# Resolved: Hunting is immoral. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 1, 2009, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930 "2009-11-01T11:36:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Cort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/77aa72/32.png) [@Cort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cort)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/61 "2009-11-01T16:20:59Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Oh? Then why do doctors who tell you to eat right include meat in their analysis of “right” eating? I don’t care. The fact is that there are millions of healthy vegetarians in the world. I’m one of them. There are plenty of vegetarian athletes and even vegetarian bodybuilders. [The American Dietic Association](http://www.eatright.org/cps/rde/xchg/ada/hs.xsl/advocacy_933_ENU_HTML.htm) states that: _“It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes.”_ [Here](http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/70/3/516S) is a study which says a vegetarian diet lowers your risk of fatal heart disease by 24%. That said, I should reiterate that I’m arguing people should be vegetarian for moral reasons, not because it’s better for them. Health benefits are just a perk. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/62 "2009-11-01T16:26:46Z")
> [@Cort](#): > > That said, I should reiterate that I’m arguing people should be vegetarian for moral reasons, not because it’s better for them. Health benefits are just a perk. Have you ever seen the damage caused by farming? If you have you would not find it “moral” at all. I went to school in Iowa and had numerous friends who grew up on working farms. They told me harvest is a veritable holocaust for the animals in the area. One said walking through the fields afterwards there were all sorts of dead animals that get munched up by the harvesters. And then you have issues of taking the land from the animals, killing animals that would like to eat the crops and so on. You are fooling yourself if you think vegetables are a bloodless pursuit. ---
**Author:** ![Cort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/77aa72/32.png) [@Cort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cort)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/63 "2009-11-01T16:30:48Z")
> [@Milossarian](#): > > No, hunting is not immoral. In fact, it may be the most moral way for a human being to obtain animal protein. However, if animal protein isn’t necessary to our wellbeing then inflicting suffering on animals to acquire it is still immoral. I phrased my thread title carelessly and I agree with you that hunting isn’t as immoral as factory farming but that doesn’t mean hunting is actually moral. ---
**Author:** ![Cort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/77aa72/32.png) [@Cort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cort)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/64 "2009-11-01T16:37:57Z")
> [@Whack-A-Mole](#): > > Have you ever seen the damage caused by farming? If you have you would not find it “moral” at all. I haven’t seen it first hand, but I’m aware that it’s a problem. > [@Whack-A-Mole](#): > > I went to school in Iowa and had numerous friends who grew up on working farms. They told me harvest is a veritable holocaust for the animals in the area. One said walking through the fields afterwards there were all sorts of dead animals that get munched up by the harvesters. That’s a problem to be solved, but it’s not an argument for abandoning vegetarianism. For one thing, animals harmed during crop harvest are harmed unintentionally. If more people were vegetarians for ethical reasons, greater care may be taken to reduce this harm. > [@Whack-A-Mole](#): > > And then you have issues of taking the land from the animals, killing animals that would like to eat the crops and so on. Well, the fact that we’re alive at all means we’re using resources that would otherwise be used by animals. The goal is to try and strike a balance whereby we can get on with our lives to the best of our ability while minimising the harm we do to animals. ---
**Author:** ![Milossarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Milossarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milossarian)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/65 "2009-11-01T16:39:52Z")
Question for those positing that killing animals to eat them is inherently immoral: Do you have a problem with predator animals doing it? In other words, is it the act of an animal’s suffering and dying at the hands of another to whet its appetite the abhorrent thing? Or is it only that we higher-order beings with moral judgment do it? Do you think lions killing gazelles, or a pack of wolves killing an elk, is because they don’t have the intellectual and moral capacity to know the vegetarian alternative? Or do you think this “eat your kill” system is essential to nature and population-balancing? ---
**Author:** ![Fake\_Tales\_of\_San\_Francisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8491ac/32.png) [@Fake\_Tales\_of\_San\_Francisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fake_Tales_of_San_Francisco)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/66 "2009-11-01T16:43:46Z")
I don’t think it really matters if it is immoral or moral. They’re imaginary concepts anyway. It’s definitely a personal choice whether you find it immoral. I personally think a lot of things people think are immoral are rather fun and enjoyable. Animals are tasty, and other animals seem to think so to. ---
