Hunting and Killing: Moral and Just or Immoral and Wrong?

The podcast discusses different perspectives on hunting. The host talks about the various aspects of hunting, including hunting to live and competitions. They mention that hunting for survival is often overlooked and that people in remote areas may not have the luxury of considering ethics or morals. The host also shares their personal experiences and fond memories of hunting with family. They discuss the importance of game management and how it helps maintain a sustainable deer population. The podcast includes interviews with two roommates who have different opinions on the morality of hunting. One believes it is immoral, while the other sees it as a necessary part of maintaining ecosystems. The host concludes by highlighting the connection with nature that hunting provides and the appreciation for the natural world. Yo yo yo, welcome to my first podcast, what's up? Today we'll be talking about hunting and all the topics that branch into it. Also, I'm bringing in a special guest later that I will introduce at a later time. This special guest is anti-hunting and vegetarian, a little twist to our regularly scheduled podcast. When you think of hunting, what really comes to mind? Whether it be good or unpleasant memories, there is something to learn here. Hunting has many aspects that most people forget to take into account. Some aspects that people don't realize when they think of hunting include hunting to live and competitions. I feel that hunting to live is one of the most overlooked reasons for hunting. People living in remote areas that can't survive without going out and killing an animal don't have the time or resources to really take ethics or morals into account. And to them, those don't really matter. These people of the brush, if you will, have the lifestyle and don't know anything else, it's just how they grew up. When people think of morals of hunting, they think that people just hunt and kill these animals without any mercy or without any reason. But these people, and most people around the world, don't hunt and kill for that reason. Even though poachers make up the majority of the negative news that circulates about hunting, the people around the world that are doing it for the right reason don't make the news. When I talk about fond memories that make hunting special, I speak from experience. Growing up, me and my family would go down to some land we owned in South Texas and we would hunt with all my extended family. When I was a kid, it wasn't much about the hunting as it was about just a good time to spend with family since it was such a good meeting spot. I have a lot of good memories from there, riding around on four-wheelers and driving the tractor until my heart was content. I went hunting for the first time when I was 10 years old. I killed my first buck that very day and was overwhelmed by the emotions. These emotions, I never felt like this before and didn't expect these emotions to come over me. The only way I can explain what happened is because I had never taken a life before. I was glad to have my uncle and dad with me through the entire process. They were able to explain the morals and ethics behind hunting and to calm my nerves so I understood what I was doing. Our piece of land is under a wildlife conservation pact that uses game management as a tool to keep the deer population at a manageable level. With this management style, we are able to keep the deer population at a safe level so that all the deer on the property are able to maintain a sustainable amount of food. It is a more sustainable way to have this kind of animals on our property because when you keep the animal population down, you are able to keep the deer who are more likely to survive on the property. We have been doing this game management for some time now and it is starting to work like we planned. Having a deer population like this means that they get healthier and bigger, means that we're doing our job and keeping enough food for every animal. The white-tailed deer population of Texas make up the most in the state. Texas Park and Wildlife states an estimated 5.3 million white-tailed deer in habitat to 252 of the 254 countries in Texas and can be seen everywhere from green spaces and urban communities to the most remote range lands. The number that Parks and Wildlife of Texas offers seems like a crazy amount, doesn't it? If we keep this right number for our little piece of land, we're able to keep that state total high. One might ask, do you feel like your morals are being tested every time you kill an animal of this stature? My answer to this is no. Boston University defines moralist hunting as immoral because it requires intentionally inflicting harm on innocent creatures. Having this opinion on the debate between if hunting is moral right or wrong is good because we can take a look at what it offers as evidence and debate it for ourselves. Boston University breaks up hunting into three categories, therapeutic, substance, and sport. With these three categories, we take a look at why people really hunt and if they're doing it for the right reasons. Boston University defines the three categories by stating, therapeutic hunting involves intentionally killing wild animals in order to conserve another species or an entire ecosystem. Substance hunting is intentionally killing wild animals for simply nourishment and material resources for humans. That's what I'm talking about, people of the brush, substance hunting. Sport hunting refers to intentionally killing wild animals for enjoyment or fulfillment. That's like going out and killing an elephant. That's just like killing wild animals for enjoyment. That's not what you want to see. Now that we have all those terms upon, we can take a look at what groups of people fall into these categories. The therapeutic hunting is game management type of people. The type of people who are looking out for the conservation of these wild animals and are trying to keep them around for as long as possible. People in