Jenny asked:

Can you please help me to understand the subjective and objective views about fox hunting, whether
it be for or against it?

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Jenny, this is certainly a topical question!

Fox hunting is part of a wider question of human's treatment of animals, though it also seems to have
some extra baggage; these relate to questions of tradition and the way of life of those in the
countryside. Of course, whose lifestyle we are talking about is another matter; not everyone in the
countryside has a tradition of foxhunting.

Taking the first question about human treatment of animals, we can link this to other similar questions
that pop up on the TV or in the newspapers, issues like whether or not people wear leather or use
rabbits for the testing of cosmetics.

We could start by talking about rights, since we hear a lot of talk about rights in the media, and it
seems that people are prepared to go to extremes in the defence of certain rights, including so-called
'animal rights'. It's worth asking what is a right, where does it derive from, and do 'rights' apply only to
humans or to animals as well?

What are rights based on?

This is an important question for those who make major decisions based on the 'right' of some group
or people. Think how often you hear a group or individual lay claim to some right or other...the right to
life, the right to choose, the right to clean water... The list is long.

One approach to this, but by no means the only one, comes from the tradition of philosophers like
Immanuel Kant, and continued by John Rawls. This founds the idea of a right in the capacity of a
person to reflect on and think about an issue, before making a choice. And on the basis of this
rational capacity his or her choice is to be respected.

Well, if you accept this argument about rights for people based on their capacity to reflect on their
situation and make a choice that is best for them, do you think it also applies to animals?

Do they also reflect and make choices in a similar manner? There are arguments that the higher
primates show something like this kind of capacity.

Another way of looking at this question is to consider animals' and people's capacity to feel pain and
to suffer. This is a separate tradition but one which has been hugely influential. It seems that in 'a
nation of animal lovers', many people's attitude towards animals is based on their feelings of
sympathy for them; that is, to treat them in such a way so as not to cause pain to them. Or, at least
(for those who eat meat, for example), to treat them in a humane manner, presumably by giving them
a comfortable life followed by a swift and painless death.

On this account, we can see why some people oppose fox hunting, since they allege it causes
needless suffering.

Just from these two accounts of how people should regard animals, we can get two different accounts
of how we should regard the fox. You could call these two views objective, because they identify main
features of animals and people, rather than looking at individual cases. They suggest to us that
reasoned debate, leading to a solution, is possible.

Now, just to focus a bit more on the particular problem of fox hunting....

Presumably drawing on some kind of argument that a fox itself doesn't have any great value (it's not
like a person, etc), the pro-hunting lobby often present their case as one of freedom. That is, not so
much a issue of the treatment of animals but one of having the freedom to do what one wants, as
long as it doesn't interfere with other people.

Here, you could say that they are asking for the freedom to do what they want to do, just as many
groups in society do. The issue becomes a political one, that of the issues of one group in society,
rather than a question about cruelty to animals.

You also hear arguments based on tradition, that fox-hunting has a long history. But do you think that,
just because you have done something in the past, you should be allowed to keep on doing it? It's
easy to think of traditions that have died out and nobody wants to bring them back; having a monarch
with absolute power would be one example. At the same time, some people would argue that we
shouldn't be too quick to do away with our traditions, because of their educational value and formative
role in our identity. After all, there's now a big market catering to those who want to define their
'Britishness'- just look at all the history programmes on TV!

There's also a practical argument made in favour of fox-hunting, that it kills 'vermin'. Unfortunately, I
don't know much about this- I guess you'd have to ask a scientist to check whether this claim is true
or not!

One last 'objective' approach to fox-hunting is to ask about the character, the personality, of someone
who takes part in fox-hunting. If you think that the killing of foxes in this way is cruel, then does that
make someone who enjoys the hunt cruel? If someone enjoys taking part in a practice that leads to
the death of a fox, does that raise doubts about their attitude towards people? Are they more likely to
be, simply, 'a mean person'?

To come back to your question about subjective views of fox-hunting....

Of course, you could say that none of the above abstract 'tools' for deciding whether fox hunting is
reprehensible are as relevant to what you think and feel now. Despite the very eloquent development
of the two opposing views outlined above, we don't seem to have solved the issue. No argument has
been produced such that it wins over one side completely- we still don't have any consensus.
Although we don't have agreement, we might soon have legislation prohibiting it. But that's another
matter.

Andy Lambert