On the Moral Significance of a Hunting Ethic

This paper challenges the claim made by critics and some defenders of hunting, that any ethical code hunters chose to follow is irrelevant to the issue of the morality of hunting. My case is made by (1) constructing a hunting code which meets certain prominent objections to its moral significance, (2) conceptually tying this code to an environmental ethic—Leopold's land ethic, and (3) tying the land ethic to a traditional moral theory—Aristotelian virtue ethics. So, the constructed code is morally significant because it is consistent with and made intelligible by a standard moral theory.