Jim writes:
>...the concept of "cruelty" is philosophically problematic.  In other
words, I'm not sure that fox hunting
>constitutes a form of cruelty (otter hunting, otoh, may be a different
>matter--I don't know much about it).

Cruelty is not a concept....

Jim, cruelty has a pretty consistent definition. One aspect of cruelty may
be the awareness of "the pain of death" as we know. Now Aristotle for
instance indicated that health is the "absence of disease and pain" more or
less. Therefore if there is any validity to the term cruelty in regards to
the hunt, it would primarily be a result of pain associated with death.
Granted, there is no pain associated with death except the fear of death.
The fear is painful. However most animals I would assume desire to live
freely, free of pain, but animals also fear death and have a variety of
morphological and behavioral adaptations to escape predation resulting in
death because of fear.

Cruelty is not in itself a sensation, but rather the knowledge arising from
the imagination with its "presentations" of the act which through the
imagination results in the deliberation or inference, and emotion of joy in
the cruel person arising from the predated animals fear and subsequent pain
apon learning that is is being pursued by hounds that will kill it. it would
not run if it was not afraid now would it? The whole of the hunt may be
expressed as an extreme behavior in which one animal knows and enjoys the
thought of the fox being caught and killed, because the fox knows the "pain"
of death. If my spouse were to withhold money and food from me when I need
it, then she would be punishable under the law. Cruelty is intentional and
reasonable, but it is also wrong.

Cruelty is the intention of "inflicting" fear which is painful.

Cruelty is not simply pain because pain in  "labour" is necessary, as in
chilbirth. We don't say that God is cruel, but we say that  deliberations
result in cruelty through withholding and not in offering.

Perhaps you are correct, and the pain that the fox experiences is short
lived. But that is not at all the point of the issue here. A fox has a
desire to mate, to eat, to be free of pain, and so I cannot think of
anything more painful to the existence of the fox than to die. This is why
the hunt exists. IF the gallant and happy hunstmen were satisfied with less,
then why would they not want to hunt earthworms on horseback? The whole act
of fox hunting is 'unnatural' both for the fox and for the horse and for the
person. Why does the fox run away from the hounds? It does so because it
knows that the hounds are going to kill it. So it already is pained by the
thought of the consequences. The only benefit that arises is purely a sense
of pleasure in the hunter who does not even bother to eat the fox. The
economic argument is shallow as well because the money that is expended on
the hunt could actually be spend on something more pleasureable, and even
better economic consequences could arise.

If fox hunting is morally correct, then twisting ears of rabbits in public
would be morally correct as a sport; even if the rabbits did not suffer the
pain of death....

This is an extreme behavior..

"...as for friendship, the purest kind is counted as a mark not of good
fortune, but of moral worth, but all other friendship is cultivated for the
sake of power or pleasure." [Beothius, The Consolation of Philosophy].

john foster