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Moral Offense Amongst the Hunting and Meat Eating Community?
By Jeremy Alcorn

Sometimes people are offended by comments directed towards them by animal rights advocates however; they can claim no moral offense at the ideological orientation of animal rights advocates as it pertains to hunting and meat eating because it is not a corruption of morality to abstain from killing. No one can feel a violation of ethics merely because a person chooses not to partake in the cessation of life. However, for those individuals championing against practices, such as blood sports and the meat-eating slaughter industry, a moral indignation has indeed occurred.

Imagine if murder, as it pertains to humans, were wide spread and legal. It must be conceived that an individual could not say with any degree of ethical fortitude that the choice on whether or not to kill other human beings is everyone’s right. Furthermore, it would be inconceivable to say that not only does every human have the right to commit murder, but for those who carry out such atrocities, it is merely a choice that no other individual has precedence to become involved with. If this were so, people would be greatly offended by humans needlessly being slaughtered and the practice would be subject to the onslaught of criticisms from the public sphere, and so it is with using animals as a means rather than regarding them as an end in themselves.

I wish to address two current social issues using this same moral offense logic. It is of significant importance to note that by utilizing these topics it is in no way an endorsement of any particular viewpoint. The following are controversial subjects, however; I do not intend to represent them in this fashion. As it pertains to moral indignation, importance is not on whether any one issue is valid but on which positions have the capability of claiming moral offense. The issues I wish to apply this logic towards are the death penalty and abortion.

Also, I have very broadly termed the movements concerned about the cessation of life as the “right to life” movement. However, this is only because the groups analyzed below are loosely grouped for the purposes of this discussion under one common theme.

Capitol Punishment and Moral Offense

When it comes to the death penalty there are two opposing sides, those who favor the use of the death penalty and those who are against its implementation. For those opposing the death penalty it is based on the life of the person sentenced. However, for those individuals that favor capitol punishment it is not because they want to kill people but rather because they find it a necessary evil for society to properly function. It is most likely true that advocates of the death penalty may have rationalized killing various offenders on ethical grounds, such as; by the commission of a particular crime the defendant forfeited his/her life, or that such methods are needed as a deterrent to others. While those demarcations establish amongst its constituents a reason to permit capitol punishment, it fails to establish a moral offense. If a court decides that a perpetrator should be sentenced to life in prison those favoring capitol punishment may feel that justice was not properly delivered, but they cannot claim a moral offense merely because the victim was not killed.

However, when a defendant is sentenced to death, the anti-capitol punishment crowd can claim a moral trespass due to the very object they are fighting for, each person’s right to life. It is here that the distinction is made for the capacity of moral offense. Pro-death penalty advocates while addressing the issue of the right to life, are not suggesting that every person found guilty should be executed, therefore if a person fails to receive the death penalty; the fact that this person will live instead of being killed may anger some, especially the family of the victim, but is not within the realm of moral offense. Adversely, anti-death penalty advocates have as their claim that all persons have an unequivocal right to life and that no action can undermine such a right. Right or wrong, it is in accordance with this principle that if someone is sentenced to death then this person’s moral right to life has been violated; therefore such a moral indignation has occurred. This is not to say that the death penalty is morally corrupt, only that such a violation of morals, in the arena of the cessation of life, can only be reasonably claimed by those who strive to protect life.

Abortion and Moral Offense

Similarly, the issue of abortion contains the same definitional properties with the same moral offense. Again, those who favor the pro-choice position have no doubt rationalized ethical guidelines that enable women to have abortions, such as the right to disallow the non-willful use of the mother’s body to an entity (i.e. fetus); or that the fetus, while human, has yet to acquire the faculties which would bestow upon it the notion of personhood. However, this same logic does not posit that women have no other alternative besides abortion. For instance, the pro-choice platform allows each individual woman to make their own decision on whether to remain pregnant. Pro-choice is, therefore, not the assertion that no mother can carry a pregnancy to full term, rather it is the assertion that each woman has as a right as to whether to remain pregnant. Therefore, if a woman decides to have a child those in the pro-choice camp cannot and will not say that they are morally offended by such a choice and that she should terminate the pregnancy.

The same concession cannot be made from the position of pro-life. At its core, pro-life is the assertion that the fetus is a person, or will become a person, and that consequently a fetus carries the same right(s) as does a person. One of these right(s), possibly the only one given the fetus’ limited existence, is the right to life. Therefore, according to the pro-life ideology, if a person decides to have an abortion the moral right of the fetus has been violated and a moral offense has occurred. Again, no claim is being made about the pro-choice position other than they have no claim to moral indignation because their own ideology does not forbid an expectant mother to carry a child with the intent of birthing it.

Hunting/Meat Eating and Moral Offense

It is clear that the same rules established in the accounts above bolster the claim that hunters and meat eaters have no basis for a moral offense. Again, it is no doubt true that individuals amongst the hunting and meat eating community have developed rationalizations which establish precedence for their activities, such as it is less cruel to kill an animal than to let it succumb to other natural deaths, or as long as the meat is used then the killing serves a purpose, or that humans are partaking in a natural activity. However, the animal use position does not infer that individuals who abstain from killing animals are immoral, rather that every person has a right to kill and consume animals if they should so decide. Therefore no moral offense can be derived from the decision not to kill.

The animal rights platform however, attends to the position that it is immoral to willfully take the life of a sentient being. As such, other beings lives are of no less worth than are humans. To violate such rights of nonhuman animals constitutes an arbitrary decision based on speciesism. Even less vague, many animals are possessive of sentience and self-awareness, the same traits present in humans to feel emotional and physical sensations. Humans are not alone when it comes to the ability to suffer. Similarly, we are also not alone in wishing to avoid pain. Other animals too share both distinctions with humans. Accordingly, in this light, animal use is not a practice that any person has a right to commit. Due to all of these facts, hunting and meat eating are activities that create moral offense in the animal rights community. Remember, just as in the preceding two examples this is not to claim that animal use is wrong, though I believe it without a doubt to be so, but rather to demonstrate that moral offense among the animal use contingency has no sound platform on which to build its position.

Conclusion

By viewing other social movements it is clear that only certain views are able to claim moral offense in the violation of its principles. Particularly the “right to life” factions are the sole owners of such moral indignations. This is because movements which believe contrary to the “right to life” ideology do not contend that it is a violation of their ethics not to engage in practices which they deem acceptable. No doubt those who oppose the animal use faction are guilty of ruffling a few feathers in that group. But while the animal rights position may violate the ethics (or lack there of) of the meat eating and hunting communities, it will never be true that among those numerous intrusions will there be listed moral indignation.

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Posted/Updated: 7/27/03