Killing animals for sport

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A question: why is it morally reprehensible to actually enjoy killing something?

I mean, the feeling that you've killed something, that can support your life and your family if applicable, and it's also a social construct in that one would be a more worthy and desirable mate if they can hunt and provide food, isn't something that's seen bad from a perspective of a human who wants to survive. The act itself leads on to many things, some good, some bad; saying that the act is bad, so the outcome must be bad too, is erroneous logic.

Granted, the days where the majority of the people need to kill for food are long gone; they have someone else do it for them (eating meat from the supermarket and demeaning those who enjoy hunting is completely hypocritical), but it's impossible to vanquish thousands upon thousands of years of human instinct based on a couple of hundred years of relative easy living in the first world.

I found pleasure in fishing; catching, killing, cleaning, cooking and then eating the fish, all by myself without aid of a third party, is something to be proud of if one values survival (one can substitute fish for nuts and berries if one doesn't eat meat; I'm sure people would feel joy in finding the right nut or berry out in the wilderness).

It is morally wrong not to respect the fact that an animal is dying in order to provide you with sustenance. It is morally wrong to take pleasure in another organism's pain, or to deliberately maximize that pain. It is morally wrong to view the death of another organism by one's own hands as of being no importance to oneself or to the organism in question. It is morally wrong to divest oneself of civilization in a context that causes others to suffer for it.

If you can enjoy hunting and fishing without slipping over those lines... why not?

Very well put

I'm sure many people do.

Pleasure of the kill isn't the same as pleasure from suffering/inflicting pain; whilst they're indirectly related (death and pain), you'll find that people who derive pleasure from killing don't have to derive pleasure from suffering. The latter is sadistic, the former is perfectly normal when one looks at the outcome of the kill.

Sadism isn't "normal", but killing is (look at all of the cows killed daily).

From what I've read on the 'net over the years, it seems that many hunters fear wounding their prey.

You call a bear, "weaker" than a human? Man has been hunting for thousands of years. It was in this way that man survived long ago. Yes they culitvated the ground but meat is necessary for our survival. Sure they're vegetarians but because they don't eat meat, they require suplements replenish what they don't receive from eating vegatables. Animal abuse my eye. Thats just silly, we're killing wild animals, (assuming you still wanna talk about hunting and fishing). Would you let a animal kill you over principal? Bull*((! Not say that all the animal would be doing that, but I think the levels that some people go to "protect" animals takes away valueable things in our society (ie animal testing). Yes, animal testing. Without it, a lot of medicine we have today would not be possible. PETA and anyone else like them can go away and never come back. Goodluck with "insanely" protecting the animals.

Yes there are 2 things at work here, there is a natural pleasure to be had passed down from our hunter gathering ancestors in securing a meal, it triggers our natural reward response but the second issue not to be confused with that, deriving pleasure from the actual killing of the animal displays psychopathic tendencies a lack of empathy for other living creatures.

People who get pleasure from killing animals often prolong the act unnecessarily to get a bigger kick out it.

The pleasure of a kill isn't allways about food there are sick indeviduals out there "that call themselves sportsmen" who enjoy killing animals for nothing more than the pleasure the feel, it is those people I am against.

I wouldn't call it a lack of empathy [by itself], as other factors are at work. One can lack empathy, but still feel guilt for harming something, and care that one is causing suffering by the action they took. It'd be a lack of empathy, sympathy, care, compassion, guilt, and a slew of other emotions, or a blunting of the same, to create the person you're speaking against.

I'm sure there are sociopaths in all professions/recreational activities, not just hunting. The sociopathic teacher that mentally tortures certain students shouldn't cast a negative light on all teachers.

I agree with you but sympathy, care, compassion are all part of what make up empathy they are all empathic behaviours.
I never said that immoral behaviour was exclusively found in hunting circles but the activity does tent attract such people for obvious reasons.
There are always some bad apples out there, I am certainly not saying all people who hunt are sadistic at all.

I have been thinking more about this topic, and I don't think that hunting appeals to people because of sadism or something.

Really, what it amounts to, is... human beings, like many other animals, have had to hunt for food for a long time. Food is something that is utterly essential to our survival. It makes sense that pursuing food -- hunting, gathering, whatever -- would be pleasant for its own sake, because it means that people are more likely to do it, and thus more likely to survive.

