Why is cannibalism Evil?

[SangoProduction]

In the real world, cannibalism is outlawed for a few reasons:
1) Ew.
2) Ewwwwww.

3) Many people have a romantic ideal of being buried, and disrespecting the sanctity of the dead makes the living feel as though they'd be treated the same way, and denied such an ideal.

4) Allowing the use of something that requires the death of humans may eventually create a ....market demand for that something, even if unintentionally. (In this case, that something being food made of humans.)
We don't want to encourage human death, because encouraging human death, while being a human is...well, it's not a good means of self-preservation.
(And yes. We have verifiable evidence of this happening, what with China's combination of sufficient tech, infrastructure, control, and lack of morals. OK. I lie. They have "communist morality." It's created quite a prosperous "black market" organ harvesting business...coincidentally with organs of people that the CCP find offensive.)

5-17) [Board rules prevent discussion of religion. So don't.]



But, the act, in and of itself, is not inherently Evil, if the corpse was not obtain by Evil means. At best, I could argue that eating a body prevents it from being whole, which rebuffs lower level resurrection spells.

So, Does anyone have an argument for it being Evil based on principled grounds of what constitutes Evil in D&D?

[Saintheart]

Book of Exalted Deeds p.37: killing a good creature to harvest its parts or organs is explicitly an evil act. Harvesting can be for the purpose of consumption, ergo, if you kill a good human to eat him, it's evil.

In the explicit form described, i.e. receiving a body in order to consume it, that's likely more on the Lawful/Chaotic axis rather than Good/Evil, since that's to do with order and laws. Lawful Neutrals probably would have more of a problem with cannibalism than the Lawful Good types on this analysis basically because it's messy and it has potential to create disorder associated with contracting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

[Selion]

In the real world, cannibalism is outlawed for a few reasons:
1) Ew.
2) Ewwwwww.

3) Many people have a romantic ideal of being buried, and disrespecting the sanctity of the dead makes the living feel as though they'd be treated the same way, and denied such an ideal.

4) Allowing the use of something that requires the death of humans may eventually create a ....market demand for that something, even if unintentionally. (In this case, that something being food made of humans.)
We don't want to encourage human death, because encouraging human death, while being a human is...well, it's not a good means of self-preservation.
(And yes. We have verifiable evidence of this happening, what with China's combination of sufficient tech, infrastructure, control, and lack of morals. OK. I lie. They have "communist morality." It's created quite a prosperous "black market" organ harvesting business...coincidentally with organs of people that the CCP find offensive.)

5-17) [Board rules prevent discussion of religion. So don't.]



But, the act, in and of itself, is not inherently Evil, if the corpse was not obtain by Evil means. At best, I could argue that eating a body prevents it from being whole, which rebuffs lower level resurrection spells.

So, Does anyone have an argument for it being Evil based on principled grounds of what constitutes Evil in D&D?

In many cultures cannibalism is not considered evil, but at the same time in some cultures there are brutal behaviors which are not considered evil by them, but are definitely evil.
Is it possible a social approach in a setting in which goodness is detectable with spells? Maybe an evil act requires consciousness about its vileness and committing a non-evil act
may be evil if the intention was purposely evil?

[Malphegor]

Well, in D&D at least it's associated with evil creatures and evil acts.

Arcane Spellcasters can learn the corrupt spell Consume Likeness for a brief wisdom drop (I think you can sleep attribute damage off?) in exchange for a permanent ability to switch to another form by eating the person whose form you want (and not even the whole person! 1 ounce can be done stealthily!). Which then leads to bodysnatcher situations where wizards infiltrate your society which is probably considered unpleasant?

Mindflayers eat brains, but is it still cannibalism if you're different species but still sophonts? Probably not.

I suppose it comes down to "I really don't want this to happen to me" for a society as a whole, so people consider it to be evil. Plus association with those who have to do so as a species, who generally are evil anyway.


