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Hunting, along with gathering, is one of the oldest methods of subsistence known to humankind and, as such, has accompanied humanity through most of its history. Yet as human civilization progressed, the role and place of the hunt in society gradually began to change. As the new ways of finding sustenance including those that do not include killing animals became common knowledge and spread across human societies, hunting ceased to be the primary way of obtaining food. What was previously the means of survival became an entertainment or, as it often called, a bloody sport. Yet since hunting is not crucial to survival anymore, it raises pertinent moral questions about its very nature. There is no denying that the bloody sport is cruel, as it invariably involves killing animals and experiencing elation at the fact f besting the hunted animal as an opponent. Due to this cruelty, hunting should be excluded from sports because it devalues the suffering of conscious creatures, promotes a mindset that endorses discriminatory hierarchies, and the hunters arguments in favor of their sport do not stand up to a thorough enough logical examination.
If one sets to discuss the morality of sport hunting and whether it should be ethically acceptable or not, one inevitably has to consider the fundamental question of morality as a whole. This question is which groups of creatures should be regarded as a part of the moral community and which should not in other words, who deserves moral consideration and who does not. The vast majority of people, including most hunters, would undoubtedly agree that hunting human beings for sport would be immoral and inexcusable even if the hunters took all the steps to deliver clean kills and cause as little suffering as possible. Therefore, if one rejects killing people for sport but endorses killing other animals, one should exclude them from the moral community or at least paint them as less deserving of moral consideration than humans. As a result, the mindset behind sport hunting requires assuming that there is a morally relevant empirical difference between all humans on the one hand and all nonhuman animals on the other (Wade 18). To put it simply, hunting rests on the premise that nonhuman animals are less capable of suffering.
However, this line of reasoning is faulty at best, as it does not bode well with scientific evidence or logical reasoning. Indeed, psychological research suggests that an animals perceived capacity to experience pain was strongly related to its perceived similarity to humans (Loughnan et al. 3). It means that, as long as animals are not too similar to humans in their physical appearance, it is easier for people to perceive them as less capable of experiencing pain and suffering. Still, psychology aside, there are no reasons to assume that non-humanlike animals are less equipped to feel pain and suffer than humanlike apes or humans themselves. The hunted animals have central nervous systems similar to those of the primates, so it is quite likely that they may relay similar sensations. Additionally, animals can demonstrate the same reactions to painful stimuli that humans do, such as crying, twitching, or trying to get away from the source of pain. Considering this, it is entirely logical to assume that many of the more developed animals are just as capable of suffering as humans themselves.
Moreover, the aforementioned psychological perception of animals has a reverse effect as well. If one thinks a creature is capable of suffering, one perceives it as more akin to humans. According to Feinberg et al., highlighting the suffering experienced by butchered animals contributes to a higher degree of empathy toward them. This effect may be a crucial element of the process of moralization that is when something hitherto morally neutral acquires moral significance (Feinberg et al. 50). This emotional regard for animal well-being is the main reason why people refrain from eating meat (Hölker et al. 2). Yet empathizing with the animals killed in sports hunting would run contrary to its purpose, which is unachievable without killing the prey. As a result, the hunting mindset not merely ignores the ample evidence of animals ability to suffer it has to actively suppress such thoughts to avoid humanizing them. In short, the cruelty of hunting is a fact so plain that a hunter has to circumvent science, philosophy, and psychology all at once to ignore the cruelty of the bloody sport.
Another reason why hunting should be banned from sports is that it may promote potentially harmful qualities in those who actively participate in it. In particular, there is a correlation between interest in sports hunting and endorsement of inequality. As noted by Loughnan et al., the people who have less or no qualms about causing animals to suffer are also more likely to endorse social dominance orientation and the endorsement of social hierarchy and inequality (2). As mentioned above, creating an ethical distinction however imaginary between humans and nonhuman animals lies at the core of hunting, so the idea of inequality is inseparable from the bloody sport. Admittedly, the correlation is not the same thing as the causal connection it would be too far-fetched to portray all hunters as authoritarian proponents of strict social hierarchy. Still, one should be aware that those who assign less value to animals suffering may be statistically less likely to hold egalitarian views and may even carry over this tendency to their relations with fellow human beings.
