In City Journal, Theodore Dalrymple issues a challenge to his readers:
Of course, one might argue that by eating Brandes, Meiwes was infringing on his meal’s rights, and acting against his interests. But Brandes decided that it was in his interests to be eaten, and in general we believe that the individual, not the state, is the best judge of his own interests. […]
Lest anyone think that the argument from mutual consent for the permissibility of cannibalism is purely theoretical, it is precisely what Meiwes’s defense lawyer is arguing in court. The case is a reductio ad absurdum of the philosophy according to which individual desire is the only thing that counts in deciding what is permissible in society. Brandes wanted to be killed and eaten; Meiwes wanted to kill and eat. Thanks to one of the wonders of modern technology, the Internet, they both could avoid that most debilitating of all human conditions, frustrated desire. What is wrong with that? Please answer from first principles only.
I have libertarian tendencies, but I don’t go so far as to say that “individual desire is the only thing that counts.” Take the minimum wage, for example: Sally wants to pay Bob $1 an hour to work in Sally’s store. Bob, for whatever reason, genuinely wants to work for $1 an hour. In this case, frustrating their individual desires seems justifiable to me, because having a minimum wage law prevents a “race to the bottom” that would hurt thousands more workers.
But I really can’t see that sort of logic applying to the cannibalism case. It seems to me the desire to eat people must be rare – and the desire to be eaten rarer still. It doesn’t seem likely that we’d be creating any sort of “race to the bottom” by allowing consenting adult meals to be eaten by consenting adult diners.
I suppose one could make a public health argument; I’ve heard that cannibalism is a particularly effective route for transmitting diseases. But, again, it doesn’t seem that banning cannibalism is necessary to prevent this from becoming a major problem, because there are simply too few wannabe meals in our culture.
I do have a problem with the idea of someone consenting to be murdered; there is a good argument to be made that laws against murder need to be enforced with as little slippage as possible. (Otherwise, we might have problems like murder victims being forced to sign consent forms at gunpoint before being killed.) But we could easily get around that by having the meal commit suicide rather than being killed by the eater.
So put me down in the pro-cannibalism column, I guess. If a competent, consenting adult wants to be a meal, and his competent, consenting adult friend wants to be an eater, I wouldn’t want to be invited to the dinner – but nor do I see a need to ban it.
On the other hand, I find that conclusion disturbing enough so I’d welcome anyone coming up with an argument that would change my mind.
Thoughts?
Via Invisable Adjunct..
I don’t think I’ll be changing your views on this, as I agree with what you’ve said in this post. You’ve made a convincing argument.
While I’ve never felt the urge to eat another human, obviously there are others out there who do. And yes, as long as both are consenting adults, I don’t see a problem.
Let them eat each other.
I’d much rather have people be open about who they are than go Dahmer-style on their communities.
Ahem.
I can’t see how you could ever guarantee that the consent was legitimate, and the decision is so very irrevocable that it is vital to be certain about that.
It is like assisted suicide. However, in the case of someone suffering in the final stages of terminal illness, I can be convinced that the decision is a rational and sane one; and therefore be convinced that the consent is legitimate.
In the case of cannibalism one must have the suspicion that the wish to be eaten is irrational, perhaps the product of transitory emotional stress or of mental illness: perhaps suicidally low self esteem. It is hard to see how one could be completely convinced that this was not the case.
Which means that my default position is that killing and eating the consenting party seems to be complicity in abuse of a vulnerable person.
Alison just made the first point that I was going to make – the desire to be eaten is a clear sign of a mind not firing on all cylinders. The most basic desire of any animal is to live, and barring extreme circumstances (a mother sacrificing herself to protect her children, a termenally ill person in pain), the fight to live is normative. It’s why suicide is illegal – not because anyone is going to get prosecuted, but so police can interfere and place the suicidal person into treatment, where they usually change their mind and go on with life. So I think it is fair to say that anyone wishing to be killed and eaten is someone whom psychological treatment would benefit, and society has an interest in keeping that person around.
Second, permitting deals of the sort that were allegedly struck between Meiwes and Brendes is not in society’s best interest. Allowing people to avoid criminal prosecution through consent, except in very limited circumstances, is a slippery slope that will benefit criminals far more than people like Meiwes and Brendes.
