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Hunting & Philosophy: Taking Aim at the Heart of Life

Nathan Kowalsky (ed.) St. Joseph’s College, University of Alberta [email protected]

I. The Project...... 1 II. Brief Contents...... 2 III. Expanded Contents (with abstracts)...... 4 IV. Length & Timeline...... 16 V. The Editor...... 16 VI. Call for Abstracts...... 16

I. The Project

Hunting & Philosophy is a trade paperback intended to be a part of Wiley-Blackwell’s Philosophy for Everyone series. It will attract attention by its apparently oxymoronic purview, and pique the interest of gourmands and granolas, vegetarians and veterinarians, academics and activists – and hunters, of course! Out of an overwhelmingly large pool of 117 abstracts, we have secured twenty contributors from a wide range of disciplines and walks of life, each of whom will write a chapter that is both philosophically stimulating and inviting to a general reading audience. Chapters have been divided into the following four units: The Good, the Bad, and the Hunter; The Hunter’s View of the World; Eating Nature Naturally; and The Chandelier: Hunting in , Politics and Tradition.

In order to recuperate the ancient appeal of philosophy as a broadly accessible means of critical awareness, volumes in this series balance contributions by professional philosophers with academics from other disciplines, as well as non-academic writers. This book is no exception, with philosophy, biology, archeology, anthropology, sociology, geography, communications, religion, and fine arts representing the . Moreover, among the contributors are three confirmed non-hunters and nine confirmed hunters, seven women authors, one aboriginal author, two confirmed anti-hunters, one confirmed ex-vegan, and one confirmed yak herder! Finally, several contributors have considerably high profiles among their respective constituencies.

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II. Brief Contents

Unit 1: The Good, the Bad, and the Hunter “Taking a Shot” Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza Department of Philosophy Linfield College

“Why and How is Fair?” Theodore R. Vitali Philosophy Department Saint Louis University Professional Ethicist of the

“Hunting for Environmental Support” Lisa Kretz Marine Waste Resource Management Project Officer

“Hunting Like a Vegetarian: Same Ethics, Different Flavors” Tovar Cerulli Freelance Writer

“If You Love Hunting, You Can’t Go On Hunting Like This!” David Petersen Outdoor Author

Unit 2: The Hunter’s View of the World “Hunting for Meaning” Brian Seitz Department of Philosophy Babson College

“Getting By with a Little Help from My Hunter: Riding to in English Mounted Packs” Alison Acton Department of Sociology University of Essex

“Flying to the Falcon” Timothy Raven Hume Artist and Animal Trainer

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“Tracking in Pursuit of Knowledge: Teachings of an Algonquin Bush Hunter” Jacob Wawatie, Mowegan Stephanie Pyne Director of Kokomville Academy Department of Geography Carleton University

“Living with Dead Animals: Trophies as Souvenirs of the Hunt” Garry Marvin Social Anthropology Roehampton University

Unit 3: Eating Nature Naturally “The Carnivorous : Hunting in Evolution” Valerius Geist Department of Biological Sciences University of Calgary

“Killers and Keepers of : The Universality of the ‘’” Janina Duerr Institute for Prehistory and Archaeological Science University of Basel

“Hunting: A Return to Nature?” Roger J. H. King Department of Philosophy University of

“The Camera or the Gun: Different Hunting Lenses and Ecologies” (tentative title) Jonathan Parker Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies University of North

“Sex, Death and Tofu: Can One Love Life and Deny the Flesh?” Richard Kover Institute of Philosophy Catholic University of Louvain (Leuven)

Unit 4: The Antler Chandelier: Hunting in Culture, Politics and Tradition “Hunting Literature as Imaginative Atavism” Roger Scruton Research Professor, Philosophy Institute for the Psychological Sciences

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“The Lure of the Craft: Primitive Archery in Contemporary ” Kay Koppedrayer Department of Religion and Culture Wilfrid Laurier University Associate Editor of Primitive Archer Magazine

“Concerning Hunting: Hunting in Contemporary Art” Paula Lee Art History Summer Faculty, Sogang University Visiting Scholar, Harvard University

“The New ? Women who Hunt” Debra Merskin School of Journalism & Communication University of Oregon

“Off the Grid: Hunting as Subversive Behavior” (tentative) James Carmine Department of Philosophy Carlow University

III. Expanded Contents (with abstracts)

Unit 1: The Good, the Bad, and the Hunter

“Taking a Shot” Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza Department of Philosophy Linfield College

I am ten or eleven years old. For the first time I align the sights on an animal with intent to shoot. My former “hunting experience” is that of vicious playground kids who skewer, crush, or burn -like critters. But this is a , a “real” animal. Trouble is, by now I’m a nature crusader who belongs to the WWF. I mean, I’ve pestered my father like a horsefly till he’s quit hunting. Yet here I am, with a sweet, unsuspecting animal marked by the white dot at the end of my barrel. I try to control my breathing as my thoughts mirror the resistance of the trigger I’m feathering…am I really going to pull it? The aim is to take a shot at a number of issues at the heart of hunting that range from what a fair kill is to certain tensions in the hunter’s ethos (technology versus skill) and practices of a controversial nature (baiting). Virtue ethics and a non-instrumental view of values brace the inquiry.