**Author:** ![Mojo\_Pin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mojo\_Pin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mojo_Pin)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/67 "2009-11-01T16:44:19Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > This is hocus pocus smoke and mirrors. > > Because animals are unable to verbally communicate their experience in words you are free to assume anything you like about what it is to “be” a dog. > > Again this flatly denies our experiences with these animals. A dog displays a full range of emotion that are readily identifiable to any human. Sadness, anger, happiness and so on. The dog clearly has a memory. The dog can learn complex tasks. > > In all ways what they do is a mirror of our own actions. Suffering is a base order experience. It is not necessary to have a high functioning brain for it. If not you would suppose that profoundly retarded humans would be incapable of suffering and this is not the case. Oh I really don’t have the energy for this… You are making your assessment of animal feelings purely by observation of their behavior. In doing this you are making the assumption that because animals can show behavioral responses that are similar to those of humans, they also experience the same conscious subjective states. In other words, you are conflating behavior and experience. This is a flawed approach. A robot can be programmed to run from a fire, does this robot feel fear? I will quote a passage about a study done on heroin addicts from Joseph LeDoux’s _Synaptic Self_ : _“The subjects were allowed to press a button to administer either saline or a high or low dose of morphine through an intravenous tube. The subjects did not know what was in the tube at any given point. Periodically, they were asked to rate how they felt. When a high dose of morphine was in the tube, they pressed vigorously and also reported feeling high. When saline was in the tube, the subjects pressed little and reported feeling nothing. But when the dose of morphine was weak, the subjects vigorously pressed the button in spite of the fact that they reported feeling nothing. Clearly one would be misled by using behavior as a measure of what was felt in this case, since the subjects behaved but didn’t feel. **Emotional responses are not always external mirrors of internal feelings, but are rather controlled by more fundamental processes.** ”_ We can never prove the subjective state of an animal, but we can look at it’s brain and see that it lacks certain ways to feel the way we do. That’s the best science can give us. ---
**Author:** ![Cort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/77aa72/32.png) [@Cort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cort)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/68 "2009-11-01T16:45:43Z")
> [@Mojo Pin](#): > > I would be the bastard that says let the irreparably damaged vegetable man die and be rearranged. Maybe not as dinner, but as nutrients for the soil. However. there is a difference between not suffering and suffering in an inarticulate dim-witted way. A man of IQ 25 still suffers, because he has the faculties available to him. This is different from a sea cucumber because I think it just is not possible for a sea cucumber to be conscious of any pain with the neural circuits it has. Well, I admire your consistency, but I’m not really sure where we go from here. I think your assertion that a severely brain-damaged person can still suffer in a way we could identify as human is an unfalsifiable one as our understanding of the brain is still very rudimentary. His injury may well have damaged the neural hardware necessary to process suffering in a human way. Besides, a lot of meat in supermarkets comes from animals far more advanced that sea cucumbers. I’d be willing to grant, for the sake of argument, that sea cucumbers don’t feel anything at all and would thus be exempt from our ethical considerations. I don’t think anyone could say the same thing for a dog or a pig. **Whack-A-Mole’s** observations about how dogs suffer are very accurate and on-point. ---
**Author:** ![Cort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/77aa72/32.png) [@Cort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cort)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/69 "2009-11-01T16:48:55Z")
> [@Milossarian](#): > > Question for those positing that killing animals to eat them is inherently immoral: Do you have a problem with predator animals doing it? > > In other words, is it the act of an animal’s suffering and dying at the hands of another to whet its appetite the abhorrent thing? Or is it only that we higher-order beings with moral judgment do it? I don’t have a problem with predator animals hunting for food. In fact, I don’t have a problem with _people_ hunting for food _provided that it’s a matter of immediate survival and that there is no alternative available_. ---
**Author:** ![Mojo\_Pin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mojo\_Pin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mojo_Pin)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/70 "2009-11-01T16:49:33Z")
> [@Cort](#): > > I’d be willing to grant, for the sake of argument, that sea cucumbers don’t feel anything at all and would thus be exempt from our ethical considerations. I don’t think anyone could say the same thing for a dog or a pig. **Whack-A-Mole’s** observations about how dogs suffer are very accurate and on-point. Ahh you missed my post by a minute. Please read it, I hope you will come to recognize that “ **Whack-A-Mole’s** observations about how dogs suffer are very accurate and on-point.” this statement is assuming far too much. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/71 "2009-11-01T16:49:38Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > What’s the point of your post? If you’ve seen and heard it all before, you know where the thread exit button is. I could be three weeks dead and still contribute more to a thread than you. Babale called it; there’s no indication Cort is interested in a discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/72 "2009-11-01T16:49:57Z")