The fact that many people in the world now live in societies where we do not have to hunt, does not suddenly erase all of our instincts. Even a well-fed cat will still hunt, and cats' playfulness and games frequently have hunting-related themes. Humans are no different in that regard.

This doesn't mean that people shouldn't fight against that, or that people should hunt in a wasteful manner. But the reason for the hunting instinct is as deeply ingrained in us as in any other animal that gets at least part of its food supply through hunting. It is enjoyable for us to do many activities that resemble our means of acquiring food, because if it were not, we would be less inclined to do it.

Edit: Oh... gah... I should've read the rest of the thread, other people have covered this somewhat. It was just such a long thread I hadn't felt like trying to read and track the whole thing.

That's interesting. You know, I've fished since I was a kid, it was, and still is, the thing in life that gives me the most pleasure. I've observed extensively the reactions of others to killing, and have often thought long and hard about my own actions. I really don't think I've observed that enjoyment of sadism as described by that intense chap. I think he's too hung-up on the idea that people who hunt and fish do it because they enjoy suffering, and until he can see beyond that then there's really no point discussing it with him. But going back to your comment, I suppose I was the same, too, for the first ten or so years. However, since then I've done a lot of fishing for all sorts of different fish, and seen the different attitudes to killing and cruelty across the various branches of the sport.

Let's take the coarse fisherman (UK context) first, he fishes for freshwater non-gamefish, and puts everything back. The general attitude is that killing is wrong, and even using live fish for bait is banned on most club waters. These people often have an apparent emotional attachment to what they catch, that goes beyond the reasonable. Ironically, whilst banning everything that they fear may result in direct death, these people are happy to stock fisheries to such high density that disease spreads rapidly, and the water needs to be artificially oxygenated in the summer to prevent mass mortality. The fish become mere play things, the fact that nothing is directly killed salves their conscience and allows them to look down with scorn at other branches of the sport where fish are killed. Quite similar to the way intense looks down on me, I think.

The other extreme is the sea angler fishing out of one of the English channel ports over a mid-channel wreck. Everything that comes up dies (with a few exceptions). Decompression assures the swimbladders burst causing massive internal damage. Fish are swung over the gunnels and thrown in a box to suffocate. Often the sheer size of them makes killing them quickly impractical, anyway. Of course this is little different to how fish reaches most supermarkets, except they often have the benefit of being gutted whilst still alive. But people don't know that -- out of sight, out of mind. And as you'll have figured by now, the sea angler who does this, and eats what he catches, may also look with scorn on those who fish in freshwater and put everything back.

Those are two extremes, there are other examples in between. I've done them all. I've enjoyed them all, including using live fish for bait. You mentioned morality, but that's always subjective. It's completely dependent on an individuals own experience, as the above examples show, and it's really wrong for one group of people, in this context, to impose their version of morality on another. A guy who's spent his life killing his own food will have a completely different set of values to one who's spent his life buying it at Tesco.

Anyway, I do often question what I do, but I don't think what I've described makes me some kind of sadist. As an example, I've sometimes found birds with broken wings when i'm out and about, and I'll wring their necks to prevent them suffering a lingering death. I don't enjoy doing that, but it just feels like the right thing to do.

I take your point to heart regarding commercial fishermen, ascan. Of course they can't hand-bludgeon every fish when they're pulling them up by the ton (though, if they're gutting them by hand right away, it only takes a second to whack it first). I don't think of commercial fishers as being sadistic, though - especially by comparison to large commercial slaughterhouses - but I'll have to think about it some more. The only commercial salmon fisherman that I know personally (or former commercial salmon fisherman, since our runs have collapsed) has very strong positive, personal feelings towards salmon - he says he dreams about them - but I doubt that prevents him from slinging them into the hold to suffocate.

My biggest problem with commercial fisheries in general is the by-catch, especially with methods like drift nets and dredging. The latter not only catches a lot of non-target species, but also destroys habitat on the sea floor and lowers the overall carrying capacity of the fishery. I think it's disgusting to kill something and then leave it to rot or throw it overboard, especially when the by-catch of one fishery is the target species of another.