http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2569095.stm

And to think some people don't believe in total depravity...

Alright, this is seriously whacked. But, is it murder???

One could argue that it is "assisted suicide", couldn't they? Assuming that there was no coercion, of course. But the "victim" allegedly sold all of their possessions prior to the meeting, sort of suggesting that there was at least no overt coercion.

As long as no others are harmed or put at risk without their ascent, should I not be allowed to voluntarily enter into any agreement with another human?

If I don't have a right to "self-possession" anterior to any other right of possession, what worth is any right? If my own body and life is not my property, than what possibly can be?

It seems to me that if this strange situation is a voluntary contract between to competent adults, the state is asserting its authority over a person's own body and life. I realize that states do this constantly, but I find that immoral.

If I can't choose whether to live or die, ultimately any choice is at the discression of the state, is it not?

Jim

In reply to:

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It seems to me that if this strange situation is a voluntary contract between to competent adults (emphasis added)

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I think this is where the question is... Under normal circumstances saying its ok to kill me is a hint that I'm NOT ok....
This is without introducing questions like... Am I my own property? Notice that all of the actions he went through were warning signs of a depression related suicide. The inclusion of canabilism should not diminish the fact that it was suicide. Also the inclusion of assisted suicide arguments isn't really helpful (assuming that one believes that mercy killing is all right which I don't) since the article doesn't mention any sort of physical illness.

this is just sick and ridiculous.

I think that when you're dealing with people who are that dysfunctional, there's no logic or reason to it, let alone any ethics or morals. I think it's safe to say that both involved parties needed psychological treatment that they weren't getting. It's sad to see it when this sort of thing happens, but the world is full of examples like this (okay, not all of them that extreme).

Perhaps, but eating someone is so disgusting, so inhumane, and just so [censored] weird that he should be brought in the backyard and shot in the head like a dog with rabies.

Look, guys. I agree that its disgusting and weird. The question is not about the morality of their behavior, but of our own in compelling others. I think that we need to be very careful about extending the authority to the state to decide what is acceptable. I'm not saying that we shouldn't do it at all, just that it needs to be carefully considered.

It's bad if these people wanted psychological help and couldn't get it, but what if they didn't want it? Do we have a right to compel them, to "treat" them against their will for a "disease" that is nothing more than behaving in a way that is disgusting to us?

How thick a psychological line is it between inviting someone to your apartment so you can butcher them and just going out to the streetcorner and getting someone?

Come on.

-Zeke

I agree that we should watch what freedoms we give away. But I think we can safely mark "cannabalism" off of the freedoms list. I don't think we should bother trying to treat that guy, unless you wanna treat him with a piece of lead traveling at 3,000 feet per second.

"nothing more than behaving in a way that is disgusting to us"

I would hardly consider killing someone else (or allowing yourself to be murdered) "nothing more than behaving in a way that is disgusting to us."

How thick a psychological line is it between inviting someone to your apartment so you can butcher them and just going out to the streetcorner and getting someone? Come on.

I think you pretty well defined it yourself. There is quite a difference between "inviting" someone who has the option of refusing the invitation and "getting" someone who has no such option.

tanstaafl.

I agree with TigerJimmy. It appears that this was a consenaual act. How could these two men be forced into treatment if they were only acting upon eachother in consent and not hurting others? The guy's neighbors seemed to think he was ok.

Now, let's take this a step to the right on the spectrum. What about homosexuality. I may think it's kinda gross for two men to have sex, but those two men may think it's perfectly ok. Hey, that's their thing, let them do it. They are doing it with consent and are not hurting others.

Push it further to the right. Maybe a gay man thinks it is gross that I'd have sex with a woman. Who's right and who's wrong now? Is the straight-male majority right? Is the non-canabalistic majority right?

See, ultimately, there is no right and wrong. A person has the right to impose their views on anyone else unless that person is being threatend. If I was worried of being eaten by my neighbor, I'd call on the law for help. If I was worried of being raped by my neighbor, I'd call on the law for help. But if a bunch of cult members want to catch a ride on comet Hale Bop by putting on black Nike shoes and killing themselves in a mansion in LA, then let them. (anyone remember that, by the way? 1996?) Who's to say they are wrong when they are only hurting themselves.

Please, prove me wrong. Someone find a scenario where hurting yourself is wrong. I've been looking for a long time.

I don't think we should bother trying to treat that guy, unless you wanna treat him with a piece of lead traveling at 3,000 feet per second.

Yeah. Let's just shoot everybody who doesn't think the "right" way -- right being defined as thinking the same way you do.

tanstaafl.

"See, ultimately, there is no right and wrong."