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These are flushed into sight by several autobiographical narratives aimed at my own conflicts (like the opening teaser—resolved later), which anchor arguments within the framework of sudden realizations, as well as accounts from popular writers in hunting and gun magazines. Other notable members of this hunting party that help track down veritable philosophical prey are: José Ortega y Gasset, Iberia’s foremost philosopher, award-winning Miguel Delibes, both of whom have written extensively and incisively on hunting, and David Sansone’s insightful views on sport as they concern hunting. They themselves are the object of crosshairs examination by philosophers and . In the end, all are fair game: no one’s safe here as the scope scans the horizon. This is no boy scout outing but a that seeks the one- kill. Not packing the punch of a .500 magnum heavy scholarly article or the light load of a.22LR Outside Magazine piece, the chapter fits in the quarter bore category, bringing down genuine philosophical issues with an entertaining “popular” all around . (Disclaimer: no real animals are harmed in the reading or writing. Only our own convictions are under peril.)

“Why and How is Fair Chase Fair?” Theodore R. Vitali Philosophy Department Saint Louis University Professional Ethicist of the Boone and Crockett Club

The ethics of fair chase does not constitute a moral requirement on the part of the hunter to treat the animal fairly. To claim that animals have a right to be treated fairly entails that animals have the right not be hunted. Fairness, therefore, must be for the hunter, not the hunted. Fairness to the hunter has two elements. The first is that hunting must be conducive to the conservation of the species and thus to the overall well being of the ecosystem of which it must play an integral part. Second, because the animal’s life is a good for the animal (directly) and a good for the ecosystem (indirectly), it cannot be destroyed without a proportionate good being achieved. In sport hunting, and game management, though present and essential, are not the sufficient moral reason for killing an animal since the primary intention of the hunter is to enjoy the experience of hunting not food procurement nor game management. Therefore, there must be a proportionate good to compensate for the good that is lost. That good is the quality of the experience of the hunter. This experience, including the pleasure that is derived from it, is the experience of being a predator in the fundamental predator-prey relationship, the life-death continuum which is essential to all life in the biotic community. In the predator-prey relationship, the hunter practices the virtues and arts necessary for a successful hunt. These virtues and skills generate a deep sense of satisfaction and pleasure when performed at a very high level. Hence, the pleasure of the hunt is a result of the exercise of specifically human virtues applied by the hunter in his or her role as predator in search of prey.

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“Hunting for Environmental Support” Lisa Kretz Marine Waste Resource Management Project Officer

Hunters are often perceived to be , as they are a major political force for protecting various ecosystems that support the game they pursue. I will argue in this chapter that many standard defenses of hunting as an environmental practice are false. It can be argued that hunting preserves the . Some contend that the natural human role in ecosystems includes consuming non-human animals. I will argue claims of “naturalness” are inherently problematic. Additionally, the view that hunters protect species populations is countered by the fact that hunters usually remove the most impressive specimens. Destroying the fittest members fails to aid in the evolution of species. Another defense of hunting is that it reminds us of our place in the biotic community. Henry Thoreau maintains that through interacting with nature via hunting, one gains respect for their prey and is to discontinue the practice of hunting. Such a view fails to account for more fruitful methods of facilitating respect for nature, such as becoming a naturalist. Appeals to hunting as a method of reminding hunters of their place in the biological community are met by considerations of current technological advances in hunting tools wherein there is no longer an equal playing field. Less a reminder of one’s membership in the biotic community, hunting is more of a testament to humanity’s ability to dominate. Importantly, there are differently motivated hunters. Some hunt respectfully and depend on their prey for survival. Respectful hunting that is necessary for survival is morally permissible. All organisms are entitled to pursue their own survival. In circumstances outside of survival there is a hunting code of ethics meant to ensure ethical hunting practices. Paradoxically, however, premises of the code lead to the conclusion that hunting is morally wrong.

