Discussions with anti-hunters – new horizons?

Josh, I totally get what you’re saying (you’ve said it before), and to an extent I agree (as I’ve done before). If you lower yourself into the rabbit hole of “everything comes down to ethics”, then of course all laws and regulations are based on ethical considerations. Survival itself becomes an ethics-based decision, if you let yourself go with the flow of logic.

But there’s a big difference between discussing ethics as a philosphical or academic exercise, and using an ethical stance as justification or rationale for hunting. Sure, we make the argument that the majority of hunters are ethical, in that they obey the game laws and generally follow a moral directive in regards to their relationship with nature and the environment. That’s fair enough for what it is, but that line gets wavery in the hunting pro/con debate, because that “moral directive” or “personal ethic” becomes very individualized.

It’s a dangerous tactic in debate with anti-hunters, because the more one specifies their personal ethic as a defense against the anti-hunter’s argument, the more segregated they become from anyone who doesn’t follow that same ethic.

The debate on the KQED blog illustrates the point perfectly.

The argument stemmed on the anti’s objection to killing for fun. Holly countered with the suggestion that most hunters utilize the meat from the animals. Does the meat justify the enjoyment we get from hunting? Maybe, but what about hunters who shoot non-game, inedible animals such as varmints and predators? What about the hunters who travel to places like Africa where they’re prohibited from bringing the meat back to the U.S.? In short… what about everyone else?

What happened next is that Holly began justifiying hunting based on her personal ethic, and on her own motivations. As a result, she essentially (and completely unintentionally) threw everyone who doesn’t follow her personal ethic under the bus.

The problem is that there are very few universal ethical standards, and honestly, when it comes to a defense of the sport of hunting (as opposed to a defense of an individual hunter), ethics at that level really aren’t very relevant. What’s worse is that they often present very boggy ground on which to mount a defense or justification, because of their variability from person to person and region to region. The moment you say, “hunting is Ok because I do it this way,” you have isolated yourself from anyone who does it differently. You’ve weakened the bigger argument… that there is nothing wrong with the general practice of sport hunting.

It doesn’t matter to the anti-hunter if you strip naked and hunt “Bambi” with nothing but your teeth and fingernails, you’re still doing it for “fun”. You can’t justify that away with any level of ethics. All you end up doing is drawing a line between yourself and the guy who wants to wear a loincloth instead of going nude.

Josh,

I obviously don’t write that well, if you think I disagree about the presence of “ethics” in all laws and regulations. That’s what I meant by “rabbit hole”… the more you dig the more you find. But I don’t see any constructive value in chasing them at that level.

As far as beating around the bush, I think I put something along those lines up here a while back… we hunt because we love to hunt, and part of hunting is killing things. If we didn’t like killing things, we wouldn’t hunt. All this other stuff, the conservation and meat and whatever else we use for justification of what we do is where we get bogged down and end up splitting hairs.

The whole hunting debate boils down to hunters trying to find a quantifiable way to justify hunting to someone who is basing their entire position on an emotional, illogical, and unnatural philosophy… that somehow the human animal somehow owes “humanity” to the other animals. We get wrapped up in all this wildlife management, ethics, and healthy food discussion as a result, and totally lose track of that key point. We hunt because we love to hunt.

On the other hand, I don’t think I’ll come right down and say, “I like to kill things,” because that’s not really accurate. I seldom intentionally kill anything when I’m not hunting, including spiders, moths, or other innocuous critters in my house. I’ll catch them and put them outside if they’re bothering anyone else, but I am usually careful not to hurt them.

Heck, even when I am hunting, I’ve chosen not to kill even when I could have. I’ve let deer walk, and passed on ducks just because I didn’t feel the need to kill at that particular moment. I think one of the reasons I’ve missed so many coyotes is because I don’t really like to kill them, and only do so at the request of landowners, in partial exchange for the right to hunt their place.

Anyway, the exchange is valuable. It’s even fun to let it run into esoteric corners and exploratory philosophy. The day I stop learning from other people is the day my brain turns to dust. Until then, every perspective is worth examining, and every idea deserves a moment in the light.

Hey Michael, sometimes shooting from the hip is the way to go. Come out with both guns blazing and eliminate the opposition through overwhelming firepower. Ted Nugent epitomizes that approach.

But sometimes if you hold your fire you’ll find you can save your ammo, and a quiet discussion can demonstrate a much stronger position than an all-out infantry charge. Theodore Roosevelt (the other “Hunting Ted”) made this point into national policy (big stick diplomacy). But often, if you stop to listen, you never need to use the big stick at all.

Someone like M Figgis offers a lot of insight into the more rational animal rights mindset. Sure, the idea of establishing some kind of “peace” with wild animals appears to be way out on the fringe from a natural law perspective, but the consistency and well-considered point of view she demonstrates show the real heart of the anti-hunting argument.

