I was standing under a willow oak in some flooded timber on the Mobile-Tensaw Delta when I asked myself a question I’d never considered before.
“What did I do that for?”
Moments before, a lone drake wood duck had pitched down into the timber to join what he thought were a couple of friends dabbling for acorns in the shallow water. His dazzling plumage shone in the early morning sun as he touched down gently and began to preen his feathers. He was sleek, clean, graceful, and almost surreally colorful compared to the somber grey hues of the flooded timber surrounding us.
Now, as I stood there holding him in my hands, gently spreading his wings and tilting his head to get a better look at the iridescent blue and green feathers, a strange feeling was beginning to emerge. Instead of the rush of satisfaction I was used to feeling; I was feeling guilt, confusion, and sadness.
“Why did you do that?” my internal prosecutor pressed. “You’re not hungry. He wasn’t hurting anything. Why did you do that?”
I felt suddenly ignorant and ridiculous standing there in a pair of rubber bibs, surrounded by rubber birds and holding a tiny carcass in my hands. As I waded back to my hiding spot against the trunk of the willow oak, I tried to shake the feeling. I hung the bird on my game strap, pulled my hat brim down over my eyes, leaned up against the tree, and turned my eyes back to the sky. I’d chosen my spot well that morning, and the ripples from the jerk rig caught the eye of several more ducks. I left the swamp that day with my daily bag limit, but the ride back to the boat ramp was a long one.
I’ve been an insatiable hunter for as long as I can remember. I’ve also always been an enthusiastic amateur naturalist, as well as a casual reader of philosophic and religious works. As such, I’ve had plenty of exposure to the concepts of ethical animal treatment. I understood that most religions regarded animal consumption as at least potentially problematic ethically; with all of them that I was aware of having rules dictating proper and improper ways to slaughter animals, and dietary restrictions mandated for at least monastic orders if not laypeople. I’d read Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation in college, as well as Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I knew that the Vedas and the Dhammapada frowned upon meat-eating, and that the Jainists in particular had strong beliefs that any killing was harmful to the soul. Pythagoras believed that animals had souls similar to humans, and Plato mused that meat consumption was resource-intensive and therefore a cause of human strife.
I was also familiar with several prominent ideas that are commonly interpreted as granting permission to kill animals, whether for consumption or other gain. The Abrahamic faiths believe that God has conveniently granted man dominion over “every creeping thing that creepeth.” Descartes believed that animals were consciousness lacking “automatons,” incapable of suffering, and demanding little if any ethical consideration. Kant felt similarly. And, while Darwin never to my knowledge weighed in on the ethics on meat consumption, many have taken his discovery of the theory of natural selection and “survival of the fittest” as a free license to “do unto them before they do unto you.”
Of course, fellow amateur moralists will be aware of a common rebuttal to the last idea, the naturalistic or “is/ought” fallacy. Sure, organisms killing other organisms for survival is natural. But so is rape and infanticide. If it’s not sound to conclude that we can abuse women and murder children just because other species do it, is it rational to conclude that we can kill other life forms because they do it? Once upon a time in the distant past, mankind’s survival hinged upon his ability to hunt. But early civilization also necessitated the enslavement of large amounts of people to provide “civilized” men time to ponder ethical, political, and legal theory. If the latter is no longer necessary or tolerated, should the former be?
But up until that day all of these questions were just amusing mental exercises. Any thought I gave the issue usually resulted in me concluding that factory farming was pretty horrible, small-scale agriculture more tolerable, and that hunting, fishing, and foraging was probably the most ethical way to procure sustenance. It helped that most of my friends, not to mention society at large, shared this view.
But that morning laid bare a truth that I had never considered. I’m still not sure if I deliberately avoided it, or had simply never considered it. I realized, as I steered my boat down the river and pondered, that I had been thoroughly deluded in my belief that I was hunting for sustenance, or to preserve a tradition, or to connect with nature, or to “manage” game populations.
It took me lots of thinking to get to the bottom of why I really hunted (and still hunt). Some of it was unpleasant, and I’m still not sure that I’ve completely sounded the depths. What I am sure of is that I had been ignorant of and at times weirdly deceptive about my true motives. As I’ve talked with other hunters about the topic, I’ve realized that I’m not alone in this. Whether you’re a hunter yourself, or somebody trying to understand hunters, I think the following confession may be helpful.
First and foremost, I hunt because it is socially acceptable. Thoreau mused that if he had been born a Native American instead of a European, his passion for nature would have manifested as him becoming, “a mighty hunter.” In the Deep South, a man who is drawn to the wilderness finds a socially acceptable role to play in the guise of a hunter. That is an easy, well-established road to traverse. My society is full of male hunters. By hunting myself, I am in a large way just doing what is easy. Naturalists, biologists, researchers, artists, and other “heroes” of the natural world are becoming more mainstream, but change comes slowly in Alabama. More people in my home state look up to Eddie Salter than they do E.O. Wilson.
I also hunt because hunting is an accepted, non-violent way by which I can prove my worth as a man. I was never interested in or good at sports. I’m no Casanova. I am, in fact, naturally shy, noncombative, and bookish. But by waking up at 3am and braving the dark and cold of Alabama’s swamps, and dragging a big buck or hog out of the woods after a well placed shot, I can assure myself that I am capable and rugged. Every successful hunt is a form of social currency I can later cash in on. I’m known in my social circle as the “crazy guy” who wakes up earlier, walks further, and sticks it out for longer than the rest of the herd. It feels good to be good at something, and being good at hunting brings me some measure of clout.
But the biggest reason that I hunt, and the real reason that I shot that drake wood duck that morning, is because I enjoy killing.
