The Virtue Ethics Argument
A virtue ethicist could potentially ascribe many virtues to the practice of hunting for meat consumption:
Compassion:
As I previously mentioned, hunting, especially with due care, ensures a short, quick death for the animal. The brevity of this method could be considered a form of compassion, especially when weighed with the highly torture-filled process from farm to the slaughterhouse that factory-farmed animals must endure. Fair-chase is also a compassionate method of hunting, by allowing the wild animals their full range of motion in an open, natural environment.
Honesty:
Hunting requires facing the reality of our food and how it gets to our plate.
Reverence:
Hunting breeds a respect and intimacy with nature and the game animals.
Compassion:
As I previously mentioned, hunting, especially with due care, ensures a short, quick death for the animal. The brevity of this method could be considered a form of compassion, especially when weighed with the highly torture-filled process from farm to the slaughterhouse that factory-farmed animals must endure. Fair-chase is also a compassionate method of hunting, by allowing the wild animals their full range of motion in an open, natural environment.
Honesty:
Hunting requires facing the reality of our food and how it gets to our plate.
Reverence:
Hunting breeds a respect and intimacy with nature and the game animals.
“One gains an appreciation and knowledge of one’s food by participating directly in this enterprise, which is unlike the appreciation the non-hunting meat-eater might get from a visit to the county fair. So, far from showing the hunter’s thirst for blood, a hunter’s willingness to kill the source of his food is worthy of respect rather than contempt. He moves much more deliberately through his moral practices than the non-hunting meat-eater who turns a blind eye to the facts about the production of factory farm-raised meat” (Bruckner, 325).
Wise Use of Resources:
Hunting with due care promotes a one-shot kill method. All that is required: man, an instrument, an animal, and nature. Contrast this with factory farming where an entire production is involved from farmland, to antibiotics, to transportation, to feed, to slaughterhouse fees. Factory farms pack too many animals into too small of a space, generally using many many resources unwisely.
(These virtues are drawn from philosopher Rosalind Hursthouse.)
Hunting with due care promotes a one-shot kill method. All that is required: man, an instrument, an animal, and nature. Contrast this with factory farming where an entire production is involved from farmland, to antibiotics, to transportation, to feed, to slaughterhouse fees. Factory farms pack too many animals into too small of a space, generally using many many resources unwisely.
(These virtues are drawn from philosopher Rosalind Hursthouse.)