For example, a woman writes online that she has fantasies of being raped. She says, “I would like to be raped by a stranger” to someone she doesn’t know in a private IM conversation. The other party saves the conversation, tracks her down, and rapes her. She screams the entire time, that this isn’t what she wanted. Did she consent, or not? If you can consent to be killed and eaten, certainly you can consent to being raped… The rapist pictured exactly what happened, while she pictured her boyfriend dressing up in a black turtleneck and balaclava one evening after discussing it fully with her. I don’t know that we want every trial where the criminal can concievably argue that the victim consented to be about whether it was reasonable for the attacker to assume that consent was given (I know that this happens in some cases anyway, but a clear exception such as would be set by allowing activities such as cannibalism would certainly make the problem worse).
Third, proving that there was no duress or coersion involved is going to be difficult – the victim is dead. It would certainly be in the attacker’s best interest to try and get consent before killing the person – simply by giving the victim a choice between a painful death and a quick one. Some people would pretend to consent, especially after torture. Also, some might give consent while drunk or high, which would invalidate a contract, but the only remaining evidence has been eaten.
If you want to be killed and eaten, and you find someone who wants to kill and eat you, go far out into the woods, where no one can find you, and don’t get caught. You are both consenting, so it really shouldn’t be that difficult…
“If a competent, consenting adult wants to be a meal, and his competent, consenting adult friend wants to be an eater…”
I’d suggest that the desire to be killed and eaten is pretty good sign the person isn’t competent.
Admittedly, we do not prosecute people who are self-mutilators, but almost universally agree intervention is in order. So why would we sit back and let a person allow himself/herself to be eaten? Because they consented?
That’s not consent, that’s a pathological compulsion. Again, not necessarily a legal matter, but when murder is involved, then the law should be involved. Perhaps an argument could be made that if I wanted someone to lop of my willy and make it into wurst, then no law is broken, especially if I do the chopping and you do the cooking. I think in instances like that (like the story not too long ago about the man performing castrations) no crime is committed.
I think it unwise to allow for one person to legally kill another except in extreme situations. Snacking is not extreme enough.
The reason a person who wants to be eaten doesn’t just off himself at a friendly butchers is that he wants to experience what it is like to be eaten. This is a pretty unhealthy desire, and by no means should the law shelter someone equally unhealthy enough to persue to the extent of taking a life. If only a limb or two is involved, though, it gets a lot murkier.
The ick factor is too strong for me on a personal level.
On a practical level, I agree with what everyone here has said about competency and consent. This is not a culture where such actions are remotely acceptable (and in cultures where it was, it was for religious reasons I believe), so volunteering to be someone’s meal shows you’re short-ciruited somewhere. And consent is problematic–you could quite easily force someone to give consent before killing them.
I’m curious how many of the posters have seen/heard/read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?
Remember the Dish of the Day — the food animal specifically bred to want to be eaten? A few excerpts from the scene:
This isn’t human, but is articulate and apparently consents to being eaten.
Would it be ethical to eat such a creature? Would you eat of it? And what differentiates this scenario from a person’s ability to consent to cannibalism, euthenasia or suicide?
[I don’t have an answer to these, so I’m curious how others would respond.]
For Amy’s benefit, I’ll quote the Slim Jim guy from commercials:
“EAT ME!”
Agreed that man-slaughter (as opposed to manslaughter) should be illegal, as the benefits would outweigh the burden, as how would one get the benefits of having that done to them?
The case is murkier for all other forms of temporary pain or permanent effects on humans for one’s own pleasure (pleasure can be defined as societal approval or improved health – even light exercise will cause *some* pain or discomfort).
I’ll just let people do what they like as long as it doesn’t involve death, although wanting to be dismembered is a good sign that you’re not a well cat.
I love the Hitchhiker’s Series (and the Dirk Gently books as well). The irony is wicked.
Did you ever see the Monty Python skit where a bunch of sailors in a lifeboat are trying to survive, and the Captain (John Cleese, I think) urges them to eat him after he dies? They don’t want to, he orders them, and then gets terribly insulted when it turns out they’d rather eat someone else.
Here’s my question: if you breed a creature to want to be eaten, is that true consent on the creature’s part? Or is it engineered pseudo consent?
I think we have to separate the various components of this case.
The desire to be eaten is not, in and of itself, a sign of a mentally disturbed person. After all, many cultures have very different ways of disposing of their dead, some of which turn my stomach, but all of which are valid, if agreed to by the deceased. Rather, it is the desire to be killed that would seem to indicate that this person probably doesn’t have the mental soundness to consent.
