SUBSISTENCE VS. SPORT HUNTING

The argument that subsistence hunting is morally acceptable but
sport hunting, or hunting for pleasure, is bad has been around
for almost one hundred years. The argument is analogous to the
Roman Catholic dictum that having sex for pleasure is bad but
having sex for reproduction is morally acceptable. Even the most
prudish must admit that on occasion having sex for reproduction
can and often does involve some pleasure.  Similarly with
subsistence hunting, being successful and killing an animal can
and often does involve some pleasure.

What both of these arguments have in common is an examination of
the *motivations* of the participants involved and using these
motivations to define whether the subsequent actions caused by
these motivations are morally acceptable or not.

Dr. Ann Causey states:

"What the anti-hunters ultimately find objectionable, and what
most sport hunters are understandably reluctant to admit, is that
the motive for sport hunting boils down to the enjoyment of the
activities undertaken as part of the quest for and ultimately the
achievement of the kill."

"Antihunters believe... that it is morally wrong to
kill for pleasure. Period."

"Can the desire to kill for sport be explained, and more
importantly for the sport hunter, can it be defended? I believe
the answer to both of these questions is yes."

"...the desire to hunt is the modern vestige of an evolutionary
trait of utmost adaptive significance to early man. Hunting is,
they remind us, man's dominant occupation, having supported and
literally shaped us for over ninety-nine percent of our
existence, only very recently have been supplanted by
agriculture."

"Though the urge to kill has in the past been reinforced by
instinct, it is tempered in modern man by reason. This gives rise
to the big conflict characteristic of sport hunting: the mixture
of elation and remorse, of thrill and regret. It is instinct
versus intellect....  Caras makes a wonderful analogy to
illustrate the relationship in hunting between need and desire:
'If scientists come up with test-tube babies tomorrow morning
there will be just as much fornicating tomorrow night as there
has always been.' The need may well be gone, but the desire, in
many of us, remains strong."

"We have now reached the heart of the issue of the morality of
hunting."

"Is it morally wrong to wish to hunt for sport and to take
pleasure in the occasional kill?"

"The answer, it seems to me, is no. It is not morally wrong to
take pleasure in killing game; nor is it morally right. It is
simply not a moral issue at all, because the urge itself is an
instinct, and instincts do not qualify for moral valuation,
positive or negative.  Thus, the urge to kill for sport is
*amoral*, lying as it does outside the jurisdiction of morality."

Ann Causey "On the Morality of Hunting". Environmental Ethics
Vol.11 Winter 1989. pp.327-343.