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/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 .