“Hunting Like a Vegetarian: Same Ethics, Different Flavors” Tovar Cerulli Freelance Writer

At first glance, vegetarians and hunters appear to stand in diametrically opposed camps. Those in the latter not only eat flesh but apparently find some kind of enjoyment in pursuing and killing their own on the paw, hoof, or wing. Yet I argue that these camps adjoin in places: vegetarians and hunters can be motivated by the same values. Secular is typically rooted in one or more of several ethical issues: the death and suffering of animals, the ecological impacts of production, and the impacts on other (e.g. meat workers, people facing malnutrition and starvation). Most forms of religious vegetarianism are rooted in the first of these moral problems—that of and animal suffering—or in the belief that meat-eating fosters negative moral traits and stunts spiritual growth. In short, vegetarianism encourages mindful confrontation with the various impacts of human food consumption and is aimed at maintaining respectful, holistic relationships among humans, animals, and sometimes the divine. (For the purposes of this paper, I set aside vegetarianism practiced primarily for the improvement of personal health and nutrition.)

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Drawing on my own experiences – as both a hunter and a long-time vegan – and on the perspectives of other hunters, I demonstrate that hunting can be rooted in these same ethical concerns. I show how hunting, like vegetarianism, can be aimed at mindful confrontation, moral development, and the maintenance of respectful, holistic relationships.

“If You Love Hunting, You Can’t Go On Hunting Like This!” David Petersen Outdoor Author

Most modern hunters, good and bad, just want to hunt – not explore and debate why they do it and how they do it and what others think of them for it. Yet today, no thoughtful hunter can afford to just hunt. In order to defend what we do – to ourselves and our families, our friends, and, especially, to an increasingly urbanized, domesticated, and virtualized populace – in order to improve hunting ethics and invite and inspire tomorrow's hunters and assure that hunting has a tomorrow…for all these reasons and more, hunters must ask themselves: Why? For only by discovering the whys can we hope to influence the hows. And only by reforming the hows, where necessary, can we bring about the essential changes without which modern hunting is likely doomed and likely deserves to be. Many opponents argue that the modern hunter is motivated by a destructive impulse and hatred toward wild nature. However, I argue that the central impulse of hunting is a desire to reconnect with wild nature, not as voyeurs but as active participants. Few if any other activities involve us in, and connect us to, the natural world so deeply and honestly as does true hunting. “True” hunting requires not only extensive and intimate personal knowledge of the natural world and the behaviour of wild animals, but also confronts us with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be. Yet central to this authentic experience of hunting is a willingness (to paraphrase Ortega y Gasset) to give up technological advantages and engage the prey in a fair contest. Consequently, I will argue that certain current hunting activities, such as game , night vision goggles, ATVs (etc.) represent a justly maligned aberration of true hunting.

Unit 2: The Hunter’s View of the World

“Hunting for Meaning” Brian Seitz Department of Philosophy Babson College

A philosophical description of the experience of hunting reveals that choosing to hunt means choosing to hunt for meaning, and that meaning is not something to be attained but emerges from and is synonymous with the very activity of hunting. This has everything to do with relations in the present to both the future – the immediate quarry and beyond – and the past, which is in a sense ancient or timeless. In addition to the disciplined preparation and physical exertion, to the shifting sky, creaking trees, chattering animals, scent of the air, and the sometimes seemingly interminable seeking-waiting, hunters find meaning by repeating the way that our ancestors provided for life by paying full attention

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to the situation, and by killing other animals. This has nothing to do with nostalgia or a return to some fantasized primordial condition, and I will use this reference to the past as an occasion to describe the sense in which there is no fundamental difference between hunting with rocks and hunting with a ; hunting is less about technology as such than it is about the repetition of techniques called for and defined by the game, the terrain, the weather, etc. One distinctive feature of hunting is that it could easily be seen as a practice defined by a definite end or goal. And yet insofar as it is meaningful, it is more poetic than goal-oriented, and any attentive hunter can confirm this in several ways. First of all, it is an ancient fact that hunts frequently end with nothing other than the empty-handed walk home, and that there is meaning in the familiarity of that walk. Second, hunting is far more poetic than goal-oriented insofar as it completes its meaning not at the moment of death but in the way that the meat is shared and absorbed into all of life’s other activities, a process rather than an activity with a definite terminus, which is to say that hunting for meaning never ends. Hunting cannot be reduced to obtaining, and meaning always appears “along the way.”

“Getting By With a Little Help from My Hunter: Riding to Hounds in English Mounted Foxhound Packs” Alison Acton Department of Sociology University of Essex

For the past three years, as part of my ethnographic research into hunting and hunting landscapes, I have been riding with mounted foxhound packs in England. However, although I had participated as a rider in order to appreciate the cultural experience of foxhunting, my role drew me into a collaboration with an unanticipated character in this network: the made hunter, a horse shaped and seasoned for the chase. This chapter considers how these horses acted as my equine gatekeepers into this foxhunting world. Their knowledge of the social and physical environment was superior to mine. They knew the game and they knew the country, so during these “centaur hours,” I relied on them and I learned from them, just as novices to the chase have done for centuries. This account is based on a combination of observations from archive foxhunting texts and reflections from my own nascent partnerships with these horses. It describes the experiential fusion of the human/equine partnership. It narrates the transitional process of learning to trust a horse’s judgement and it observes that the relationship between horse and rider is a timeless collaboration.