For irl reasons beyond eww and religious:

People who eat bodies irl I think are said to to get prion diseases (proteins folding wrong) more easily (though I may be mistaken on that) which in ancient cultures might've been seen as a curse for eating the dead, so that's a thing that makes people think 'ooh eating Grandpa might make Grandpa curse us' so then it becomes taboo? (An example of this kind of disease irl is Kuru, which was caused by humans eating the brains of their dead, which makes the afflicted laugh uncontrollably and also have infected brains for people who eat them to be infected). That seems like a evil curse right there. Don't eat human brains unless you are an ilithid, people.

[SangoProduction]

Book of Exalted Deeds p.37: killing a good creature to harvest its parts or organs is explicitly an evil act. Harvesting can be for the purpose of consumption, ergo, if you kill a good human to eat him, it's evil.

In the explicit form described, i.e. receiving a body in order to consume it, that's likely more on the Lawful/Chaotic axis rather than Good/Evil, since that's to do with order and laws. Lawful Neutrals probably would have more of a problem with cannibalism than the Lawful Good types on this analysis basically because it's messy and it has potential to create disorder associated with contracting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Huh. I coulda sworn that it said something along the lines of eating sentient creatures was Evil. Well. The misrememberence of such information probably completely invalidates the question.

[magic9mushroom]

I'd say that funerary cannibalism isn't Evil (and neither is survival cannibalism agreed to by the eat-ee), but eating slain enemies would verge on it (eating prisoners would, of course, be absolutely Evil, due to the whole "murdering helpless people" thing).

[OgresAreCute]

Another reason why we don't eat people is because all the diseases in a human's body would be communicable to you. It's not very healthy.

[Mordaedil]

It's also worth noting that most D&D games will take place in circumstances where food is abundant and not at all difficult to aquire, so being a cannibal in a D&D game comes with the implication you are doing it as part of a fetish or need of stimuli for an evil act. It is therefore evil, because you commit it knowingly as an evil act.

If you run a game where cannibalism can be a necessity, I wouldn't apply the evil attribute to it, it's just survival at a point. Depending on the setting I also make differentiations between what is and isn't cannibalism between races.

Consider the following:
In some cultures consuming sentient beings (that is anything with an intelligence score of 3 or above) as a form of cannibalism.
In some cultures consuming the same race is considered cannibalism, but consuming others isn't (so a human eating an elf might not be a cannibal? But a human eating a human is.)
In some cultures consuming the same race category is considered cannibalism, but others are fine (consuming an abberation or animal isn't cannibalism, but consuming another humanoid is, even if as distant as a reptile)
In some cultures consuming anything outside of a very few specific categories is considered cannibalism. (Abberations, undead, giants, humanoids and outsiders and such are no-go, but animals, oozes and vermin are fine.)

Consider these traits (thank you ranger class for being a good resource for this) when you build your world and what taboos are inherent. It might never come up, but you could relay to your players when something is meant to be disturbing to them and when it is not.

[frogglesmash]

My uneducated theory is that since cannibalism requires a human corpse, and one way to get human corpses is to turn people into them, we, as society, avoid cannibalism in order to minimize the number of people getting turned into corpses. This makes cannibalism taboo, and taboo things are edgy, and nerds often conflate edgeyness with evil, and nerds wrote d&d, therefore cannibalism is evil in d&d.

[maxion]

It encourages murder is why it's evil. You think rape is bad? How about someone raping, killing, then eating you.

If the death penalty gave the state an economic boost in sales of human meat, would they or would they not be more likely to give people the death penalty? Would they ore would they not be more likely to get false convictions instead of finding the truth.

You get my point.

Earning money isn't evil, and yet people do A LOT of evil deeds to earn it. It's not the point that something encourages to evil deeds so it's evil on it's own.

[Madsamurai]

Eating corpses turns you into a ghoul eventually. Ghouls are always Evil. Ergo cannibalism is evil. QED.

[ericgrau]

Meat that died naturally is typically poor quality, inedible or even dangerous meat. Heck even meat that isn't very healthy, young and in great condition. So yeah, I agree with those that say anything that encourages obtaining more fresh bodies is evil.

