If you're wondering how on earth you'd argue "cannibalism is bad" without "it's just disgusting and evil," I got you.
Let's start with a bizarre, but true, case.
There was a guy who posted to Reddit that he'd had to have his foot amputated. The foot was returned to him, and he and a few of his friends decided to Do Science, because this was a rare incidence where they could actually eat human flesh without having to kill or maim someone, and they cooked up his foot a couple of different ways and ate it.
Now I think this is weird as fuck, and kind of disturbing, but nobody was unnecessarily harmed in the making of this experiment, and I can respect the spirit of inquiry. If we wanted some information on what eating human flesh is like, this is a pretty good way to get it. (And yes, he did document their findings. I don't remember details but I do remember they found it extremely underwhelming, and unlike the common comparison, nobody said it tasted like pork.)
So: is cannibalism bad if it's flesh that's been surgically and necessarily removed from a consenting person, for example amputations, gender-affirming surgery leftovers, benign tumors, etc.? It's just going in the incinerator otherwise. Note, the question here isn't "would you, personally, partake in human flesh under these circumstances." It's "would this be bad."
Okay. I'm going to come down on the side of "meat is meat" here, just for the sake of demonstration (my actual answer is "I have no idea how I feel about this concept"). Okay. If we can verify the meat came from a necessary surgery, and that it's safe for human consumption (I would strongly recommend not eating a gangrenous body part, for example), we're going to say it's okay.
What if it came from an unnecessary surgery? Say, a tummy tuck? How do we feel about this?
I feel a little iffy. I'm fat, and I know much of what could be removed from me wouldn't be tasty (fat without meat is just grease), but I could see some unethical surgeons pushing patients toward options they don't necessarily need--say, "you'll [possibly] need knee surgery in a few years, so let's go ahead and just replace it now. What? Your joint? For human bone marrow soup? Don't be ridiculous. [of course that's what I want it for.]"
I don't quite have an answer for whether I'd be okay with people being served human flesh from procedures like this. Let's get onto firmer ground and take it a step further.
What if the meat comes from an actively coerced surgery, for example, some rich bastard is willing to pay you ten grand to lose a couple of fingers for the sake of a rare new culinary experience?
No. I am 100% not okay with that. That feels akin to black market organ harvesting. You know full well none of the Musk kids would ever end up with only eight digits.
Okay. Let's back up a step.
How about meat from a corpse that was killed for the purpose, in which the person actively consented to their own killing due to terminal illness?
That feels pretty damn iffy again. I can't help but think of the MAID program in Canada that basically ended up as "oh, you're disabled? We can help you die." I guess maybe if you had a shortlist of acceptable diseases, like "you must have stage four cancer or Huntington's disease to qualify," and once again we run into "would unethical doctors deliberately claim a case was worse than reality in order to attempt to sell the corpse?"
Okay. Let's take a step forward again.
How about someone who wants to be killed and eaten as part of a fetish?
And here I have to draw a hard line. No. Because this is a paraphilia. This person can safely fantasize about being eaten, but past a certain point in real life there is no way for them to say "I changed my mind." You can't withdraw consent if you're bleeding out.
So what's the throughline with all the cases where I said "no" or "I'm not sure about this"?
They all involve the possibility, perhaps even the probability, of a vulnerable person being irreversibly taken advantage of.
Which raises the question, in the one case where I said "sure. Why not. Meat is meat," of whether that could also be a problem with those necessary surgeries. What if the surgeon could have saved that foot...but decided not to try quite as hard? If you need your gallbladder removed...well, can you be sure you need it removed?
Therefore, cannibalism is bad because it's inherently unequal. There's always the possibility of exploitation, and once it's done, there's no reset button. We can certainly make an argument for edge cases like survival cannibalism and, you know, the guy who ate his own foot, but as soon as a second person enters the equation there's doubt.
Also, just so we're clear: this was not a fun post to write. I don't think most people like putting themselves in the shoes of "so, how could one ethically commit cannibalism?" There's something very inherently discomforting about it. But the whole point here is to push past that discomfort, to ask the real questions.
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