Sporting Ethics: Absolute or relative?

by David Petersen

Blog Last Updated; 4/13/2009

Increasingly and rightly so, hunting in recent years has become embroiled in philosophical issues and arguments that fall within the umbrella term ethics. Indeed, the E word contains multitudes of issues that I, for one, hold strong feelings about. And so do most other hunters.
A complicating factor in this arena is that no one ethical size will ever fit all sportsmen and women across a broad spectrum of issues. For some, the clich� "If it's legal, it's ethical!" does the trick. And certainly, if all hunters would abide even by that minimal dictum of dignity, we'd have far fewer problems afield and a far better public image. Yet I propose that while legality provides a necessary bottom line for ethical outdoor behavior, it's merely a starting point for thoughtfully examining the moral aspects of an action or belief.
To begin, "legal equals ethical" implies that those who make and interpret our laws always know best and it isn't our place to question authority. Really? In America, questioning authority is a historic tradition celebrated as both an essential freedom and a necessary underpinning of a functional democracy. On this point, we are reminded of the Philosophy 101 concept of "necessary vs. sufficient," which instructs that legality is a necessary but not a sufficient basis for ethical behavior.
To suggest an example directly from hunting: Who among us will openly argue that the "rules" of fair chase, as posited by B&C and other credible hunting groups, do not provide a valid yardstick for measuring sportsman conduct afield? Yet those unwritten ethical rules often rule out actions that are legal in some places and openly celebrated by some hunting subcultures ? like canned high fence "hunts," baiting and plenty more. So which in this example is the higher ? that is, more appropriate -- authority: local written law and culture, or an unwritten and self-imposed universal code of higher conduct?
Let's say that Joe, a Colorado hunter who normally abides by the rules of fair chase as mandated by this state, travels with friend to, let's say Texas, where local laws allow hunting practices that are both illegal and broadly considered unethical back home. What is Joe to do?
In obvious point of fact, the legality of specific hunting practices varies so widely from place to place as to "prove," in a philosophical sense, nothing more than what a particular region and culture will or won't allow us to get away with. Given this regional variance, who can say with certainty just which regions and cultures have it "right" in the "if it's legal it's moral picture? Clearly, under such a "local rules rule" system, local ethics are determined by local culture.
In academic philosophy-speak, this trail of ethical thought is called "cultural relativism," which declares that all values are (a) human constructed, and (b) relative to time, place, and cultural mores. Accordingly, outsiders can't validly judge a foreign culture's ethics because "It takes one to know one."
Taking the opposite philosophical view from the relativists are the "absolutists" ? so called because they insist there are basic universal rights and wrongs that apply to all human endeavors in all times and places, and which override any locally constructed rules, laws and beliefs that fall obviously short of basic decency. To bolster their argument, the absolutists trot out a litany of examples, including women's, children's, and minority rights from oppression; freedom of religion; freedom from slavery and torture and countless more e.g.'s that most civilized nations view as basic human rights and have gone to war to defend, even though these same "self-evident rights" are sneered at by the laws of "outlaw" cultures worldwide.
And so it is that the ethical fix our well-meaning but conflicted friend Joe is faced with when visiting a state with lower ethical hunting standards than his own becomes one of relativism versus absolutism. If Joe declines to play down to local ethics because they offend the rules he's accustomed to and holds in his heart, he risks being rebuffed as an elitist by both locals and the friends who talked him into coming. Meanwhile, if Joe does "as the natives do," he'll be considered by his absolutist friends back home and as well as by himself to have compromised his ethics for social convenience.
There is no simplistic clarity here, no easy way out. In fact, as the existentialists would have it, we make ourselves up as we go along. We are, day to day, as ethical and dignified ? or the opposite ? as we choose to be.