> [@Cort](#): > > That’s a problem to be solved, but it’s not an argument for abandoning vegetarianism. For one thing, animals harmed during crop harvest are harmed unintentionally. If more people were vegetarians for ethical reasons, greater care may be taken to reduce this harm. I do not think you could maintain “ethical” farming if the whole world was vegetarian. With 6+ billion people to feed, and feed most cheaply, you would need factory farming on a massive scale. That means hyper efficiency which mostly tosses worrying about the critters in the field out the window. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/73 "2009-11-01T17:14:39Z")
> [@Mojo\_Pin](#): > > Oh I really don’t have the energy for this… > You are making your assessment of animal feelings purely by observation of their behavior. In doing this you are making the assumption that because animals can show behavioral responses that are similar to those of humans, they also experience the same conscious subjective states. In other words, you are conflating behavior and experience. This is a flawed approach. A robot can be programmed to run from a fire, does this robot feel fear? This beggars belief. Observation is precisely how we go about making sense of our world. I think this is an excellent place to invoke Occam’s Razor: If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is probably a duck. It might be a race of aliens that look like ducks but without genetic testing the best bet is it is probably a duck and we should go with that till we can be certain otherwise. So too with this. Use a dog for example. - They are a mammal as we are - They have a brain whose structure is nearly identical to a human - They display intelligence as we do (dogs are considered to have an equivalent intelligence to that of a human two year-old and two year olds can certainly suffer) - They display emotion as we do - They have long term memory as we do Step on a dog’s toes and see what it does. Pretty much the same reaction I’d get from you if I stepped on your toes. From all that you want to assume the dog simply does not have the capacity to experience suffering. Despite all evidence to the contrary you want to assume something for which you have no evidence. If nothing else, till you are _sure_ via empirical testing that a dog cannot actually experience pain and its responses are merely robot-like programming, the default moral stance should be to assume its expressions of pain are precisely that…a creature that is suffering. ---
**Author:** ![Mojo\_Pin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mojo\_Pin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mojo_Pin)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/74 "2009-11-01T17:30:11Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > This beggars belief. Observation is precisely how we go about making sense of our world. > > I think this is an excellent place to invoke Occam’s Razor: > > If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is probably a duck. It might be a race of aliens that look like ducks but without genetic testing the best bet is it is probably a duck and we should go with that till we can be certain otherwise. > > So too with this. > > Use a dog for example. > > - They are a mammal as we are > - They have a brain whose structure is nearly identical to a human > - They display intelligence as we do (dogs are considered to have an equivalent intelligence to that of a human two year-old and two year olds can certainly suffer) > - They display emotion as we do > - They have long term memory as we do > > Step on a dog’s toes and see what it does. Pretty much the same reaction I’d get from you if I stepped on your toes. > > From all that you want to assume the dog simply does not have the capacity to experience suffering. Despite all evidence to the contrary you want to assume something for which you have no evidence. > > If nothing else, till you are _sure_ via empirical testing that a dog cannot actually experience pain and its responses are merely robot-like programming, the default moral stance should be to assume its expressions of pain are precisely that…a creature that is suffering. You still do not understand my line of reasoning. Observation of behavior is not enough when it comes to determining subjective states. My quoted passage shows that quite clearly. When it is impossible to deduce anything conclusive from observation, the next best thing is to study the brain’s actual structure. And like I’ve said already, the human brain is appreciably different from a dog’s. I think in arguing my point I have taken too strong a stance in saying animals are not conscious. I do not know. But I do know that the prefrontal cortex, which seems to be directly linked with consciousness, is uniquely huge in primates among mammals. I also know that it is possible for a dog to display all the behavior you find so compelling (whimpering, jerking away) _without being conscious of pain_. I find it more likely than not given the information I have. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/75 "2009-11-01T17:54:21Z")
> [@Cort](#): > > You’re obviously not very bright, so it would behoove you to drop the snark. It would behoove you to follow the rules of this forum and refrain from personal insults. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/76 "2009-11-01T17:58:23Z")
