> 
Tantillo:> What a decent and honest moral account of the various blood
sports
> would argue is that there aren't satisfactory substitutes. Writing
> about the bullfight, Bruce Schoenfeld argues, "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." (Last Serious Thing, 91; cite below) There
> aren't many serious competitors to the bullfight. I suppose you could
> argue that we could all contemplate our mortality by watching reruns
> of _ Harold and Maude _ on the old movie channel at night . . . :-)
> but the qualitative hedonist in me would respond that this is not a
> comparable or equal pleasure to that yielded by the various blood
> sports.

	Dreamer: Let's see.  You could have the bullfight without the horses,
picadors, etc.  Just a bull and a guy with the sword.  Play with the
elements until the average bull has an equal chance with the
bullfighter.  Evening the odds seems like the sportsmanlike thing to do.
	Better yet, you could replace the bull with another human.  While
you're at it, you could require that everyone in the audience be
required to take their turn in the arena.  That way, you can be a little
more sure that no one's being exploited for another, no one's deriving
their transcendent aesthetic experience at the expence of someone else.
> 

> 
Tantillo: I'm prepared to argue that there are *real* qualitative
differences
> between authentic hunting and the alternatives you list; and that
> authentic hunting uniquely offers some advantages to the others.
> > For example: until you have had your bare hands inside the warm body
> cavity of a dead animal, I do not think any amount of "tracking and
> studying" can teach you what a body truly *feels* like, or smells
> like.  So higher-level reasonings and imaginative thought
> experiments have their limitations.

Dreamer: This reminds me a little of some of the dialogue at the
beginning of the movie Scream in which the killer discusses on the phone
how he wants to find out what a certain person's guts look like.  I
couldn't make it through much of the movie I'm afraid.  But, assuming
that this sort of experience contains some positive qualitative
advantages, wouldn't they also be available to the hunter or bullfighter
who chooses humans for prey?

It may be that there are some mysteries that do not need to be
explored.  If a moth is going to die because I feel its wings, it is not
necessary that I feel the wings.  If a pre-industrial tribe is
inevitably going to lose its cultural integrity or very existence
because I as an anthropologist observe it or record it, then I don't
need to observe it or record it.  If a woman is going to suffer
significant trauma because I decide to experience an involuntary rape at
her expense, then the experience of raping someone may not be one I need
to have.  If an animal must be hunted, killed and butchered so that I
may find out what it feels like to have my bare hands inside the warm
body cavity, maybe that also is an experience which may be foregone.
> 

Dreamer: > >To put it simply, there are other, better ways to bond with
nature
> than
> >to dominate and kill it.
> 
> Tantillo: Well, now this is the case YOU would have to make, qualitatively
> speaking--*better* in what ways?

Dreamer: Less bad.  :-)    Resulting in less unnecessary suffering.

> Tantillo:  And why so abstract? "to dominate and kill it"--what, kill "nature"?
> Nobody "kills" nature.

Dreamer:  Didn't mean that.  I suppose I meant there are usually
preferable ways to bond with all the constituent parts and systems in
Nature than through their domination and destruction.  Although I also
think it's true that the way we treat discreet parts of nature both
reflects and shapes the ways we think of and deal with nature as a
whole.  And it eventually reflects and shapes the ways we think of and
deal with one another.

Tantillo: FWIW, I have my doubts. And I speak as a life
> long Nature-Lover, capital N, capital L, who romanticized animals with
> the best of them. . . .
> 
Dreamer: We can respect and honor our fellow creatures and one another
without romanticizing.

Dreamer: > >Should all territorial and property disputes be
> >settled by violence and murder? Should all reproductive choices be
> >decided by force and rape?
> 
Tantillo: > I have a hard time with these rhetorical questions. Who
exactly is
> arguing that territorial and property disputes should be settled by
> violence and murder? I don't think anybody is.

Dreamer: I think that both Mr. Bissell and yourself have made the
argument that the tradition of hunting is entitled to very strong
deference on the basis of its antiquity and the fact that it has shaped
our evolutionary relationship with the rest of Creation.  Correct me if
I'm wrong.

