Last night the House of Commons voted (again) and overwhelmingly (again) to ban hunting with dogs. Tonight the House of Lords voted (again) to not ban it. The current session of parliament ends tomorrow, and so the Government can impose the Parliament Act of 1949 and over-rule the House of Lords.
Here I will disclose my personal view. Hunting with dogs should be banned. It’s cruel and (whatever they say) unnecessary. It is outdated and a tradition that should now cease to be.
There’s its said. But let’s move on. Quite apart from this, our elected House of Commons has now voted more times than I can remember in the last seven years to ban hunting, and our unelected and hereditary House of Lords voted it out. It’s crunch time, and lets face it, in a democratic society, the decision has to rest with the elected house.
So role on a ban, and if it comes into force in three months time, so much the better. As for this years hunts, they all are pretty much over by February anyway.
…and then our elected representations can get a move on and start sorting out the things that really do need sorting.
It’s cruel and (whatever they say) unnecessary. It is outdated
By the same argument, so is the consumption of meat. But I don’t see MPs contemplating a ban on that, despite it being exponentially more prevalent than foxhunting.
This is most definitely not so. By your very argument, consumption of meat is consumption – we eat it.
Do we eat foxes? No.
Do we use any part of a fox for anything? No.
Is fox hunting the form of controlling the population? No. (Yes I know the pro-hunting lobby argue it is, but ask yourself this, how come there was not a sigificant increase in the fox population and the detrimental effect people say this could have to farmers and landowners, during the year or more when fox hunting could not take place during the foot and mouth crisis.
But here you shift your argument. You started by saying that foxhunting was cruel and unnecessary, so it was right to ban it. My response was that if foxhunting is cruel and unnecessary, meat-eating is also cruel (animals get killed) and unnecessary (we can live entirely healthily on a vegetarian diet); and if meat-eating is cruel and unnecessary then why is the Government not seeking to ban that too?
But with animals that we eat, not just the cows, sheep and pigs that we traditionally rear with that purpose, but also with deer, rabbit, wild boar, wild fish etc. we are killing them in an organised way to eat. In many cases we are also using their skin, fur and wool for other things too. With fox-hunting, people are hunting a wild animal in a cruel and thoroughly stressful way for sport, for their own enjoyment. Foxes killed by hunting accounts for just 6% of population control, and by their own admission the hunters do not even have to have a kill at the end of the hunt to enjoy themselves.
Hunting, causing stress to, and killing animals for sport is morally unacceptable.
As for argument that meat-eating is cruel and unnecessary because we can live healthily on a vegetarian dier this is a bit of a grey area. It’s true that we are decended from herbivores, but that was a long time ago. Our bodies have actually evolved to be omniverous. It’s why we have incisors in our mouths, and we can digest meat.
But with animals that we eat, not just the cows, sheep and pigs that we traditionally rear with that purpose, but also with deer, rabbit, wild boar, wild fish etc. we are killing them in an organised way to eat. In many cases we are also using their skin, fur and wool for other things too.
And, in all cases, not necessary. Why does tradition matter here? Are you saying that if foxes were traditionally bred for hunting then foxhunting would be morally permissible? I’m not quite sure what your point is here.
With fox-hunting, people are hunting a wild animal in a cruel and thoroughly stressful way for sport, for their own enjoyment.
As eating meat is also unnecessary, isn’t that the killing of animals for our pleasure? I get more pleasure from eating lamb mince than I do from eating soya mince, and there is nothing that compels me to eat lamb mince rather than soya mince, so I eat lamb mince rather than soya mince because I prefer the dead animal.
Foxes killed by hunting accounts for just 6% of population control, and by their own admission the hunters do not even have to have a kill at the end of the hunt to enjoy themselves.
In itself this is hardly an argument for banning something. And without the antecedent argument it is also a poor argument for banning something.
Hunting, causing stress to, and killing animals for sport is morally unacceptable.
That assertion begs the question of why it is morally unacceptable.
As for argument that meat-eating is cruel and unnecessary because we can live healthily on a vegetarian dier this is a bit of a grey area. It’s true that we are decended from herbivores, but that was a long time ago. Our bodies have actually evolved to be omniverous. It’s why we have incisors in our mouths, and we can digest meat.
Just because we can do something does not entail that we should or have to. The fact of the matter is that we can with ease live on an entirely vegetarian diet – whether or not we have evolved such that we are omnivorous merely sidesteps my point rather than meets it.
I don’t understand the reason for bringing meat eating into this post.
It’s quite simple, really. Under the argument given it is on a morally equivalent level to foxhunting. Therefore disapproval of one ought to mean a disapproval of the other.
Therefore disapproval of one ought to mean a disapproval of the other
Ummm…says who?
All right. Explain why it shouldn’t.