Now as for a Donner Party situation or other extreme circumstances, maybe that could be up for discussion. IIRC the people in that situation said it tasted horrendous, and not just because they despised the act.


Earning money isn't evil, and yet people do A LOT of evil deeds to earn it. It's not the point that something encourages to evil deeds so it's evil on it's own.
Cannibalism isn't necessary though. Hence the need for extreme circumstances to even maybe justify it at all. Dancing very close to horrible things for no good reason is just asking for trouble. Call it the Murphy's Law of evil. If you have a great reason for that risk then fine. Otherwise, I'm highly suspicious.

Yeah, maybe 100% purely isolated cannabilism isn't evil which is why I brought up the extreme circumstances. But it's hard for such a thing to exist. Or maybe even in those circumstances it's not evil but still a "necessary evil". Like the killing adventurers do every day. But then so is stealing from villains, etc., etc.

[Quertus]

"We consume a piece of our dead to honor them, that they may live on inside of us. We consume their strength, their wisdom, their courage, their vision. Just as they train us while they are alive, so too do they willingly pass on their essence in death. We gain unity in our shared essence. We are all Kosh."

Or, at least, that's how I view (postmortem) cannibalistic cultures.

[Bronk]

Eating corpses turns you into a ghoul eventually. Ghouls are always Evil. Ergo cannibalism is evil. QED.

You could turn into a Wendigo too (FF). Bad news.

[Tajl]

it is evil because in western culture it is considered evil.

If we forget about culture then eating human meat is no different from eating cow meat.

There have been many cultures in the world where eating human meat have not been taboo. There has not always been the same abundance as now. In the Stone Age, 50 pounds of meat in the trash or stomach could have been a difference between survival and death for whole tribe.

[liquidformat]

In the real world, cannibalism is outlawed for a few reasons:
1) Ew.
2) Ewwwwww.

3) Many people have a romantic ideal of being buried, and disrespecting the sanctity of the dead makes the living feel as though they'd be treated the same way, and denied such an ideal.

4) Allowing the use of something that requires the death of humans may eventually create a ....market demand for that something, even if unintentionally. (In this case, that something being food made of humans.)
We don't want to encourage human death, because encouraging human death, while being a human is...well, it's not a good means of self-preservation.
(And yes. We have verifiable evidence of this happening, what with China's combination of sufficient tech, infrastructure, control, and lack of morals. OK. I lie. They have "communist morality." It's created quite a prosperous "black market" organ harvesting business...coincidentally with organs of people that the CCP find offensive.)

5-17) [Board rules prevent discussion of religion. So don't.]

But, the act, in and of itself, is not inherently Evil, if the corpse was not obtain by Evil means. At best, I could argue that eating a body prevents it from being whole, which rebuffs lower level resurrection spells.

So, Does anyone have an argument for it being Evil based on principled grounds of what constitutes Evil in D&D?

you missed an important point of why it is illegal, this one explicitly requires the definition of cannibalism of eating your own species and isn't limited to humans.
18)Eating your own species over multiple generations leads to genetic issues such as mad cow disease, brain farting on the name of the human version of mad cow...


Huh. I coulda sworn that it said something along the lines of eating sentient creatures was Evil. Well. The misrememberence of such information probably completely invalidates the question.

AFB but I believe that BoVD specifically identifies cannibalism as an evil act using terminology like you are describing.

On a side note we actually have plenty of historical evidence of cannibalism being acceptable even by western society but only under very specific circumstances. Primarily during ship wrecks where people are stranded at sea, there were actually maritime laws about the practice even. I also recall a recent story about a soccer team who crashed a plane in the Andies and ate the dead to stay alive until they could be rescued.

[Particle_Man]

On the other hand dragonhide armor is sold on the open market in the phb. So would wearing human skin clothing be ok in these game worlds?

[liquidformat]

On the other hand dragonhide armor is sold on the open market in the phb. So would wearing human skin clothing be ok in these game worlds?

according to Book of Exalted Deeds p.37 only if it is the skin of an evil or neutrally aligned human!

