# 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:** 5
**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, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/81 "2009-11-01T18:22:47Z")
> [@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. I’m curious. What indications are you looking for? ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/82 "2009-11-01T18:28:26Z")
> [@Cort](#): > > Well, the fact that we’re alive at all means we’re using resources that would otherwise be used by animals. You almost had it right there. The ugly fact is, no matter what you eat, you’re killing animals. Animals reproduce to the point of starvation - whatever you eat is something some other animal does not eat, and would have. Every living thing on this planet gets eaten or burned. Even rotting is a process of getting eaten by little tiny things. By eating plants you’re starving birds and insects and worms and butterflies and baby deer and widdle bitty bunny rabbits. Doesn’t matter if the plants in question were on a farm or wild. The biomass of the earth is largely unaffected by what you eat. ---
**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, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/83 "2009-11-01T18:32:20Z")
> [@bup](#): > > You almost had it right there. > > The ugly fact is, no matter what you eat, you’re killing animals. Animals reproduce to the point of starvation - whatever you eat is something some other animal does not eat, and would have. > > Every living thing on this planet gets eaten or burned. Even rotting is a process of getting eaten by little tiny things. By eating plants you’re starving birds and insects and worms and butterflies and baby deer and widdle bitty bunny rabbits. > > Doesn’t matter if the plants in question were on a farm or wild. > > The biomass of the earth is largely unaffected by what you eat. But we are not talking about the effect on the biomass of Earth, we are talking about the unthinking or entertainment-led slaughter of animals, and what effect that might have on the human psyche. ---
**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, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/84 "2009-11-01T18:38:52Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > 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. Well I took the words at face value, as meaning that to these addicts a low dose did not register as a high in any way, and yet their actions were affected subconsciously. Even disregarding this experiment, there is much in our daily lives to show the difference between cognition (i.e. function) and awareness, which I believe ultimately is the distinction between responding to pain and feeling pain. We place our feet without consciously directing every muscle. We focus our attention on reading, and yet we are able to alert ourselves to important external stimuli without actively being aware of every one. This is because cognition regarding stimuli is constantly going on at a lower level in the brain, without requiring the attention of our immediate awareness. This I think is self evident. Our specific kind of directed awareness is unique, and it certainly isn’t necessary for function, as evidenced by sleepwalkers. It also seems to be the result of our extremely developed prefrontal cortex. I think it follows that other animals will not be consciously aware of pain the way we are. Important stimuli may serve as catalysts for self preserving reactions and behavior, but that does not require consciousness. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/85 "2009-11-01T18:38:55Z")
> [@Cort](#): > > masturbation. It has to be said…“Won’t somebody please think of the children?” ---
**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, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/86 "2009-11-01T18:40:17Z")
> [@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. > [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > PM me or Pit me if you want to get into this further. > [@Cort](#): > > I’m curious. What indications are you looking for? Most threads are better helped by ignoring drive-by snark. As most threads are better helped by not posting drive-by snark. [/Modding] ---
**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, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/87 "2009-11-01T19:02:13Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Most threads are better helped by ignoring drive-by snark. > As most threads are better helped by not posting drive-by snark. > [/Modding] Actually, I wasn’t being “snarky”\* - I was simply telling him to keep it out of this thread. Should I have waited for you to come and tell him that? Do forgive me! In other words; don’t make me out to be a villain in this thread. - Excuse my hasty reading comprehension - I see you haven’t accused me of snark. So what exactly was it I did do? ---
**Author:** ![Stealth\_Potato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Stealth\_Potato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stealth_Potato)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/88 "2009-11-01T19:12:00Z")
I don’t really have much to say about the morality of hunting, except maybe that I’d never do it myself. (I’m a life-long vegetarian, FWIW.) I have no problem with other people hunting or eating meat, though if you were to ask me about the wastefulness of the modern meat industry I might have more to say. I just want to chime in and agree with **Whack-a-Mole** that it’s silly to say that