Should laws permit the hunting and killing of animals?

Pro: Food is necessary for human well-being. When humans need food, the killing of animals for their meat is acceptable.

Con: Most often, hunters do not have a serious need for the food they would obtain by hunting. Hunting is no longer necessary in a civilized society. Adequate supplies of food are available to all who live in developed countries.

Reply: Societies often breed in their citizens a dependence on the systems that provide the necessities of life. Those who argue that hunting is no longer necessary should be aware of their assumptions, namely that (1) societies or civilizations last forever without disruption and that (2) from now on, humans will always be dependent on factories that produce, and systems that deliver, processed foods and that (3) humans will never again have to rely on themselves to get food and make clothing in a natural setting. Few people would want to give up altogether the knowledge of how to survive without the apparatus of civilization. In many circumstances—certainly in extreme circumstances, as with the breakdown of a society—individuals would do well to be self-reliant. While hunters, compared with anyone else, would have no better chance of obtaining food in cities in the event of a total economic collapse, hunters would have the knowledge, skills, and predisposition to venture into the wild in search of food when that became necessary.

Pro: Hunting is a sport, and as such, it provides pleasure.

Pro: Hunting and gathering trophies is an ancient human activity, one that fosters social cohesion, strong bonds among the members of society.

Pro: Hunting is a tradition which keeps alive certain skills—those associated with getting food and clothing in the most primitive environments. The human race benefits if at least some of its members preserve the knowledge of hunting. Civilization is not permanent. Those whose knowledge of how to get food ends with an awareness that supermarkets sell it in neat plastic wrappers would be at a severe disadvantage were civilized society seriously disrupted. This is not so grave a concern that everyone ought to keep hunting skills honed to a fine edge. But the concern is sufficient to warrant that the human race preserve the knowledge of how to manage its survival in the state of nature. The hunter's responsibility is for preserving knowledge and skill. Often the knowledge consists of innumerable little facts, for example, details regarding the habits of animals. Those who hunt, who take the responsibility of hunting seriously, are repositories of vital information for our species.

Pro: Hunting affords insights into natural cycles, not only the cycle of the seasons but also the grander cycle of life and death.

Hunting puts the hunter in touch with natural rhythms and processes and gives the hunter an insight into the nature of reality. Hunting affords the human the experience of a range of emotion. It accelerates the heart, sharpens the senses, and in general intensifies experience. With success, the hunter feels power; with failure, the hunter gets the sobering knowledge of a human's limitations. Mature hunters, aware that they are bringers of death, take this reality seriously: the power that they feel in the victory over a weaker animal is accompanied with a respect for the vanquished and even sadness at the loss of a worthy opponent. Hunting therefore gives us an opportunity to participate in a drama that teaches something about existence.

Pro: An animal killed in its natural habitat at least had freedom from human interference until that point. If we are going to kill and eat them anyway, then hunting animals in their own environment is more humane than raising them in cramped, unnatural pens, cages and yards.

Con: Hunting is one form of cruelty to animals. Where facilities for humane killing exist, only those should be allowed to kill animals. Since facilities for humane killing exist, we do not need to hunt. Beef and pork are available from facilities that kill animals humanely: these would be acceptable for food. Partridge and grouse, on the other hand, where they are obtained only by hunting, are not acceptable. This is because the hunter is not always in a position to kill quickly and efficiently; the animal may suffer more at the hands of a hunter than it would at a food processing plant, where death can be brought about more swiftly.

Reply: One argument for the superiority of hunting over raising animals in captivity to supply us with food is that it plucks an animal from its natural habitat and thus does not involve the confinement of the animal for its entire lifetime. At the least, this argument favors the lesser of two evils. For example, if we are going to kill rabbits anyway, we ought to let them live all their lives in freedom in their natural habitat until we take them for our food.