Why is cannibalism unacceptable in humans?

Amphibian tadpoles often eat their "brothers" to increase their ability to thrive. Gulls and pelicans are two of many birds that use their young to feed or prevent the spread of disease. For Australian mantis or redback spider, males after mating will become an attractive dish for females.

Actually, cannibalism is not a strange thing in the animal kingdom - and this is even more common in mammals. Many rodents can turn their offspring into a meal in case of hunger, illness, premature deaths, or "over-planning" and the mother being unable to raise them. The more evolved species like the bear and the male lion sometimes kill and eat the offspring of the adult females so that they can mate more easily, creating a new generation as their offspring. Higher-order animals such as chimpanzees sometimes eat unlucky individuals - usually young ones - for unknown purposes, possibly to add some protein to their bodies.

However, for humans, cannibalism is a truly disgusting act , considered to be against the laws of nature, contrary to human evolution. In fact, our aversion to cannibalism is so strong that the justifications of survival and morality are hard to accept.

The Theconversation conducted a survey, assuming a man was allowed to eat his friend's body parts, when he died of natural causes. At the same time, the survey also assumes that cannibalism takes place in a civilization that allows this, as a way of honoring the deceased, and that the meat will be cooked to ensure there is no risk. infection. The results showed that, although it was noted that cannibalism was a humane act, more than half of the participating readers thought it was completely unacceptable.

Photos victims of the Andes plane crash had to eat cannibalism to survive.

Even in situations where life and death are faced, the act of cannibalism is almost unforgivable for humans. For example, the famous Andes plane crash in 1972, when the survivors faced close to life and death, made an extremely difficult decision: Eat the dead to continue living. Although these actions were the last step to surviving the harsh nature, and even some of the people volunteered to donate their bodies as food after their death, in the end, they were still socialized. Assembly heavily condemned.

One of the survivors of the disaster, Roberto Canessa, blamed himself that eating passengers to survive was " invading friends' memories, and stealing their souls" . Although soon afterwards, he asserted that at the time of his death, he would not hesitate to allow the survivors to eat him to survive.

Disgusting decision

The dark period mentioned above is clear evidence that why humans are the only exception can be outside the circle of predatory laws in animals. The properties between the living and the dead are incomparable. The extremely close connection between the human and the flesh is the only reason that in certain situations, the advantages of cannibalism are ignored - by the horrible, horrible feeling inside. every individual's mind lives.

Another question arises, why are we disgusted by human flesh, while not by other animals? The philosopher William Irvine has raised the hypothesis that there exists a farm to raise babies to serve human food, similar to a cattle farm, where we fatten and slaughter and take their meat. Irvine suggests that the arguments justifying killing also apply to infants, such as "they will not object" and "they are incapable of thinking like an adult".

Although this is only a hypothesis, it is quite helpful if we want to clarify the prejudices of people when it comes to the ethical aspect of cannibalism. From an early age, we have formed in our minds the awareness of species, such as humans and animals, as a basic fact or have become 'essential', even though it cannot be observed. directly but that brings the early stereotypes. For example, what are humans? Are the bodies with intelligent and rational thinking, personality and desire to live, and at the same time between individuals forming a connection with each other.

Humans evolved to avoid cannibalism.(Photo: Shutterstock).

Psychologicalism is a useful shortcut to directing our expectations and assessments of our species, which is human society - but this is not really effective when typical of the species as mentioned above is no longer suitable, for example after death. And this is the reason why the act of cannibalism after death makes us feel so disgusting. Even when people can justify acceptable ethical reasons, we still can't stop our minds from thinking about who has eaten meat - or who has been eaten.

Specific studies have shown that the way we interact with animals will somehow shape the way we classify them. The more we think about an animal with a human nature - like a dog - the more we feel that their meat is really hard to become food.

People are increasingly adapting

Although accusations of cannibalism are often made in a misleading way to demonize or divinize extremist, grotesque groups, this is not the case in human history. rare. The Papua New Guinea tribe has a cannibalistic culture, believing that those who love the dead will eat them much better than being decomposed by worms and maggots. Or in the Renaissance period, the eating of corpses took place regularly for medical research.

There is no denying that we can adapt to human flesh if necessary. Many people are really disgusted with all kinds of meat and turn to vegetarianism, while funeral workers or surgeons and animal slaughterers very quickly adapt to the initial difficulties when dealing with physical corpses. Studies done with animal slaughterers in the UK show that they easily adapt to regular contact with animal parts - while ordinary consumers feel disgusted.

However, humans do not necessarily 'reverse evolution' in the near future. Although some philosophers have puzzledly argued that burial of the dead is a waste in the context of the world at risk of global famine, we have many alternatives. Much more delicious than the flesh of a human being. Now vegetarianism is increasingly being proven to be healthy, and we can turn to eating more plants and less meat to conserve our depleted resources. Insects can meet our daily protein needs, and the future prospects of culture development technology.

Up to now, we are truly happy because we have not fallen into such a tortuous situation that we have to 'taste' our fellow flesh. Human flesh, despite its biochemical similarities with other mammals, does any act of using it as food, regardless of circumstances and morality, carries creepy and hard to accept.