Tantillo: For the sake of
> argument, let's ask: If some people were making this argument, what is
> the situation and what are the reasons they offer for their actions
> and beliefs? For example, the questions you are asking could be
> related historically to the border conflict in Kansas prior to the
> American Civil War. Should such a territorial and property dispute be
> settled by violence and killing? The Civil War was just such a
> territorial and property dispute in many ways. The Germans in WWII
> were trying to establish a Jew-free territory--I'd say violence and
> killing to stop Hitler might be morally justified; what is your
> *particular* argument?

Dreamer: I tend to think that its morally justified sometimes also. 
Especially in cases, such as those enunciated above, in which the force
is employed for a larger end: to end or prevent arrangements of
involuntary servitude, abuse and exploitation.  This sort of
justification might apply for instance to force or violence employed by
animal rights activists, but I fail to see how it would countenance
recreational hunting.
> 

Tantillo:> The phrase "violence-based relations with other species"
makes it
> sound like all our interactions with animals are violent; indeed, some
> PETA-philes consider pet ownership to be a form of violence. We need a
> sharper concept of violence to make sense of this discussion. I think
> the killing act in hunting *is* violent, but on balance I do not
> consider hunting to be any more violent than most other human
> activities, and a lot less violent than most. Hunting differs from the
> aforementioned example of driving for pizza and killing bugs and small
> mammals with a car, in that the *intent* of hunting is to kill, at
> some basic level. But violence-based relations with other species are
> still present in the act of driving the car regardless of the lack of
> intention to kill all those bugs on the windshield. Likewise, avoiding
> violence altogether surely cannot be morally obligatory if we are to
> eat at all--cf. all the earlier discussions about the "violence" of
> agriculture.

Dreamer: This kind of sophistry would justify any violence against
anything or anybody.  It belongs to the Hannibal Lecter school of
thought.
> 
Tantillo:> So I think it's best to sharpen our terms and really examine
what it
> is that bothers us: why is hunting wrong? Is it because killing is
> wrong? That killing animals is wrong? 

Dreamer:  Nope, and nope.  Depends on the circumstances.
> 
Tantillo:> In asking the title question, "What Is Wrong with Killing
People?"
> Ewin comments on philosophers' unwillingness to argue the point about
> the morality of killing (in this case, of people). [snip]
> 
> Most of the arguments I've seen here on this list, similarly, are
> "paradigm-case" type arguments. Killing animals is generally
> presupposed to be a paradigm case of a foundational evil that
> underpins our moral relations with members of other species. I happen
> to think there are greater evils than the death of animals--some
> philosophers have even thought that there are greater evils than the
> death of people. All of this is open for discussion.

Dreamer:  Good!  And I'm not saying hunting is immoral.  What I have
said repeatedly is that most of the arguments offered on this list to
justify hunting would also justify similar treatment of humans.  The
arguments made to justify such significantly disparate treatment of
animals have been unconvincing.

I think it's wrong to kill people unnecessarilly for the same reason
it's wrong to kill animals unnecessarilly.  We all partake in the same
consciousness and spirit, and unnecessary suffering and fear is
undesirable.  You can't elevate or enlarge your own soul at the expense
of another: it won't work.  (I think that most of the claims that the
prey is somehow benefitted seem a little disingenuous.  Maybe I'm
wrong.)  Real transcendence, I think, is a very cooperative enterprise. 
I think these are pretty fundamental truths and that, to the extent you
close yourself to them, you harm not only others but yourself.  Perhaps
yourself most of all.

Tantillo:> former true believer in animal rights, I certainly know what
the best
> and worst arguments for animal rights are. So far I am more impressed
> with the pro-hunting arguments than the anti-hunting arguments. This
> judgment may change, if I am given reasons to change that judgment.
> Paradigm-case arguments against killing will not do it.

Dreamer: I don't think the fundamental points of morality, truth, or
virtue can be found through argument -- only through experience, grace,
and careful attentiveness.  The place of philosophical ethics is to
elaborate and apply these fundamental principles to the complexities of
the world -- not to uncover the principles themselves.  

Wishing us all the best of luck, Dreamer.
>


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