What is the moral difference between dog fighting and (say) stag hunting?
 

As a qualification - I am not a supporter of Mike Vick, and I dont even think he is a valuable player for his team... but all the reaction to his alleged involvment in dog fighting seems to me to be extreme.

Stag hunting (with hounds) is certainly cruel... the stag is chased around for hours and certainly suffers. Dog hunting is certainly cruel as well. In both cases, a sentient animal is hurt and then usually killed as a human entertainment.

What is the real moral difference? Simply that dogs are animals we know as pets and stags are one's we call wild?

Maybe the "training" of the dog to fight involves a greater amount of cruelty, but to me this only effects the level of moral offence or its scale, not whether it is an offense at all.

I have no idea if he does... but if it came out that Brett Favre liked shooting deer - would there be such a reaction?

I think there might be a bit of moral relativism at play here:

Dogs are friends, stags are food.


This statement is morally dishonest. Both dogs and stags suffer, both are afraid to die.

The dogs were not eaten. Stags are.

The stag is usually murdered in the quickest way possible, to alleviate suffering. The dogs often bled to death after being severely injured.

I am sorry, I dont know what sport you are referring to, but your statement is not true about stag hunting as it was carried out in the UK. The Stag is chased by a pack of hounds until exhaustion, and is then either shot or torn apart by the hounds. The chase can last many hours.

Shooting an animal to eat it is I agree totally different in a moral sense.

I refer to shooting an animal or hunting it with hounds purely for sport.

what's a stag?

a male deer

I don't know that we necessarily hunt like that in america all that much, strange. Most of the deer hunters i know hunt by sitting in a tree and waiting for a deer to walk by. Same goes for duck hunting.

Stag hunting, as you describe it, sounds pretty fucked up to me, and i don't think it could be introduced in the u.s. without lots of people flipping the fuck out. Americans like shooting shit, we rarely employ packs of dogs for much of anything. I don't know if the outcry would reach vick proportions, but i'm pretty sure it would register more than the continuous buzzing amongst certain folk concerning conventional american hunting methods.

In other words, i don't think that there is much moral difference between british stag hunting and dogfighting, but that americans don't hunt stag like that so it isn't really relevant. Unless you're talking about outrage in the UK against vick, in which case i guess i'm not really in a position to comment.

By my understanding from descriptions of friends who hunt (here in the states), the idea is to get one shot to hit as many vital organs with one shot in order to kill the animal quickly. I think it's called "the spot", but don't quote me.

As for dog chasing the animal... that's pretty fucked up. Especially if they attack and kill the animal. I'd not eat meat chewed on by my dog, so it's clearly about sport and not sustenance.

In trying to make the comparison from a UK point of view, I think the major difference is that the stag is not contained within a pen of hunting dogs. Both "sports" are morally disgusting.

Yep, some real differences over here.

I'm out hunting deer for the primary purpose of filling my freezer with high quality game meat that we will eat for the entire upcoming year. It can come from either a "stag", more commonly called a buck in the states, or a doe.
The best meat comes from an animal that has been quickly and humanely killed. That means laying in wait and only taking a high quality shot at an animal. If I don't think I can drop the animal with one shot, then I don't shoot. It also means handling the carcass properly, by getting it gutted and cooled rapidly, then doing a very clean job butchering it.

The stag hunting you describe sounds very unappealing, and I doubt many American hunters would be interested; actually most would be disgusted.

i dont understand that question.
if this is about trying to sort out the flap over michael vick really, then you have to factor in all the absurd associations between vast cash, sporting figures and projections as to who any given sporting figure is--most of which are about the money and nothing else, to my mind.

as to the question of "moral distinction"--doesn't this come down to a matter of associations with the animals involved? and if that's the case, isn't the "moral" question really an aesthetic question? what it at stake is whether you lke or can imagine liking one form of bloodsport as over against another.

and it seems to me that the situation of stag hunting--which side of the hunting divide the teams or packs of dogs are one--more or less answers the question in any event.
so that particular example seems to make the problem circular.

but i dont have a more neutral alternative in mind.
by neutral here i am an example the content of which doesnt cross directly with the question being posed through it and thereby effectively condition the thinking about the question in one way or another...

btw i do not approve at all of dog fighting. but i dont understand the hub bub about michael vick. to my mind, the situation points to all kinds of absurdities to do with the status of professional sports in the states more than anything else.

The moral difference is that it could possibly be beneficial to the deer to cull the herd to avoid overpopulation. In other words, it serves a purpose, even though you don't understand or approve of it.Hmmm...Seriously, it's pretty easy to see how a tradition could get started that has positive results even though the methods don't seem appropriate today. Dog fighting is just torturing animals.

The same question could be asked about bullfighting and a myriad of other Spanish sports. I think it all comes down to what society finds acceptable and ethic and what not.
I was very impressed with the reactions a lot of people had with the movie Amores Perros in the States and how they opposed it because it portrayed dog fighting, but they had no problems with another movie of the same year, Gladiator, which portrayed humans killing each others for sport. It all comes down to cultural traditions and differences but there will always be double standards.

the biggest difference between stag hunting (as defined above) and dog-fighting is that the stag has a chance of escape. to me, that makes all the difference in the world.


"The stag hunting you describe sounds very unappealing, and I doubt many American hunters would be interested; actually most would be disgusted."

indeed. in fact, most American hunters disapprove of the "hunting" of deer on land thats enclosed (typically by a 10 foot fence). Has to do with the idea of fair chase, i.e. giving the animal a reasonable chance to outwit/escape the hunter. also, such "farm hunting" is considered the option of bad hunters with more money than skill/brains.

go ahead and search for photos of dogfighting. I could barely hold down my lunch.