Erm…no. This is your argument, not mine. You brought the consumption of meat into this thread, so ideally you should be explaining why disapproval of one ought to mean a disapproval of the other. I still fail to see the relevance of your original comment to this post.
As previously mentioned, it is quite simple.
Unless it is the chasing of the fox that is the morally dubious part of foxhunting (rather than the killing), I take eating meat to be morally equivalent. Both foxhunting and eating meat involve the unnecessary killing of animals, and I take for granted that it is cruel to kill for our own pleasure and satisfaction.
Straightforward enough for you now?
Straightforward enough for you now?
All you had to do was be straightforward in your reasoning…
For this meat eater, it *is* the chasing of the fox that is the morally unacceptable part of foxhunting. The death of the fox when hunted is part of the chase. One fox, versus a pack of hounds, plus human beings on horseback, plus more human beings waiting for the bloodlusting, undignified and unfair death of the fox is, as quoted, cruel and (whatever they say) unnecessary. It is outdated.
There is no moral parallel between hunting with dogs and eating meat. We’d have been a nation of vegetarians decades ago if we treated our livestock the way hunts treat the fox.
So your position is that the slaughter of an animal for our pleasure* is morally permissible, but that chasing it for our pleasure first is not. Right?
* Be this pleasure the enjoyable taste on our taste buds, the death that follows the chase, or some other killing of an animal.
Both foxhunting and eating meat involve the unnecessary killing of animals
Err… I can’t believe you are saying this?
In order to eat meat it is necessary to kill of animals. We don’t eat foxes and to my knowledge it has never been a popular dish served up anywhere. Regardless of whether there is a kill or not at the end of the hunt it is a cruel and unncessary sport.
If we did eat foxes, or if hunting them with hounds was the best way of controlling the population, then maybe it is wrong to ban the activity. But we don’t eat foxes, we don’t use the carcasses in any way and the hunt is not the most effective way of controlling the population.
To bring in the argument of eating meat just beggars belief. The animals are killed (whether this be farmed or wild animals) because we are going to eat them, and it is done in a careful quick way. It does not involve chasing them for miles and miles across the land by a pack of blood thirsty hounds (have you heard what they sound like – I have – and it makes your blood curdle) and men and women on horseback, to be then torn apart. There is simply no comparison in what you are saying.
In order to eat meat it is necessary to kill of animals. We don’t eat foxes and to my knowledge it has never been a popular dish served up anywhere. Regardless of whether there is a kill or not at the end of the hunt it is a cruel and unncessary sport.
So your position is that it is the chasing of the fox that is morally repugnant, not the killing of it?
If we did eat foxes, or if hunting them with hounds was the best way of controlling the population, then maybe it is wrong to ban the activity. But we don’t eat foxes, we don’t use the carcasses in any way and the hunt is not the most effective way of controlling the population.
You need to define what the best way of controlling the fox population is. For instance, it is the best where where when we say ‘the best way’ we mean ‘the way that brings the most pleasure to the pest controllers’.
To bring in the argument of eating meat just beggars belief. The animals are killed (whether this be farmed or wild animals) because we are going to eat them,
This still does not make the killing of animals for our food.
and it is done in a careful quick way.
You have never visited an abbatoir, have you?
It does not involve chasing them for miles and miles across the land by a pack of blood thirsty hounds (have you heard what they sound like – I have – and it makes your blood curdle) and men and women on horseback, to be then torn apart. There is simply no comparison in what you are saying.
I feel that there is a good comparison, and you have yet to convince me otherwise.
To reprise, what you find morally repugnant is that the fox is chased, not that it is killed, right?
So your position is that the slaughter of an animal for our pleasure* is morally permissible, but that chasing it for our pleasure first is not. Right?
*Sigh*…No…
I have no *position* on this. You seem bent on bringing meat eating into a discussion about hunting, when the issue of eating meat is no more relevant to this discussion than what type of wallpaper the huntspeople have on their walls, or how many times they’ve been on holiday, or how they tie their shoelaces on a Thursday.
Hunting a fox on horseback, with a pack of dogs, is an unfair fight. Those in opposition to it do not have to be concerned with whether they eat meat, or do not. What is objectionable is the way that the animals are treated when the end result, i.e. the death of the fox, could be achieved in a less pompous, less arrogant, less bloodthirsty way.
I give up, because this is like arguing with a brick wall. Why does the argument of moral matters have to be as difficult as it is? For instance, you evidently do have a position on this because you eat meat (therefore that is permissible to you) and condemn foxhunting (therefore that is wrong to you). Or are you being overly precise when you say you have no position, and that is the chasing you have no position on? But then your second paragraph would contradict this. I’m left baffled as to what you actually think.
Whatever; I give up. Brick walls make for frustrating interlocutors.
