![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
We examined how four hunting organizations in Finland and in the UK (The Finnish Wildlife Agency, Finnish Hunters’ Association, The British Association for Shooting and Conservation, and Countryside Alliance) describe wild animals on their web pages and what the moral implications of these descriptions are. How do these hunting organizations define animals, and how does this impact the moral regard given to these animals? Using discourse analysis together with philosophical analysis, our examination revealed that the descriptions focus mainly on physical attributes, leaving out the minds of animals. Therefore, hunting organizations take part in dementalization (underestimation or denial of minds) of nonhuman animals, which interlinks with mechanomorphism (the depiction of animals as biological machines). We argue that dementalization and mechanomorphism in the descriptions serve a strategic purpose, as they hinder the possibility of recognizing animal experiences and individuality and keep animal ethical questions out of view. Further, the organizations tend to approach the ethics of hunting through the perspective of human interests only, whilst the interests and inherent value of animals are sidelined. In sum, the way in which hunting organizations depict animals is prone to sidelining ethical issues concerning the killing of animals.
Acknowledgements
We gratefully thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 These three theories have had a significant impact on both academic animal ethics and the public opinion on animals, but they are by no means the only theories available. Here, they are used to showcase the general trend in animal ethics to emphasize the importance of sentience for moral consideration.
2 Bentham (Citation1789) famously wrote that “The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”
3 See also Palmer (Citation2010) on relational approach to animal ethics.
4 For discussion, see Evans and Miele (Citation2019).
5 For discussion, see Blattner (Citation2019).
6 The Finnish Wildlife Agency (https://riista.fi/), Finnish Hunters’ Association (https://metsastajaliitto.fi/), The British Association for Shooting and Conservation (https://basc.org.uk/), Countryside Alliance (https://www.countryside-alliance.org/).
7 Hell (Citation1996) identifies two different hunting cultures existing in Europe with different techniques and social contexts: “hunting as harvesting” and “hunting as gathering.”
8 The Finnish word riista denotes roughly the same as game; animals that are hunted. The Finnish term for game/wildlife management (riistanhoito) has a slightly different meaning compared to the English term; hoito can be translated as care, so riistanhoito could be translated into “game care” (similar to the Swedish term for wildlife management, viltvård, which can be translated into wildlife care [von Essen, Citation2018]).
9 Hunting guides consisting of guides to hunting elk, bear, and wild boar as well as guides for using artificial light and night vision in hunting white-tailed deer and responsible hunting in the wetlands.
11 von Essen (Citation2020) has researched Swedish hunting magazine covers and found a shift implicating greater concern for the public image of hunting. The magazines can be read as advertisements for the wider public as well as for hunters themselves. This way, the magazines, as well as the websites in our study, “perform an ambassadorial function for hunting” and “are also part of in a process of hunters rehabilitating their image before the general public” (von Essen & Allen, Citation2021, p. 181).
18 “Animals cannot distinguish the initial stages of a hunt from the repeated disturbances from other factors with which they are regularly faced. In the absence of psychological stress, the physiological stress during hunting is no more than is natural to the quarry and for which it is naturally adapted.” (https://www.countryside-alliance.org/getattachment/Our-Work/Campaign-for-Hunting/Resources/CASE-FOR-HUNTING2012.pdf?lang=en-GB)
21 The scale of proposed interventions varies according to author, ranging from spreading awareness of the issue and small-scale intervention such as providing food and medication (e.g., Horta, Citation2010) to genetically modifying wild animals in order to reduce suffering (e.g., Johannsen, Citation2021).
22 In effect, hunters sometimes appeal to nature being “red in tooth and claw” as an argument for hunting: hunters do quickly and painlessly what mother nature would have done slowly and painfully (Cahoone, Citation2009; McLeod, Citation2007; von Essen & Allen, Citation2021). Hunting is presented as an act of mercy for wild animals. However, killing healthy individuals and depriving them of future existence for comparatively trivial interests (such as recreation) and arguing this to be merciful is not an ethically defensible argument for hunting, but can be seen as an attempt to justify the practice to the wider public (von Essen & Allen, Citation2021, pp. 179–180).
23 The phenomenon is related to the cognitive dissonance caused by meat-eating.
26 “Nuorisotyön ABC – opas Nuorten eräkasvatukseen” (https://metsastajaliitto.fi/sites/default/files/2021-08/Nuorisoty%C3%B6nABC_netti.pdf)
27 And indeed, toward human beings; studies have shown that being violent toward animals predicts being violent also toward humans (see, e.g., Hodges, Citation2008; Jegatheesan et al., Citation2020).
30 von Essen and Allen (Citation2021) analyzed the use of care language in Swedish hunting media, and the references to “care” identified are very similar to references to “respect” in our study. von Essen and Allen conclude that the use of care language shows opportunism and works as a tool to convince the public about the acceptability of hunting.
34 An interview survey made in Spain about attitudes toward different purposes for managing wild animals showed that “lethal control to improve domestic animal health is highly accepted (75%), is more controversial when animals are killed for damaging crops (59% acceptance) and is highly unaccepted when the goal is to enhance game species numbers (22% acceptance). Older people and males, in particular, accept more readily some of these control-hunting measures” (Garrido et al., Citation2017).
35 For example, https://www.countryside-alliance.org/getattachment/Our-Work/Campaign-for-Hunting/Resources/CASE-FOR-HUNTING2012.pdf?lang=en-GB
36 On the ethics of hunting, see, for example, Cohen (Citation2014) and Luke (Citation1997).
38 Even if assistance would be conducted to help the birds, it is not clear why precisely the birds should be protected and not the predators feeding on them.
45 https://www.luke.fi/fi/tilastot/metsastys/metsastys-2021. This estimate is based on the numbers reported by hunters themselves and excludes illegal hunting.