Originally Posted by Taip3n

Ecosystem degradation?
Biodiversity degradation?
Predator/Prey relationships?
Shift in food web structure?
Deep sea ecology changes?
Population expansion and implosion?
Massive population decreases?
The Marine Management and culling fallacy?
Removal of key species (large top predator) from ecosystem?
Foraging ranges and behavioural changes?
Extinction at all levels?
Knock on effects on other species?
Changes in generalist and specialist hunters?
Removal of mammal species like seal and increase in groundfish?
Removal of phytoplankton for zooplankon? And subsequent changes in everything in the ecosystem?
Science; Biology; Environmental Biology; Ecology? (Laughable that 'scientific research' by Japanese politicos is claimed when Science already knows, or at worse suspects and needs to study more trends from Marine and terrestrial studies).
Iconic animals/'large predators' usually only the media face of a travesty underneath in Habitat/Environment protection?
Future Scientific research (real scientific research not the Japanese poppycock)
Future human awareness?
Dolphin and Whale Intelligence? And research in this?
Sustainable Development? Which includes the end part - 'for future generations', too?
Species extinction before Science has even recorded them?
Man realising 'he's' not God?
About, well, all the Scientific research and experience in Environment and Biology since Darwin?
Past knowledge on extinctions, Biodiversity? and Environment?
History?


I don't think we can 'think' our way through laws and philosophy - facts are what Science is about. Environmental Biologists, Ecologists and Marine Biologists, look for facts. These are a few they have come up with that are problems. A PHD in Philosophy wont work on this one (not at you Sordavie but I think highbrowing by many miss the point, and how would you say: make smoke screens to the real issues to falter an argument and bemuse the opponent into silence? It's not about 'our great highbrow thinking' as we pat ourselves for being so clever - Isn't it Douglas Adams that pointed out our ancestors wanted to know what colour we'd like fire and since the leaf was the currency and made everyone very rich but the leaf as currency inconsenquential, a great way to increase value was to burn down all the trees). Reality and getting with the program instead of our high and mighty thinking will. Problem is humans wont get real and believe they are above everything. I'd still bet my money - and I am no betting man - some smart remark would come though, to fly in the face of not what I write, but thousands of people that work in this field as Scientists, and teach Students at University, to try and study, but also raise awareness to halt this, and work in this field too.
One last then:

The World being fragile and can not sustain our parasiticness?
So where do the parasites go since we are part of the world and not apart from the ecosystem?

And the above is by no means exhaustive. I studied Environmental Biology, not Marine Biology, but a few things that allude to other things not mentioned and a whole lot more. But here's a few to chew on.

Since I am not up to date nor as brilliant as the biologist E.O Wilson. I'd refer you to him too.

What? Can you explain what you are trying to say more clearly? A bunch of phrases proceeded by question marks doesn't really get across whatever you're trying to say.

The question of what we should be doing is one that's informed by facts, but is not one that can be answered merely by looking at facts. That is sometimes called the is-ought problem. The problem is that one cannot infer how things ought to be by how things actually are. Biological research programs can tell us how things are, but pure biology cannot tell us how things ought to be - that is, they cannot tell us how we ought to act to realize how things will be in the future.

The question of how we ought to act is the domain of philosophy: ethics (how we morally ought to act), decision theory (how we rationally ought to act), and so on. Of course the answer to how we ought to act is often informed by how things are. But it is not entailed by how things are.

When scientists claim that we should or should not do this based on their research, they are making claims that go beyond presenting the claims that are supported by their empirical data. They are making normative claims. That requires reasoning that's got nothing to do with the science. When a biologist says that overfishing will destroy the ecosystem. That is a descriptive claim. It's a claim about how things are. But when a biologist says that we shouldn't overfish because it will destroy the ecosystem, that is a normative claim. It's a claim about what we should or shouldn't do, given the way things are. This latter claim is not a scientific claim. It's a philosophical claim. It contains a scientific claim as a part, but it is a philosophical claim. The subject in that claim is us and how we ought to act - not the ecosystem.

I asked for arguments that hunting whales is unacceptable in any form. Part of the reasons contained in those arguments surely will be scientific facts. However, those facts alone won't suffice to entail the conclusion that hunting whales is unacceptable in any form.