I’m left baffled as to what you actually think
Well I don’t know why. It ought to be clear what I think, namely that I don’t know what eating meat has got to do with foxhunting.
…you evidently do have a position on this
On what? You implied that my “position” must be that the slaughter of an animal for our pleasure* is morally permissible, but that chasing it for our pleasure first is not. That is a dogma that you are trying to assert. When I asked you to explain why disapproval of one ought to mean a disapproval of the other, you failed to; instead, you asked me to explain why it shouldn’t. :S Some time later you did assert that you took for granted that it is cruel to kill for our own pleasure and satisfaction. That is a broad brushstroke that moves this discussion into the area of meat eating, the relevance of which I will continue to choose to question. The genesis of this discussion remains that a ban on fox hunting is a good thing. It’s still nothing to do with eating meat.
…this is like arguing with a brick wall…brick walls make for frustrating interlocutors
Well, I won’t take it personally.
I think what you might be trying to say is that killing animals is bad, full stop, so don’t talk about not hunting if you’re going to eat meat. That’s fine, but it’s not what is being discussed here. What is being discussed is, it isn’t fair to chase a fox and make it die, and we’re glad it’s not being done any more, most likely because it isn’t fair to chase any animal around and make it die.
Whether anyone wants to eat the animal afterwards is still a different matter, and the fact that some people eat animals doesn’t exclude them from wanting an animal to be treated fairly during its lifetime. In this instance, whether humans continue to kill foxes or leave them to roam around being foxes, everybody ought to be happy that foxes will no longer have to face being chased around by dogs and people on horses until they die.
Finally I have you pinned down – it is the chasing that you object to rather than the killing of another being.
What was originally being discussed here, to take it right back to the start of the discussion, was Thomas’s assertion that ‘Hunting with dogs should be banned. It’s cruel and (whatever they say) unnecessary.’ That it is unnecessary is undisputed – most things are unnecessary – but what was lacking was reasoning behind why he thought it cruel. If it is cruel because it involves the killing of an animal for our pleasure then it is clearly on the same moral plain as eating meat. If it is cruel for another reason, such as because it involves chasing an animal for our pleasure, then it is not so clear that it sits on the same moral plain as eating meat. The whole confusion comes about because at the outset the reasoning behind Thomas’s support for the ban was ambiguous. For instance, in specifying ‘Hunting with dogs’ does he mean to say that if we hunted with cats everything would be all right?
PS Just so you know, the brick-wall thing wasn’t intended personally.
…at the outset the reasoning behind Thomas’s support for the ban was ambiguous. For instance, in specifying ‘Hunting with dogs’ does he mean to say that if we hunted with cats everything would be all right?
Possibly not…I imagine he specified dogs because that’s what is being banned.
Ah. It was remiss of me to forget how poorly worded the Bill is.
I haven’t actually read the precise wording of the bill, however, as I understand it ‘hunting with hounds’ is an important phrase. If, subsequently it is found that the fox population does need controlling (evidence from the cessation caused by the foot and mouth crisis of 2001 would suggest that this wouldn’t be needed) then a ban on ‘hunting of foxes’ would get this way (although I guess you could get around it by using the term culling).
The term ‘hunting of foxes’ would also just shift the focus of the hunt to other creatures, deer and rabbits and the like. As I point out in my earlier reply to the previous comment, hunting with hounds is not the best way of killing animals for food (or for utilising the animal in any useful way) and so the same arguments would still stand. Chasing defenseless animals across the countryside with hounds, horses and followers (regardless of, but especially if, there is a kill at the end) is unnecessary cruel and should be ended.
Now can we leave this, as I hope the Government and all concerned will, so that we can sort out more pressing problems wih society (eg. health, education, inequality, and err… that mess that Messrs Blair and Bush have got us into in the middle east). As I think I pointed out in my original post, it’s could that a ‘tradition’ that should have ended centuries ago has finally been put a stop to, we do now all have to move on. There are more important things…
Now can we leave this
Fair dos. In time you’ll see the light, I hope! 🙂
In time you’ll see the light
Huh?!! Now who needs to explain themseves?
Just give it time. 😉
Precisely. Thank you. I specified hunting with dogs because that is the nature of the bill. After all although ‘fox hunting’ is the thing that is most associated with this bill it is actually the ‘hunting with hounds’. The cruel and unnecessary act of chasing defenseless animals across the countryside to be ripped apart of by hounds for the pleasure of those who partake in the activity.
If the food argument were to brought into this, hounds would not be the best option for this as you are unlikely to want to serve up any cut of meat which has been previously mauled by a dozen or so blood thirsty hounds.
Damn politicians!
It’s alright. After a turbulent day, as of 19 February 2005 it is now banned.
Hopefully the government can now move on to sort out some more pressing issues like peace and poverty, education and the like…