A fitting example to illustrate hothe w hunting mindset, with its disregard for animals, may promote a similar disregard to other people would be the history of fox-hunting in Britain. This activity emerged at the end of the 18th century and was firmly established as Englands national sport by the 19th (May 1). The Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals sought ways to eliminate it sincarly as the 1920s (Tichelar 90). Yet the difficulty with fox hunting lay in the fact that it was an upper-class pastime and, as such, remained beyond the reach of animal rights activism for a long time. As long as aristocrats and royalty dominated the leadership of the Society, it made the abolition of such upper-class sports reserved exclusively for royalty and landowners nigh impossible (Tichelar 90). Only in 1976, when this grip loosened, the Society was able to put forth a policy opposing fox hunting. Hence, the history of this sport illustrates how the support of hunting and upper-class privileges, and how a small privileged minority of hunters may demonstrate a consistent tendency to ignore other peoples opinions.
An attempt to cover the morality of hunting without including the other side of the debate would be fundamentally incomplete, which is why it is necessary to briefly address the arguments in favor of hunting. The proponents of the bloody sport have a broad range of arguments in support of their pastime, and these deserve due consideration. For instance, professional hunters aim to cause as little suffering as possible when killing their prey and would rather not shoot if there is no certainty of a clean kill (Wade 17). Following this code of ethics distinguishes true hunters from slob hunters whose goal is to simply kill the animal, and professional hunters look down upon those (Wade 17). Additionally, hunters maintain that the purpose of the bloody sport is not to kill the animal, but to prove oneself its superior in itsompetition, and killing the prey is merely a byproduct (Wade 15-16). Considering this, hunters may claim that banning their sport on the grounds of cruelty is unfair, as they consciously strive to deliver as little suffering when hunting as possible.
Yet this objection, while relatively solid at first sight, does not hold up to logical analysis. One of the reasons why professional hunters despise slob hunters is that the latter will take every opportunity to kill the prey, even if the kill will be messy. Professionals base their claim to superiority on the fact that they will forego the opportunity to kill when the clean kill is unlikely (Wade 17). This assumption means that a professional hunter may always distinguish whether the clean kill is possible of not. If the true purpose of the bloody sport was proving ones skill rather than killing, as the hunters claim, then lining up a clear shot with a guarantee of a clean kill would as satisfbe actory as killing the animal with this shot. However, hunters maintain that the victory in sport hunting invariably means killing the animal (Wade 16). It appears that the bloody sport, despite the claims of its proponents, is still about killing rather than merely proving oneself superior to the hunted animal. As such, sport hunting, as any other activity that involves unnecessary killing, deserves to be banned.
To summarize, there are numerous reasons why an activity as cruel as hunting should be banned from sports. The hunted animals are similar enough to humans to be reasonably sure that they are just as capable of feeling pain and suffering as those who hunt them, meaning there is no overwhelming ethical difference between the two. Moreover, an understanding of a creatures ability to suffer makes people more likely to empathize with this creature. As a result, the hunters who deny the cruelty of their sport have to circumvent biological facts and their own psychology simultaneously. Apart from that, a hunting mindset correlates with the support for strict hierarchies that may potentially transfer to social relations as well. While this is only a correlation rather than direct causality, the history of fox hunting in Britain shows that disregard for animals and other people may accompany each other consistently. Finally, the counterarguments that try to portray sport hunting as not cruel do not hold up to logic. At its core, hunting is about killing, and taking a life for no other reason than entertainment will always be cruel and immoral.
References
Feinberg, Matthew, et al. Understanding the Process of Moralization: How Eating Meat Becomes a Moral Issue. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol.117, no. 1, 2019, pp. 5072.
Hölker, Sarah, et al. Animal Ethics and Eating Animals: Consumer Segmentation Based on Domain-Specific Values. Sustainability, vol. 11, 2019, 3907.
Loughnan, Steve, et al. The Psychology of Eating Animals. Current Directions in Psychological Science, vol. 23, no. 2, 2014, pp.104-108.
May, Allison N. The Fox-Hunting Controversy, 1781-2004: Class and Cruelty. Routledge, 2013.
Tichelar, Michael. A blow to the men in Pink: The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Opposition to Hunting in the Twentieth Century. Rural History, vol. 22, no. 1, 2011, pp. 89113.
Wade, Maurice L. Animal Liberationism, Ecocentrism, and the Morality of Sport Hunting. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, vol. 17, no. 1, 1990. Pp. 15-27.
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