Twice a month, The duty challenges enthusiasts of philosophy and the history of ideas to decipher a topical issue based on the theses of a prominent thinker.
The opening of the hunting season, like every autumn, seems to be part of the tradition. However, several growing social concerns are bringing a fresh look to this ancient practice. Indeed, the search for “organic” food, the rejection of certain industrial farming methods, the desire to feed oneself by favoring the local terroir, not to mention the desire to reconnect with nature, are all factors that push number of people to take an interest in this practice which, at the end of the last century, seemed doomed to decline. Added to this is the appropriation by more and more women of this activity traditionally practiced rather by men.
After decades of decline, we are witnessing an increase in the number of hunting licenses sold annually in Quebec: from 457,920 in 2000-2001 to 539,458 in 2020-2021. The pandemic years have certainly boosted these statistics somewhat, but an upward movement was already observable at the turn of 2000.
What may be surprising is the fact that this new wave is occurring in parallel with another, that of animalist and/or vegan currents, which reject any form of use of animals by humans. The refusal of any animal death – which, in the news, results for example in a mobilization against the slaughter of deer in Michel-Chartrand Park in Longueuil – shows that hunting enthusiasts have not finished facing philosophical debates on animal ethics as well as attempts to hinder or even ban the practice of their art.
In this context, it is relevant to rediscover one of the most important philosophical texts ever written on the subject, Hunting Meditations (Septentrion, 2006), by the Spaniard José Ortega y Gasset.
be in nature
The Spanish philosopher was not himself a hunter, but, at the request of a friend who asked him to write an introduction to his own book on the subject, he undertook a reflection, which ended up taking the form of an essay which, after its publication in 1942, became the most frequently cited work in the world to explain hunting.
Ortega y Gasset’s first observation is that hunting is the supreme way for humans to be. in nature. That is to say that, unlike leisure activities which certainly allow us to appreciate the environment, such as walking in the forest, camping, going down rivers, etc., the fact of hunting leads to going beyond the aesthetic or playful communion that these activities provide by becoming an actor in the great game of nature.
“The hunter, writes the philosopher, begins to behave like game. He hides instinctively so as not to be seen; it avoids all noise while moving; he perceives his surroundings from the doe’s point of view, with the meticulousness that is particular to him. That’s what I call being in nature. […] The wind, the light, the temperature, the relief of the earth, the minerals, the vegetation, all play their part; they are not simply there as they are for the tourist or the botanist, but rather, they function. They act. »
The hunter therefore participates in the natural dynamic and is not just a spectator. Moreover, he must develop an empathy towards the game he covets if he wants to capture it, which “automatically leads the hunter to perceive the surroundings from the point of view of his prey, without abandoning his own point of view. . The thing is paradoxical and seems contradictory, but no one can deny it. After all, I am talking about something extremely simple: the pursuer cannot pursue the prey if he does not integrate his vision with that of the animal he is trying to reach. It is therefore to say that hunting is an imitation of the animal “.
A “zoological tragedy”
Ortega y Gasset does not deny that there is a dramatic aspect to hunting, which he describes as “a little zoological tragedy”. After all, the hunt culminates in a kill. The game which was an almost ghostly animal, difficult to approach, commanding respect and admiration, becomes meat or venison… And this product of the hunt will, in the best practices, be honored and shared.
Animal death nevertheless makes hunting difficult to accept, especially in a world that has moved away from nature and its laws. The hunter, Ortega y Gasset tells us, follows the opposite path: he returns to his own zoological nature and chooses to assume it.
“We will not understand what hunting is if we look at it as a human fact, and not as a zoological fact that man likes to reproduce”, writes the philosopher.
This fact is that of predation, and whoever does it inevitably reconnects with a function of an animal order. In the animal kingdom, we are either hunters or hunted. Predator or prey.
“Hunting is not an exclusively human occupation, but is widespread throughout the zoological scale. Only a definition of hunting which takes this fact into account in all its dimension and which also covers the predatory ardor of the beast and the mystical agitation of any good hunter will be able to go to the root of this surprising phenomenon. »
This is why the philosopher put forward this idea, often taken up after him, that hunting provides a “vacation for humanity”. And that’s also why those who invest in it live it with intensity and often describe it as a “passion” – something that walking around with a basket in the butcher’s department of the supermarket does not provide. Hunting, on the contrary, is “the supreme entertainment”, because “when man hunts, he manages to amuse himself and distract himself from being a man”.
“In any case, words like ‘relaxation’ and ‘hobby’ do very little to convey its reality. […] That’s why I presented it as it really is, as a form of happiness, and why I avoided calling it “pleasure”. No doubt there is a pleasure in all happiness, but pleasure is the least of happiness. […] Hunting is a hard occupation which demands a lot from man; he must keep fit, face extreme fatigue, and accept danger. »
A historical passion
José Ortega y Gasset delves into history and sociology to show how much this passion for hunting is a constant in human history. “The general lines of hunting are the same today as they were 5,000 years ago,” he writes. Although the need for food to hunt has been abolished by animal husbandry and contemporary hunting is relegated to the realm of leisure for almost everyone, its approach still revolves around the same tactical principles and calls upon the same talents as prehistory. The advent of more effective weapons has been tempered by regulations, but the hunter in action is still following the same trail.
In a Europe once dominated by the aristocratic classes, the privilege of hunting for the nobles and the creation of private hunting grounds for the benefit of the powerful were a source of strong resentment among the poor, condemned to “poaching”.
“In all revolutionary periods of history, it appeared that the lower classes, limited in their access to hunting while they felt for this activity an enormous appetite, hated the upper classes for it. »
The Quebec of the Quiet Revolution illustrated this popular frustration well in the 1970s, during the “déclubbage” movement, which demanded the abolition of forest land leased exclusively by the State to hunting and fishing clubs. These were generally frequented by the more affluent, often by foreigners. This movement resulted in the replacement of private clubs by wildlife reserves open to all and, under the Lévesque government, by the creation of cooperatives now known as zecs (controlled harvesting zones). All Quebecers can now benefit from this collective heritage.
Nature of Species Inequality
Neither the intrinsic qualities of the act of hunting nor its social and economic consequences are enough to convince everyone of its legitimacy. Especially at a time when the philosophy of a moral equivalence between humans and those that animalists call “non-human animals” is developing. For the animalist, any sign of human superiority over the animal—even riding a horse—results from “speciesism,” a fault as serious in his eyes as racism.
Such a vision of the mind can obviously never be reconciled with that of José Ortega y Gasset when he writes: “Hunting excludes any claim of equality between hunter and prey. The animal of lower rank cannot claim to hunt that of higher rank. »
From the perspective of the Spanish philosopher, animalism would be the result of a break with nature. In his time, hound hunting enthusiasts presumably suffering from moral doubt proposed to end the pursuit of the deer with a simple photo. “If all that results from is fiction, that it is only a question of taking his portrait, the hunt becomes a farce and it is emptied of its tension. »
On the other hand, those who reconnect with “the ancestral proximity of animals, plants and minerals — in short, of nature” — and who seek to live “in the orbit of animal existence” accept more willingly the laws, first and foremost that of predation.
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