Theoria

[Modified, edited: February 6, 2009]

From a strange – and offensive – post from a (merely – who am I to criticize sub-field interests?) strange blog, Philosophy of Sport:

In contrast I believe that recreational sport hunting pursued for its own sake is morally justifiable. What’s more, I specifically embrace the use of the terms ‘recreational’ or ‘sport’ hunting to defend hunting. The reality of recreational sport hunting is that hunters are motivated not by need or utility but by a desire for the pleasures and enjoyment of the hunt. When viewed in this way, in this specifically non-utilitarian or even aesthetic sense, sport hunting can be interpreted, defended, and justified as an art form.

The idea of calling sport hunting an art form is not crazy. In a thoughtful book about boxing, for example, novelist Joyce Carol Oates speaks of “the awareness of life’s tragic ambiguity that serious art provides” and argues that the sport of boxing is a serious art (Oates 1994, 137). In a similar book about bullfighting, Bruce Schoenfeld writes, “Bullfighting at its best forces everyone who sees it to become keenly aware of his own mortality, which arguably should ennoble his being and enhance his life. It’s serious stuff” (Schoenfeld 1992, 91).

Exactly. Hunting is serious stuff as well. As a voluntary leisure activity hunting has the potential to ennoble one’s being and enhance the lives of those who practice it.

I’ve never been hunting, but, as a child, I went fishing on a number of occasions at the family cottage. I haven’t had an interest in fishing in something like twenty-years now, long before I had an interest in the moral status of animals. So, to be clear: I’ve never shot an animal with a gun or a bow or stabbed it with a spear; I’ve never intentionally killed an animal with a weapon. In fact, I’ve never held a weapon in my life (kitchen knives and baseball bats and axes don’t count, of course). I have, no doubt, unintentionally (although the line between intention and unintention in fishing is rather blurry – if the hook on your lure goes through the eye or gill or brain of the fish, it is likely going to die; deep water fish brought up too quickly are most likely going to die and even those brought up at a slower speed are likely not going to be able to return the depths in which they usually live) killed fish. Even “catch and release” fishers will still unintentionally cause the death of fish, unintentionally cause the death of waterfowl and rodents when they lose line and lures, and, if they use live bait, obviously cause the death of their bait. But, even as a child, I was able to see a fundamental difference between “sport fishing” and “sport hunting” – although now I find both to be morally reprehensible.

But, let’s set that aside for now: I’ve never had an abortion either, but I have a position on that, too. Not having experienced “the thrill of the hunt” is not particularly germane to the issue at hand.

The author sets aside utilitarianism as a justification of hunting (e.g., hunt for food), but defends hunting for its own sake. Or, in their terms, the “desire for the pleasures and enjoyment of the hunt.” (And, yet, not utilitarian?!) Presumably the author is referring to something like the pleasure in stalking creatures in the woods, to the comraderie of the hunting camp, and – no doubt – to the thrill of having an animal in your sights and releasing your weapon. That is, it would seem that the intentional inflicting of harm, pain, suffering and death is absolutely integral to the enjoyment of the hunt. Put another way, violence, pain, cruelty and suffering is part of the “enjoyment” or “pleasure” that is the hunt: the author creates a positive association between the willful infliction of pain and death, on the one hand, with enjoyment, pleasure, and aesthetic experience, on the other. That is, there is a certain beauty – an aesthetic experience valuable in itself – to cruelty. The author makes positive reference, for instance, to an exceptionally cruel sport: the bullfight. Thus, the author seems to accept that it is an artform both for the hunter and for the audience; for those who would receive vicarious enjoyment at the suffering, slaughter, maiming, pain and killing of an animal. That is, it would seem that the ability to intentionally inflict pain on another animal is essential to the “art” of the hunt. Further, the witnessing of this infliction of pain is likewise part of the hunt. (Note how “the hunt” – stalking prey in the jungle, the forest, the plains, the tundra – has now been reduced to “the spectacle,” a staged fight between an animal and human for the benefit of an audience.) Would the author, perhaps, also endorse the art of the dogfight? Of a bear-bait? Of ratting? What about staged fights between gladiators and elephants, lions, tigers or giraffes? What about staged fights between fully developed humans and humans with severe cognitive disabilities? What about staged fights to the death between willing humans? (The problematic of the hillbilly and the apallachians, if you will.) Between unwilling humans? Once it is admitted that cruelty is an art form, there is no limit – Why not return to the ordeals and thus inject aesthetics into legal procedure? To public executions? Why not? Why stop at a deer or a rabbit or a moose?