Alex Farmer

PHIL-2300
July 26, 2016
Final Paper
The Balance of Both
In the video 30 Days: Animal Rights, in Module 3, we observe a
modern day hunter named George Snoker who takes on the challenge of
living with a vegan, PETA family for 30 days. In Georges initial interview, he
expresses his love for hunting, his thoughts on the purposes of particular
animals, as well as his intentions and hopes for accepting the challenge of
living with a family that has a lifestyle/views so different from his own. In this
video, many observations are being made and practices are being
discovered that made me question my own values. If I truly believe that
animals have these unquestionable rights, would I be morally obligated to be
a vegetarian as well?
When rights and values are only applied to humans, this is the idea of
humanism; placing ourselves into the moral circle. Bringing this to light is the
essence behind the video and the PETA family bringing George into their
home. Rene Descartes explains this well with the ideas of mind/body dualism
and how the separation of the mind from the body by views and practices
have been so normalized by our society, that to see it otherwise is out of the

norm. When animals are given instrumental value, we cant see them as
anything but property, product and tools. Once we value their autonomy,
however, we can open up our capacity to respect, reason, will and to act.
This idea can be clearly seen in George Snokers first interview when he
states, a deer, a cow, a chicken; I think their sole purpose is to feed usI
love my dogs, but they are dogs. They are in fact here to serve me. Though
towards the end of his stay with the PETA family, we can see a shift in
thought, that for George, there might be more to animals than what has
been typically normalized by much of society. When I go back, Im gonna
be a different person. You cant witness the things that Ive witnessed and
not be changed or affectedwho couldnt change? Ive changed.1 We can
clearly see here the shift from someone looking at an animal with nothing
but instrumental value, to giving them more of an intrinsic one.
Over time, our views of nature have gone from a much more
respectable view (and maybe not even in an intrinsic way because we have
always been killing/eating animals) to a more mass produced product.
Georges experience displays to us, in a nutshell, societies views of the roles
and values of animals and nature, and ends it by showing us what this
relationship potentially could be with a level of openness and understanding.
This example follows Carolyn Merchants idea of seeing nature in an organic
way, to a mechanistic way. Merchant says, how we view nature effects how
we treat it, and Georges experience and initial feelings about animals in
1 George Snoker, 30 Days: Animal Rights
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particular, couldnt be a better example of this statement. With it being

realized that we center all things of the earth around ourselves and our own
values, we can then begin to realize and see the need for a new
environmental ethics as Richard Sylvan suggests, one in which nature has
value that is independent of our own interests.
In order to maintain the dependent environment that we have created
to inevitably rely on us, it is important to acknowledge the balance and
benefits of animal rights as well as hunting. The side of hunting has been
well explained by Jared Diamonds Must We Shoot Deer to Save Nature?. In
it, Diamond describes the Fontanelle forest in Omaha, Missouri that has two
rules that it follows; (1) all plant and animal life is strictly protected; (2) no
hunting, fishing, or weapons.2 In underlying words, no interference by
humans. Diamond goes on to explain that though the intentions behind the
rules that govern this forest are well, its demise seems to be inevitable
because of them. When the deer population is not being controlled, seeds
and other ground foliage are being eaten, which doesnt allow the forest to
set itself up for future generations, and this is just one example of many of
forests like this being negatively affected because of a lack of population
control. At the end of his writing he states, In short, for most of the earth
there is no pristine state, unaffected by humans, to which we can point-at
least, none that we could attain again. Instead, we must choose one among
many human-altered states for our management efforts.2 So we can look
2 Jared Diamond, Must We Shoot Deer to Save Nature?, n.p., 1992
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back at Georges visit with the PETA family, and although his decision to still
hunt may not have been to manage the population for the preservation of
the forests, but by continuing this practice, he is indirectly saving much more
by sacrificing the life of a deer. George also goes on to say that he will
support animal rights as well, but that many of his other decisions will
contain much more thought behind them. Some may think this to be a
contradiction, however, I do understand the reasoning behind it. The point of
this is to show that there can be a middle ground between respecting an
animals right to not suffer and the need for hunting, still in respect of those
rights. It can be agreed upon by most that factory farming and mass
slaughter should be a thing of the past, that the right to a decent life should
be had by all, so for this control, we do need the vegetarians. But as well,
without the hunters, populations would become so out of control from the
last 200 years of doing away with the predators that naturally did this for us,
that habitats, forests, ecosystems would perish themselves.
In a book by Gary L. Francione and Robert Garner titled, The Animal
Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation?, Francione delves into the ideas of
Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mills, and Peter Singer and the idea of finding
the balance of the treatment of animals. With it, Francione describes his
three terms of animal rights: (1) stop our institutionalized exploitation of
nonhuman animals; (2) cease bringing domesticated nonhumans into
existence; and (3) stop killing non-domesticated animals and destroying their
habitat. He follows with saying that he does not believe that animals should
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have the same rights as humans, because a pig does not have a need to
vote. But he does argue that they should have a right not to be treated as
the sole property of humans. Even further, Garner argues that animal
welfare regulation can serve as a means to the end of the abolition of animal
use or at least to a significant reduction of animal use and animal suffering.3
He calls the idea of combining these rights and the welfare of nonhuman
animals in a theoretical and practical package called the new-welfarist
position. This position maintains the rights of animals, but as well makes it
acceptable for humans to use animals for some purposes that treats them
humanely and does not impose unnecessary suffering on them for the
betterment of a bigger group. I interpret this to include hunting as well, as
this backs up the idea of utilitarianism. We need animals, and animals need
us, almost interchangeably for the good of the many (people, animals, and
environments such as the Omaha Forest).
The idea of granting an animal rights similar to our own, but still being
allowed to hunt it no longer seems like a contradictory idea to me. Rather it
seems like a balance to accommodate for the world that we currently live in,
so that future generations of both animals and humans may benefit. If we
eat animals in abundance, factory farming thrives, and we take away the
rights of the nonhuman animal. If we stop hunting, animals take over their
habitats and inevitably kill themselves as well as the ecosystems they live in.

3 Gary L. Francione, Robert Garner, The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or

Regulation? Columbia UP, 2010. Print.
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We can make a choice that meets the needs of both sides, fulfills the rights
and extends the moral circle past ourselves, as well as preserves the
environment for future generations. With this, I do not take one side or the
other, as I now feel morally obligated to enforce both.

Bibliography
"30 Days." Animal Rights. Planet Green. 17 June 2008. Television.
Diamond, Jared. "Must We Shoot Deer to Save Nature?" Omaha: n.p.,
1992. N. pag. Print.
Francione, Gary L., and Robert Garner. Abolition or Regulation?
Chichester: Columbia UP, 2010. Print.