Q&A 6, Answer

My question is: Is killing an animal less immoral if one then uses all parts of that animal, regardless of need?

Many people seem to subscribe to the belief that this is the case.  I do not think that I agree.  The usage of different parts of an animal after it is dead does no less harm to the animal; it is still dead.  While using all of its corpse may seem 'respectful,' the dead animal does not care about respect.  It does not care about anything, because it is dead.

Nor does the usage of the corpse justify killing the animal any more than it may already have been justified.  In a situation in which one does not need to use any parts of an animal's corpse, then one should not kill the animal, since there is no need to do so.  If one does so, and does not use any of the corpse, that is unethical.  If one does so and then uses all of the corpse, it is still unethical, since none of those uses were necessary.  Really, upon analysis, this notion seems almost ridiculous.

If one does need the corpse of an animal, to survive or for some other weighty reason which might justify discounting the life of the animal, then under no reasonable circumstances would one kill the animal and then fail to use its corpse!  That would, indeed, be unethical, but more than that it would be nonsensical.  If one kills the animal and then uses its corpse, killing the animal may have been morally justifiable, but not because of the use one made of its remains.  Instead, the action was justifiable because of the circumstances surrounding it, which necessitated an otherwise immoral deed.

And therein, I think, lies the source of this common conception.  Most of the time, people who use the entirety of animals' corpses do so because they need to, not because they want to.  People in so-called third world countries who have few to no resources and have the means to hunt animals use all of those animals' corpses, because those are the only resources they have available for whatever purposes they need them for, at least without expending a great deal more time and effort to hunt more animals.  Such people may be justified in hunting, and therefore their actions afterwards are inextricably linked to that justness, regardless of whether or not those actions are remotely morally relevant.

In short - no, killing an animal is no less immoral if one then uses all parts of that animal, but in the (relatively rare) circumstances in which one is justified in killing an animal, one is much more likely to utilise all or most parts of the corpse out of necessity.