It is the “ick” factor that we all have to be aware of in such a case. It is very easy to say “Eeew, who’d want to be eaten? Clearly this person is crazy,” but that way lies the slippery “Eeeew, what man would want to sleep with another man? Clearly this person is crazy,” slope.
The main legal issue in the actual case, if I remember correctly, is that Germany has a “Murder by Consent” statute, or something similarly named, that makes it still illegal to kill someone who asks you to kill them, but names the sentence as significantly lower than that for murder. When the details of this case surfaced, people said “But, we meant that to be for sick people! Not crazy cannibals!” The statute, however, makes no provisions requiring that the victim be terminally ill, or even not a cannibal, and so the only law broken is the “Murder by Consent” statute.
So, if, as a libertarian, you believe that such a statute should not exist, because consent is absolute, then place yourself back in the pro-cannibalism column. But, since I am not a libertarian, (or at least, not an absolute one,) I can say that consent to suicide, or assisted suicide, or murder by consent, is something that we cannot afford to place in the “Well, they agreed to it, so it’s okay,” column. To do so ignores the nature of suicide: that in a good number of cases, it is committed by people who do not possess the mental soundness to consent to such a thing. I will not say that everyone who wants to die is irrational, but just as we cannot afford to lump Great-Grandma Betty, who has terminal cancer and is in awful, untreatable pain, in with people who are mentally ill, neither can we afford to lump the teenager suffering from undiagnosed depression, in with Great-Grandma Betty. Consent, in my mind, cannot come from those unable to give it, and that list includes minors, certain developmentally disabled people, and those who are mentally ill.
“Rather, it is the desire to be killed that would seem to indicate that this person probably doesn’t have the mental soundness to consent.”
Well, let’s not forget–in many cultures, it was a perfectly acceptable wish, oftentimes for religious reasons. Being sacrified to the god/s or killing yourself for a higher cause was (and is in some places) considered to be acceptable.
Back in college, I had a Humanities professor in New York that announced he was a cannibal. He told the story of how his ship was sunk by a German sub in the North Atlantic and they had to draw straws (I think he said they used matches)to see who would be the one to be food. It had to be consensual. Everyone had to agree to do it. The professor told everyone that he was a “leg man”.
To respond to Tor, there is NO SUCH THING AS CONSENSUAL RAPE!! Rape, by definition, in non-consensual.
A woman(or a man) can consent to having someone they know “role-play” a rape, but that would (should) be done with boundaries and and safe words.
That’s totally different than sayng “i have rape fantasies” and having someone assume that they can FORCE YOU TO HAVE SEX without your explicit consent.
In other cultures, lots of things were acceptable that would be unworkable in our society. In a culture where people lived in small clan or village sized communities, murder-cannibalism of the sort practiced by Meiwas and Brendes might have been workable, because everyone around them was aware of what was going to happen, and could evaluate whether it was a good thing.
In addition, assisted suicide type situations where the person has an untreatible disease or condition, and the amount of pain they are suffering renders their life not worth living, -in their opinion – doctors and (hopefully) family members are around to monitor that decision. They may not agree with the suicide’s decision, but it probably isn’t a surprise either.
In our society, where many of us live in (and much of the crime happens in) huge anonymous cities, none of those safeguards are in place. What works for other cultures does not necessarily work for ours. So saying X culture practices murder-cannibalism and it worked out ok for them doesn’t mean very much in relation to a large post-industrial society.
In terms of the cannibalism alone, if a person were to die of natural causes, lots of things which pose only a small health risk are nonetheless outlawed by our society. Incest, in an age of genetic testing, doesn’t really pose much of a danger of birth defects, but because of other factors, it is outlawed. Picture 30yr old Uncle Bob, and 16yr old Annie (in a state where this relationship is legal), where they have both been tested and any child that they would have would have no higher a chance of defect than any other child; we would still prohibit that relationship because of the associated dangers to Annie. The risk of passing on disease through cannibalism is slight, and could be further reduced, but, unless you are a hard-core libertarian, you will likely agree that cannibalism, like incest, should remain taboo.
