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I'm comparing "hunting for sport" against "hunting for food", and I'm comparing "hunting for food in a cruel way for the challenge" against "hunting for food in
by DougWebb 10y ago
I'm comparing "hunting for sport" against "hunting for food", and I'm comparing "hunting for food in a cruel way for the challenge" against "hunting for food in a cruel way out of necessity."
I don't think it's ok to torture a fox because it had a nice life before the torture started.
I don't think it's ok to torture a fox because we kill a lot more cows than foxes.
I don't think it's ok to torture animals that we raise for slaughter. I pay more for organic grass-fed cattle, free-range chicken and eggs, etc, in the hopes that the animals that provide my food were treated well while they were alive.
As I said at the start, I'm not a vegetarian. I'm definitely a part of the animal food chain, so I'm ok with the killing of animals further down the chain for me to eat, and I avoid the animals further up the chain so that I don't get eaten. (I wouldn't blame them if they got me, though.) What I object to is killing in a way that causes more suffering than it has to.
- jules 10y agoIf you object to inflicting more suffering than you have to, how do you justify not being a vegetarian? In the end this is a trade of a bit of pleasure for you and quite a bit of suffering for the animal. Fox hunting, it seems to me, is precisely the same sort of trade. You could argue that the pleasure you get from eating meat is worth the suffering, but the pleasure the hunters get from fox hunting is not worth the suffering, but it is not clear to me how you would justify such a claim. Firstly, it seems to me not impossible that a hunter derives more pleasure from a hunting trip than from eating a piece of chicken. Secondly, it seems to me not impossible that the total amount of suffering inflicted on a chicken during its farm lifetime including slaughter is greater than the total amount of suffering inflicted on a fox during the hunt, particularly since free range isn't all it's made out to be. Thirdly, even if it were the case that fox hunting is a worse trade than meat eating, it's still unclear why it couldn't be the case that both are still worth it, or neither is worth it.
- DougWebb 10y agoEasy: I have to eat meat, and I'm not a reductionist. I don't eat meat for pleasure, particularly, and certainly not as recreation. Fox hunting is purely recreation.