When the German cannibal Armin Meiwes was on trail, it was actually a legal conundrum. Meiwes' victim had explicitly consented to being killed and eaten, even dictating how he wanted to have it done to himself. So was it murder or more of a convoluted version of assisted suicide ("killing on demand" is the legal term in Germany)? He was eventually convicted of manslaughter and got a prison sentence of eight and a half years, a few years later changed to a sentence for life.
I remember seeing someone get a callout post on Twitter for saying they don't see an ethical problem with cannibalism if it's consensual. That's all they said, and they got dogpiled so hard that they apologized and went to therapy for their "unnatural thoughts", and the callouts continued.
Unless several Twitter users plan to give them unrestricted access to their corpse soon, I don't see why that's callout-worthy.
I don't just not see an ethical problem with it if it's consensual. I'd argue it's the most ethical way to eat meat in that case. We do horrible things to animals without their consent. If someone consents to being eaten, that must be more ethical.
You can argue it's disgusting or something, but if you're arguing with ethics as the basis, consensual cannibalism has to be better than eating other animal meat.
My biggest argument for ethics is that if it is legal to do, it will be easier to provide incentives for it. Already a problem with illegal substances and such I guess.
The rich and powerful have a problem where the normally unattainable luxuries/curiosities in life are freely available and boring. It's why you see millionaires doing crazy stunts, and so many get into illegal drugs or trafficking, like with Epstein and his ilk.
They can offer money, power, or other benefits to those who don't have it, and also manipulate the circumstances in their favor, and create a market for human meat. One where the poorest of people could sell their own parts/body, or create parts for consumption if supply drops. Our current system does the same with labor, but that seems significantly less damaging.
Did they actually go to therapy or did they just say that to try and save face? (Not that I believe they deserved that level of push back necessarily.)
If I'm dead, I absolutely would have no quarrels with people eating my body. Nothing to complain about since I hold no beliefs that when I die, my body needs to be intact for me to go to a heaven like place.
Also, who cares what any family members would think. It's my body, not theirs. If I don't mind people nibbling on my corpse, then I'd hope any family that cares about me is able to respect that wish.
To be fair, if you're dead you'll have no quarrels with anything. I understand what you mean though. You have no quarrels now if someone eats you when you die.
idk man I think the mental gymnastics go the other way around here. You have to make a shit load of assumptions to consume human flesh safely and ethically:
the person being eaten consents to their body being eaten
the person has no family or each and every one of their relatives consents and is totally ok with their loved one's body ending up in a casserole
the person has no diseases that can be transmitted by consuming some or all parts of their body: prion disease (brain), AIDS, hepatitis and loads other blood-transmitted illnesses, to name a few obvious ones
there are no drugs or medications in the person's body that could be absorbed into your system (regurgitated meth, yummy!)
you have the means to effectively and safely process or cook the body yourself or we set up an entire new industry around mass human body consumption which sounds like the plot of a Stephen King novel tbh
As some have pointed out here, if eating human meat is your only available choice in an extreme life-or-death survival situation, it would have to do, but unless you also have the means to carve up and cook the body, you're actually going to consume more energy digesting the raw flesh than what you're getting in return. Humans make for rather poor food overall, that's a fact. I would back this up with some evidence but I don't feel like being put on a list for looking up the nutritional contents of human bodies lol
I don't care for cannibalism but the second bullet doesn't sit right with me. I always wanted to be composted. My family will hate that, but I don't think it's their choice.
Funerals are for the living, not the dead. I struggle to think of a good reason not to acquiesce to their wishes prior to dying, so as to make their grieving easier, given that yours will not matter at all then.
I know several people who will take roadkill if they can confirm the freshness by either witnessing the accident or knowing that the kill recently appeared. I myself almost took a deer once. It was a cold night and the deer wasn't on the corner at midnight. But it was there at 6am while still cold outside. If I had the time and space id have likely brought it home to at least assess the meat.
Prion diseases. Accumulation of different substances, like mercury, lead, strontium-90, and, a new contender to the list: micro plastics. And you'll want to have a look at a person's medication and likely want to make sure they've been off of it for a few days before consuming their flesh.
Farm animals are legally allowed to eat actual plastic, not only microplastics. If you’re afraid of microplastics or accumulation of substances maybe don’t eat meat.
Legal limit of plastic in animal feed is 0.15% in the EU
A cow eats 25kg of dry food a day
25/100*0.15 = 0.0375kg = 37.5grams
A plastic bag weighs 6-8grams.
You are legally allowed to feed your cow 5 plastic bags a day (as a snack)
Bioaccumulation concentrates more pollutants the higher up the food chain you go. It is part of why most meat we eat comes from vegetarian animals. The fish we eat are often predatory so common advice is the keep the smaller and younger ones that are still big enough to be worth filleting. You don't actually want to eat a trophy sized fish because they've accumulated more pollutants. Trophy sized fish are better off being realsed, they are often good breeders and help keep healthy population numbers.
OK, mate, I have good news and bad news. The good news: we're having a feast and you're the guest of honour. The bad news: you need to stop taking your meds for a few days.
The problem is bioaccumulation: taking in substances faster than you can metabolize and excrete them. Eating something that has already accumulated something is worse than accumulating it from the same original sources. That's why you can do suicide by vitamin A poisoning by eating carnivore livers.
aren't prion diseases usually just a thing for the brain? though I haven't considered the medication aspect... I want to eat a human heart some day, any other things I'd need to consider? I guess I'll just take the risk with the medications.
Prions are a big problem for cannibalism since they resist high temperature. So they're still deadly even if the "meat" is well cooked.
That said, Bones And All was a great film about cannibalism. And it was romantic, in a fucked-up way.
Heh, my partner and I have already had the, "I don't seek it out, but if we're life-and-death stranded and you go first, sorry, you're provisions now" conversation.
My main gripe is that humans don't have much meat on them. It works in a pinch, but the effort needed to eat so far outside of our normal pallette isn't worth it.
That said, I would be in favor of letting nature decompose our bodies more. I hate having to waste so much effort on disposing of bodies, especially once I die. I want my body to get torn apart by animals, not buried with holy rites. Mummification is the only burial practice that seems kinda cool. Cremation seems unnecessary, especially if I can get eaten by something instead. Just take what's useful, chop me up a bit, and throw me in the compost!
That can kinda be arranged, actually. Something that came up during one of Caitlin Doughty's videos is a nature preserve type place in Florida that they protect by burying people there to decompose naturally. I'm not going to look for more info about this on Christmas though, lol.
Endocannibalism - eating people from your own group -has been practised as a respectful part of funerial traditions by a handful of cultures across the world and may have been more widespread in prehistory.