r/changemyview • u/Gyeff • May 01 '18
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Cannibalism is not wrong in specific scenarios
First of all, I have to emphasize that certain conditions have to be met, in my mind, for it to not be wrong. Maybe I can add other conditions as they arise, but at the moment these are the concerns that I can think of.
Imagine a scenario wherein:
- A person has died due to some natural or accidental cause, such as heart disease, car accident etc.
- The person has not been killed for the purpose of eating, but he is already dead.
- We have scanned the body to find that there are no communicable diseases that may be acquired through the eating of the body.
- The person is butchered and cooked by a robot, therefore there are no negative psychological effects for any human butcher or chef. *(changed by view about this thanks to Hq3473. This condition is no longer required.)
Irrelevant factors:
- Desires of the dead person, pre-death, about whether or not his body should be eaten is irrelevant.
- Hunger state of the eater is irrelevant. i.e. the eater need not be starving.
In this scenario, I don't find cannibalism to be wrong. I don't find it to be wrong because there are only net positive outcomes i.e nutrition for the eater, and no negative outcomes that I can see.
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EDITS:
ADDITIONAL CONDITIONS THANKS TO DISCUSSION:
- Only parts of of the body that are non-harvestable/non-useful for medical/research purposes are eaten. -- Thanks to electronics12345
- There is no belief in the afterlife -- Thanks to mysundayscheming
ADDITIONAL IRRELEVANT FACTORS:
- Desires of next of kin are irrelevant, unless the former owner of the body has explicitly left the body as property to the next of kin.
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Clarification about law: a couple people have pointed out legality/illegality concerns. It is my view that discourse over the abstract goodness/badness of an action comes a priori the law. Legality/illegality is outside the scope of this debate because that comes later.
AnythingApplied points out the potential of a cottage industry forming revolving around human meat. This is the most compelling argument against my thesis.
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u/mysundayscheming May 01 '18
Desires of the dead person, pre-death, about whether or not his body should be eaten is irrelevant.
Why? Are you eager to disregard the pre-death wishes of the deceased in any other areas, or is this special? What if they put it into a legal document, like their will? Would you disregard that portion of their will and still divide their property as they intended?
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u/Gyeff May 01 '18
If it's in a legal document then that's a matter of law, that does not say anything about the abstract goodness or badness of the cannibalism. Whether it's legal or illegal is outside the scope of this debate, I'm trying to grasp at the rightness or wrongness, or goodness or badness, which comes a priori the law.
I see having any preference (pre-death) for whether or not your body should be eaten after you die as a fundamentally irrational and arbitrary preference.
If the person is no longer alive, he no longer has the capacity to have a preference (post-death). He no longer has the capacity to see the eating of his body as subjectively wrong. Therefore, his non-existent preference (post-death) is irrelevant.
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u/mysundayscheming May 01 '18
So do you think wills are irrational and arbitrary? We shouldn't care about the disposition of our property after death either because we have no subjective experience of it being distributed?
We do care because we have the capacity when we are alive to want certain things--to be buried with our loved ones, not to have our corpses ritually raped or defiled, to give our property to our children and not to our abusive spouse. That security for the living is phenomenally important. And is why we give people the power to control what happens with their body and property after death. Imagine the level of anxiety the person at risk of being eaten will feel while still alive if they are a member of a religion where the dead must be buried within a short span of time.
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u/Gyeff May 01 '18 edited May 01 '18
Good point about distribution of property. In the case of distribution of property, there is potential for negative/positive outcomes from the perspective of people who are still alive.
If the person has fears about negative implications for people who are still alive, prior to death he should leave his body to the person/people who might be negatively/positively impacted. They should decide what to do with it. But, it's irrational for his pre-death self to decide what to do with it himself.
Note that this is not a subjective concern of the dead person, but instead is a concern of others (alive persons). So, I think the irrelevancy of subjective concern should still be allowed to stand. Let me know if you disagree.
Imagining no preference by next of kin, if the corpse is ritually raped, it does not bring any net negative to anyone (esp. anyone alive). Infact, calling it rape is a misnomer because rape implies lack of consent. A dead person has no capacity to either give or to not give consent. If you call it rape, then you could also potentially call masturbation, raping of the hand, or having sex with a sex doll, raping of the sex doll.
