# Is it there any logical argument to be a meat eater, but offended by hunting? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 5, 2010, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250 "2010-08-05T11:48:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250/21 "2010-08-05T15:18:38Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > > [@scamartistry](#): > > > > I run into this argument every once in a while. The argument is usually that " I dont think its ok to kill for “fun”". > > How would you respond to this position? > > I would agree with it. A lion that kills for food is natural, but a lion that kills just to kill is a rogue lion. Says who? How does “rogue” become "unnatural? Orcas seem to kill for fun, although it’s hard to tell if any animal is having “fun” in the human sense. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250/22 "2010-08-05T15:26:19Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > [@Czarcasm](#): > > > > What other animals besides man kills for fun, if their environment is safe and they are sufficiently fed? > > Dogs, cats. Dogs? Dogs may kill because of territorial issues or fear, or because they have been trained to do so, but I don’t know about well-adjusted dogs killing just for fun. Cats? If a cat is hunting mice and/or rats, is is most probably an instinctual thing-a bit of instinctual memory that hasn’t been bread out yet. I’ve seen a tame cat catch a mouse, then hold it down, wondering what the hell she’s supposed to do with it. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250/23 "2010-08-05T15:33:30Z")
Quoth **Quartz** : > [@](#): > > That shows how much you know about fox hunting. I’ll guess you’re a city-dweller. So you’re saying that the hunters eat the fox at the end? It’s kind of odd, especially around here, to point out someone’s ignorance without correcting it. If we’re talking about African big game, then even if the animal is eaten, you’ve still got the issue of sustainability. One American deer per hunter per season isn’t going to put the species in danger, but hunting elephants or rhinos certainly can. And there’s a huge moral difference between “killing one individual animal” and “driving an entire species to extinction”. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250/24 "2010-08-05T15:34:53Z")
> [@](#): > > Cats? If a cat is hunting mice and/or rats, is is most probably an instinctual thing-a bit of instinctual memory that hasn’t been bread out yet. And just how do you think “instinct” works? When an animal does something by instinct, that’s because it instinctively finds it fun. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250/25 "2010-08-05T15:41:01Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Cats? If a cat is hunting mice and/or rats, is is most probably an instinctual thing-a bit of instinctual memory that hasn’t been bread out yet. > > And just how do you think “instinct” works? When an animal does something by instinct, that’s because it instinctively finds it fun. Uh, no. I’m saying it is instinctual because cats in the wild would find the critters edible and in plentiful supply. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250/26 "2010-08-05T15:41:01Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > If a cat is hunting mice and/or rats, is is most probably an instinctual thing-a bit of instinctual memory that hasn’t been bread out yet. How do you know the same doesn’t go for _human_ hunters? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250/27 "2010-08-05T15:43:24Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > > [@Czarcasm](#): > > > > If a cat is hunting mice and/or rats, is is most probably an instinctual thing-a bit of instinctual memory that hasn’t been bread out yet. > > How do you know the same doesn’t go for _human_ hunters? 😃 Because prehistoric hunters used to get drunk and kill animals they had no intention of eating? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250/28 "2010-08-05T15:45:52Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Uh, no. > I’m saying it is instinctual because cats in the wild would find the critters edible and in plentiful supply. Heh, ever played with a cat, say by dragging a string along the ground? Did the cat find the playing “fun” in your opinion? Sure, there is an instinctual component that goes into the selection of what animals find “fun”. Same with humans. Humans like games that imitate what humans had to do to survive - hunt, fight other humans, and gather (just look at any selection of video games). In the same way, domesticated animal preditors find hunting “fun”. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250/29 "2010-08-05T15:50:39Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > What other animals besides man kills for fun, if their environment is safe and they are sufficiently fed? Chimps? Cats? I’m sure there are others. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250/30 "2010-08-05T15:50:49Z")
If I had to be an animal consumed for food, I would much rather be a deer living a life in the wild, than a cow or pig living in one of those factory farms where you are pumped with chemicals, stunned and sometimes butchered while still alive. Some people just like their meat wrapped in plastic and don’t care about suffering as long as they don’t have to think about it. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250/31 "2010-08-05T15:50:50Z")
> [@bouv](#): > > > [@scamartistry](#): > > > > Fair point. Lets say you go hunting in Africa for the “big five”. > > Lion, rhino, hippo, elephant, giraffe? Or maybe cape buffalo instead of giraffe? Lion, Leopard, Elephant, Cape Buffalo, and Rhino. Would it make a difference if I went hunting for the Big Five but went after man-eating or otherwise aggressive lions and leopards, and sold the other animals’ meat once I shot them, so I was doing something practical even though my intention is just to have fun? Is it OK if I keep the heads and mount them? Assuming I have the proper permits, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250/32 "2010-08-05T15:51:08Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > > [@Malthus](#): > > > > How do you know the same doesn’t go for _human_ hunters? 😃 > > Because prehistoric hunters used to get drunk and kill animals they had no intention of eating? I have no idea, but it would not surprise me. 😃 More to the point, many people who no longer have to hunt for food still do it for fun - and so do animals. The distinction you are attempting to make simply doesn’t exist, as any person with an outdoor cat can testify. I suspect that if prehistoric people didn’t kill for fun, it would be because of practical “stewardship” concerns - depleting the food stock was a bad idea - probably encoded in ritual (as in ‘the great spirit is offended if you take more than you need’). ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250/33 "2010-08-05T15:54:04Z")