“Flying to the Falcon” Timothy Raven Hume Artist and Animal Trainer

When we watch the popular TV series Man Tracker, one might ask with whom do we identify the most, the hunter or the hunted? As a hunter I generally identify with the tracking, hunting skills of Man Tracker himself: however, I am also intrigued by the clever movements made by the hunted (prey)

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to avoid being caught. These ideas come together as a hunter enters grizzly . Even if armed with a high powered rifle, he suddenly becomes aware that he is both predator and prey. This chapter will address what it’s like to work both sides of the hunting coin. I will explore the notion of the value of becoming the prey as a modern hunting practice, rather than remaining the hunter, to demonstrate the true beauty, skill, agility and knowledge the prey displays in its survival strategies. Most people who have witnessed the incredible 200 mile per hour stoop of a peregrine falcon will normally identify with the falcon, as the magnificent raptor captures its prey with seemingly effortless perfection. I extol the virtues and perfection of the lowly pigeon and place it on an equal footing, a majestic match to the noble mighty peregrine, considered by many to be the ultimate killing machine, a hunter of ultimate speed, agility and total accuracy. I show through personal observations the incredible skills involved in the survival tactics of the prey. It is a story about the qualities and values inherent in being hunted rather than hunting. It is often said that to be a great hunter one must truly understand the quarry. I suggest that the prey also must fully understand the predator if it wishes to survive. The thrill of the hunt and chase does not belong to the hunter alone but to the prey as well.

“Tracking in Pursuit of Knowledge: Teachings of an Algonquin Bush Hunter” Jacob Wawatie, Mowegan Stephanie Pyne Director of Kokomville Academy Department of Geography Carleton University

Jacob Wawatie, Mowegan, is an Algonquin Anishinabe elder from Kokomville, , , a community based on tradition with all of its members knowing how to survive in the woods. In 1984 Jacob took what turned out to be a twelve-year sabbatical from his position as director of the Rapid Lake School to begin living on the land and learning traditional knowledge from his grandmother, Lena Nottaway Jerome, who received an honorary doctorate from Carleton University. Lena had been adopted by her great-great-grandmother who lived to be 128, and she was raised from the age of two to sixteen living off the land with no usage of European resources. It was like going back in time prior to European contact. Jacob brings a traditional Anishinabe perspective to philosophical questions concerning the nature of hunting in a way that inspires the reader to reconsider the scope and depth of the relationships between human beings and the creatures of the Earth that have traditionally sustained us. Through a series of traditional stories with commentary, Jacob demonstrates how the traditional Anishinabe philosophy of hunting as tracking goes beyond standard ethical approaches to hunting to include an ethics of existence itself and of all of its relations:

Within the Indian stories, a story is heard upon which humanity pursued its primary needs of subsistence within an environment of existence. He tracked down the resources, at the same time acknowledging the benefit he received from the resources laid out in the environment ... In the story, the intellect came to comprehend the habits and the influential ambiance of changes in seasonal climates, which dictates the movement of its quarry. In the story, it is said

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that you don't have to run for your quarry when you know when to get it (Jacob Wawatie, Mowegun).

“Living with Dead Animals: Trophies as Souvenirs of the Hunt” Garry Marvin Social Anthropology Roehampton University

In this chapter, I would like to offer an exploration of what the heads, or whole bodies, of hunted animals, recreated through , represent for hunters. The exploration will be based on anthropological research with hunters who might be regarded as “nature hunters” – those who seek a close engagement with wild animals, and the landscapes they inhabit, through hunting. My research with such hunters suggests that the trophies they display in their homes are not objects through which they celebrate their power, supremacy and domination of animals. Rather, they can be interpreted as souvenirs of an experience and a focus for narratives about that experience; they are sites of memory. Here I will engage with some theoretical issues relating to souvenirs – particularly as mementos from a place visited – and how they relate to memory and nostalgia. In conjunction with this I will also offer an exploration of how, for each hunter, these taxidermied trophies are imbued with life. Although these objects no longer live in any biological sense they are far from being lifeless objects. Once killed the hunted animal begins a new, cultural, life with its hunter.

