Hunting
Spirit:
Reflections on Ethics and Philosophy
by Jeff Kalil (“Gasset”)
Welcome to the HUNTING SPIRIT column!
We’re glad you’re here.
In the last column, we explored issues of hunter jealousy and how a minority of hunters may envy the success of others. Even if we grant that this is a problem, I maintain that it is a small one compared to the issue of hunters criticizing each other over perceived issues of ethics. Whether it is baiting, crossbows, trail cameras, motorized transportation in the field, or some other controversial topic, almost all hunters have strong feelings about the “right way” to hunt.
State wildlife agencies establish what is “legal” when it comes to the pursuit of game, but individual hunters then decide for themselves what is “ethical.” Clearly, laws are determined by the ethics a society holds in common, but the correlation is neither neat nor tidy. It is important to acknowledge that what is legal may not necessarily be ethical for a given individual, and that what an individual decides is ethical may not be defined or protected by law.
In the end, though, I believe that neither of these terms is as helpful in negotiating the passionate positions hunters hold as a third term: aesthetical. By way of reframing the hot-button issues like baiting, I think it’s helpful to explore a distinction drawn by James Tantillo, a hunter and professor of philosophy at Cornell University. Tantillo argues that many of the things hunters argue over are not ultimately issues of ethics—not truly issues of what is good and evil, what is right and wrong—but issues of “aesthetics,” namely what we consider beautiful, or appealing to the senses.
Essentially, some hunters feel that sitting over a bait pile is not a pleasing way to hunt for them; it doesn’t look or feel right. Other hunters have no such objections. To them, baiting is a logical and satisfying way to hunt. Either way, Tantillo argues, this is not a moral issue. It doesn’t rise to the level of right versus wrong, or good versus evil. Instead, it is a matter of what individual hunters find pleasing. Each of us, within a legal framework, is free to decide what we want our hunting experience to look and feel like.
For more, see: http://www.huntright.org/where-we-stand/ethics-vs-preferences
Clearly, there are some issues that DO rise to a moral (or ethical) level. The difficult thing is that the line from aesthetical to ethical is crossed by different hunters around different issues, and at different points. Take high-fence hunting for instance. Depending on factors like the size of the enclosure and the relative “tameness” of the quarry, more than a few hunters consider killing