On letting the unspeakable pursue the inedible

It's obvious to everybody that England has no higher-priority problem at the moment than the issue of hunting.¹ Most Britons support a ban of the 'sport'; but a large minority do not.

Those who object to hunting will say that it is cruel and barbaric (and I agree with them). Those who oppose them claim the ban is simply 'class warfare', a way of sticking it to the gentry (and I suspect they are right, at least with regard to some hunt opponents). I am puzzled why anybody would think the two arguments are mutually exclusive.

As it happens, I like hunting. Not the activity, mind you; I cannot imagine myself under any circumstances willingly participating. The hunt reeks of the 18th century. The portrayal of those who ride to hounds as bloody-minded reactionary oafs may be a caricature, but it is one drawn from life. (And the recent protesters did little to improve their public image.) I'll freely concede that all sorts of people hunt and that some of them are doubtless quite nice. Still, I don't much like the idea of hunting, and don't much like the people who like it.

No, what I like about hunting is the chance it gives me to think about what should be permitted and what forbidden, and why. It's easy for me to pat myself on the back as a good little liberal for supporting, say, gay rights. I don't think gay people evil, and I find their cause sympathetic. But that's a weakish liberalism, isn't it? Support for freedoms one likes is something any tory can manage; even a Republican can plead eloquently for a liberty he finds congenial. But the hunt, now; there's a vicious thing altogether. I wish people wouldn't do it. If they won't stop on their own, should I support a ban that would force them to stop?

You'll have seen where I'm going with this, but I'll state plainly nonetheless: I don't support the ban.

Daniel Davies very pithily sums up the legitimate objection to hunting: it's a sadistic pleasure. Abiola Lapite accuses Daniel of Krauthammerian psychoanalysis: how on earth can he read hunters' minds and know that sadism is what drives them? And it's true that we are probably venturing onto shaky territory if we read 'sadism' literally, as a sexual pleasure derived from the sufferings of the quarry. For all that, a successful hunt means a bloody end for the fox. And hunters do take some kind of rough pleasure, even if it is not strictly speaking sadistic pleasure, from that end: witness how few of them would be satisfied with a drag hunt.

In the comments beneath Daniel's post, somebody quoted the old saying that we don’t ban bearbaiting for its effect on the bear, but for its effect on the people engaged in it. I thought this statement (as somebody else noted in the comments, it is from Macaulay) contrasted very nicely with a statement that I prefer, from JS Mill:

The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right.

Daniel pointed out in his own comment, though, that Mill thought legal protections as justified in the case of 'those unfortunate slaves—the animals' as in that of children. That word 'slaves' suggests that Mill was thinking about domesticated animals, but never mind that. It does not bother me to out-Herod Herod, and if Mill would support a hunt ban, I need not follow him. If Mill is being consistent, then he would oppose the hunt not because the hunt makes you a sadistic thug, but because the fox has a high enough degree of sentience to experience subjective suffering; that is, it is sufficiently quasi-human to number among Mill's 'others', the prevention of whose harm is the sole legitimate reason to exercise state force. I can understand that view, but I don't accept it. I think that the state may legitimately interfere in people's use of animals (including their killing) only in a narrow sphere -- where the use of the animal would or could cause harm to humans. (Though this sphere is narrow, it can give rise to significant reglation.)

Daniel asks me:

What d’you think about badger-baiting and dog-fighting, Mrs T? Ought to be legalised?

A fair question. I would note off the bat that there can be very few people seriously proposing they be legalised, but then of course that says nothing about the principle of the thing. Again, a prohibition on badger-baiting or dog-fighting would not amount to any really grievous abridgement of liberty. For that matter, nor would a ban on hunting. But that they are abridgements of liberty is beyond dispute, and abridgement of the liberty to hunt, not to bait badgers or watch dog-fights, is what is in question right now. If the others can be banned, why not hunting? If hunting be allowed, on what grounds may we forbid the others?

I will not win any points with Daniel -- indeed, might find myself added to his list of sadists -- by saying that, in principle, I do not think badger-baiting or dog-fighting should be banned. (I would hasten to add that I find these 'sports' as repulsive as I do hunting; probably more so, in fact, at least in the case of badger-baiting.)

Which is not to say that there can be good reasons in these cases to make an exception to the principle. A decline in biodiversity harms us all, humans included, not just the species extinguished. Badgers are not endangered at present but, in the UK, their numbers are falling. I think it legitimate to restrict the freedom to use badgers (not merely to kill them, but also to capture them, mess about with ther setts ect.) if their use would increase the threat to the species. (And while we're talking about these handsome animals, let me just say that I think Abiola is wrong to accuse Daniel of being seduced by charismatic megafauna. There are red-listed spiders I may not collect, and I think that a good thing, though they are neither charismatic nor mega.) As for dog-fighting, one might argue that the breeding of fighting dogs creates a threat to humans. I cannot say whether that is true; perhaps fighting dogs are too valuable to let roam free. The point, though, is that I can see legitimate grounds to bar activities involving animals if those activiites present a threat to humans. I don't see hunting as doing so.

At least, I don't see that hunting presents any danger to humans beyond this: hunting will make you a bloodthirsty sadist. That's enough for Daniel to justify a ban. But that places Daniel firmly in Macaulay's camp. Actually, that's a bit unfair to Macaulay, who did not make that statement to justify a ban on bear-baiting; he was making fun of the puritans. Whether Macaulay would have shared Daniel's view I cannot say; but it is clear that Daniel argues against hunting because of its effect on the hunter, not the hunted. That's a sound position to take. Those who oppose hunting because it is cruel to the fox ought to consider for a moment how it is that the life of virtually every animal ends in the wild. If it is not devoured by a predator, possibly while still alive, it will die a miserable lingering death of starvation or disease. The fox who is torn by hounds suffers an end no worse than it would have suffered anyway; it is those lucky few that are hit by a car or killed by a clean rifle-shot that ought to be happy. A fox spared the pack will not die peacefully in its bed, surrounded by loving grandchildren. The argument that one ought not hunt because it makes the fox suffer is not very strong, for it will amost certainly suffer anyway, and very possibly more grievously. Though I do not accept it, Daniel's argument -- that you ought not hunt because it is bad for you to cause the suffering -- has more merit.

In fact, it's a very good argument to use in persuading somebody to give up hunting. That we are free to do something does not mean that we should do it. But as you will guess from my approving quotation of Mill above, I do not think it is a very good argument to use in justifying the abridgement of a freedom.

Daniel asked what I think about badger-baiting and dog-fighting. Now I have a question for him: what do you think of abortion? Granted, reporductive rights are a liberty more important than the freedom to hunt. But both are liberties. If you would allow a woman, on the basis of liberty, to choose whether or not to bear her child to term, then how can you deny a hunter the freedom to hunt? If you would, on the basis of morals, deny a hunter the chase, then how can you allow a woman to choose?

In any event, whether Mill or Daniel has the better argument to justify state abridgement of a liberty is, in the real world, neither here nor there. Hunting will be banned because the ban is popular; hunters are not; and a ban will score points for the government at very little political cost.

¹ 'hunting' here meaning not shooting but riding on horses behind a pack of dogs chasing a fox.