Animal Ethic

After finishing the Cove, I went back and re-examined the ethical positions in Chapter five of DesJardin, particularly those of Peter Singer. The reason that I was compelled to go back was because I felt I had found the boundary of my animal ethic. I just needed to be able to articulate it and Singer seemed to be the closest on the ethical spectrum. Prior to this, I saw myself as being less “extreme” as either Singer or Regan. In the past, I would deer hunt with my dad every November, and over the years I ended up killing a couple. I certainly felt some remorse after the shot but it wasn’t enough to keep me from buying a tag the next year.

 Traditionally I only hunted with my dad and one other hunter. We hunted on public land and we were lucky to shoot one deer between the three of us, but we’d still have enough meat to last us for the better part of a year. This last Thanksgiving I was invited to join dad and almost a dozen other hunters on what would be a series of drives and the chances of shooting several deer were quite high. I turned them down and I never really thought why, that is, until Monday’s film and rereading Singer. I realized that there was a Singer-like motive behind my decision not to partake. I knew that my cousins from five to eight deer a person during that season alone (they are Native American). They often had plenty to feed their families and the village elders that they would be able to sell or trade a sizable portion of the harvest. To me, I felt going along with this group was approaching sport. Also, my dad and I still had leftover meat in the freezer from last year.

More than that, I believe I’ve carried this notion that the deer have a sentience to a degree well beyond the other creatures that I hunt (grouse or fish). Maybe I’ve just grown up on the notion that the deer and bear are majestic animals. There is a part of me, though, that thinks this is based on something more; an extra quality of life that I’m still trying to pinpoint. Either way, I feel I more clearly understand why I was deterred from the big deer drive or the dolphin capture and killing. For me, the decision whether or not to hunt is not only based on a particular level of sentience, but it needs to be in the wild and not be primarily out of sport or profit.