Unit 3: Eating Nature Naturally

“The Carnivorous Herbivore: Hunting in Human Evolution” Valerius Geist Department of Biological Sciences University of Calgary

“Man the hunter” could not evolve before overcoming “man the hunted.” Freedom from attention by predators is crucial for hunters to succeed in stalking, keeping their kills, and preventing predators from following their scent to camp and possibly killing the hunters’ families. The miracle of human evolution is that we are the only primates that can escape in the absence of trees, and can thereby disperse across open terrain safely – and out of Africa. Even then, North America was only colonized by humans after the huge native Pleistocene predators went extinct. Hunting by humans does not illustrate our species’ obvious dominance, but rather the opposite. The change from prey to predator was thus profound. We could not evolve hunting without an ability to kill young prey quickly and silently, lest we invite retaliation from more dangerous animals. Yet the use of that avoided such retaliation required that we not use them on ourselves. Biologically, retaliation controls aggression, so the only way we could survive socially was to place powerful cultural constraints on the use of hunting weapons. Consequently, the rise of hunting was associated with profound changes in social behaviour, skill and knowledge.

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Moreover, humans cannot be understood without understanding the prey they hunted. Profound hunting specializations in human evolutionary lineages shaped both body and mind. To be fully able intellectually we needed an exceptionally rich diet, and physiologically we are adapted to extract such from meat. Without exploiting the huge biomass of animal we would never have reached numbers sufficient for developing division of labour, leisure, or a virtual instinct for the fine arts. Yet our pattern of evolution mimics that of , not of carnivores. We appear to be herbivores biologically adapted to eating meat.

“Killers and Keepers of Game: The Universality of the ‘Master of Animals’” Janina Duerr Institute for Prehistory and Archaeological Science University of Basel

Is there a general philosophy of hunting? Worldwide examples from extant and prehistoric show that there indeed seems to be something like a hunting ethics practiced almost everywhere and in a very like manner. Almost all hunters identify animals as beings with human characteristics, capable of social life and understanding. They use special and names to from the game, and many believe in a “Master of the Animals,” a protective figure who regulates the hunt. They find surprisingly similar ways of dealing with the guilt of killing and of “renewing” the animals taken. This is achieved by ritualized hunting provisions and behavior, e.g. the donation of a part of the prey to the “Master of the Animals” in order to bring the animals back to life. The general aim is to minimize the hunters’ guilt in killing or to elevate it to the cultural level, like an exchange between trading partners, to shield themselves from the animals’ revenge and to assure future game supply. Different hunting beliefs and practices are investigated in order to show that such rituals do not only occur in small scale hunter-gatherer-groups but that they also – as can be seen from archaeological sources – form a fundamental part of western hunting ethics and are relevant to the relationship between humans and nature in general.

“Hunting: A Return to Nature?” Roger J. H. King Department of Philosophy University of Maine

This chapter examines the claim that hunting brings one closer to nature and constitutes a strategy for returning to nature. This idea supposes that hunting is a solution to a problem of human alienation from nature. Rather than challenge this claim outright, I shall ask, when would hunting constitute a way of returning to nature? One must ask what we mean by “nature” and what nature hunting returns us to. What does it mean to be closer to nature, and what are we returning from? I argue that being closer to nature requires a “thick” relationship to it, based on history, memory, engagement, participation, and intimate perception. Many forms of hunting do not meet the test of getting closer to nature, but some may. I will also consider what is gained by cultivating a “thick” relationship with nature. Does being closer to nature guarantee care, sustainability or ecological health?

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Avoiding unfounded nostalgia for past exemplars of living closer to nature is essential for thinking through the “return to nature” defence of hunting. Finally, I will consider whether hunting is the only or best strategy available for returning to nature; agrarianism and bioregionalism represent competing strategies.

“The Camera or the Gun: Different Hunting Lenses and Ecologies” (tentative title) Jonathan Parker Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies University of North Texas

In this paper I will present and weigh arguments for and against the practice of photographic hunting as an ethical replacement for weaponized hunting that entails the death, or attempted death of the prey animal. It is occasionally argued that even if one recognizes the historical role hunting has played within the development of human cultures and civilizations and acknowledges the valuable skills and lessons to be obtained through the act of the hunt, nevertheless the same skills and knowledge could be exercised and perpetuated without necessitating the death of an animal; this is said to be achieved by a photograph of the prey animal at the penultimate moment of the hunt, rather than using a bullet or arrow. I argue in this paper that indeed there is merit to photographic hunting, and acknowledge the value of such an activity particularly in areas of diminished wildlife. However, the arguments in favor of photographic hunting are insufficient to prohibit the practice of hunting and killing prey species. This type of hunting, though using similar skills, puts the individual in a fundamentally different role within an environment than the camera hunter. It roots the hunter in an ecosystem and connects him or her to ecosystemic truths and processes that may be obscured to the photographic hunter. These two different forms of hunting represent very different ways of being in an environment and interacting with animals, and one cannot be conceived of as a replacement of the other.