Keep in mind that if we legalized cannibalism, much of the thrill would disappear for it’s practicioners – I would imagine that a large part of the thrill is doing something that *everyone* agreed was taboo – they would then have to move on to something else…
Lis, if you genetically engineer a sentient being so that it would want to be eaten, it is no different than if you drugged them or hyponotized them into wanting to be eaten, to my mind. In all cases, you have taken away that sentient being’s free will.
Now, if you engineered a creature that reproduced through being eaten, or part of the gestation cycle was for part of it to be eaten, like many fruits, that would be ok. The meat-fruit animal, which sprouts bulbous meat growths that must pass through the human digestive tract in order to self-fertilize, would be an example. No one wants to be burned, but for some pine trees, forest fires are the only way for new generations of pine trees to sprout.
Julia – I agree absolutely with you. I tried to make it clear that what the woman had in mind (for real life) was consensual, although in her fantasy, it was non-consensual. My point was that the act itself, in my hypo, was nonconsensual, and rape. But the woman, in talking about her fantasy, appeared to consent to just that thing. She didn’t consent, but by saying what she said, an argument (legal argument, not moral argument) could be made that she did consent.
Right now, under our laws, you cannot consent to rape. No matter how explicitly you ask for it, prior consent is not a defense to a non-consensual act. Consent can be withdrawn, and obviously was, in my hypo. But, if we were to legalize murder-cannibalism, I believe that such a law could be used to create a defense to rape i.e. the victim’s prior consent legalized the later nonconsensual act.
The legal theory splits crimes into two types – malum in se (inherently criminal) and malum prohibitum (criminal only because the law has said it is). Examples of malum in se crimes are murder, rape, burglery and robbery. I do not believe consent should ever be a defense to any malum in se crime.
The desire to be eaten is not, in and of itself, a sign of a mentally disturbed person. After all, many cultures have very different ways of disposing of their dead, some of which turn my stomach, but all of which are valid, if agreed to by the deceased.
c.f. “Being grokked in fullness” in Heinlein’s _Stranger In A Strange Land_ — the ritual of eating a dead friend therein is strangely touching.
Tor, what does murder-cannibalism have to do with withdrawal of consent? If a person asks to be murdered, and then changes their mind, they’ve withdrawn consent to be murdered. There isn’t some special murder-cannibalism clause that says “And by the way, you can’t withdraw your consent to be murdered and eaten.”
In the actual case, Meiwes videotaped Brandes consenting just prior to the act, leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind that Brandes did, in fact, consent to be murdered and eaten. Brandes even ate parts of himself before he was killed. So what’s the issue of withdrawal of consent?
Whether Brandes consented is irrelevant – we are discussing whether murder-cannibalism should be legal for everyone, not just for Meiwes. One of my earlier points (1/15 @07:55am) was that while you may have the victims consent on tape, with the victim dead and eaten, it is impossible to tell if the victim was coerced or drugged into pretending to give consent (so the killer has a defense at trial).
The other reason withdrawal of consent is an issue is that I brought up rape as a slippery slope example – if one can consent to one malum in se crime, one may be able to consent to any of them, and rape is a classic example of a malum in se crime.
But even if Brandes and Meiwes are relevant, how do we know that Meiwes didn’t create the desire in Brandes to be killed and eaten through a combination of drugs, hyponotic suggestion, and torture? However likely or unlikely that may be, Brandes isn’t around for us to ask, is he?
BTW, “Theodore Dalrymple” is a pseudonym; the chap in question is a doctor who practices in British prisons.
BTW, “Theodore Dalrymple” is a pseudonym; the chap in question is a doctor who practices in British prisons.
The desire to be eaten is not, in and of itself, a sign of a mentally disturbed person. After all, many cultures have very different ways of disposing of their dead, some of which turn my stomach, but all of which are valid, if agreed to by the deceased.
c.f. “Being grokked in fullness” in Heinlein’s _Stranger In A Strange Land_ — the ritual of eating a dead friend therein is strangely touching.
I’m inclined to think that “mental disturbance” isn’t an absolute condition; rather, what counts as mental disturbance may vary across cultures, eras, worlds, etc. For example, frontal lobe epilepsy is considered a disorder because of the way it interferes with a sufferer’s perceptions of reality. However, in other times and places, what we call frontal lobe epilepsy was considered a divine and visionary gift.
Similarly, just because we can conceive of worlds in which it would be rational to eat one’s friends (I’m thinking of Iorek’s eating Scoresby as a sign of deep respect in His Dark Materials), I also think it’s safe to say that in our world, both the desires to eat and to be eaten are signs of mental illness.
