We have focused most of our discussions around the consuming of animals other than human, and on whether they have moral standing, yet I wonder what the real physical difference is between eating, say bear, and eating human?
One might argue that we kill the bear and eat it for food, and it is not a moral agent so we are free to do so. To this argument, I ask, what of all of our deceased that die of natural causes? If they are merely meat, and we being omnivorous creatures prefer to eat meat, then why let such a bountiful supply of it (especially in the obese stricken countries such as America) go to waste? It seems to me that we are creating a distinction between meat and flesh and we are privileging ourselves with the qualification of fleshy creatures. This seems wrong to me when you realize that the two are one and the same.
I think the real reason lies within a sort of superiority complex combined with a species-chauvinism that allows us to believe that we shouldn't eat our own because 1.) humans are deserving of more respect, and 2.) we should show loyalty to those who are like us. But this seems to lead to many of the same problems that have been discussed previously about chauvinism, namely that we have seen this idea displayed regarding race and sexuality in the past.
What do you all think? Is there truly a real difference between eating man and animal meat? And if not, then is the carnivorous advocate necessarily also arguing for the possibility of eating man to be ethically allowed?
isn't it bad for our health to eat our own species? this just brings to mind mad cow disease and the repercussions of eating their own kind. from a quick google search apparently kuru is a closely linked disease caused by humans eating humans.. but this evidence seems insubstantial.
ReplyDeleteAlso, when considering eating humans who have died of natural causes, I'd assume we wouldn't want to eat them since some disease inside of them caused their death, meaning they're not sanitary. We'd apply the same reasons why we don't eat the chickens whose legs have been broken because they can't support their body weight since they've been contaminated.
This is all a little nit-picky, but it's what stood out to me in your response
I think you are right Betsy, that we may be afraid to eat "natural deceased meat" due to fear of disease, but I would argue back that most of the chickens we eat have diseases that we will eat regardless. (plus no one is going to run the tests on all of the animals we kill, just because we are the acting forces of death does not mean that they are not diseased). Also the idea that there is a disease that we can pick up by eating human is just about the same as any other animal that we eat... I mean we get specific diseases from various other animals, such as cattle and pigs. This isn't a great rebuttal except to maybe point out that disease is generally found in meat and we often dismiss it.
ReplyDeleteI recently read an article on Cannibalism and remembered this post/comment. I think that Colin's rebuttle is right on. The article pointed out that while, yes you can get diseases from eating human flesh, most of the time that is no different than the same risks one takes eating other meats. Sometimes it is due to the preparation, sometimes it is due to the specific part of the body you eat. Both of those same arguments can be made for virtually every meat.
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