Seal Hunting Case Study

3) Seal hunting has become generally frowned upon in recent decades, as recounted in the case study on “Seal Hunting and the Fate of the Inuit.” Animal rights activists have been able to successfully cause the “collapse” of the sealskin market by drawing public attention to the sometimes brutal ways in which seals, especially baby seals, are slaughtered and harvested for their skins. For a great many people, the successful destruction of the seal industry was a tremendous victory for animal rights and against inhumane practices. However, the clampdown on the industry adversely affected Canada’s indigenous Inuit people, for whom seal harvesting is integral to their economy, way of life, and culture. Thanks in part to the decline in the seal …show more content…
This is because, as Singer would likely see it, although the Inuit people may suffer to a greater or lesser degree at not being able to kill seals to sustain their way of life, that suffering is still quantifiably less than that suffered by the thousands of seals slaughtered in the name of that way of life, sometimes in brutal ways. Supposing though that the Inuit could carry out their killing painlessly, he may view some amount of seal hunting to be morally acceptable, in acknowledgement of the fact that the Inuit would be spared their way of life (and spared from the disastrous social and economic consequences of losing it) while the seals would be spared some of the suffering that accompanies seal harvesting. The key element for a utilitarian like Singer is that overall utility must be maximized, no matter how it is distributed or how that is accomplished. If allowing painless seal harvesting would maximize utility, he would allow it. If not, he would certainly ban the …show more content…
This is because Regan’s position offers no hope that their way of life will be spared, as his non-consequentialist views would not allow him to make any exceptions to the moral duty to not kill other creatures that have inherent value. Singer, on the other hand, will at the very least give as much weight to the suffering that would be caused to the Inuit as to the suffering inflicted upon the seals. Thus, if they were able to show that utility could be maximized somehow by allowing seal hunting to continue (at least in some form), then Singer would allow them to continue their