Sorry, that “c.f.” bit was supposed to be italicized, too. It’s Skinny’s comment.
Well, we know that Meiwes didn’t create the desire in Brandes to be eaten, because Brandes responded to a newspaper ad looking for people willing to be killed and eaten. So unless Meiwes hypnotized him through newsprint, the interest was already there.
The issue of “How do you know consent wasn’t revoked at the last moment” is definitely an interesting one, although I think your rape analogy is off. After all, unless the rape victim is murdered during the act, he or she can say afterwards that they withdrew consent before the act. Thus, while assisted suicides are definitely on the slope, sexual acts by themselves are probably not.
“The most basic desire of any animal is to live, and barring extreme circumstances (a mother sacrificing herself to protect her children, a termenally [sic] ill person in pain), the fight to live is normative.”
Normative: 1. of, relating to, or determining norms or standards 2. conforming to or based on norms (*Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary*)
Tor,
This sentence bugs me for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s gender-specific, whereas the desire to die in a terminally-ill patient is not. Is it unthinkable that a father would sacrifice himself for his children? I suppose it was probably an innocent insertion (you had a fifty-fifty pick), but why not a “parent?” Why the female parent, specifically? It bothers me that it is the hypothetical female placed once again in the self-sacrificial role, and once again, the hypothetical male who is left out of such an opportunity.
Secondly, that it’s used as a “typical” example of willingness to die, like a terminally ill, suffering person. This seems to not only imply that the normative state of any mother in extreme circumstances is willingness to sacrifice her life for her children (a possibly incorrect assumption), but that, because this is a normative state, such a sacrifice should be EXPECTED of any mother in extreme circumstances.
Maybe this is just my inner Slytherin speaking, but I find any act of self-sacrifice for anyone else, whether you love them or not or know them or not, to be incomprehensibly, awe-inspiringly heroic, and I don’t think the giving of one’s own life in order to save others should ever be expected, or understood, regardless of what the sacrifice’s gender or relationship to the
saved(s) is. Motherhood does not void the self-preservation instinct.
Perhaps I am being overly sensitive. If so, I do apologize. “A mother sacrificing herself for her children” is a phrase I’ve heard tossed around so often that it’s more of a brand name, like WeightWatchers and Prada, to me than it is an actual phrase. And it’s a brand name that’s been used in such a way so often that I’ve come to associate it strongly with a brand that makes me hate having to be female.
First of all, is it right to label someone as mentally incompetent just so you can take away their right to make a decision for themselves that you don’t agree with?
In the case of rape, it involves one person who wants it and one who does not. In this case, both parties consented to what happened. Doing what they did did not take away the rights of another. Brandes’ loved ones may miss him, but that does not give them the right to dictate how he should live and die.
People are not the same. They do not want the same things. Just because Brandes/Meiwes wanted something that most people would not does not mean they shouldn’t have the right to want it. Or get it. It is very easy to take away the right of another to do something that you will not want to do. Afterall, you will never feel the loss. But the person who spends the majority of their life desiring to be killed and eaten most certainly will.
As for a murderer forcing their victim to sign a consent form, well, just phrasing it that way is designed to herd people in the other direction. Nobody would want that to happen to them. There is no solution to that one anyway: a murderer could also force their victim to kill themselves by holding a gun to a loved ones’ head. The question to ask is, would the murder happen even if the murderer couldn’t use the consent form to get out of it? Imo, the answer is yes. Therefore, scenarios like this don’t make a good case against legalizing murder-cannibalism.
As for consent not being withdrawn at the last second, simply keep the camera on. ;)
Why would anyone want to eat a terminally ill person?
Well said, Morphienne.
I can’t think of any earthly reason why I’d even consider accepting a right to be killed and eaten. I don’t believe, and never have believed, that “individual desire is the only thing that counts,” so, given that that isn’t my first principle, I’m not obliged to accept any consequence Dalrymple might derive from it. I do believe that it’s inherently wrong to kill people, and that seems to me to be plenty good enough as a first principle to rule out legalized cannibalism.
I do believe that, “in general we believe that the individual, not the state, is the best judge of his own interests,” but “in general” doesn’t mean “without exception.” In cases where an individual wants to be killed or permanently severely maimed, then that individual isn’t the best judge of his/her interests.
