RE: Cannibalism
February 16, 2015 at 8:28 pm
(This post was last modified: February 16, 2015 at 8:45 pm by Pyrrho.)
(February 16, 2015 at 7:53 pm)Nestor Wrote: So, since it boils down to practical judgement and not any great violation of an important, sensible, and humanistic code of ethic, would you go befriend a cannibal? Go over his house for dinner? Double date? Or is the stigma against such a person and/or the act, assuming no one gets hurt, still justified on some ground?
From what I have read, many actual cannibals kill their food. So, no, I don't want to go over to his house, or spend any time with him. I don't want to spend time with someone who regards me as a possible item on the menu.
And I certainly don't want to eat any dinner at his place, as I do not want any chance of getting CJD. Even if he is scrupulous about cleaning his dishes, and is not serving human, that will not guarantee that there are no prions on the dishes that will cause CJD in his guests. Remember, even if he cleaned his dishes as well as surgical sterilization (which pretty much no one does for dishes), it will not be good enough to ensure that there are no prions that could give someone CJD.
You might want to read the articles at wikipedia about Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease and Bovine spongiform encephalopathy. And also the article at the NIH entitled "Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Fact Sheet for Healthcare Workers and Morticians." It is pretty interesting and scary stuff.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
