Hunting & the Ethical Norm of Non-Violence

What is it about?

This article explores the ethical norm of non-violence as it impacts the human activities of hunting and fishing, especially when those activities are undertaken for the procuring of food. The article concludes that the generalized ethos of non-violence - while important and valuable for humans living together inside a community or social contract - is foreign to the larger natural world from which all living things (including humans) emerge. Thus predation - in the form of killing animals for food - cannot be ultimately condemned for humans, just as it is not morally problematic for other animals. Predation - the idea that some things die so that other things may live - is hardwired into the world.

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Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This article is important - and is an outlier in many ways among work in environmental ethics - because it argues against morally condemning the world for its mechanism of predation. Moreover, using Nietzschean insights about "Life" as a core value, the article presents the common, oft-lauded ethos of non-violence as ultimately anthropocentric and even contradictory to the larger forces of existence on planet Earth.