From: nick@skate.cs.washington.edu (Nicholas Kushmerick)
Subject: why hunting is unethical
Organization: University of Washington Computer Science
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 06:26:09 GMT

Some comments to the comments on my recent posts.  (I didn't bother to
keep track of all the references.)

I said:

> hunting causes an animal to suffer as a direct result of it bringing
> enjoyment to the hunter.  if there were no suffering, there would be
> no enjoyment.  if you disagree, then why don't you leave your guns or
> bullets or arrows at home?

> That you enjoy your hobby does not make it ethical.  Suppose I told
> you that my hobby was throwing bricks into storefront windows.  You'd
> tell me to stop.  And no amount of "But it's fun" or "Well lots of
> people do it" or "But I get lots of enjoyment from make a successful
> getaway" on my part would make you wrong to try to stop me.

And now the responses:

- - - - - (1) - - - - -
|> 	Why should I [leave guns, etc at home]?  Contrary to your
|> assumptions, the most enjoyable
|> kill is a painless, immediate kill.  This is a pat-on-the-back sort of
|> enoyment, similar to finally making that slam-dunk shot in basketball.
|> Of course, the former takes a lot more time and effort.  I see no reason
|> I need bow to your whims because some animal might not like my killing it.
|> That's life on the low end of the food chain.  To suggest that I leave my
|> bullets or arrows at home simply shows that, to you, hunting is only a
|> kill, while to the hunter is is far, far more.

If hunting is more than just a kill, then by definition if we subtract
out the kill then there will still be something left.  I guess
something about the fun of sneaking up on the animal, the smell of gun
powder, feeling self-reliant, whatever.  Why can't you get all that
with blanks, or better yet just a walk in the woods??  Presumably you
agree; if not then we won't get much farther.  Now to the killing part
of your satisfaction.  To make it easy to quote and respond:

   my fundamental claim: it is unethical to kill sentient beings
   just for the satisfaction of killing them

(Notes. (1): It is also unethical if done for lots of other reasons,
and there's lots of other unethical things we can do to each other,
but we don't need to go into that now.  (2): To make it clear, we are
now no longer talking about the smell of gunpowder or whatever; that
was a few sentences ago.  So it does no good to say "But killing is
only PART of my I enjoy hunting.")

So tell me why you disagree with this statement, and how this meshes
with your belief that, say, humans shouldn't murder one another.

- - - - - (2) - - - - -
> If your ethics can't tolerate hunting - DON'T HUNT! 

My ethics don't tolerate racial discrimination.  It seems that your
argument re. hunting compels you to advise me to deal with racial
discrimination by just not doing any discrimination myself.  In
particular, I guess you'd urge me not to try to stop others from
discriminating.

- - - - - (3) - - - - -
> the fact that hunting can be quite enjoyable does
> not in itself make it unethical.

of course.  the reason hunting is unethical was outlined above --
killing sentient beings for fun is wrong.

Maybe this is hard for you to follow, but the fact that this sentence is
of the form "doing X for fun is unethical" does not mean you can fill in
anything you want for X. You've made this mistakes already, but even
worse, you tried to cast it as my opinion.

I also said:
> (PS: yes, I am comparing hunting to cock fights: animal suffering for
> primarily recreational purposes.)

To which this person replied:
> This effort to bring in cock fighting for comparison sheds no light on why
> you believe hunting to be unethical.  It shows that you believe it to be
> one member of a set of things you find to be unethical, but it does not
> provide a rationale for the ethical evaluation.  Perhaps you can explain
> exactly what ethic you feel hunting violates for us.  Perhaps you can
> explain why hunting should be considered "unethical" rather than something
> you find personally distasteful.  Currently, you have said absolutely
> nothing to convince me that hunting should be considered unethical.
> Would you care to try and convince me?

An outline of my rationale is given above.  To repeat the central
claim: it in not ethical for one sentient being to kill another just
for the entertainment of the first.  Hunters tell me they hunt for
three reasons: for fun, for survival (they need the meat to avoid
starvation), and for the animals sake (stop overpopulation, etc).  So
to apply my principle to hunting, to the extent that hunters enjoy
hunting because they enjoy killing, then they are unethical.  (I also
need to convince you that animals are sentient beings although I take
this as rather obvious; we can discuss it more if necessary.)  The
last two don't apply; if you hunt for those reasons I don't care. I
should say, though, that I find these two reasons peculiar. I am not
in the park management business but I know that when humans societies
are threatened with overpopulation it would be strange indeed for
someone to suggest we just harvest the excess people. I also find it
difficult to believe that there are very many people in danger of
starvation if they don't hunt.  Could those who make this claim help
this discussion out with some statistics?

Now, is is certainly true that I find hunting "personally distasteful"
(as you say): A desire to hunt suggests to me a very warped sense of
values.  I don't think I could ever be friends with a person who
enjoys hunting.  I would be concerned if a child of mine were hanging
around with hunters.  All this is true.  But of course Jesse Helms
just substitutes the words "homosexual, liberal art establishment" for
"hunting" when he is doing his ranting and raving.  So I need to say
more: I need to say why it is not that I don't like hunting or
hunters, but that hunting is UNETHICAL, like child abuse or cock
fights, and therefore not subject to a response of "but it is fun".  I
think I have provided such an argument in the previous paragraph (and
I don't think Helms provides a justification for his beliefs).

I go to such pains to spell this out because I suspect the pro-hunting
crowd is waiting for someone to say "Well I think hunters are strange
and weird, and I don't like their hobby, so they shouldn't be allowed
to hunt."  I am unequivocally NOT making this sort of statement; my
claim is much stronger.

- - - - - (4) - - - - -

> Hunting is natural... that makes it ethical...  What makes hunting un-ethical
> is when you exceed the laws that govern hunting. [original ellipsis]

You are confused.  If X is natural and therefore ethical, then it
makes no sense to say that X becomes unethical when it violates a
(presumably very unnatural) law.  If X derives its ethical-ness from
nature, then why does it need the go-ahead from a law?

As to the premise, that hunting is natural and therefore unethical:
this is a ridiculous basis for an argument that hunting is ethical.
Many things are natural but supremely unethical when carried out by
people, e.g. slavery -- do you suggest we form social policy by
looking at ant societies?  And many things are ethical but unnatural:
e.g. raising animals in captivity to help re-establish endangered
species. I can't tell what the ethics and naturalness have to do with
one another, never mind why one ought to imply the other.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals,alt.peeves