I just read a story about the death of Cecil the Lion. You may have heard of it already. Basically to sum it up, a dentist by the name of Dr. Palmer took a trip down to Zimbabwe to hunt. He went to a national park and shot Cecil with an automatic crossbow. Now, obviously this guy has issues with his masculinity. Was it morally right for him to shoot the lion for sport? Maybe if you follow the philosophy of egoism. This also brings up another question. Should hunting purely for sport be outlawed? In my opinion, absolutely. Sure, most of us don’t see an animal’s life as equal to another human’s. But what gives you the right to kill another creature in cold blood? I can understand if you have a need to kill to survive, or if there is an infestation. The fact that it is still okay to hunt for sport is just another example of cultural relativism. “Cultural relativism is a descriptive theory that states that different cultures have different moral codes”. (Rosenstand, 2013)

References

Rosenstand, N. (2013). The Moral of the Story: An Introduction to Ethics (7th ed., p. 232). New York, New York: McGraw Hill.

The Guardian. (2015, July 30). The Guardian view on Cecil the lion: the immorality is in the pleasure of the kill. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/30/the-guardian-view-on-cecil-the-lion-the-immorality-is-in-the-pleasure-of-the-kill