These people believe as deeply in their dogma as the most devout, fundamentalist Christian believes in the Word of God. The rest of us? We’re the heathen masses, yet to be converted.

But if you turn that around, are hunters really any different? Do we not evangelicize non-hunters? (The NSSF is currently publishing a book-length paper on the recruitment and retention of hunters.) Are we not deeply vested in the belief that killing animals is not a wrong thing?

I’ve made the connection between debating with antis and debating religion before, because I think it’s entirely valid. It’s about a system of belief, and I honestly don’t think that we’ll ever get to a “right” answer.

Steve, thanks for dropping in. All opinions are welcome, as long as they’re respectful (as yours is).

I totally get your position in this discussion, and I agree with your point that the exposure non-hunters get through media such as YouTube really fouls the picture. A lot of what I’ve seen on YouTube disgusts me too, and I’m a lifelong hunter and gun-owner with a pretty laissez faire point of view regarding other hunters’ motivations and methods.

There’s nothing I can do to stop those people, so the best I can offer is to present the “other side” of hunters… the quiet side that you won’t hear much about in the media, or on YouTube, or anywhere else.

I will take issue with your comments re: “crossing the great divide”.

There is NO similarity between shooting game and killing other humans. It seems strange that you say that you don’t see the difference, but even more telling is that even though you may see “no reason why he shouldn’t go on to kill less socially acceptable species”, we (hunters) quite obviously don’t do that. You’re making a leap of logic that makes no sense. It’s like saying that if we’re willing to eat any other living thing, we may as well eat our own kind.

Hunting is not a substitute or surrogate for homicide. I can’t pretend to explain the psychological intricacies that divide the two (in part because it would require entire chapters and volumes to do so), but believe me it’s there… or the world would be a much more dangerous place. Consider this… If it were such a short step from hunting to homicide, there’d be no anti-hunters left to decry the sport. If you were not predator, you would be prey.

Steve, I’ve been jammed with my day job, and spending time on the blog has taken a backseat. However, I don’t want to leave your questions unanswered… even though I’m pretty sure my answers won’t satisfy you or change your mind. And that’s a big part of where I come from on this discussion… I’m not out to change your mind. I don’t need to turn you into a hunter, or make you throw away your convictions simply because I don’t share them. We each must live according to our own moral compass.

So, first of all, the difference between shooting a deer and a horse has everything to do with human-constructed limits. If I ate horses, then I would have no difficulty killing them. I don’t, because first of all it’s not legal where I live, and second because I have, personally, built a certain emotional relationship with them. I can totally understand someone feeling that they have the same relationship with any other animal, so if you choose not to kill them based on that rationale that’s cool.

However, folks in many parts of the world DO eat horses, and in order to eat them, someone must kill them… whether with a gun, a knife, or a captive-bolt.

As far as the “naturalness” of humans, I am under no illusions as to our distance from wildness. I live in a modern world, and I am impacted (for good and ill) by all that it implies. In many ways, I don’t even have the option of living a wild life… even if I really wanted to do so (and I don’t).

I embrace hunting because it keeps the wildness alive in me. It reminds me that my own existence on this planet is just as ephemeral and uncertain as the prey I pursue… at the same time as it represents an acceptance of my personal impact on the planet. It is the only way for a human to return to the wild relationship of predator and prey.

Nature is about life and death… living and killing. It’s not about the relative value of one life over another. To most humans, human life is more important than the life of a deer. That’s normal. I can guarantee that, to a deer, a deer’s life is more important than the survival of a squirrel (or a human). This is the most basic instinct in any species… self-preservation.

But every wild thing recognizes at the most basic level, that life and death exist in the moment… a lesson many modern humans could stand to heed. There is no peace or harmony between species, except as habitat conditions allow. A deer will stomp a turkey if it ventures under the same oak tree. Male grizzly bears will kill their own offspring simply in order to bring the females back into estrus.

As a hunter, I can be part of this world… even if it’s only temporary. Is it perfect? Of course not. But it is absolutely natural. Setting ourselves aside as observers, on the other hand, is not. As an observer, you offer absolutely nothing to the natural world. Sure, you may benefit from the experience, and that’s fine and good for what it is.

As far as technological advantage…

Technology doesn’t automatically preclude the natural experience. It’s a nice argument, but it doesn’t hold water. My rifle and scope certainly make me capable of killing at longer range than a lion’s claws, but then, I can’t run like a lion, and I do not have the sensory abilities of a wolf. Without technological advantage, our species would have died out long ago. And that’s natural too. Adapt or die.

Yeah, modern man is generally a (self-)cosseted animal, but it’s delusion to believe that he is not a natural being. In fact, I’d go so far as to argue that it is this belief, that man is somehow separate from nature, that has led to much of the environmentally destructive behavior in which we’ve engaged to date. We ARE animals, and nothing more. The moment we believe otherwise, we are on the path to self-destruction.