Trophy Hunting Good?!

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, I personally don't think things are good or evil, moral or immoral 100%.  It's not a black and white world.  Everything, pretty much everything, exists on a sliding scale, and changes depending on perspective.

Perhaps, but for sake of discussion if somethings 60/40 immoral we can meaningfully refer to the thing as immoral.  Moral ambiguity is certain to exist, but it's not certain that all moral status is ambiguous.  Skullfucking a toddler to death is unlikely to strike anyone as existing on a sliding scale, 10 or 15% "a good thing".   I doubt the appraisal would differ if it were some non-human animal, either.   I think that we can both agree wholeheartedly that anyone who does that is completely in the wrong, 100%.  Eh?  

If I was one of the last NPP Rhinos, that seems like a pretty evil act.  But it would depend on the situation (here's the subjectivity part). Here we may have to chose the lesser of 2 evils.

I'm not sure it has to be subjective, but I'm sure it can be.  We often find compelling reasons to do bad things, or one bad thing over another, sure.  

 
This is much like, was shooting Harambe evil?  It certainly caused harm, and possibly it was even unnecessary.  But the risk that it might be necessary, that there might be more harm caused to a human child, outweighed our moral obligations to not harm the gorilla.

So in this case a moral obligation to the child outweighed a moral obligation to the gorilla?  A hierarchy of obligation.  

So, when you want us to imagine it is necessary, I would ask, in what way?  And if it saves one life to end an entire species, then that is probably at least partly immoral, but also necessary to save that one life.

Well, if there's any way that it could be necessary and still immoral, than comments as to the necessity of hunting..or lack thereof, would not modify it's moral status.  You seem to be bargaining here, over what's necessary enough.  Suppose it was necessary to kill one species to save, not one person, but an entire other non-human species?  It seems to me, personally, that you might be imparting meaningful subjectivity and ambiguities.  We had a thread a ways back that circled around this one, about mosquitos.  It's difficult to see how killing a mosquito has a moral component.  Even killing all the mosquitos seems bereft a moral component.  The benefits of killing all the mosquitos are compelling..even if the plan is less than credible.  It's still not a necessity that we kill all the mosquitos.  Now, me...not seeing a moral component in that, I don't have to wonder about necessity or whatever sense it might be necessary in.  We don't -have- to conserve deer or elk, either.  Not seeing a moral component in hunting, even for fun, beyond that one obligation I mentioned...I don't have to worry about necessity or the sense of necessity or whether that sense is necessary enough.  I can simply state a right and a wrong way to do it, and list the benefits.

So on this sliding scale, we have to weigh, how necessary are factory farmed chickens? How necessary are trophy hunted animals?  does ANY good come from either evil?  Does that good somewhat balance the evil?

Well, just to reiterate, I did start off by mentioning that I don't think hat necessity is a uniform modifier...but if I had to answer the question I'd say that factory farmed chickens -are- a necessity..at least at present..whereas no wild animal is.  Trophy hunted or not.  As to how much good comes from either..plenty.  The chickens don't just provide meat, they provide income and industry.  Imagine poorer people with nothing to do all day and no fried chicken to eat.  It wouldn't be long till they started shooting each other, fuck the deer.   Trophy game...in addition to being the engine of conservation and a significant amount f income and industry themselves..provide the very palpable framework for an uncommon appreciation of nature, a participation in it and between generations and that all important thing, fun.  

Personally, I'd love to see factory farmed animals phased out and trophy hunting scaled up. The benefits to animal welfare (including human animals) across the board would be difficult to properly encompass. Getting rid of battery farms is going to require a credible economic and productive alternative that simply doesn't exist as yet - but people are working on it.

These are all hard questions, and just labeling anything as objectively right or wrong is a cop out of thinking about the situation in as much context as we can.

I'm not sure why we can't label things objectively right or wrong, or even non-applicable -and- think about a situation in as much context as possible.  I think, frankly, that understanding objectivity is important to intelligently discussing issues like these in the first place, as otherwise it's nothing but a bunch of peoples competing opinions.  At some point, some issues of objectivity have to be raised for any meaningful progress or comment. They're a starting point, not a conclusion or a cop out. Not that agreement is required..we've both reached the same conclusion about trophy hunting in the end - that we have good reasons to do it, that some good comes from it. You think it;s good outweighing bad (which is what I think about battery farms)...whereas I just think it's good. I can;t find anything -objectively- bad or immoral or evil about trophy hunting..but I recognize that many subjective comments and positions to that effect exist.