To argue Cannibalism

What might happen if we do punish acts of consensual cannibalism as murder: instead of going to the trouble of finding apparently willing participants, those who have a strong desire to slaughter and eat humans will be much more likely to kill innocent people against their will - people who no one would argue gave their consent.

Of course, one might argue that by eating the "meal", The cannibal was infringing on his meal’s rights, and acting against his interests. But if the "meal" 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.

Ah, you say, but the "meal" was mad, and therefore not capable of judging what was in his own interests. What, though, is the evidence that he was mad? Well, the fact that he wanted the cannibal to eat him. And why did he want the cannibal to eat him? Because he was mad?

There is a circularity to this argument that robs it of force. It is highly likely that the "meal" did indeed have “emotional problems,” but if every person with emotional problems were denied the right to determine what is in his own interests, none of us would be self-determining in the eyes of the law, except those of us who had no emotions to have problems with.

If we take the incompetence gambit here, we're at risk of concluding that the victim's consent was invalid since he was incompetent, but that the cannibal was also not guilty because of his incompetence. And if cannibalism/willingness to be eaten are considered sufficient proofs of incompetence, without any other evidence, then this case has been defined out of existence. (I think of incompetence as a sort of fudge to sweep messy cases under the carpet, rather than a profound legal insight).

It does seem like there are two rather separate issues here: the ending of a life (by suicide, murder, etc.) and the consumption of a human being (cannibalism).

Regarding cannibalism, assuming that someone was either already dead or did voluntarily agree to be consumed post-death, it seems difficult to argue that cannibalism under those situations is always "wrong." One possible point, though, is that consuming human tissue does entail a much larger risk of disease transmission than consuming other species tissues. However, we clearly cannot ban all risky behavior, so I'm not sure where that leads...

-Micha Ghertner