I think he’s simply saying that a subset are not able to even understand that there is a choice to be made, and that the logic then would be that you can eat people from that subset.
No. What the gp is saying is basically the categorical imperative. "It is bad to eat people because I don't want to live in a world where I could be eaten (me also being people)".
He's not saying it's okay as long as you don't get eaten he's saying "as a human, I do not want to get eaten. Therefore, I do not want to inflict this on other humans either".
No. If you eat people that are different, then other groups of people might want to eat you because you are different, so an environment where eating any people is ok creates an environment where you might be eaten yourself.
The argument maratd gives thus is a justification for eating animals that are not smart enough to to look at our behaviour and decide whether or not we're fair based on whether or not we also eat animals.
But it explicitly rules out cannibalism (or eating intelligent aliens).
You're addressing a theoretical person who is OK with eating sea life alive, but not with eating land life alive. Clearly those people exist, but I don't see why you're assuming that's the context here.
> If offered a Snickers, a Milky Way and an Almond Joy, participants would always choose the Snickers. But if they were offered 20 candy bars, including a Snickers, the choice became less clear. They would sometimes pick something other than the Snickers, even though it was still their favorite.
Just because something is your favorite doesn't mean it's rational to always choose it every time. Hot wings are my favorite food, but I don't eat them three meals a day to the exclusion of everything else. If there's a selection of 20 candy bars, possibly including ones you haven't tried before, I don't think it's irrational to try a new one since that might become a favorite. Even if it's one you already know, maybe you're just in the mood for coconut instead of peanuts at the moment. This seems like a poor way to measure irrationality.
We're eating each other to survive because we've been sold on the idea that there isn't enough room for everybody, but we're eating each other in a metaphorical sense rather than the literal.
Necro-cannibalism did allow some to survive severe famine.
Seriously though, the quote works well for many usual cases of discussion. People have incentives which they do believe in - you can discuss how those beliefs started and why you think they don't apply. Sure, you can find pathological edge cases where doing that didn't make sense. Doesn't mean the rule is bad for almost everything else.
If I eat a snickers bar and afterwards I'm still hungry, I'm not necessarily going to eat another snickers bar. If I eat a very flavorful salad but perhaps am not feeling quite satiated, next time I'm not necessarily going to order the competitor's product that is drenched in olive oil.
I'm sure there is some truth to these sorts of "survival of the fittest" arguments, but you can only simplify how people reason about food or how they consciously or subconsciously decide what to eat so much before it becomes a parody of itself.
This presents an interesting paradox though because at the end of the day a decision is required. Do I eat thing X or thing Y? And in what proportion? So when a set of things is not well understood but a decision is required, many non science strategies enter. So what can be done about this?
>It's seen as a bit of a social faux pas in our society though, so you might want to find a different society first if you'd like to enjoy tasty humans.
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