That last part seems backward to me. If I’m going to die anyway, why shouldn’t I want to be eaten? My corpse has nutritional value; I generally prefer that valuable things be used rather than discarded.
Understand, I don’t want to be eaten when I die, but it seems clear to me that I’m the irrational one here, not the cow. It’s just that my irrationality on the matter is conventional.
The UK supposedly has a rule where you can take home and eat roadkill that you find, but not roadkill that you yourself were responsible for killing. The theoretical incentive problem is fairly obvious, even though enforcability is not.
The blanket prohibition on eating people whether or not they want to be eaten after they die may make sense in terms of not incentivizing other people to terminate them ahead of schedule.
Sure, I agree that it may be in our collective best interests to prevent individuals from eating one another, whether they want to be eaten or not. It may even be in our best interests to force individuals to assert that they don’t want to be eaten, and if so, it’s probably best for them to do so sincerely rather than lie, since sincere belief is a much reliable source of such assertions.
I just deny that their desire to be eaten, should they have it, is irrational.
That last part seems backward to me. If I’m going to die anyway, why shouldn’t I want to be eaten? My corpse has nutritional value; I generally prefer that valuable things be used rather than discarded.
Understand, I don’t want to be eaten when I die, but it seems clear to me that I’m the irrational one here, not the cow. It’s just that my irrationality on the matter is conventional.
The UK supposedly has a rule where you can take home and eat roadkill that you find, but not roadkill that you yourself were responsible for killing. The theoretical incentive problem is fairly obvious, even though enforcability is not.
The blanket prohibition on eating people whether or not they want to be eaten after they die may make sense in terms of not incentivizing other people to terminate them ahead of schedule.
Sure, I agree that it may be in our collective best interests to prevent individuals from eating one another, whether they want to be eaten or not. It may even be in our best interests to force individuals to assert that they don’t want to be eaten, and if so, it’s probably best for them to do so sincerely rather than lie, since sincere belief is a much reliable source of such assertions.
I just deny that their desire to be eaten, should they have it, is irrational.