“Sex, Death and Tofu: Can One Love Life and Deny the Flesh?” Richard Kover Institute of Philosophy Catholic University of Louvain (Leuven)

Eating and sex are two activities central to human experience and indeed life itself. These two “pleasures of the flesh” are part of what makes life worth living and, unsurprisingly, are symbolically linked in most cultures. Yet neither activity can be pursued without a certain moral ambiguity and pain. One of the philosophical answers to such moral ambiguity has been ascetic, aiming to pre-empt misery by foregoing the pleasures of the flesh. However, ascetic strategies often seem to come at the cost of denying life itself. This chapter examines how hunting confronts us with the fact that we are bodily beings “prey” to all the desires, pleasures and pains of this material world. The hunter “knows” the prey not in terms of abstract theoretical principles but in the “flesh:” in order for the hunter to be successful, s/he must attempt as much as possible to identify with and get inside the mind of the prey in order to track it.

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Moreover in killing, skinning and butchering the prey, hunters are confronted by the fact that all life, including their own, ultimately ends in death. I will argue that much of the anti-hunting debate reveals a fundamental discomfort with the body and death. Starting with the common equation of hunting as rape in anti-hunting discourse, I will demonstrate how, while this charge rests on this well known tie between sex and food, their very broad definition of rape quickly becomes a condemnation of sex (at least in its ‘carnal’ form). Moreover, while professing love for the sanctity of all life in general , many anti-hunting and vegetarian arguments reveal a fundamental discomfort with the particularities of biological life, specifically death and the flesh.

Unit 4: The Antler Chandelier: Hunting in Culture, Politics and Tradition

“Hunting Literature as Imaginative Atavism” Roger Scruton Research Professor, Philosophy Institute for the Psychological Sciences

That hunting should have been so important a theme in literature is hardly surprising. In many of its traditional forms hunting was dangerous, exciting, and the occasion for human virtue and skill – and is so described in the boar hunt which begins at line 428 of Book 19 of Homer's Odyssey . The hunt also provides a symbol of erotic pursuit, while at the same time it was associated in the ancient mind with chastity – both female and male. The stories of and Adonis both remind us that something severe and fearful is being invoked – something which threatens both sexual love and the life that springs from it. Hunting is a test of human resolve and solidarity, but hunting is not always a social activity. The loneliness of the solitary hunter is of a peculiar intensity, invoked in the line of Fiona McLeod: “My heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill.” The hunter is always on the verge of being lost, of falling into a mapless territory in which he is brought face to face with primeval fear and solitude. In both Maurice Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande and Hugh Brody’s reference to “the other side of Eden,” this loss of self belongs to pre-history, to the world before our settlements. This brings us by another route to the mystery of hunting. Those human societies that live by hunting had the greatest use for words, memory and song, but no use for literature. The written word belongs to that later stage of human development, in which eats up the land, in which hunter-gatherers become exiles in their territory and in which the city looms on the near horizon, sending messages on paper to all who buy and sell. In this light I analyse various works, including James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, Hermann Melville’s Moby Dick, Sir Gawain and the Green , William Somerville’s The Chase, Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones and the novels of R.S. Surtees. The landscape evoked is no longer the landscape of the farmer. Anybody who has felt the power of English hunting literature has glimpsed a world of pre-agricultural innocence to which we can return in imagination, but never in fact.

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“The Lure of the Craft: Primitive Archery in Contemporary North America” Kay Koppedrayer Department of Religion and Culture Wilfrid Laurier University

This chapter explores the contemporary North American phenomenon of hunting with simple and often hand-crafted weaponry. From the mid-1980s onwards there has been an increase in interest in hunting with hand-crafted bows made from wood, sinew, and other natural materials. The use of even more primitive weapons such as the atlatl has also gained in popularity. A large cottage industry has grown up around this phenomenon, with more and more people turning to full-time bow-making as a profession, while others craft bows part-time or as a pastime. Those involved come from a diverse cross-section of different educational, economic, and professional backgrounds. Publications such as the four-volume ’s Bible series (dating to the early- to mid-1990s) and magazines such as Traditional (in its 19th year of publication), Primitive Archer (in its 18th year of publication) and The Bowyer’s Craft (in its 6th year), along with several interactive websites such as Stickbow.com, Tradgang.com, and Paleoplanet.com circulate information and fan controversies about all manner of concerns, from traditional techniques to lifestyle statements to political stances. Drawing on this large body of published material as well as interviews and discussions with individuals active in traditional bow-hunting, this chapter discusses this phenomenon, paying attention to its growth and development, the economics it entails, the types of knowledge it involves, and how gender, class and understandings of the past and ideas of are implicated in this new tradition of traditional bow-making and bow-hunting. The chapter will also speculate upon the lure of this craft for those involved.