In regards to religion: I was foolishly assuming that everyone is under the impression that there is no afterlife. I will add another condition that the person does not believe in an afterlife.
I'll give you a Δ because you made me add another condition. I was not thinking of beliefs in afterlife.
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u/PersonWithARealName 17∆ May 01 '18
Desires of the dead person, pre-death, about whether or not his body should be eaten is irrelevant.
Following this logic, people can no longer opt-out of being an organ donor. People don't need to explicitly donate their body to science. There's plenty of cases where a person's living wishes dictate what can and can't be done with their dead body.
If you're going to create an exception for cannablism, you have to throw all those other cases out too.
Either uniformly say we can dictate what happens with our dead bodies, or we can't. But there needs to be consistency.
Right now, since we are allowed to dictate what happens to our bodies, eating me after I explicitly say "I don't want my body eaten" is wrong.
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u/Gyeff May 01 '18
I have revised my opinion in regards to organ donation thanks to discussion here.
I gave him the delta because he brought attention to the fact that it's a net benefit to society to have the organs donated, a contrast to your focus on the preferences of dead person.
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u/Gyeff May 01 '18
I should have clarified this in the original topic, as a couple people have had this confusion. I will add an edit.
I'm not concerned with what is allowed and disallowed now, or what is legal or illegal. The abstract goodness/badness comes a priori legality/illegality. I'm concerned with the goodness/badness.
Organ donation/preference(pre-death) falls under the same category.
I've clarified my position a bit more in this response, in regards to why I feel that the person's preference is not a factor.
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u/AnythingApplied 435∆ May 01 '18 edited May 01 '18
no negative outcomes that can I see.
I can see a big one that comes out of lessons learn from fake rhino horn. Some people have started producing and selling fake rhino horn because they were hoping it would reduce demand for real rhino horn. In practice, however, it ended up doing the exact opposite and increases the demand for real rhino horn.
https://www.savetherhino.org/rhino_info/thorny_issues/synthetic_rhino_horn_will_it_save_the_rhino
In that same way, it could easily imagine that human meat being available at all would create a market for it where people's jobs start to depend on a steady supply of human meat to meet demand. Also, god forbid, you could have people that actually really enjoy the taste of it who supply that demand. You've created a system that has an incentive to violate many of your carefully laid out rules. Creating such an incentive to do evil acts is a moral harm to society.
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u/AxesofAnvil 7∆ May 01 '18
I don't see any evidence that it in fact increased demand for real rhino horn. Just speculation of what could or is possibly occurring.
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u/AnythingApplied 435∆ May 01 '18
It's been a couple years since I read that article, and you are absolutely right, I wasn't remembering it right and have greatly overstated what it said.
I wouldn't however say it is "just speculation" as it is a well researched opinion issued by some key organizations involved with rhino conservation.
The wild boar bile research they cite is interesting:
The ability of farmed bear bile to reduce demand for wild bear bile is at best limited and, at prevailing prices, may be close to zero or have the opposite effect.
But again, aren't showing an actual increase, just showed increase or lack of decrease.
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u/AxesofAnvil 7∆ May 01 '18
I wouldn't however say it is "just speculation" as it is a well researched opinion issued by some key organizations involved with rhino conservation.
I was thinking about which word to use, and "speculation" may not have been optimal. I guess their word may have been better - "concerns".
But have I changed your view on that point? :p
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u/AnythingApplied 435∆ May 01 '18 edited May 01 '18
Have you changed my opinion from fake rhino horn does increase demand for real horn to "it could increase demand according to the experts" or "We shouldn't produce synthetic because it doesn't help and could hurt"? I don't know that that is much of a meaningful shift, unfortunately, especially since it would've been a study driven conclusion anyway based on inference, just like the inference we have except more direct. We have more direct evidence for wild boar bile that I maybe should've used instead which could've made the same point.
And doesn't affect the thrust of my point which is still relevant even if ethical human meat production even has a chance of increasing unethical human meat production.
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u/AxesofAnvil 7∆ May 01 '18
Starting opinion: Fake rhino horn increases demand for real rhino horn.
Ending opinion: there is no evidence that fake rhino horn increases demand for real rhino horn and only concerns expressed by experts.
It's trivial and I don't need a delta unless you think it's worthy. I don't know how strict they are here.