lesser animals cannot meaningfully suffer while at the same time saying that humans can. > [@Mojo\_Pin](#): > > I contend that the only meaningful pain and suffering is in the eye of the (human) beholder. My opinion is liable to change at any time, but from what I know of dog brains their prefrontal cortices are practically nonexistent. I contend that the only meaningful _human_ pain and suffering is in the eye of the beholder as well. If a tree falls in the forest and lands on a man’s foot and he screams in pain but there is nobody else around, does he really suffer? If you walk out into the forest and ask him, he would answer yes, but that is just a response to a stimulus and cannot be used as an indication of internal _experience_. I don’t think it matters how much more complicated his brain is than a dog’s brain: they’re both just machines for translating stimuli into responses. The fact that one has more introspective functions than the other doesn’t mean anything; it’s still just a bunch of neurons firing. The fact is, even our response to the apparent suffering of other humans is just another behavior programmed into our brains by millions of years of evolution. In a very real sense, suffering is in the eye of the beholder; it doesn’t matter much without someone to behold it, does it? Suffering has zero meaning outside of some mind that can observe and act upon it, and if in my mind an injured dog provokes similar feelings of sympathy and desire to render assistance as an injured human, what does it really matter what you think? Certainly you can say that you don’t have that emotional response, and so to you the dog does not appear to suffer, but to me the dog with a broken leg is just as pitiable as you would be in the same condition, only possibly more so because I don’t have a very high opinion of people who don’t care about the suffering of dogs. In fact I’m not quite sure they’re even capable of suffering themselves. 😛 > [@Mojo\_Pin](#): > > My god, do you really not recognize this as the non sequitur that it is? Every individual dog has ‘personalities’, because every individual dog has a unique brain and therefore responds in a unique way to different stimuli (to put it very simply). The same can be said of you and me. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/89 "2009-11-01T19:38:42Z")
> [@Cort](#): > > masturbation. Then by all means go to the store, buy your favorite vegetable, and have at it. You are welcome to your thoughts but the usual response to someone who decries another’s consumption is to increase that consumption. In your honor, I will be buying a rump roast for dinner. Resolved: whining vegetarians increase the consumption of meat. ---
**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, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/90 "2009-11-01T19:43:38Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > You are welcome to your thoughts but the usual response to someone who decries another’s consumption is to increase that consumption. I used to do exactly the same thing when I heard people pontificating about how harmful “drugs” are. But apart from a few brain cells, I don’t think it involved killing anything. Each to their own, I suppose. ---
**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, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/91 "2009-11-01T19:46:11Z")
[QUOTE=Stealth Potato] I contend that the only meaningful human pain and suffering is in the eye of the beholder as well. If a tree falls in the forest and lands on a man’s foot and he screams in pain but there is nobody else around, does he really suffer? If you walk out into the forest and ask him, he would answer yes, but that is just a response to a stimulus and cannot be used as an indication of internal experience. [/QUOTE] From what I know of myself (I suffer) and humans (we all share a similar brain structure), I can make a reasonable assumption that everyone else suffers in the same way I do, in an appreciably conscious and urgent way. Honestly, what’s your point anyway? That we can never be sure of another’s subjective experience? I’d be the first to admit that too. [QUOTE=Stealth Potato] I don’t think it matters how much more complicated his brain is than a dog’s brain: they’re both just machines for translating stimuli into responses. The fact that one has more introspective functions than the other doesn’t mean anything; it’s still just a bunch of neurons firing. [/QUOTE] I disagree. One brain is sufficiently complicated to suffer in a meaningful way. Another brain is sufficiently intricate that it serves as a calculator of sorts, linking stimulus to actions, but it lacks the infrastructure to feel the same pain humans do. As far as I know. In this case the “introspective functions” mean everything, because without them, yes, synapses firing is no different from rocks rolling down a hill. Only with our advanced introspective functions is any meaning imbued to any sequence of firing synapses. [QUOTE=Stealth Potato] The fact is, even our response to the apparent suffering of other humans is just another behavior programmed into our brains by millions of years of evolution. In a very real sense, suffering is in the eye of the beholder; it doesn’t matter much without someone to behold it, does it? Suffering has zero meaning outside of some mind that can observe and act upon it, and if in my mind an injured dog provokes similar feelings of sympathy and desire to render assistance as an injured human, what does