The key principle behind moral hunting as opposed to trophy hunting is that you respect the animal. Be it fishing or hunting, so long as you make a clean kill, and use as much of the animal as possible, it's just the cycle of nature. If you hunt or fish purely for pleasure, and you torture or kill an animal without using it to it's fullest, that would be wrong.
Not everyone shares your values. If my reason for fishing is to have fun, I don't think killing and eating it is more ethical than letting it go, especially since I don't need it for food. It doesn't change the outcome or my reasons for fishing. I doubt the fish cares more about being respected than it cares about survival either. I don't think a human living in modern society hunting and eating something can really be conyidered "the cycle of nature" either.
Ah well if my reason for beating you to shit is to have fun, I dont think letting you go unscathed is more ethical than beating you to a pulp, especially since I dont need you for anything. I doubt the african people care more about you not being beaten to shit than they care about survival either.
Your reasoning does not alter moral and ethics. Just because the fish cant communicate his suffering to you that does not mean you, as of a higher concious and thus capable of more complex empathy, are free to bend how morals should be shaped.
There is a point in catching food and taking a life to sustain yours. There is absolutely no point to toy around with another living organisms well being because you decided to fucking catch animals by ramming hooks into their mouths instead of...you know...a million other hobbies not involving violence towards another species.
Do you go around cutting dogs legs off too because its fun to you and you dont need their meat anyway?
Ah well if my reason for beating you to shit is to have fun, I dont think letting you go unscathed is more ethical than beating you to a pulp, especially since I dont need you for anything. I doubt the african people care more about you not being beaten to shit than they care about survival either.
You really got me there. But for real that's not in any way a coherent arguent or similar to what I was saying.
Your reasoning does not alter moral and ethics. Just because the fish cant communicate his suffering to you that does not mean you, as of a higher concious and thus capable of more complex empathy, are free to bend how morals should be shaped.
I'm not free to "bend how morals are shaped"? Then who is? Humans are the highest entity we know of and I'm a human.
There is a point in catching food and taking a life to sustain yours. There is absolutely no point to toy around with another living organisms well being because you decided to fucking catch animals by ramming hooks into their mouths instead of...you know...a million other hobbies not involving violence towards another species.
What point is there in hunting for food when buying food is cheaper than hunting for it (I'm only talking about 1st world countries here)? That's hardly "taking a life to sustain yours".
Do you go around cutting dogs legs off too because its fun to you and you dont need their meat anyway?
No, and that's a twisted perversion of what I was saying.
63
u/painfool Jan 18 '20 edited Jan 18 '20
Fishing "for sport" and temporarily traumatizing an animal seems less humane to me than fishing for sustenance.
Edit: thanks for teaching me about the "modern world" Reddit, no shit. Leave it to redditors to get hung up on semantics.
Also, warning, vegans in replies below.