Another example of animals hunting when they have food is all animals in zoos that are given boxes, balls, etc. to pounce on and attack. If the animals don’t “hunt”, they get bored. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250/34 "2010-08-05T15:58:54Z")
> [@Cagey\_Drifter](#): > > I personally think for most people the big appeal of hunting has something to do with finding fun in exercising power, control, and in ‘playing God’. As such, it really turns me off and strikes me as disrespectful to life. ‘Playing God’? Wow. I’m not a hunter but I know plenty of them. I can tell you right off that you know nothing about hunters. I’m guessing that my very sweet and loyal Kricket (a dog) kills for ‘fun’. Either that or there is some sort of fued between dogs and chipmunks. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250/35 "2010-08-05T16:13:48Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > > Dogs, cats. > > Dogs? Dogs may kill because of territorial issues or fear, or because they have been trained to do so, but I don’t know about well-adjusted dogs killing just for fun. Sure they will; when presented with easy prey such as on a long isolated island, dogs have been known to have fun by running around killing as fast as they can kill. > [@madmonk28](#): > > If I had to be an animal consumed for food, I would much rather be a deer living a life in the wild, than a cow or pig living in one of those factory farms where you are pumped with chemicals, stunned and sometimes butchered while still alive. As opposed to being eaten alive by wolves? Nature isn’t a fun place, regardless of how we romanticize it. While imperfect, there IS a general attempt to make slaughterhouses humane. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250/36 "2010-08-05T16:36:42Z")
> [@Baboonanza](#): > > I don’t find the cencept offensive as much as the execution. > > Someone who stalks a deer with a bow and arrow or knife, brings it down and takes it home to feed his family is to be admired. > > A fat git sitting around with a high-powered rifle until he gets a deer in his sights to kill for fun and mounting is offensive. Most actually do both: if you kill a buck, you mount the head and eat the meat. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250/37 "2010-08-05T17:04:28Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > Yes, but they are all demonstrably indifferent to the feelings of the animal they are shooting, no? No - I’m thinking particularly of several hunters I know who feel that it is very important to have as quick as kill as possible and they really don’t want the target to suffer any longer than absolutely necessary. That’s not indifference. They want the meat enough to kill for it, but suffering is not seen as necessary to the goal but rather something to be minimized/avoided. ---
**Author:** ![Ninja\_Lauren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/46a35a/32.png) [@Ninja\_Lauren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ninja_Lauren)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250/38 "2010-08-05T17:10:23Z")
I love animals, and don’t approve of cruelty towards them. However, I am also an avid hunter. I don’t think I’m God, or on some crazed power trip while hunting. I look at it like this. I live in Michigan, where aside from cars, whitetail deer have virtually no natural predators left. With no one hunting them, their population would explode until winter hit, when a good number would starve to death. Also, there is the Quality Deer Management program, the goal of which being to educate people, only taking mature deer and keeping a healthy and sustainable population. Not every hunter is a drunken redneck shooting at everything they see. Most hunters want a clean kill shot, not just for the animals sake but for our sake too. Aside from needless suffering, you also then have to track your game. And yes, I eat what I kill. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250/39 "2010-08-05T17:21:02Z")
As several people have already said, shooting a deer to eat isn’t that much different from buying a steak at the supermarket, or even said deer being eaten by wolves. I like **Malacandra** ’s scale of “pure need\<–\>pure luxury” (mostly because I’m not very good at written argument, and so he said it a lot better than I would have). Hunting for fur is, IMO, further down the “pure luxury” side of the scale. Like I said, I’m not good with typed arguments, and I’m having trouble finding the right words to explain why meat and fur are different. Maybe **Malacandra** can help, since we seem to be on the same wavelength. So I’ll just say that I find wearing fur a lot more troubling than eating meat, and wait for my thoughts to collect. (Though taking fur/leather _and_ meat doesn’t bother me. Maybe it’s the whole waste thing. Things like not finishing your plate or throwing out a broken item that can be fixed just strikes something deep inside me). Hunting for the sake of having a trophy is barbaric. You can eat meat, and you can wear leather or fur, but killing a fox so that you can hang its head on the wall doesn’t gain you anything but a head on the wall. Yes, some animals play with their food. So what? We are the only animal that can look at our instincts and think, “Would following this impulse be good or bad?” We can decide that killing that serves no purpose should not be done. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250/40 "2010-08-05T17:35:37Z")
> [@scamartistry](#): > > ``` > **Is it there any logical argument to be a meat eater, but offended by hunting?** > I run into this argument every once in a while. The argument is usually that " I dont think its ok to kill for "fun"". > > ``` > > How would you respond to this position? I wrestle with this. My father used to hunt caribou in Alaska. I went with him once. Because of the sickening horror of it, I never went again. He also took me fishing, which he loved. After the second time, I was done. My father wasn’t a sport hunter; we actually ate what he and his mates caught or shot, and to this day I’m a meat eater. I cannot, however, rationalize the actual killing of a living, breathing, and thinking being. It makes me sick to think about it, and I still try to block the memory of seeing an animal shot dead, and hearing it fall to the ground less than 20 yards in front of me, knowing it was simply minding its own business, living its life. I’m conflicted and feel like a hypocrite. ☹ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-there-any-logical-argument-to-be-a-meat-eater-but-offended-by-hunting/549250.md?page=3)