And this is the core of where we would disagree. I understand that the values of today are undefined to a large extent and I think this can only lead down a dangerous path. It is good to have a sense of "rightness", and this sense must sometimes be placed on us externally; we can't always rely on our own abilities to judge. There are times that we aren't capable of "right" decisions, whether it be because we don't have enough information, we are misguided, we are in some altered (drug-induced) state, or whatever else.

We are talking about suicide here, and I hope you would all agree that teenagers feeling the angst one often feels at that age should be prevented from taking their own lives, no matter how badly they want to do it. And if a friend out of sadistic pleasure decides help by putting a bullet in his or her "friend’s" head, I at least would certainly call out for justice. You might say that the case in question differs from teenage angst because it involves consenting adults, but the actions, consequences, and rationale are the same.


"Someone find a scenario where hurting yourself is wrong."

If hurting yourself causes others to copy you who wouldn't otherwise have hurt themselves, then you have affected them for the worse. People are responsible for their own actions, but we can't believe what we do has no consequence.

For the case in question, say that eating humans becomes fashionable if we allow this behavior. Is it too far removed to think that people would offer themselves with full consent if money was to be given to their families? Based on your criteria, could we say that it was wrong? Or what about a person who is drug induced? You might say that drug inducement would be wrong, but is it alright to take advantage of someone who is mentally unstable (Which I would say is the case of anyone offering themselves up for cannibalism)?

Back to the "right or wrong" thing, again I will agree that this is the view a lot of people take, but there are those (like myself) who believe that there is absolute right and wrong, and that it is not a matter of mere perception. Of course, I can't force you to believe the way I do, but that doesn't mean it isn't true.

Taking sadistic pleasure in consuming another human being is depraved, and it is not a right that I believe should be protected.

This case & ensuing debate points are very similar to the arguments made over prostitution, but moved up another notch on the permanence scale. I know many people think prostitution should be legal - who's the victim? However, most people disagree vehemently with that argument, and hence in most places it is illegal. Not a lawyer, but I don't think the victim's state of mind is relevant in determining if this person killed another.

-Zeke

I'd say that your comparison to prostitution is invalid because simply having sex doesn't hurt anyone. Sure, it has the potential, but there are some prostitutes out there who are in that business because they like to have sex, in the same way that I'm a systems administrator because I like to work with computers. Certainly, there are many women out there who have sex with other men for free; why not get paid for it? On the other hand, there are as many people who work on computers simply because they thought it was a good career path, and, I'm sure, there are some prostitutes that thought the same thing. (There's some debate in my head as to which of those two groups was the least wrong. ) And there are virtually no physical maladies in those areas where prostitution is legal (in the U.S., at least -- I won't speak of Thailand, Brazil, etc.), as government controls keep much better care of them than any (okay, most) pimps would. (Madams may be a different story.)

Not that I don't understand your point.

It appears that this was a consenaual act
No one is arguing about whether or not the act was consentual. The question stems around whether this gentleman had the right to give consent to be eaten and whether or not he was in the mental condition to give consent to much of anything.

The guy's neighbors seemed to think he was ok.
Their diagnosis is at best questionable considering their lack of contact, expertise, and the fact that their neighbor killed someone and ate him.

Maybe a gay man thinks it is gross that I'd have sex with a woman. Who's right and who's wrong now? Is the straight-male majority right? Is the non-canabalistic majority right?
This really doesn't work since homosexuality is first of all not final or permanent in its affect and even those who disdain homosexuality would argue that it is a perversion of a good. Being dead and eaten would be in what way... good?

Please, prove me wrong. Someone find a scenario where hurting yourself is wrong. I've been looking for a long time. The last time you stubbed your toe in a dark hallway... Are you going to argue it was the good and right thing to do? If it is the good and right thing to do then why did you swear and why did it hurt?

say a guy#1 puts an ad in the paper for a house for sale. guy#2 goes to look at the house. guy#2 suddenly dies of a heart attack. guy#1 claims that guy#2's heirs should get the house and he should get guy#2's money in the bank for the value of the house. But there was no contract. just going to the place doesn't mean guy#2 was agreeing to anything. Therefore there was no sale on the house and the other case was murder. If there were a written contract between the eater and the eatee, then I'd say it was legal. But I still stand by my statement that any cannabals should be swiftly shot in the head.

Yeah, those Uruguayan rugby players and the members of the Donner party were all evil people.

If you and I were stranded together without any food, would you eat me?

If you and I were stranded together without any food, would you eat me?

Well, I have heard that troll tastes a lot like chicken ;-)

Yeah, those Uruguayan rugby players and the members of the Donner party were all evil people.

IIRC, in both situations, the consumed were already dead.

Thus (hopefully) refuting the earlier statement

But I still stand by my statement that any cannabals should be swiftly shot in the head.

That is, there was irony involved in my statement.

touché

OK, it's been a while since I started all this, sorry about that.

