. :slight_smile:

Personally, what I’m feeling here was sparked by thinking that hunted meat would probably be better for me than supermarket meat, and bolstered by the fact that I believe humans are moving WAY too far from nature. I love the forest. I want to try and work myself back into the food chain.

From the other side of the fence (my SO’s (not wife’s ;)) since this seems rather one-sided here) she still believes that the killing is not for food. This morning she gave me the arguement that eating from the wild will be removing an animal that otherwise would not have been removed, while beef cattle is going to die anyway. Which, of course, is the exact opposite of my wanting to get back into the food chain. Differing points of view on that one.

But her basic moral outrage still seems to come from the idea that the animals I’d be killing have a right to live. I compared myself to a natural predator, but she rebutted that lions and tigers and bears (oh my) don’t have supermarkets to visit. Again, my desire to further myself from urbanization and get back to nature, at least a bit.

sigh.

Well, at least I’m getting a whole lot of new arguements to use on her. :smiley: I’m a terrible debater.

16

I think I’m debating your SO, in a once-removed kind of way:

I’m personally very interested in her reasoning behind the “wild animals have a right to live but beef-cattle don’t” argument.

Why is a wild deer more valuable alive than a steer?
Why is it more outrageous to personally kill and eat an animal than to be at one remove from the killing, but still eat?
Are the slaughterhouse workers immoral for actually killing the meat at the supermarket?
Would it be morally sound if you raised deer from birth for the express purpose of killing and eating them?

17

**

I think that’s an overly broad division, although I have only anecdotal evidence to back up my opinion. I grew up in a rural area in western Pennsylvania, much more rural then that it is now. We had so many hunters that our school district normally scheduled the Monday after Thanksgiving as an off day, because it was the first day of buck season. Although the area is only approximately 30 miles from Pittsburgh, at this time there was no direct interstate route into the city and a trip downtown could stretch well over an hour and a half, so there were very, very few commuters, giving the area a much more rustic setting than the actual location might indicate.

Although there were hunters, including a large number from the “sport hunting” category, a great number of them were from what might be termed semi-subsistence. They did not need to hunt in order to eat, but by hunting they were able to supplement their income, allowing them to stretch the amount of money to include things they might not otherwise been able to obtain. Whether you count them as “luxuries” or not, an extra pair of shoes or being able to buy a more varied selection of food during the winter because they didn’t have to spend as much money on meat went a long way for a lot of families in my area. Including deer, turkey and the various small game seasons, the amount of meat a family of two or three hunters can bring in during one year can be a significant addition to the normal income of the family. The opening of the interstate all the way down to Pittsburgh has drastically altered the demographics of the area, but I’d hazard a guess that between 30 and 50 percent of the hunters when I lived there were of the “semi-subsistence” level. In talks with friends I’ve had from other more rural areas of the state the percentage seemed to be even higher.

Personally, hunting isn’t my thing. Having grown up in “the country”, I’ve found that traipsing around the woods, cold and itching from briars and unable to smoke a cigarette for fear of spooking the game is just not nearly as much fun as sitting on a bar stool with a good book and a well made martini. That said, my rustic background has allowed me to see that there are a lot of people how use hunting to better provide for their families and as such, I really can’t see anything imoral about it.

18

Quote Mnementh
I want to try and work myself back into the food chain.

Right now we are at the top of the food chain.
At what point do you want to enter it.How about half naked with a pointy stick?

I would like,well not really, to hear your wifes thoughts about wildlife conservation. The fact that regulated hunting keeps wildlife populations at a manageable point.
What are her thoughts about Bubonic plague. The prairie dog carries it in the US.
How about groundhogs digging up your foundation.
Or is it ok to kill wildlife only if it is annoying you?

19

In reference to hunters who are either classified as subsistence or non-subsistence:

I’d agree that constructing just two camps (subsistence and non-subsistence) yields an identifiable group of what you’ve termed semi-subsistence. My response would be that well, they are not truly subsistent in the sense that if they don’t hunt they will starve (food banks, food stamps, other public welfare programs to prevent such a thing). On a more practical level, your point about stretching the dollar further when meals are obtained by wild game is a valid one. Where things become even cloudier is when the concept of subsistence is expanded beyond biological requirements to include the subsistence of a culture. The Makah Indians in the Pacific Northwest made this argument in their desire to resume whaling a few years ago.

So another question might be, what is gained by classifying a hunter as either subsistence or non-subsistence? Well, IMHO most folks tend to sympathize with (admire?) the truly subsistent hunter, while the non-subsistent hunter or the recreational hunter is generally not admired and may just be tolerated but often is viewed with derision. My advice to Mnementh with regards to his SO: Ask her why it is somehow better to kill a feedlot raised cow than a wild deer. In other words, why is a wild deer more morally considerable than a feedlot cow. Also, I’d reiterate that knowing where one’s food comes from is far better than knowing only the last step in the line. In a broader environmental perspective, I’d suggest the more folks who make an effort to learn about wildlife, their specific behaviors, habitat preferences, etc., the better off we’ll all be.

20

Just chuck it all and do what this guydid.