this category are doing the moral right thing and keeping the population alive. People of the substance hunting categories are the people that I mentioned before. People that hunt to live and it is one of their only sources of food. The Native Americans were also grouped into this category because of the necessity to hunt to provide food when harvesting wasn't a viable option. We can justify this kind of killing because killing animals was necessary to stay alive. The people in this category also prefer to hunt and eat their food instead of buying it since they know what they're getting when they do it themselves. And now I'm going to go into the interview with my roommate Cadet Sinnott and he is going to debate why hunting is morally wrong. Cadet Sinnott, take it away. All right, so here we go. So the first question is, is hunting immoral? Personally, I believe that hunting is immoral. However, I think there are various levels of hunting that range from being like extremely immoral and potentially moral. So I think that in a scenario where hunting would be someone's only way to gain nutrition, to maintain homeostasis and stay alive, then I think that hunting might be moral. However, I think hobby hunting or hunting as a sport, hunting for fun, I view that as completely immoral. I think it's completely wrong. So when you talk about hunting for necessity and homeostasis, you're talking along the lines of substance hunting. So dive into substance hunting. Substance hunting is only hunting to gain, like you said, nutrition. So you think that's a good one? So I think it depends. I think that there are some people who substance hunt because they believe in the nutritional value of eating only animals. And I think that that is kind of morally wrong because there's other options other than just eating animals that were alive. But I think that there's some scenarios where people legitimately can't do anything else other than hunt to provide for their food. But I think that choosing to be a substance hunter is wrong. But being a substance hunter, if you're forced to be, could be justified. So like I said before, therapeutic hunting involves intentionally killing wild animals in order to conserve another species or an entire ecosystem. So that type of hunting, that category of hunting, you believe is immorally wrong, even though it's for the conservation of an ecosystem, potentially? I understand the concept of it. However, I think that relocation would be a better, obviously more expensive, but a better alternative route just for the moral aspect. But I do understand that therapeutic hunting might just be the quicker, cheaper option. But sometimes you have to choose the harder, morally right way over the easy, wrong. Yeah, I mean, that's just like what we're talking about. Sometimes it's a lifestyle. Sometimes people like that live on the brush. You know, for example, the Alaskan bush people, they have to live, they live substance hunt. That's their only source of nutrition. Like my roommate, Cadet Thomas Sennett said, that is, in that particular scenario, if it's their only source of nutrition, that would be morally right. Okay, so now we have that side of point of view, kind of from a negative point of view, from an immortal side. Now I'm going to interview Cadet Benjamin Johnson. Do you think hunting is morally right? I do believe that hunting is morally right. Okay. So, a little differently, a little different side. Yeah, I mean, you know, it helps maintain the ecosystems in which the animals live. I mean, it can be inhumane if you let certain ecosystems become overrun by a certain particular animal. And so, hunting, therefore, becomes humane because you're maintaining, basically, the herd and allowing for expansion. So, you're kind of talking about therapeutic hunting. That kind of category breaks hunting down into conservation of wildlife. So, that kind of plays into that. Do you have any fond memories of hunting? Absolutely, I do. You know, hunting is one of those things that so many people grow up doing with their grandfathers, their fathers. And it creates a great connection between, you know, the younger and older generations. Specifically, I can remember me and my brother headed out to the farm, getting out of school a little bit early. So, you know, we were excited for the weekend and meeting my dad and grandfather out at the farm and just going straight to the stand. And, you know, after we sit there for a couple hours, you know, shoot something, maybe not see a thing, we head back to the cabin and just hang out and form great relationships between, like I said, the younger generations and older generations. See, that's just some kind of memories that you can't get from other activities. That's why I think hunting is not only morally right, you know, it just builds those kind of relationships that one might not find elsewhere. All right, thank you, Benjamin. You're welcome. Thank you, Eric. So, to sum up, I'm just going to go ahead and talk about how hunting can be viewed from multiple points of view. Hunting can be looked at in a positive or negative light. Me personally, I look at it as a positive light. I have so many fond memories from it. I hope to spend some quality time with people in the future and make some more fond memories. But it is broken into three distinct categories, that being therapeutic, sustenance, and sport. And like me and Cadet Sennett, we're debating sport, we think it's pretty immoral, and then therapeutic is up in the air, but sustenance hunting is pretty downright moral, and that's for sure. We're also going to have to talk about the connection with nature, you know. When you get out in the woods, it's just something different. The connection with nature is just unreal. You know, some might find that in surfing, for example, my roommate does that. Or some might do it in hunting, camping, things like that. This gives you a great appreciation for what God has given us. All right, so that's going to sum up my podcast about hunting. Thank you for listening. Have a great day.