Abstract

In recent years, philosophers have begun to devote serious attention to animal rights issues. Most of the attention has focused on factory farming and animal experimentation. While many of the arguments used to justify sport hunting are shown to be spurious, the paper defends sport hunting on utilitarian grounds. The loss of sport hunting would also mean the loss of a major political pressure group working for the benefit of wildlife through the preservation of habitat. Peter Singer argues that “the shooting of a duck does not lead to its replacement by another.” I argue that, on the contrary, the shooting of a duck leads to the production of other ducks and other life forms that are not shot at.