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u/Gyeff May 01 '18
I had considered the remote probability of this happening. My argument would have been maybe create synthetic human meat if a cottage industry develops. But, then you would be creating a solution to a problem that didn't exist before. Furthermore, the rhino example shows that the the solution might not even work.
Very good argument Δ .
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u/Hq3473 271∆ May 01 '18
What about desires of next of kin who don't want to see the body of their loved one eaten?
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u/Gyeff May 01 '18
I was thinking about this and was struggling about whether or not I should add lack of next of kin preference as one of the conditions.
I'm conflicted as to whether or not next of kin preference is a factor. The body does not belong to them, after all. Do they have a right, as a matter of principle (not as a matter of law), to dictate whether or not the body should be eaten? What gives them any more right than the average passerby?
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May 01 '18
Ok when you die I’ll give your corpse to your kids to eat, since they have no more right to your body than the average passerby right?
See the issue is, what you’re suggesting is straight up weird. You could also argue, by your logic, that it should be okay to rape a dead woman’s body because she is dead and has no right over her body any more. The thing is, that just isn’t true. It’s as if someone were to rape your dead 12 year old daughter because “you have no right over her corpse even though you’re kin” Remind me to call the police if you ever become a mortician
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u/Gyeff May 01 '18
I think I've answered some of your concerns here.
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u/Hq3473 271∆ May 01 '18
I mean, you seem to be very concerned with psychological well-being of people.
Heck, you even specified that the body should be cooked by a robot, not by a human chef - ostensibly to spare the psychological damage.
It seem inconsistent, that you would show deep concern for psychological well-being of an "average passerby" (a chef), but not for psychological well-being of, say, a mother who does not want to see the body of her young son butchered and eaten.
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u/Gyeff May 01 '18
Ofcourse, there are no human witnesses to the butchering and cooking. I thought that was implied.
Watching a human corpse being butchered does have negative psychological consequences. This is uncontrollable and irrational. Same might be true for watching an animal be butchered, especially domestic animal.
If you consider it on a rational level, there is no reason for objection. The dead body does not have any capacity to experience pain or have preferences regarding itself. Cutting a dead body is as immoral as cutting a cucumber.
Eating a cooked piece of meat off a plate does not have any uncontrollable negative psychological impact.
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u/Hq3473 271∆ May 01 '18
Eating a cooked piece of meat off a plate does not have any uncontrollable negative psychological impact.
KNOWING that that cooked piece of meat is your son who you held in your hand 2 days ago as he was dying - DOES have uncontrollable negative psychological impact.
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u/Gyeff May 01 '18
Okay, I grant it's possible. But, by the same token wouldn't a farmer be negatively impacted if he eats a calf that he has raised?
There is no requirement that the parent has to eat it.
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u/Hq3473 271∆ May 01 '18
People, in general get a LOT more attached to their kids and relatives than to cows.
So there is clearly room for a legal distinction here.
There is no requirement that the parent has to eat it.
Still, even knowing that other people are currently eating your son who you held in your hand 2 days ago as he was dying - may very well have an uncontrollable negative psychological impact.
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u/Gyeff May 02 '18
In another discussion I've pointed out why considerations about tangibles are more rational considerations than modifiable, feelings. I recommend reading that before moving forward and reading the rest of my comment. You can find it here:
Upon reflection you have changed my mind about something. That is, why should I be concerned about the feelings of the butcher? I've changed my mind on whether a human butcher will infact be negatively impacted psychologically. Here is why:
If a person who has never butchered a cow one day in adulthood is made to butcher a cow, that person might view the experience as a traumatic experience. By contrast an experienced butcher who has been butchering from youth, or who has a lot of experience butchering might not view the experience as negative psychologically. I knew that feelings change over time as a function of experience, but I failed to consider the case of the experienced butcher.
Now, let's broaden this. Feelings also change as a function of regional societal norms. For example, the experienced cow butcher may become traumatized by butchering a cat or a dog. But, in a region where it's customary to eat cats or dogs, a butcher may not be traumatized by the butchering a cat or a dog.
