Is Hunting an Animal for Food Ehtical

There was a time when hunting an animal for food was necessary for survival, but meat is now processed and packaged for our convenience. I have never hunted an animal, although I have gone fishing and in some respects, I could ask if fishing is as ethical as hunting an animal for food. I remember how it felt to cast my line out, reeling it in slowly hoping to get a bite. When I did get a bite, the fight between the fish and me was thrilling. In retrospect, the same feeling is similar, a hunter has after he stalked and killed a deer or elk. However, does the feeling of excitement when you have caught and killed animal right? Do we rationalize killing an animal for food to mask the excitement that comes from the kill? I would say yes to that, because I really did not need that fish for food even though I did eat it I still enjoyed the catching of it. Yet, there are those who do hunt for food, in remote areas it would be easier to hunt game than to drive 20 or 30 miles into the local town for hamburger. Perhaps for them there is a justification to hunt. As Peter Singer writes, “Eskimos living in an environment where they must kill animals for food or starve might be justified in claiming that their interest in surviving overrides that of the animals they kill.”(Singer) Nevertheless, that still does not answer the question is it still ethical to hunt and kill an animal for food?

However, there are many who would say that hunting an animal for food is justified because it helps to keep the herds by culling and protects them from over population that could lead to starvation, disease, or predation. Culling is a naturalistic fallacy based on a false premise that we are saving the animal from a terrible long drawn out death, which is no...

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...mal but about caring about the human’s response to it. He did not believe in the consequences but intent of an action. His test for hunting would be his categorical imperative, if hunting an animal for food would be something we could imagine others doing. Then hunting no matter the consequences to the animal our intent is justified. (Rosenstand)

In the end, the debate over the ethics of hunting an animal for food will go on. A Utilitarian would argue the harm to the human is greater than the harm to the animal so hunting is justified. Deontologists would argue that animals are mere things and that intent to feed yourself or your family makes it justifiable. Yet, Tom Regan and Pete Singer believe that eating an animal is not justifiable. So where does that leave us? In the end, it is each person’s choice to hunt and that living with the consequences of that choice