We seem to be forgetting that cannibalism does not necessarily include killing somebody. If you take the murder part out of it, how do you all feel about the right to eat a dead person who has requested that such a thing happen upon their death?
I suppose one could make a public health argument; I’ve heard that cannibalism is a particularly effective route for transmitting diseases. But, again, it doesn’t seem that banning cannibalism is necessary to prevent this from becoming a major problem, because there are simply too few wannabe meals in our culture.
Well this isn’t quite correct. There are strong public health reasons. There is an illness called Kuru. It arose in Papua New Guinea when people ate their dead relatives. It wasn’t in this case that people were killed for food, just that as a part of funeral rites, the bodies were eaten. Interesting in that it removes many of the arguments above about consent etc.
However, the end result was this illness Kuru. It is a prion, and basically causes dementia after a long period of time, followed by death. BSE in cattle is another of these illnesses, as is New Variant Creutzfeld Jabob, the human variant of BSE.
Eating the dead is cultural.
Eating your species is risky.
Nick
I’m not going to respond to issues with my rape analogy anymore – I think it was too confusing to make the point I was trying to make. If you get what I was trying to say, great. If you don’t, or if it seems offensive in some way, I apologize, it wasn’t meant to be offensive, and I withdraw it.
Morphienne – to be honest, what I was thinking about when I wrote that was the birds that pretend to have a broken wing to lure predators away from the nest. My understanding is that the father bird doesn’t do this, but I could be wrong. Maybe the father bird doesn’t do this, but should. I don’t know much about birds.
In any event, as the father of a one year old, I can promise you that the thought of sacrificing my life for my child’s has crossed my mind, and there is no difference between what I would imagine my wife would be likely to do, and what I imagine I would be likely to do, if our son’s life were in danger and one of us could save it by sacrificing our own. But I didn’t mean to imply that mothers would or should sacrifice their lives for their children.
But now that I think about it, I think it is far more likely that a mother *would* sacrifice her life for her child, than a father would. Maybe the percentages are similar in terms of the big heroic events, like jumping in front of a bus, I don’t know.
But if you think about all the single mothers who, while not sacrificing their lives, sacrifice on a daily basis and in a much more difficult way than simply flinging oneself in front of a bus. Mothers sacrifice their careers, their social lives, their money and their time, every day. Some of those things shouldn’t have to be sacrificed, but nonetheless, they are, and willingly.
Should mothers be ‘expected’ to sacrifice themselves for their children? Of course not. Part of my personal definition of ‘sacrifice’ is that it *isn’t* something expected of you.
I could have said, “a father sacrificing himself for his child” but the fact is, a lot of fathers don’t even pay their child support, much less help raise their child. I don’t want to imply that a father sacrificing himself is normal, because, although it should be, it isn’t. So that leaves me with, “a parent sacrifing themselves for their child” which (a) doesn’t sound as good to me and (b) doesn’t acknowledge the reality of my life – I see a lot of women around me sacrificing for their children, and not a lot of men doing the same. So, in retrospect, if I need an example of sacrifice, especially for a child, I am going to use a mother – not because women should be expected to sacrifice their lives or anything else, but because they do, and most of the time, no one even acknowledges it, much less thanks them for it.
Adina – I think there is a big difference between responding to a newspaper ad, and actually, willingly going through with being mutilated, eaten and then killed. It is possible that Brandes willingly and knowingly consented at every point in the process. It is also possible that he thought it was a cool idea, and changed his mind or was drugged. We’ll never know now.
Well… a father sacrificing for his child isn’t as *common* as it should be, but it’s normal, or rather, normative, that is, adhering to standards for normalcy in the psychological sense of the term but not the social one. Those who create children have a responsibility to care for them, and of course care means sacrifice of one’s own desires and even low-priority needs (the new car, for example, instead of daycare fees).
But if I say that I disapprove of, for example, mainstream lesbo porn because of the image it creates of women, what I’m essentially saying is that the image is bad because it’s become so common, so repeated, that it’s an expectation or an assumption of nature placed on women as a whole rather than simply an isolated character. Anorexic, blonde bimbos with implants are okay as characters, because of course some people really are like that. They’re not okay as an expectation or a norm. But the difference between a character and a stereotype is only frequency of use.