“Concerning Hunting: Hunting in Contemporary Art” Paula Lee Art History Summer Faculty, Sogang University Visiting Scholar, Harvard University

Inside the Western tradition, the human activity of hunting for animals has long been a primordial subject for visual representation. To cite the best known example: the Lascaux cave paintings in depict an organized hunt. In the contemporary present, artists such as Jordan Baseman, Angela Singer, and Damien Hirst have all made hunting and hunted animals the focus of their oeuvres. For various reasons, these artists are understood to take a negative stance toward the activity, inscribing their critique inside a larger discourse informed by animal and activism. It is an error, however, to assume that all contemporary artists share identical philosophies, or view hunting through a contemptuous lens. Recently, an installation by Mark Dion tackled directly the subject of hunting as an organized social activity. The work, “Concerning Hunting,” consists of five hunting blinds which invite visitors to confront the of different kinds of hunters, from the armchair hunter to the slob. Traveling to five European venues, the work offers a complex, layered, and humorous perspective on hunting, posing various questions about the relationship between hunting and representation. This paper will use Dion’s installation to situate an exploration of the politics and philosophies of modern hunting, as well as contrasting European and American attitudes to the practice.

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“The New Artemis? Women who Hunt” Debra Merskin School of Journalism & Communication University of Oregon

Hunting falls under the purview of traditionally male-dominated activities, such as sports and waging war (two not unrelated activities). This topic gained high visibility with the appointment of Sarah Palin as Republication Vice-Presidential nominee in 2008. Scholars note the connection between an erotics of hunting, objectification, (dis)regard of women, and cultivation of codes that actively contribute to a “harsh environment” of masculinity related to hunting (Gilmore, 1990, pp. 220-221). However, online conversations with women who hunt revealed similarities in motivations to those of men. Using a Yahoo Group, I posed several questions to women hunters about why they hunt, how they started hunting, whether or not they had childhood experiences hunting, if they found hunting-related magazines helpful, and whether or not they have experienced any challenges as women who hunt. Using Kheel’s (1995) categories of men who hunt (happy, holistic, and holy), I asked, do they fit women? In this chapter I take an ecological feminist view recognizing “important connections—historical, experiential, symbolic, and theoretical,” psychological and ecological “between the domination of women and the domination of nature” (Warren, 1990, p. 126). I examine the historical underpinnings for the gendered nature of hunting, explore women’s roles in hunting culture, and explore the responses of women who hunt in relationship to Kheel’s categories.

“Off the Grid: Hunting as a Subversive Activity” (tentative) James Carmine Department of Philosophy Carlow University

Civilization is a discontent for the hunter as well. Not only must civil society control our human propensity to join into irrational urban mobs, but also it must control our propensity as individuals to separate from civil society and live as unitary hunters. Civilization suffers an uneasy relationship with each individual’s capacity to step off the grid, alone, to kill and eat an animal. Hunting, on the other hand, punctuates this joyful uneasiness. Fundamentally, social ambivalence toward hunting is not a consequence of antagonism to killing animals, but an expression of civil society’s attempt to restrict the individual pursuit of self-sufficiency. This is particularly visible in stipulations on the hunter’s use and ownership of land. Distaste of hunting then, is not rooted in the civil gentry’s respect for animals, but rather in their justifiable fear of the hunter and hunting itself. The game animal, though designated “wild,” is actually the “civil animal” par excellence, and is the only animal legally hunted. Wild game animals remain controlled state regardless of the particular land on which the animals live. On the other hand, we can legally kill our own livestock at any time. Not so with civil animals. Hunting requires permits, allowing for the transformation of state property into by killing it. “Cuius region, eius religio.” Whose region, whose religion. Nevertheless, that licensed transformation remains troubling to civil society. The or the , despite the state’s attempt to create a civic creature by designating it “game,” can be transformed, in an instant, into private meat by the skilled hunter. And he who can kill the king’s stag may also kill the king.

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Even more dangerously, he may also live outside the region and the control of civil society. So the hunter’s tendency to private gain remains a continuous danger to state rule.

IV. Length & Timeline

The approximate length of this volume is about 90,000 words. Beer & Philosophy was approximately 85,000 words and Wine & Philosophy and Food & Philosophy were 92,000 and 98,000 words, respectively. By keeping chapters at around 4,000 words each, the volume will be kept below 100,000 words in total. The chapters listed above would be commissioned with a due date of December 15, 2009. Editing will take approximately two months (January and February), and the final manuscript will be submitted to Wiley-Blackwell by March 15, 2009.