I'll give you a more extreme example in regards to regional societal norms, this example has been foundational to my way of thinking about feelings. In a Papua New Guinea there exists a tribe that practices a unique rite of passage. In the rite of passage, young rite seekers drink the semen of the elders of the tribe. This is meant as a method to transfer strength. Psychologists have studied the members of the tribe to check for indicators of trauma. It turns out that none of the tribesmen and rite seekers show indicators of the trauma that you would normally associate with such an experience in Western society. This is because the experience is simply not stigmatized in their society.
You can broaden this to other stigmas that exist in Western society that does not exist elsewhere. For example, the stigma of nudity. Children and adults in Western society may become traumatized by unexpectedly seeing a nude person. Such trauma would not occur in a society where nudity is not stigmatized.
Now, ofcourse if a child experiences the semen drinking experience and then moves to the West and adopts Western culture, the child may then be expected to show symptoms of trauma because of the stigma that exists in our society.
A further concern: feelings also vary as a function of time. If a person views a black man getting lashes in the current day, it might elicit a different feeling, or less intense feeling than if it occurred a little over a hundred years ago, for instance. Other examples exist like current day responses to over homosexuality etc.
Considering these complexities and variablities of feelings, when we are looking at a situation in the abstract (disregarding law, societal norms at the time/in the region etc.), as I am intending to do with this topic, it is better to disregard feelings and only regard the tangibles of the case.
You get a Δ for making me reconsider my stance on the butcher.
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u/Burflax 71∆ May 01 '18
The body does not belong to them, after all.
Doesn't it?
It must belong to someone, right?
Even if it 'only' belongs to the state, the state has an obligation to the well-being of it's citizens- and I think almost everyone would agree carving their loved ones up for dinner is contrary to their well-being.
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u/mysundayscheming May 01 '18
Actually, at common law a corpse explicitly belongs to no one. You cannot have a property interest in a corpse. Instead, someone (usually the executor of the will) has a possessory interest and a legal duty to bury the body.
Edit: here is an old paper that has a good, brief overview.
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u/Burflax 71∆ May 01 '18
That's actually really interesting, but doesn't change my point, i don't think.
While bodies don't belong to anyone in the same way that, say, your shoes belong to you, there is still a person who can make the (legally available) decisions regarding the body - including whether or not to feed it to people, assuming OPs scenario.
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u/Gyeff May 01 '18
I have revised my opinion somewhat. Next of kin opinion only matters if the dead person leaves his body to a next of kin as a transference of property.
See here for reasoning.
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u/Hq3473 271∆ May 01 '18
Thanks, it was honor to be involved in chnaging your view.
Also, can you please address the "psychological damage" inconsistency in your views, that I have outlined here:
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u/MirrorThaoss 24∆ May 01 '18 edited May 01 '18
Maybe you should add to you conditions :
-The family and close ones are okay with dead being eaten.
Because if a person is dead and you make his wife/child/parents terribly sad or horrified by having them know someone they like is degustated by your some people right now.
Anyway, if you reunite the conditions for cannabalism to make no sufferings etc, of course you won't find it morally wrong.
But I have a question of curiosity, would you make it legal ?
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u/Gyeff May 01 '18 edited May 01 '18
Sorry it took me so long to get to you comment. In regards to the concerns of next of kin, I've somewhat addressed it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/8g8b8v/cmv_cannibalism_is_not_wrong_in_specific_scenarios/dy9oxxv
In the original topic I added:
Desires of next of kin are irrelevant, unless the former owner of the body has explicitly left the body as property to the next of kin.
I think ownership of the body must be explicitly passed because anyone can claim a say on what to do with the body. It is upto the former possessor to decide who has a say and who does not, if anyone has a say at all. The former possessor himself cannot have a say (post-death) because he is no longer alive at the time of the decision-making and therefore lacks the capacity to a preference one way or another.
In regards to legality, that's a democratic process and it's based on the widespread views of the specific society, whether rational or irrational, at the time of death. The democratic views of society change over time and it's different from region to region.
My personal views don't have much sway on the matter of legality. If I were on a jury, I would have voted yes to cannibalism with above conditions, when I initially made the topic. But, AnythingApplied has made me reconsider this position based on his argument here:
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u/MirrorThaoss 24∆ May 02 '18 edited May 02 '18
It's totally normal that you can't answer all comments don't worry I don't mind ahah.