And what I was getting at when I snarked at you was that I felt that, by mentioning a case that is normal (mothers sacrificing for their children) but omitting to mention the partner case that is *normative* (parents in general sacrificing for their children), you were perpetuating the stereotype of a mother’s purpose in life being to exist for her children and the father’s purpose in life being to be a regular person who just happens to have kids; and implying that it was more of an extreme instance, that is, somehow more heroic, for fathers to sacrifice their lives for their children than it is for mothers.
Clearly I was not thinking of birds.
On that note, though, we have only one bird around here the female of which feigns lameness in order to draw predators away from the nest. They’re called killdeers, and they’re just cool as hell, firstly because they have a name that’s really fun to say (it comes from the sound they make) and secondly because they have enormous blood-red irises that give them the appearance of being extremely paranoid. They make their nests on the ground, which is why the lame wing is so often necessary. At the last, critical moment, however, the “injured” female will herself fly away from the predator, so there’s not too much sacrifice of actual life involved.
I agree it’s rare
I would like to modify some of the arguments presented:
– The desire to be killed is not, prima facie, a sign of mental illness.
– The desire to be eaten after one has died is not, prima facie, a sign of mental illness.
– The desire to be killed for the apparently trivial purpose of fulfilling a sexual or other fantasy is, prima facie, a sign of mental illness.
The last point is based on the assumption that the desire to die must be a last resort and only if all available avenues for otherwise living happily have been sought. In this case I would argue that the victim might have continued to live happily through psychiatric intervention. As such, his consent was not sufficient to justify his killing.
The reason I frame it in such a way is because I disagree with the aforementioned legislation that stipulates that killing someone who consents must *always* be wrong.
Your comments and/or criticisms are welcomed.
The intellectual honesty here is admirable! Your analysis of this case has taken the premise to its logical extreme–adults are free to fully exercise their own liberty at their own discretion so long as no one else is affected. Finally, someone who is rationally consistent!As you say, however, cannibalism is disturbing. Here’s my shot an argument to help change your mind.
The foundational principal important to recognize is that none of us lives in a vacuum. All of the decisions we make, both public and private, will, in one way or other, eventually affect the rest of society. In this case it “appears” as though no one else is affected but we are. Let me explain:
The reason consenting adults are free to make their private choices is because SOCIETY HAS AGREED TO ALLOW IT. In another culture, at another time, such behaviors, private or not, would be illegal based on codified rules rooted in religious belief. In our modern culture, we rupidiate faith based regulations and, instead, value the opinion of the masses. The cannibal is free to eat a willing person becuase you and I (society) have given him permission to do so.
Here’s the problem–we are living by a democratic view of human decency. That is, whatever the majority views as acceptable is acceptable. Take THIS to its logical extreme…in 50 years what do we do when society agrees together that pedophelia isn’t such a bad idea. Some would say, “That couldn’t happen because that violates the rights of another person.” Wait a minute. Who says a child doesn’t have the authority to consent? Society today believes that but what about society in 50 years? If society has the greatest power to decide what is morally decent then society has the power to agree on whether children can consent…particluarly when the child him/herslef is insisting,”I consented.” This logical argument applies to anything we presently feel is indecent. Remember, society once “felt” that homosexuality was wrong…we “know” now that is not true. Society once “thought” abortion was wrong…we “know” now that is is acceptable. You see, whether it’s cannibalism, bestiality, public nudity, pedophelia, or any other thing “indecent,” the view changes becuase society’s view on it has changed. And, when society gets the last word we are all at risk. It’s time for a return to moral absolutes. Otherwise, this slippery slide we’re on will eventually lead us into obliteration.
Jamey,
Well thought out argument. The one thing I disagree w/ is your statement that, “It’s time for a return to moral absolutes.” I don’t believe that there has been a time in recorded history in which we lived w/ moral absolutes. I don’t even think that there is such a thing. And who decides what these “moral absolutes” are? And, as you said, society changes…..so how can there be “moral absolutes” in a society that isn’t static? (And I don’t believe that human society can ever remain static).
Jake,
Thank you for your response. Please allow me to pick back just a little…a close look at your posting reveals that you do, in fact, believe in moral absolutes.
Case in point: You don’t believe there is such a thing as moral absolutes and I believe there is. Either both of us are wrong or only one of us is right. It’s impossible for us both to be right because the law of non-contraction prohibits it. Either there IS or there ISN’T absolute truth…and that either/or fact is absolutely true. There is absolute truth #1 and you assumed it.