> [@Mojo\_Pin](#): > > But I do know that the prefrontal cortex, which seems to be directly linked with consciousness, is uniquely huge in primates among mammals. I also know that it is possible for a dog to display all the behavior you find so compelling (whimpering, jerking away) _without being conscious of pain_. I find it more likely than not given the information I have. Sure…and humans can suffer for things dogs cannot. I suffered when 9/11 happened despite not personally knowing anyone who was hurt. My dog was oblivious. Therein lies your difference. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/77 "2009-11-01T18:02:35Z")
> [@Cort](#): > > I don’t have a problem with predator animals hunting for food. In fact, I don’t have a problem with _people_ hunting for food _provided that it’s a matter of immediate survival and that there is no alternative available_. How immediate? I don’t understand the distinctions that you are making. If I kill a deer and put it in the freezer for the winter, that is bad say you. But if I let someone else kill a cow and I buy it and put in in the freezer for the winter, then that is good/better? Couldn’t a lion eat grass instead of a gazelle? ---
**Author:** ![Cort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/77aa72/32.png) [@Cort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cort)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/78 "2009-11-01T18:10:18Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > How immediate? I don’t understand the distinctions that you are making. If I kill a deer and put it in the freezer for the winter, that is bad say you. But if I let someone else kill a cow and I buy it and put in in the freezer for the winter, then that is good/better? Both bad. Given the conditions in factory farms, I’d say killing the deer yourself was better than buying the meat from a supermarket. > [@jtgain](#): > > Couldn’t a lion eat grass instead of a gazelle? um, of course not. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/79 "2009-11-01T18:12:44Z")
> [@Mojo\_Pin](#): > > I will quote a passage about a study done on heroin addicts from Joseph LeDoux’s _Synaptic Self_ : _“The subjects were allowed to press a button to administer either saline or a high or low dose of morphine through an intravenous tube. The subjects did not know what was in the tube at any given point. Periodically, they were asked to rate how they felt. When a high dose of morphine was in the tube, they pressed vigorously and also reported feeling high. When saline was in the tube, the subjects pressed little and reported feeling nothing. But when the dose of morphine was weak, the subjects vigorously pressed the button in spite of the fact that they reported feeling nothing. Clearly one would be misled by using behavior as a measure of what was felt in this case, since the subjects behaved but didn’t feel. **Emotional responses are not always external mirrors of internal feelings, but are rather controlled by more fundamental processes.** ”_ We can never prove the subjective state of an animal, but we can look at it’s brain and see that it lacks certain ways to feel the way we do. That’s the best science can give us. Underscoring mine. I am not sure what LeDoux thought he was identifying, here, since there may be further commentary that better explains it, but it seems to me that he has a classic case of the fallacy of equivocation. (Not in the since of lying, but simply using a word in a way with more than one potential meaning. ) The test subjects did not report “feeling” something, (by which I suspct that they did not notice an actual “high” with the low dose morphine), but their bodies clearly had an experience of some sort that prompted their desire to press the button. It seems, from the way that this extract is presented, that LeDoux is claiming that we can not identify the experience of pain, just because the body reacts as though pain had been inflicted. I would suggest that it is more likely that the actual experience is real, but that what has been short-circuited, (and remember, we are dealing with addicts in this experiment), is the ability to communicate degrees of an experience, so that an addict who was actually stimulated by the morphine simply did not experience enough stimulation to translate that into words. (Or, even, possibly, actually did feel the appropriate sensation, but did not “feel” that it was sufficient to remark.) I do not accept this experimant as having provided any genuine indicator of whether an animal or human has actually experienced pain or pleasure by watching their reactions. There may be other studies that demonstrate that some animals do not experience pain at some level, but this is not it. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/80 "2009-11-01T18:20:15Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I could be three weeks dead and still contribute more to a thread than you. Babale called it; there’s no indication Cort is interested in a discussion. PM me or Pit me if you want to get into this further. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930.md?page=5)