it really matter what you think? Certainly you can say that you don’t have that emotional response, and so to you the dog does not appear to suffer, but to me the dog with a broken leg is just as pitiable as you would be in the same condition, only possibly more so because I don’t have a very high opinion of people who don’t care about the suffering of dogs. In fact I’m not quite sure they’re even capable of suffering themselves. [/QUOTE] I’m not sure why you go through the trouble to point that out to me. Our opinions aren’t so different. Case in point: [QUOTE=Mojo Pin] “As far as I know game animals do not consciously experience suffering. It is impossible to say whether every act of killing animals is justified, because too much killing of animals may cause conscious suffering to human beings such as ivan astikov or Cort, which should be taken into account. It may also deprive others of some pleasure derived from a living animal. However, I believe the suffering of the animals themselves should not be part of the cost benefit analysis.” [/QUOTE] edit: also you speak of “the suffering of animals” as if it is self evident. I have given my reasons for why I think that assumption is bunk. How do you continue to hold that belief? [QUOTE=Stealth Potato] The same can be said of you and me. [/QUOTE] Yes, but I have tried to make a meaningful distinction between behavior and consciousness. ---
**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, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/92 "2009-11-01T19:55:03Z")
> [@Mojo\_Pin](#): > > Even disregarding this experiment, there is much in our daily lives to show the difference between cognition (i.e. function) and awareness, which I believe ultimately is the distinction between responding to pain and feeling pain. We place our feet without consciously directing every muscle. We focus our attention on reading, and yet we are able to alert ourselves to important external stimuli without actively being aware of every one. This is because cognition regarding stimuli is constantly going on at a lower level in the brain, without requiring the attention of our immediate awareness. This I think is self evident. Our specific kind of directed awareness is unique, and it certainly isn’t necessary for function, as evidenced by sleepwalkers. It also seems to be the result of our extremely developed prefrontal cortex. I think it follows that other animals will not be consciously aware of pain the way we are. Important stimuli may serve as catalysts for self preserving reactions and behavior, but that does not require consciousness. A dog can anticipate pain. Go to a shelter and find a dog that has been abused. Without actually hurting the animal certain things you do towards it will make it cringe (fearful) or run away or perhaps become aggressive. If it was just a program how would a dog learn to associate certain things with pain? More, it needs to think ahead and decide that in the past action-X hurt, there is action-X again (or even person-X who has been a source of pain), I want to avoid that. The dog absolutely is making a connection about undesirable things. It has a memory of _suffering_ and as such will avoid suffering in the future if it can. If it was just a programmed response this shouldn’t happen. I doubt if you poked a sea cucumber it would manage the same feat when you come around again to poke it. ---
**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, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/93 "2009-11-01T19:55:31Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > I used to do exactly the same thing when I heard people pontificating about how harmful “drugs” are. But apart from a few brain cells, I don’t think it involved killing anything. > > Each to their own, I suppose. This shows exactly where our disconnect is. You speak of “killing” something as if it’s de facto the worst thing possible. It’s not. For all living things, death is only a rearrangement. Only in certain _very_ unique and introspective animals is fear of death a source conscious suffering. So if you spoke of killing people, yes, death can be equated with suffering. But killing deer? Cows? I do not think they suffer in the same way humans do, and therefore I don’t see their deaths as inherently bad things. ---
**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, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/94 "2009-11-01T19:58:58Z")
You don’t see many bacon adverts showing the pig getting its throat slit and then being chopped into cookable sized pieces. I wonder why that is? ---
**Author:** ![wierdaaron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eada6e/32.png) [@wierdaaron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wierdaaron)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/95 "2009-11-01T20:00:12Z")
Here’s my stupid take on animal killing, and meat in general: If we were to completely clear the slate of our culture and history, there would probably be no point in needing to eat meat or kill anything. We can grow and manufacture food in sufficient quantities to support ourselves as a species. However, we can’t do that. We all descended from people who had to stalk and kill animals as a matter of survival. We wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t learned to hunt, fish, raise livestock, and figure out what critters taste good and which don’t. A long time ago we made a decision that our lives are worth more than an animal’s. For this, it’s not only ingrained in our history and culture, it’s the basis of them both. Hunting and farming and slaughtering and hotdogs are part of our identity, so there’s not much we can do about it. I don’t have a gigantic problem with hunting, but I probably wouldn’t do so myself. I can’t see myself looking down the barrel of a rifle and deciding that some deer or pheasant’s existence is worth less than a day’s worth of entertainment. I don’t think it’s all necessarily immoral or anything, I just see no need for it. If I were stranded somewhere and starving, I’d beat an animal to death with a rock if I had to. Same goes for livestock. We could all live vegan diets if we wanted to, but we’ve been eating beasties for so long it’s impossible to fight the inertia. