A case for cannibalism in society

[Angrboda]

However, what I would be most concerned about are the secondary moral effects, what I term "moral overspill." While there's not likely any immediate harm from a teenager torturing and murdering a stray cat, there likely would be serious ramification for our species if we became indifferent and insensate to such acts. The life and pain of a stray cat may be inconsequential, but the results of accepting such cruelty as normal behavior would likely be undesirable. I'm not sure what the second order moral effects of accepting cannibalism as normal would be, nor that they would be harmful, but given its uneconomical nature, there's no real compelling reason for us to find out.

You mean the slippery-slope argument? Yeah, I can see that happening.

For example, one may argue that we are quite comfortable torturing and killing animals without their consent for sake of meat because within the context of human morality, animal life is not given much importance. The difference with humans is that human life and by extension, human body are considered sacrosanct - which is why we frown on cannibalism. Once that distinction is removed and the so called sanctity of human life is violated even a little, there won't be any good reason to keep on violating it.

For example, it may start out eating dead people because they have no life or any control over their bodies. It may extend to killing and eating comatose people because they are practically dead anyway. Then we may extend it to killing and eating the insane and the infants because, practically speaking, they are about as much conscious of themselves and have about as much control over their actions as some of the farm animals we slaughter so readily. And before we know it, the age of actual baby-eating atheists is here.

No, it is not a slippery slope argument. It is an argument from biological evolution and evolutionary psychology. If we tolerate, say, people with no empathy and the other traits of psychopathy in some areas of their life, say being cruel to animals, they will have a much better chance of thriving in society, of evading sanctions and so on. If we accept animal cruelty as normal, humans with predisposition to cruelty will have a better chance of surviving. The survival and success of such individuals, however, will likely have an overall negative impact on the overall success of the species, as they will be more likely than the norm to commit acts of cruelty against other humans than a person who is sensitive to the suffering of others liken to the current norm. With cruelty and lack of empathy, this evolutionary process likely results in a balance or homeostasis of sorts in the gene pool such that a certain amount of cruelty and insensitivity will be the norm (and its distribution will vary with reference to it), but that phenotypes displaying either too much or too little sensitivity will likely be selected out of the gene pool.

What I'm suggesting is that, on the fitness landscape populated by hominids like us, that those points of fitness which include cannibalism are in the minority, and since the consequences of moving our current genome into a fitness domain that includes cannibalistic behaviors is very unpredictable in terms of its positive or negative impact on species psychology as a whole, unless there is a clearly obtainable benefit, it's likely best not to explore that domain. (This is similar to arguments against the use of genetically modified crops, extinction or over-farming of species, and importation of foreign species into novel environments. Until we understand the full impact of doing so, it's best to be conservative unless there is a compelling reason not to be.)