V. The Editor

Nathan Kowalsky is assistant professor of philosophy at St. Joseph’s College, University of Alberta, and specialises in environmental ethics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of culture and philosophy of technology. He has published articles in Environmental Ethics and Ethical Perspectives, and is in the early stages of preparing a manuscript on the problem of evil in nature. Hunting was his gateway into environmental philosophy, and he continues to stock the larder every November with grass-fed, organic and free range from the shortgrass prairies of southeastern Alberta where he grew up – and truly lives.

VI. Call for Abstracts (issued June 14, 2009)

Call for Abstracts

Hunting & Philosophy

Nathan Kowalsky (ed.), St. Joseph’s College, University of Alberta [email protected]

Hunting is older than civilization, having played a central role in the artistic, religious and philosophical traditions of countless cultures. Yet few activities have been so controversial as hunting, for it touches the nerve of fundamental human questions like death, embodiment, nonhuman life, and . This book, which is part of the Wiley-Blackwell series Philosophy for Everyone, invites abstracts from relevant disciplines such as philosophy, anthropology, political theory, native studies, theology, history – as well

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as from thoughtful hunters. Abstracts and resulting selected papers should be written for an educated, but non-technical audience intrigued by hunting.

This anthology seeks to broaden the conversation about hunting, both by expanding the range of questions about the hunt that academics might address, and by opening the conversation to those who are most familiar with it. In addition to the standing corpus concerning the ethical justification of hunting, we also want to investigate less traditional topics that provide fresh perspectives on concrete hunting practices. While any relevant topic is welcome, the following suggestions may provide fertile ground for inspiration:

Vice or Virtue?

• The ethical status of hunting in general: is it fundamentally cruel? basic to human well-being? • Too close to nature or not close enough? hunting as totemism, savagery, distance or domination. • Are some kinds of hunting morally superior while others are morally reprehensible? • Submission to self-limitation, prey animals as “game,” and hunting as “sport.”

Will the Real Hunters Please Stand Up?

• Subsistence, sealing, , trophies and : a sport, a job, a crime or a way of life? • Is shooting varmints authentic hunting? targeting “bad” species like gophers, crows, and . • Using ‘everything but the voice:’ are hunters obligated to make use of all the prey’s body parts? • Do game farms, baiting or food plots (etc.) undermine real hunting? • What are the characteristics of a “slob hunter” and why do they matter?

Tools of the Trade:

• Archery, muzzleloading and : The rationale behind hunting with “primitive” weapons. • Technology, fair chase and field skill: radios, range finders, trail cameras, and other gadgetry. • Using other animals as weapons: , dogs, and human/non-human relationships. • , scents, decoys and honks: what wizardry is this?

Embodied Knowledge, Lived Experience:

• Signs, tracks and omens: reading the text of the Earth, communing with animals. • Sitting, stalking, flushing, calling: do some styles of hunting satisfy more than others? • How does experiencing a hunt compare to , , ranching, farming, shopping (etc.)? • Chasing pictures: could nature photography or virtual reality adequately replace the hunt?

Views of the World and Larger Realities:

• What is it like to hunt? phenomenologies or cosmologies of hunting. • Saying grace, taking photos or giving high-fives: how should hunters behave after a kill? • Death: love it or hate it? what hunting might teach us about being alive, sentient and mortal.

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• Hunting the sacred bear: god(s) and wild animals as numinous, hidden, dangerous and desired.

Wild Nature and Human Nature:

• The value of wild life: should hunters support the of wild animals like or ? • Wildlife population management and the introduction of non-native species for sporting purposes. • Hunting for a better ecology: do outdoorsmen possess a unique brand of environmentalism? • Evolution and human nature: did hunting make us a more violent or sympathetic species? • Is philosophy a form of hunting? Plato compared reasoning to omnivorous foraging.

Culture and Politics:

• Trophies and oak leaves: understanding hunting rituals, traditions and other quirks. • Rich guys and red necks: hunting and class division in Europe and North America. • The culture or politics of hunting in history and/or pre-history. • For white guys only? perspectives of aboriginal, non-European, female or gay hunters.

Guidelines for Contributions:

• Abstracts for papers (approximately 200 words) due by 15 July 2009 • Accepted authors will receive notification by 15 August 2009 • The submission deadline for accepted papers will be 15 December 2009 • Final papers must be between 4000 - 5000 words and be aimed at a general, educated audience.

Abstracts should be submitted electronically to [email protected] . Other proposals for series titles are also welcome; please direct those to Fritz Allhoff at [email protected] .

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