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/96 "2009-11-01T20:02:39Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > You don’t see many bacon adverts showing the pig getting its throat slit and then being chopped into cookable sized pieces. > > I wonder why that is? First off, the pig is knocked out. 2nd, a lot of people fish and eat their catch so I don’t know where this is coming from. ---
**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, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/97 "2009-11-01T20:04:02Z")
> [@Mojo\_Pin](#): > > This shows exactly where our disconnect is. You speak of “killing” something as if it’s de facto the worst thing possible. It’s not. For all living things, death is only a rearrangement. Only in certain _very_ unique and introspective animals is fear of death a source conscious suffering. So if you spoke of killing people, yes, death can be equated with suffering. But killing deer? Cows? I do not think they suffer in the same way humans do, and therefore I don’t see their deaths as inherently bad things. Oh, so now we are doing them a favour? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/98 "2009-11-01T20:06:48Z")
> [@wierdaaron](#): > > I don’t have a gigantic problem with hunting, but I probably wouldn’t do so myself. I can’t see myself looking down the barrel of a rifle and deciding that some deer or pheasant’s existence is worth less than a day’s worth of entertainment. People who hunt deer are able to stock a freezer with a season’s worth of meat, not a day. And where I live, deer are too plentiful and destroy crops and cause traffic accidents because of a lack of hunting animals. We can either reintroduce wolves and mountain lions, or feed off them ourselves. ---
**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, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/99 "2009-11-01T20:07:23Z")
> [@wierdaaron](#): > > If we were to completely clear the slate of our culture and history, there would probably be no point in needing to eat meat or kill anything. We can grow and manufacture food in sufficient quantities to support ourselves as a species. Maybe and maybe not. Lots of people live in areas that are not farmable. Livestock can eat the local grass that is inedible to humans and convert it into a form humans can eat. To assume the whole planet can live as vegans is to assume we have the ability to ship the wide variety of fruits and vegetables to everyone on the planet. The US has access to things from all over the world enabling a vegan to get by. The vast majority of the population does not have access to the variety they would need to live as vegans. ---
**Author:** ![Stealth\_Potato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Stealth\_Potato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stealth_Potato)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930/100 "2009-11-01T20:08:58Z")
> [@Mojo\_Pin](#): > > I disagree. One brain is sufficiently complicated to suffer in a meaningful way. Another brain is sufficiently intricate that it serves as a calculator of sorts, linking stimulus to actions, but it lacks the infrastructure to feel the same pain humans do. As far as I know. In this case the “introspective functions” mean everything, because without them, yes, synapses firing is no different from rocks rolling down a hill. Only with our advanced introspective functions is any meaning imbued to any sequence of firing synapses. Why does introspection suddenly make this set of brain cells different from any other mechanistic phenomenon? Where is this “meaning?” The answer is that the meaning exists only in the emergent patterns of certain introspective brains which imbue external occurrences (such as the observed responses of other brains) with internal significance. The fact that some of the other observed brains are capable of a similar level of rationalization doesn’t seem particularly important to me. They’re _both_ still just rocks rolling down a hill. > [@Mojo\_Pin](#): > > edit: also you speak of “the suffering of animals” as if it is self evident. I have given my reasons for why I think that assumption is bunk. How do you continue to hold that belief? I don’t hold that belief; I think you missed my point. I speak of the suffering of animals as if it is evident _to me_, which it is. It may very well not be so to you, and I readily acknowledged that. > [@Mojo\_Pin](#): > > Yes, but I have tried to make a meaningful distinction between behavior and consciousness. I disagree that there is any such distinction, and I find it hard to sustain the notion that any such thing can be advanced without resorting to mysticism or religion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-hunting-is-immoral/515930.md?page=6)