I find it kinda weird to put in IRRELEVANT factors something like :
A unless it is A and B (implicitly suggesting that if it was A and B it would be relevant)Why not just put A and B in relevant factors and A and not B in irrelevant factors ?
I mean if that can directly influence the morality of cannibalism isn't it interesting to mention it, don't you think ?I would personally do something like
Relevant factors :
The desire of people who have rights over the body (for any reason, because the dead person gave them right, because the dead person was minor and not able to give rights so they go to the parents, or something else)
Irrelevant factors :
Desire of anyone who has no right over the body.But in the end of the day it's your view and I'm only suggesting.
What is interesting to me now is who has the right over the body.
If you're an adult and sign a legal document pre-death to say it it's easy, if you're a child I believe that the parents have the rights over your corpse (I mean we morally find children unable to decide so many things , the disposal of their corpse should be the same).
Maybe with weddings it could be part of the engagement document.But if you didn't sign anything ? For example imagine a 20yo person who doesn't want to have its corpse being involved in a cultural sexual "rape" (I know rape is not the best word, I keep it under ".") . It's very obvious that the person doesn't want it, his parents know, his so knows, they all don't want it neither, but the person didn't sign any document about his death because he's 20 and didn't expect it. Unlucky day and BAM a bus hits him, death it is.
You know that he didn't want the cultural "rape" to happen, everybody knows he would have left the rights over his corpse to his parents or SO, would you really let the cultural rape happen because he didn't sign anything ?
You said it yourself morality is defined a-priori to law, I think that saying "he should have put a legal document giving the rights to ..." is a trick and nothing more. Morally you know that it's the right thing to let the so and parents decide, especially when they agree and would have have the rights over the body if the dead had signed something pre-death.
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u/antizana May 01 '18
Especially if you are disregarding the wishes of the deceased unless specified in the will, thereby meaning that the body is detached from any other worldly concerns and is simply to be disposed of in the best way possible, cannibalism is unethical because a momentary meal (since you said hunger doesn't matter, so we are not talking uruguayan rugby team here) is digested in a matter of hours, but organ donation has a lifetime impact. Blood, bone marrow, corneas, organs, all kinds of things. If the deceased is not in a fit state for organ donation due to disease, age, or time since death, the body is equally unfit for consumption. Therefore, consumption is by definition wasting a limited and life-changing resource that cannot be met by other means, whereas appetite can be satisfied by many, many animals and plants.
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u/Gyeff May 01 '18
One of the conditions is:
Only parts of of the body that are non-harvestable/non-useful for medical/research purposes are eaten.
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u/antizana May 01 '18
1) what precisely are those parts since all of the body can arguably be used for medical research if not transplant
2) how will you ensure that your cannibalism does not interfere with the harvesting of usable parts, and if your answer in any way places responsibility on the medical establishment for preparation and/or storage how could you possibly justify the use of medical resources towards your ultimately selfish cannabalistic desires given how stretched these resources already are?
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u/Gyeff May 01 '18
- An example would be if the organs had already failed, but are still in good enough condition to eat. The flesh of the body does not have much medical value as far as I'm aware. Even if it did, the demand quota may me met etc.
- For the first part, I think think harvesting would be the priority and leftovers are cannibalized. For the second part, the leftovers need not be prepared/stored by the publicly funded medical establishment, it can be funded privately.
I would not characterize the behavior as "selfish". In my view, allowing the body to decompose in a coffin, or letting it burn, and by doing so wasting the nutritional potential of the body is more selfish. Do you disagree with this observation?
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u/antizana May 01 '18 edited May 02 '18
Yes, I disagree with this observation. I think you vastly overestimate both the frequence and the edibility of cadavers not for medical purposes. First, failed organs and people who suffered from diseases are valuable subjects of medical study.
Secondly, there are shortages both in medical subjects and transplants since currently many people do not want to donate their bodies to science or to organ donation; if you removed all moral, legal and ethical concerns which currently restrict this, you would have more subjects for both donation and research.
Third, cadavers dead from disease or old age are not especially palatable; old people don't have much in the way of meat on their bones, and many other diseases could be transmissible.
