animals under these circumstances wrong on a moral level. This goes to the idea of “fair chase.”
Might some hunters have no desire to practice “fair chase”? Sure. Perhaps they are subsistence hunters who must be successful in order to survive. When life depends on making a kill, there might be no room for concepts like fair chase or ethics, but I would argue aesthetics remain. What matters in these cases is getting meat on the ground. What matters is efficiency. Still though, even if we think of Plains Indians stampeding buffalo over cliff edges—which may be aesthetically displeasing to us—their respect for the animal was total. For them, the aesthetic component was that the quarry was part of their mythology and religion.
Contrast this with another group that had no place for “fair chase”: the market hunters of the last century and before. What mattered to them was money and the maximum bag they could possibly take. When the engine of the hunt is economic, ethics go out the window but an aesthetic remains: the beauty of a huge body count, the loveliness of a mountain of hides.
There is also a distinction to be made here between hunting and killing. There is no denying that some hunters may be bloodthirsty people who take to the field solely for the sake of killing. “Fair chase” doesn’t play a role. While this is likely not the face of hunting that we might wish to present first to the non-hunting public, it would be inaccurate to deny its existence. Still, I would argue that the motivation of most hunters is more complex than merely the desire to cause death.
With apologies to the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset, hunting necessarily involves killing, but killing does NOT necessarily mean that we have hunted. When we say that we have “hunted,” the implication is that we have pursued game within a certain legal, ethical, and aesthetic system. We have in some way handicapped ourselves in order to put the hunter and the hunted on something approximating a level playing field. We, the deer hunters of Maryland for example, are not free to take game however we like.
First, the state establishes certain ground rules within which we must operate. Next, we may impose aesthetic and ethical limitations on ourselves. Perhaps the simplest example of this is the decision many of us have made to hunt with bow and arrow, thereby greatly limiting our effective range. In closing, I think we need to be careful of the argument that goes, “Don’t engage other hunters on issues of ethics or aesthetics because such conversations divide us and strengthen the anti-hunting movement.”
I disagree. Plato has Socrates tell us that, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” We can and should examine our motivations for choosing to hunt the way we do. Hunting is an emotionally charged activity. Heart rates, adrenaline levels, and emotions run high. For many of us, this is hunting’s chief appeal. Hunting is a high-stakes proposition: the rewards and the risks are profound. To say that we should not have impassioned discussion and debate around the very thing that causes us such delight and anguish is more than a little silly. What matters, of course, is the manner in which we do it.
Without name calling or condescension and with respect for the traditions of others, we should engage in honest exchanges of values and ideas. As with discussions of religion and politics, the likelihood of changing each other’s minds may not be terribly high, but I’m not sure that should be our goal anyway. All we should seek is to understand better how our fellow hunters perceive their pursuit of game to be beautiful and satisfying.
That goal can never weaken us, but only serve to strengthen the family of those who hunt wild animals afield.