Below Is a Scenario That Raises a Moral Question

Below is a scenario that raises a moral question. Using the strategies described in Chapter 13 of Doing Practical Ethics, develop a moral IBE that addresses the moral question and represent it in standard form. Then, write a brief paragraph of supplementary information for each premise (explaining what the premise is saying and why we should think it is true).
The scenario: A Makah Whale Hunt. Factual background: in the late 1990s, the Makah tribe of Neah Bay in Washington State, near the US border with Canada, fought a multi-
year, international political battle to restore the tribe's right to hunt whales. The whale hunts, an important part of their cultural history, had ended in the early 1900s, as whale populations collapsed in the face of large-scale commercial whaling. Then, in the 1980s, international bans on whale hunting were passed by most nations, including the USA, and whale hunting became illegal nearly everywhere, including Neah Bay. But in 1996, it was the Makah tribe's position that those laws did not apply to them; they maintained that their original treaty with the US government granted them the right to hunt whales.
Eventually, the tribe won its case and in 1999 a team of Makah men killed their first whale in living memory.
Fictional scenario: Ben is the 20-year-old nephew of a tribal elder. He has been invited to participate in the Makah tribe's second modern whale hunt, planned for the spring of 2000. The previous year he had watched as the first whale hunt brought the community together like he had never seen before. Everyone worked together to help the hunters train physically and prepare spiritually. Elders met to try to reconstruct, as best they could, any fragments of cultural memory of how the hunts had unfolded 100 years before. The preparations for the hunt were the focus of multiple conversations every day. When the men returned triumphantly, with the body of a gray whale in tow, the community's celebrations were long and intense. Ben ate a meal of barbequed whale meat, and it tasted to him like the best steak he'd ever had.
When he was invited to participate in the second hunt, Ben was deeply honored. He has practiced in his canoe daily, and is stronger than he has ever been. The whalers have gone on several retreats, to purify themselves and spiritually prepare for the hunt. These retreats have brought Ben closer to men in his community that he previously did not know well.
But as the day of the hunt drew closer, Ben's misgivings began to grow. Now, when he thinks about the hunt, he gets sick to his stomach. He knows well how intelligent the whales are, with a complex language that humans haven't even begun to decode. He has spent hours admiring them from the shore and from his canoe, and believes them to be gentle, even kind creatures. He cannot deny that last year's whale hunt had a positive effect on the community, but the tribe certainly doesn't need whale meat to survive.
Ben feels trapped in a moral dilemma. If he pulls out of the hunt at the last minute, he worries he will be wronging his community, including his uncle (the tribal elder who fought so hard for whaling rights), and the hunters he has grown close to over months of preparation. But if he participates, he worries he will be committing something that feels, to him, increasingly close to murder. What is the right thing for Ben to do in this situation?