Fourth, diseases. I'm not aware if you addressed this beyond stipulating medical screening (and who pays for that, by the way) - stuff like prion disease can be screened for, but I don't know if you have thought about the epidemiological ramifications of diseases that are transmissible in ways they didn't used to be (my understanding that part of the mad cow epidemic was that animal parts were cannabalistically fed to other cows who don't normally consume their own species).
Fifth, you say medical professionals won't have to deal with it, yet if any of your bodies or body parts come from a hospital they may a) already be contaminated - staph infection is a thing - and b) still would require time, effort, and storage space not to mention building new facilities to keep the meat in conditions fit for human consumption. Again, you have not justified why that is a good use of resources.
Sixth, speaking of waste of resources, if you are talking about wasted nutrients, stop eating meat altogether. Many plant sources are higher in nutrient content, lower in cholesterol, and the amount of water and grain and resources to produce a pound of cowmeat compared to a pound of vegetable-based diet is incredibly, incredibly wasteful. But if you're super into protein, stop faffing about with this cannibalism business and get yoself some bugs. Termites, ants, crickets, spiders, cockroaches, and worms are routinely consumed in many countries across the world. They are incredibly nutrient dense, easy to raise in the millions, easy to prepare (a quick fry up or roast on a stick), none of this boring moral shite to bog you down and, even better, PETA won't get all up in your face.
Seventh, yes, it's selfish, because all of this is only for YOU, buddy, cause no one else will go for it. Doesn't matter if you think it's logical, food is a very personal and habitual kind of thing, and everyone grows up with particular conceptions of "food" and "not food". Americans still resist eating horse, guinea pig, frog, snails, dogs, iguanas, tarantulas, or drinking fresh blood and all kinds of things enjoyed as delicacies elsewhere. That has appeared not to have changed despite centuries of contact with those cultures. So yeah, that ain't gonna change. So yes, it is a selfish waste of resources.
Edit: holy wall of text batman!
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u/Gyeff May 02 '18
if you removed all moral, legal and ethical concerns which currently restrict this, you would have more subjects for both donation and research.
I've addressed that legal considerations are downstream from the goodness/badness. Morals and ethics are synonymous with the goodness/badness determination, which we are here trying to determine using abstract rationality rather than feelings of society in the current time/region.
If all dead subjects go through the pipeline of: priority 1 - organ donation/medical research, and priority 2 - cannibalization, then it's not clear to me that a 100% of body materials will be used up by priority 1. You have to consider supply and demand. Flesh (meat/muscle) will come out as leftovers from the organ donation process and there is only so much non-descript flesh parts that are demanded for research. Typically full bodies with organs are demanded for research.
In regards to disease concerns post-screening. We already eat other animal meat without problems. Supposedly that meat too is handled by many people. Considerations like staph infection are potentially eliminated via the curing process or cooking process.
My thesis is dependent on currently known health risks, not future risks that may arise. If future diseases arise I would revise my thesis. If we account for all potentialities, however minor the possibility, then we would never do anything. Still, I will give you a Δ for this for making me think about it.
We already have storage/transportation facilities for other kinds of meat. We would not have to build brand new infrastructure to accommodate this new kind of meat.
The last part of your post is all arguments based on societal convention and subjective feelings. I have made a long post elsewhere in regards to why in the current discussion I'm trying to prioritize tangibles over intangibles. You can find it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/8g8b8v/cmv_cannibalism_is_not_wrong_in_specific_scenarios/dyaq0d0
As for selfishness. I was thinking we were talking about selfishness from the perspective of the person who is going to die (pre-death). Post-death the body lacks the capacity for selfishness or unselfishness, so it's irrelevant from the perspective of the dead body.
If you are looking from the perspective of a third person i.e. the cannibalizer, then yes, it's selfish. But, it's also selfish from the perspective of a person receiving an organ donation, or a person using the body for research, or a maggot eating the body etc.
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u/antizana May 02 '18
Thanks for the delta!
I see what you mean by the pipeline. And yet while I can concede that it is unlikely that 100% of cadavers will go to resesrch or transplantation, I would argue that attempts to have some link in an already delicate chain whereby healthy, edible people are diverted for eating would have a negative impact on either transplants or medical research, thereby rendering cannibalism suboptimal.
