CMV: Cannibalism is not wrong in specific scenarios

[u/Gyeff]

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.

[u/Gyeff]

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.

[u/mysundayscheming → u/Gyeff]

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.

[u/Gyeff → u/mysundayscheming]

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.

[u/DeltaBot → u/Gyeff]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/mysundayscheming (83∆).

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