Every year, as the days become shorter and the trees become naked, disputes over the morality of hunting erupt. Hunters see hunting deer, ducks, moose, and other game animals as compassionate, necessary, natural, and ethical. Critics argue that hunting is a brutal and pointless activity that should be avoided. There are three reasons to go hunting.
Therapeutic Hunting Land entails the deliberate slaughter of wild animals to protect another species or ecosystem. Subsistence hunting is the deliberate killing of wild animals to provide food and material resources to humans. The creatures’ value partly supports agreements allowing Native American tribes to shoot whales as a source of subsistence for those who hunt them.
Sport hunting refers to the deliberate slaughter of wild animals for enjoyment or fulfillment. Sport hunters go after deer because they like the thrill of the hunt or want antlers to display on their walls.
Key points if you are planning for hunting
People are concerned about three things about hunting: harm, necessity, and character. Hunting is often deemed immoral by critics because it necessitates the intentional harming of innocent animals. Even those opposed to giving animals legal rights should recognize that many animals are sentient, meaning they can suffer. If inflicting unwelcome pain and death on a sentient being is wrong, then hunting is also wrong.
If the harm objection is valid, proponents must reject all three sorts of hunting unless demonstrated that the animal in issue will suffer tremendous suffering if it is not hunted—for example, it will be doomed to slow winter hunger. The killed animal suffers the same injury regardless of whether the hunter’s purpose is a healthy environment, good food, or a personally rewarding experience.
Nowadays, it is difficult to argue that human hunting is strictly required in the same way animal hunting. According to the necessary harm objection, hunting is morally permitted only if it is essential for the hunter’s life. “Necessary” could allude to a dietary or ecological need, giving subsistence and therapeutic hunting moral cover. Sport hunting cannot be justified in this way.
Is hunting a natural activity?
Hunting is a natural activity that all preindustrial human civilizations partake to some degree, so it can’t be bad, someone always claims in conversations regarding the morality of hunting. Naturalness, on the other hand, is unhelpful and ultimately unimportant.
Final thoughts
Since the late 1800s, hunters have played an essential part in conserving the country’s animal resources. Their love of wildlife and hunting influenced our country’s wildlife management philosophy and the creation of public lands as we know them today.
Sportsmen and women continue to be important stewards of wildlife and the environment today by upholding ethical traditions and preserving nature. The use of the word “natural” to sell things and lifestyles, often in profoundly misleading ways, reflects our belief in a link between goodness and naturalness. Natural things are supposed to be not only good for us but also morally good. Leaving aside the difficulty of defining “nature” and “natural,” assuming that anything is virtuous or ethically appropriate simply because it is natural is risky.