🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4jfald$5d5a@acs3.acs.ucalgary.ca> powlesla@acs.ucalgary.ca (Jim Powlesland) writes:
>In article <4jbub7$jr4@epx.cis.umn.edu>,
>Timothy D Fay <fayxx001@maroon.tc.umn.edu> wrote:
>
>>What right do you have to kill animals for fun?
>
>Ann Causey in "On the Morality of Hunting" [Environmental Ethics
>Vol.  11 Winter 1989. pp.327-343] states:
>
>"Antihunters believe, instinctively, that it is morally wrong to
                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>kill for pleasure. Period."

Fascinating, given where Causey goes by the end of the material....
Where do the antihunters get these mysterious instincts from?  

<copious snippage to arrive at this:>

>"The answer, it seems to me, is no. It is not morally wrong to
>take pleasure in killing game; nor is it morally right. It is
>simply not a moral issue at all, because the urge itself is an
>instinct, and instincts do not qualify for moral valuation,
>positive or negative.  Thus, the urge to kill for sport is
>*amoral*, lying as it does outside the jurisdiction of morality."

One could very simply and quite accurately point out that the instinct 
for polygyny in male humans is enormously strong.  As a rule, the sex 
with smaller, mobile gametes will achieve greatest fitness by depositing 
as many of those gametes in as many mates as possible.  Converseley, the 
sex producing large, slower-moving and more metabolically costly gametes 
has a fitness advantage in picking the best available mate.  If a new 
mate appears on the scene who is better, it is to her advantage to move 
on to the new alpha male.  

Species which are monogamous or polyandrous are rare;  as a rule, 
monogamous species are monomorphic for size between male and female, and 
those which are polyandrous are sexually dimorphic, with females being 
larger than males.  

Humans are sexually dimorphic for size, with males being significantly 
larger than females;  in vertebrates, in mammals, within the primate 
lineage and finally within the great ape lineage, this situation always 
covaries with polygyny.  the only great apes known to be monogamous are 
gibbon and siamang, and they are monomorphic with respect to size.  

So, an argument can easily be made that is instinctive for human males to 
be, well, pigs.  To move from mate to mate, normally replacing older mates 
with younger ones, closer to the onset of their reproductive prime.  And, 
conversely, that it is instinctive for women to be choosy about who they are 
with, and, should they see someone who appears to be a better parent at 
any stage in her reproductive life, to attempt either a sneak copulation 
or simply to join his harem.  In the latter instance, if she is young but 
he doesn't happen to want the children from her past relationship, she 
should kill them.  Ideally, she should then eat them, so as not to waste 
valuable protein.  The tradeoff here is "can I have enough more offspring 
with the new male to outweigh the inferior offspring I'm getting rid of?"

How many people want to go home to their wives or girlfriends and explain 
that as this is an instinctive (and indeed one successful, from a fitness 
standpoint) strategy, it is beyond the bounds of morality?  How many of 
you would be willing to make the other side of the argument as well, that 
should you, if you are female, see someone you perceive to be a better 
mate, at any point in your reproductive or child-rearing years, that you 
should have the ability to join him?  

I hope any of you hunters advancing either side of this theory are keeping 
your weapons unloaded and the ammo in a separate, locked compartment.  
This will help you survive long enough for the divorce proceedings.  

-Peter

-- 
bell@minerva.cis.yale.edu | http://pantheon.cis.yale.edu/~bell/bell.html
"Whatever our positions lost in logic might be recovered with invective. 
If you never quit an argument, presumably you never lost." 
 --Patrick J. Buchanan, Republican hopeful, on Why I Should Be On Usenet