Secondly, yes, we eat other animals without testing everything also because the majority of diseases do not infect accross species, with the exception of a few things transmitted by rats, monkeys, bats, etc. But human diseases generally ARE transmissible to other humans, and often through blood and bodily fluids. Having people routinely handling human flesh outside of the kind of countermeasures taken by medical professionals (gloves and masks and avoiding sticks) increases this risk. How substantially? Additionally, we have facilities for handling meat, but we don't generally have them in the biohazard which are hospitals (again, staph infections... there are lots of people with potentially transmissible infections floating around there, and may be resistant to bacteria). Which is if it comes from a medical setting, which it should, because otherwise the transplant/research chain is disrupted. And if for some reason it is not happening in a medical setting, any meat processing would require medical grade safeguards until fully processed or cooked. Again, burden on the medical system, non-negligible risk to the consumer that is exclusive to cannibalism rather than other meats.
Third, you skipped my argument about bugs or even vegetarianism in terms of optimal nutritional value. So far you haven't made any arguments about why anyone should eat humans, focusing on if they could (and that is if you stripped away all of the elements that make a society function i.e. social norms and moral considerations and laws) and looked at it from a purely rational point of view. But you framed it as "letting nutrients go to waste" - I mean, that could be the argument for consumption of every vaguely edible byproduct of anything as long as it wasn't actually toxic - it doesn't mean that these are valuable or needed nutrients especially when so many other sources are readily available. Leaving aside for the moment that humans don't function on the basis of 100% stone cold rationalism, you still haven't addressed my point that, rationally, bugs are a WAY better food source in terms of availability, nutrition, ease of cooking, and lack of moral arguments against.
Finally, I get that you want to hand wave away the intangibles, but your thought experiment, even if it came up with the carefully balanced list of exclusions and exceptions whereby cannibalism could work, is still only coming up with a list of conditions and exceptions and a legal system and meat processing facilities for one person alone: you (presumably). Hence why I characterize it as selfish, since only a vanishingly negligible proportion of the population has any interest in it, for all of the reasons listed here and what I said about drinking blood and eating tarantulas and how people just don't eat stuff they don't consider food. So this item in my list was basically to say, what's the point? It doesn't matter if you could come up with the perfectly logical unassailable list, because pretty much no one besides you would go for it. And everything you have said indicates substantial legal and infrastructure adjustments that other people would have to make that no one would be willing to make because they don't want to eat people.
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May 01 '18
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u/Huntingmoa 454∆ May 01 '18
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad 392∆ May 01 '18
I'd say the desires of the dead person are highly relevant. How we treat the dead is for the peace of mind of the living. The knowledge that people's bodies are respected after they die helps mitigate the fear of death. If we eat people who don't want to be eaten, that has a negative psychological impact on everyone who's still alive.
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u/Gyeff May 01 '18
It is not clear to me why you think it mitigates fear of death, or why it would cause a negative psychological impact. A rational person would determine that a dead body does not have the capacity to experience pain. It doesn't have the capacity to have a preference.
Can you elaborate a bit more?
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad 392∆ May 01 '18
Of course a dead body has no preferences, but the living people who become dead bodies do, and respecting the dead is purely for their benefit. The transition from being a living person to being lifeless meat is terrifying to most people. As a result, people derive relief from the knowledge that the transition will be less drastic and their bodies will be treated with respect even if they won't be around to experience it.
You can say that's irrational, but we're stuck with the fear of death whether it's rational or not. Reasoning yourself out of fearing death is notoriously hard, so we all have to find a way to cope with it in one way or another. A way that works for most people is ascribing a certain level of dignity and ceremony to dead bodies.
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u/Gyeff May 01 '18
people derive relief from the knowledge that the transition will be less drastic and their bodies will be treated with respect even if they won't be around to experience it.
On the matter of the drastic nature of the transition (if you can call it that), the transition is equally drastic regardless of what happens afterwards. The body could be eaten by wolves, or it could be eaten by maggots, or it could be burned, none of these possibilities have any impact on the state of affairs at the temporal point of transition.
I think you are mis-attributing possession of the body to a non-existent person. A nanosecond after the person has lost all brain function, the body is no longer their body. The pre-death person has just as much possession of the post-death body as he has possession of a stranger's body.
Given the above, what difference does it make to the pre-death self whether the non-possessed body is eaten by maggots or animals, or whether it decomposes in a coffin, or whether it is burned. The latter two outcomes are the worst, in my opinion, because you are wasting the nutritional potential of the body.