Regarding the contract business, contracts are important in civil matters, not in criminal ones. Besides, verbal contracts are enforcable. Contract simply means an agreement, not the piece of paper that this agreement is written upon. In this case, it is not disputed that the two had voluntarily entered into an agreement even though it was not written down.

Anyway, the discussion is not about what is legal or illegal. I'm sure it's illegal, which is why the guy was arrested. The question a question of principles. Is it correct for the state to involve themselves in this matter?

Regarding the comments made earlier about suicide being illegal, remember that this goes back to feudal law and (I believe) proves my point. Suicide was (and remains) illegal because people were not their own property, they were the property of their feudal lord. In killing themselves, it was believed, the harmed the master by destroying his "property." It was similarly illegal for non-owners to kill slaves. This should be blatantly disgusting to most of us.

Self-ownership -- the idea that no person can be the property of another besides themselves is the very foundation of classic liberalism and is literally the foundational contribution of the Enlightenment. You are not the property of the state, nor the church, nor the establishment. You are your own property. Period. All "civil liberties" and personal freedom must stem from this basic idea.

Now, freedom implies the freedom to choose poorly. By calling others who do not make the same choices as we deem proper "mentally ill", we deprive them of their freedom and use this as justification to compel or punish them. This is a terrible trend in western societies today.

I accept that there are some circumstances where people are not competent to take care of themselves, but anyone who, according to the article, held down a job, had a home, and would seem completely normal to anyone meeting him can not possibly be considered incompetent.

The only way one could call this person, who has for at least 20 years taken care of themselves perfectly well, "mentally ill" is to do so exclusively on the basis of disagreeing with his decisions. Worse, disagreeing with them and being willing to use force to prevent him or punish him from making those decisions.

IMHO, there is a place for police, law, and punishment, but that is when a person's actions pose a clear and present threat to *others*, not to themselves.

Jim

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but anyone who, according to the article, held down a job, had a home, and would seem completely normal to anyone meeting him can not possibly be considered incompetent.

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One word... Congress

In reply to:

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The only way one could call this person, who has for at least 20 years taken care of themselves perfectly well, "mentally ill" is to do so exclusively on the basis of disagreeing with his decisions. Worse, disagreeing with them and being willing to use force to prevent him or punish him from making those decisions.

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Decisions and actions are the primary indicators of mental illness. How do you diagnose mental illness without physical actions that lead you to a conclusion?

I laughed when I saw "Congress." I agree, there is a particular form of incompetence at work there, but not the kind we are discussing. I think we can agree that while congressmen may be greedy and corrupt, they are not incapable of knowing right from wrong. In fact, that's the problem: they know better.

"Mental illness" is a metaphor that was used around the turn of the century to help get people imprisoned in asylums the status of "patients", which was an infinite improvement over how they were considered and treated before this change of thinking. The problem is, we have literalized the metaphor and now are busy searching for the "physical causes" of metaphorical diseases. "Mental illness" is not a disease like diabetes or polio or cancer, all of which have very specific, quantifyable physical pathology. It is a description we use for, as you point out, the decision to engage in undesirable or irritating behaviors. In the cases, such as alzeimer's disease, where there is a defined physical condition causing the odd behavior, we don't speak of "mental illness" we talk about the brain disease alzeimer's. "Mental illness" is a term reserved for strange or undesirable behavior with no known physical cause. Talking about the correlation of moods with certain neurotransmitters is very different from establishing a causal relationship.

My thinking on this issue has changed dramatically since reading Thomas Szasz' work. I strongly recommend him. He is hated and criticized by the medical pschyological establishment, but usually by people who have never read his work and they admit it. His writing is incredibly precise and rational and he takes grave exception to the conventional wisdom of "mental illness". In particular, his books "Schizophrenia" and "The Myth of Mental Illness" are addressed to these points in particular.

Whenever we call someone "mentally ill" we deny them the status of being responsible moral agents. We do this to deprive them of their freedom because they are using it in a way we find distasteful. As long as they don't involve others against their will, I think we could use a little more tolerance.

Jim

I guess I'm lucky:

This is all remarkably simple for those of us with a different worldview. It goes something like:

1. There are moral absolutes.
2. They have been revealed by God.
3. The revelation is clear regarding murder and the sanctity of human life.
4. This act was clearly wrong.

1. There are moral absolutes.
2. They have been revealed by God.
3. The revelation is clear regarding murder and the sanctity of human life.
4. This act was clearly wrong.

Well, I guess that algorithm copes with this simple situation, but it doesn't scale to the general case because it can deadlock at stage 2 against another process that's been told the opposite by their god. It's also something of a security risk, as it's wide-open to abuse by gods revealing stuff to promote their own agendas.

Peter