Secondly, we both agree that society changes. I doubt for a minute that society changes because we believe it–who are we but insignificant email writers. Society changes because publicly held beliefs have always changed over time. That fact is documentable in every known culture. As you said society can’t ever remain static…and you are “absolutely” correct. There is absolute truth #2.
Your question of “who decides” is an expected question from a member of a society who’s decency standards have become democratic. Naturally, you would assume that a person or group of people would have to be the ones to decide. I suggest that a higher authority gets to choose. Now, unless you stoop to argumentum ad hominem and start calling names, your next response should either be “There is no knowable higher authority,” or “How can we know who the higher authority is?” If your next response is the prior, you’ve stated a 3rd absolute truth. If your next response is the latter, I propose the deity under whom this great country was founded and upon whose laws our own were established. (Remember, “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” (absolute truths, no doubt) and “…endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights…?” I am saying that if the Judeo-Christian system was good enough for the roots of America, we shouldn’t up-root that system just to make way for decency by popular opinion. That kind of system leads to the eventual acceptance of disgusting things like cannibalism.
Regarding moral absolutes in a changing society, that’s simple: If I beat, rape, and kill your grandma, then swipe her belongings on my way out the door, I have broken several “laws” in any culture in the world, civilized and uncivilized. If those kinds of “laws” have such a broad cross-cultural relevance, I think it’s safe consider them moral abolutes able to stand up to changing society.
Regards.
Jamey,
What you are showing to be absolutes (existence or not of moral absolutes, society not being static, existence or not of a higher authority) are indeed absolutes. But they are not MORAL absolutes. An example of a Moral Absolute would be “Stealing is wrong.”
Remember I said that there are no MORAL absolutes. I did not say that there are NO absolutes.
As to your last paragraph…. there have always been times in some cultures where those actions are not morally wrong. Viking culture during raids on non-Vikings comes to mind.
I’m curious. On what basis do you differentiate between moral absolutes and any other run-of-the-mill absolutes? Logically, I don’t see how they can separated from the larger category of ABSOLUTE TRUTH. Can you explain how you deal with them differently?
Also, if a Viking were to beat, rape, and kill your grandma, then swipe her belongings on the way out the door, then what? Your family’s society judges that an immoral act while the Viking society judges it moral…what then? Both are right? (This option is impossible) Both are wrong? (This option is unacceptable to grandma’s society) One is right and one is wrong? (This option reasserts the presence of a moral absolute in somebody’s society.)
One more for the road…if some manner of absolutes exist–which you affirm they do–then they exist whether you or I or anyone acknowledges them (ie. The earth is absolutely round even if the whole of Europe thinks it’s flat.) In other words, absolute truth exists outside of human reason & understanding. Agree? If this is so, isn’t it equally possible that moral absolutes COULD also exist even though you deny them?
Thanks for the stimulating banter. Regards.
I’m a hard-core libertarian. there’s one in every crowd. since reading “stranger”, the idea of being soup at my wake has been at least as appealing as other funeral customs i see in your culture. on the other hand, i’m pretty adamant about not being killed to be eaten, until i’m ready. apply the golden rule, and you can see why i’m vegetarian. as to the ick factor, for one like me, it comes into play like this: person A wants to be eaten. ok. person B wants to eat a wiling victim. ok. ykiokijnmk. your kink is ok, it’s just not my kink.
person C wants to, by force,prevent A and B from doing their thing. ick! that’s.. gross.
I usually use a rights approach or a utility approach to argue for choice-based morality. but in the end, it’s a preference. denial of choice is icky. (somebody, instapundit? made a “yuck” point about canibalism, that i later saw applied to homosexuality in that discussion of ws101)
Cannibalism seems like an uncommon practice, with few real-world applications. (this relates to foie gras and the freespace v clerk discussion.) However, let’s say B is willing to pay A to eat him. Did anybody’s position change? Now let’s say B does’t want to eat A, just wants his liver for a transplant. This could come up more often.
The harm from a rule against cannibalism might be minor, if we set aside the way such a rule detracts from the sanctity of contract. But a rule against people selling organs is gonna kill thousands of people, serious real world consequences. Similarly, interfering in people’s voluntary health care choices can kill thousands, millions, billions. So deciding whether we are for or against choice-based systems, in hard cases like cannibalism, has serious consequences, either way.
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