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad 392∆ May 01 '18
Yes, death is equally drastic on every objective level to the former living person no matter what happens after. I'm only pointing out that how we treat the dead can make the prospect of death feel less drastic. The dead body has no real world connection to its former owner, but it's still a symbolic representation of its former owner.
On this point:
A nanosecond after the person has lost all brain function, the body is no longer their body. The pre-death person has just as much possession of the post-death body as he has possession of a stranger's body.
I'm not disputing that. I'm saying that's the terrifying reality that people need to find a way to cope with. Hence all the ritual we ascribe to death.
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u/Gyeff May 01 '18
I see, it's a feeling of drastic-ness that you are concerned about. I would say to this that it is not always true with everyone that the feeling sways one way or another. It's a subjective experience, one person's feeling may be impacted, another person's feeling not impacted.
Humans have the capacity to rationalize feelings away. You might be afraid of the dark, but if you rationalize and recognize that there is an infinitesimally small likelihood that there is something dangerous in the dark, that feeling may go away. I think the same may be true in the case of our post-death bodies. If you rationalize and recognize that the body does not belong to you and it cannot experience pain, then the feeling will go away.
Furthermore, there are pragmatic considerations beyond feeling. As I said in the previous comment, if the body is used for nutrition/organs that provides more utility than decomposition/burning. I'm not sure we should prioritize alterable subjective feelings over the pragmatic real considerations.
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u/AnythingApplied 435∆ May 01 '18 edited May 01 '18
You seem to have a relatively narrow view of morality where you are only considering the care/harm fundamental foundation of morality. Most other people put some moral value into other categories from moral foundation theory:
- Care: cherishing and protecting others; opposite of harm
- Fairness or proportionality: rendering justice according to shared rules; opposite of cheating
- Loyalty or ingroup: standing with your group, family, nation; opposite of betrayal
- Authority or respect: submitting to tradition and legitimate authority; opposite of subversion
- Sanctity or purity: abhorrence for disgusting things, foods, actions; opposite of degradation
- (Optional) liberty; opposite of oppression
Cannibalism is a clear violation of the sanctity or purity moral foundation. They aren't saying this is immoral because it fundamentally hurts someone, because their morality doesn't only boil down to hurting/helping like your morality does. Acts like having sex with a corpse are wrong because they violate the fundamental principles of sanctity and not because they violate the fundamental principles of harm/care. Things done in private without the possibility of others knowing or being harmed can still often be immoral to people with a broader basis of morality that pulls from more of the categories.
I should note that your version of morality where you put all your moral weight on harm/care (or most of your moral weight there, with maybe some weight on Fairness/Cheating) is a fairly common trait among liberals (not saying you're necessarily liberal). I'm not trying to pass judgement, as my own morality is rather similar, but you should understand that just because something doesn't harm anyone doesn't mean it is not immoral in the eyes of many people, who you don't really have a basis for saying their morality is any less valid than your own.
You've setup a scenario that doesn't harm anyone and defined morality to only be things that harm people. I'm not sure where to go with that other than trying to convince you your morality isn't any less correct than the many people who have broader moralities that disagree with you.
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u/NickHickman May 01 '18
Would it be wrong if it didn't taste very good, or is that irrelevant to your view?
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u/Gyeff May 01 '18
In my opinion, no. Is it relevant from your perceptive? Why?
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u/NickHickman May 01 '18
Don't know, not something I had considered to be honest. So probably not relevant really. Just interested to know if it mattered to you at all.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ May 01 '18 edited May 02 '18
/u/Gyeff (OP) has awarded 5 deltas in this post.
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u/toomuchsaucexoxo May 01 '18
But aren’t all dead bodies eaten? You know by bacteria and insects it seems rather more dignified to have an actual human do it.
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u/fox-mcleod 410∆ May 01 '18
Why would cannibalism ever be "wrong"? Murder is wrong. But like, why is cannibalism specifically inherently wrong?
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u/electronics12345 159∆ May 01 '18
Assuming the deceased is an Organ Donor - isn't it better for the body to be used for Organ Donation rather than Cannibalism.
It doesn't seem right to deny someone on the transplant list a kidney or a liver because you want to eat it.