Virtue Ethics: The Makah Tribe Whale Hunt

Identify the parties and the moral issue(s) at stake. Identify the moral virtues that are at stake. Please use reading attached.

Case The Makah tribe claim to have hunted gray whales for more than 2,000 years. They stopped in the 1920s due to a decline in the number of gray whales. Now they want to return to the hunt to provide food for their tribe and to restore the young men’s sense of discipline and pride in their traditions. Pro-ponents of the hunt claim that a majority of the tribe support the hunt, which is expected to take fewer than the five whales they are permitted by law to kill. Tribal leaders claim they will take no pregnant or nursing females. Some Makah elders disagree, however, pointing out that the tribe survived for most of the twentieth century without eating whale meat and claiming that there are better ways to instill pride and discipline. The environmental community argues that the whale hunt is immoral because it violates the whales’ right to exist on the planet. Is it appropriate for nonmembers of the Makah tribe—for example, students in your class—to evaluate the morality of the Makah whale hunt? Explain.

Works Cited

All reading were taken from this book- Burnor, Richard, and Yvonne Raley. Ethical Choices: An Introduction to Moral Philosophy with Cases., 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.

The environmental community argues that the whale hunt is immoral because it violates the whales’ right to exist on the planet. Is it appropriate for nonmembers of the Makah tribe—for example, students in your class—to evaluate the morality of the Makah whale hunt? Explain.

Works Cited

All reading were taken from this book- Burnor, Richard, and Yvonne Raley. Ethical Choices: An Introduction to Moral Philosophy with Cases., 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.