That feels like the sort of thing you shouldn’t admit in public. But I’m not saying that I enjoy killing for shock value or as a boast. I think that most people, particularly men but also women, would be forced to admit that they find violence thrilling in at least some measure. The $30 billion dollar entertainment industry implies as much, as does our fascination with contact sports. And I think that anybody who has so much as swatted a fly or set the hook on a sinking bobber can sympathize with the slow build and sudden release of tension that the act of stalking and striking at an animal causes. I’ve also been in enough traffic jams to know that everyone slows down for a look at a bad wreck.
I think that, if hunters are honest with themselves, they have to admit that they like killing. And, I suspect, it would do many of them good to admit that they have a problem with saying that, and are guilty of misdirecting attention and justifying their actions by talking about population management, cultural preservation, or other more acceptable things.
For my part, at least, the following is true. If I really had a burning desire to conserve and protect the environment, I could easily accomplish more in that area by donating the time and money I spend hunting to various environmental groups. If I was worried about preserving culture and heritage, I could volunteer as a docent at a museum. If I wanted to connect with nature and unwind from the stresses of modern life, I could forego carrying a heavy tree stand and rifle in to the woods and just sit on a knoll for as long as I wanted with a camera or pair of binoculars. I could do all of these things without ever pulling a trigger, and with much less of an investment in time and money. And I actually do all of these things, some of them quite regularly. But none of them bring the adrenaline rush of hunting.
The longer I think on this, the more it troubles me. I’ve noticed that the addiction to the rush of killing is blatantly obvious once you slow down and really look at hunting culture. Words like “addiction” and “obsession” feature heavily in the industry’s advertising. Hunters joke about their passion ruining their family lives, their financial security, and their mental and physical health. While I have met hunters who I believe really and truly do not hunt primarily for the kill, they represent a fairly silent and relatively inactive minority.
I have to admit that I’m not at this time confident that I can identify a moral argument for the hunting of game. I’m more convinced as time goes on that Descartes was dead wrong about “automatons,” given that animals continue to surprise us the more we learn about their cognitive abilities. Consistently, animals outperform our expectations in tests measuring cognition and consciousness. And, the more we learn about our own brain, the harder a time we have explaining what the difference is between their neural chemistry and our own. There seems to be less and less difference between how I register and respond to fear, pain, or companionship; and how other vertebrates respond to those stimuli.
I increasingly have a hard time denying that I am inflicting pain on conscious animals who would rather not suffer, and I’m doing it largely because I find it an enjoyable way to pass the time, rationalization be damned!
But I still hunt. Why? Well, momentum is a big part of it. I’m not sure what my life looks like if I stop hunting. I’ve built my life around it in a very big way, and I like that life. I’m enough of a rascal that I’ve granted myself permission to enjoy killing critters for a rush, provided that it’s done with a few ground rules in place that keep me from devolving into sadism. I even let myself chest-thump a little around my buddies still.
I’m open to the idea of quitting, but I’m in no particular rush to do so. I tell myself that too much morality is as bad of a thing as too little. Much mischief has been managed by people too keen on perfection and purity. A little religion gets you love for your fellow man. A lot gets you the Inquisition. A little social reform gets you the Emancipation Proclamation. A lot gets you the Third Reich. Hindus have explained to westerners appalled by the unconcealed vices of yogis, gurus, and other holy men that of course they must sin a little. If they didn’t, they explain, they would ascend to a higher plane and cease to manifest! How would they lead others to enlightenment then?
If I’m going to have a vice, at least hunting presents solely a ethical dilemma, instead of a legal one.
That may not seem like much of a defense to those who believe I’m in the wrong for hunting, and perhaps it isn’t. As Ben Franklin said, “So convenient a thing to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do.”
At the end of the day, though, I’m reminded of a passage from the Bhagavad Gita, where Arjuna, dismayed at the thought of going to war and having to kill great and honorable men, is encouraged by Krishna, who reminds him that,
“He who thinks that he is the slayer or that he is slain does not understand. One who is in knowledge knows that the self slays not nor is slain.”
I’m also reminded of the First Law of Thermodynamics, which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred.
Finally, I’m reminded of a verse from Isaiah that I suspect many contemporary biblical literalists may find inconvenient and be tempted to interpret “creatively.”
“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.”
Viewing hunting through the lens of these sayings, something becomes apparent. That wood duck didn’t really die that day. It transitioned. In a small way, it’s sitting here right now; writing an essay on the ethics of hunting. The rest of it is becoming acorns on a willow oak, which just may end up eaten by other wood ducks. And on and on that will go. Alan Watts was spot-on when he described life as “a mutual eating society.” Maybe the most ethical thing we can do is cook the animals we eat well, and go back to open-air burials?
I say all of this for two reasons. First, to hopefully encourage fellow hunters to be more thoughtful about why and how they hunt. I think a lot of hunters never really question their hobby, or do so only briefly, seeking to rationalize instead of reason through their choices. It’s easy for hunters to get trapped in an echo chamber with fellow hunters who repeat the tribal truisms about the pros of hunting.
Secondly, I do it to hopefully discourage the notion, common in some environmental circles, that hunters are by and large ignorant, violent, destructive, exploitive individuals. I have sadly met hunters who fit that billing. But I’ve met many more who were thoughtful, and really cared about the well-being of their environment.
This certainly lives up to the billing of a “Thinker.” It brings to mind a quote I’ve always liked from Christopher Hitchens - “Suspect your own motives, and all excuses.” This kind of relentless introspection leads a person to some wildly uncomfortable places, but, I think, results in the most important growth. Excellent piece.