[Hand_of_Vecna]

As a general rule cannibalism spreads disease. It's likely that at some point post humans (or possibly prehumen hominids) were ok with cannibalism, but there were a few oddballs who were naturally averse to it. When times were good the non-cannibals had a significant advantage over the cannibals and passed on more anti-cannibal genes. They also told others they were anti-cannibal and once they had significant numbers they enforced not cannibalizing on their peers who didn't have a natural aversion to it. Again under favorable conditions both natural and trained non-cannibals out compete cannibals due to the diseases spread by cannibalism outweighing the caloric benefit of cannibalism.

[ezekielraiden]

Earning money isn't evil, and yet people do A LOT of evil deeds to earn it. It's not the point that something encourages to evil deeds so it's evil on it's own.

"For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil." Having money isn't evil, but lusting after it is so invariably linked to evil that I'm not sure there is any alternative but calling it evil.

One may thus argue that cannibalism, like killing, is not in itself evil, but hunger for human flesh is, because such hunger will be invariably linked to much evil. Separating the act proper from the attitude and desire.


"We consume a piece of our dead to honor them, that they may live on inside of us. We consume their strength, their wisdom, their courage, their vision. Just as they train us while they are alive, so too do they willingly pass on their essence in death. We gain unity in our shared essence. We are all Kosh."

Or, at least, that's how I view (postmortem) cannibalistic cultures.

Yeah, I wouldn't call this evil. Unwise, perhaps, since cannibalism contributes to disease IRL and ghoul-transformation in-game, but not evil. Especially because it is incompatible with the hunger for human flesh as stated above.


On the other hand dragonhide armor is sold on the open market in the phb. So would wearing human skin clothing be ok in these game worlds?

No. But that has much more to do with dragons than with human(oid)s. It's also worth noting that "on the open market" is a bit of a misnomer, since dragonhide is very rare and expensive. Besides, D&D has always had some weirdness with dragons because of their color-coded alignment as it is--they're closer to being native outsiders than regular mortals.

[liquidformat]

One may thus argue that cannibalism, like killing, is not in itself evil, but hunger for human flesh is, because such hunger will be invariably linked to much evil. Separating the act proper from the attitude and desire.

That sounds like a great way to differentiate it.


No. But that has much more to do with dragons than with human(oid)s. It's also worth noting that "on the open market" is a bit of a misnomer, since dragonhide is very rare and expensive. Besides, D&D has always had some weirdness with dragons because of their color-coded alignment as it is--they're closer to being native outsiders than regular mortals.
Also in general wearing dragon armor is enough to make you an enemy of dragons...

[Particle_Man]

There is also a magic item that is an elven hand that you wear around your neck (hand of the mage). There is also the hand of glory, a mummified human hand, and the hand of stone, a mummified dwarf hand. I imagine elves, humans and dwarves are not too thrilled with those.

There is angelskin armor. Also, bone weapons and armor (maybe they are animal bones, though).

Heck, there is the Eye of Vecna and the Hand of Vecna too, and yes, Vecna is a bad guy, but still, you are using his body parts, dude!

Back to cannibalism, in Pathfinder a druid, cleric, oracle or shaman can purify food and drink as a cantrip all day long so wouldn't have the brain disease problems from cannibalism (although there could still be the ghoul and wendigo problems).

[Themrys]

1. It leads to evil

2. It is easily avoided.


We can outlaw the selling of human organs and eggs, as well as the renting out of female bodies, without harming anyone, thereby preventing the evil that would be caused by it.
Which results in those being outlawed in most places.

However, getting rid of money (or really, private property, as anything that can be hoarded could take the same role) in order to prevent the evil it causes would be rather difficult. Thus, there are no places where money is outlawed.


If you remove the "easily avoided" factor of cannibalism by making food scarce, that changes things. In fact, it even tends to change the views of people who abhor it. (And in a "stranded on a desert island" situation, people might even not worry so much about diseases anymore.)


(The argument with the sanctity of the dead is an interesting one. In DnD world with its abundance of necromancers, a culture might develop a habit of eating their dead in order to prevent them from being meddled with.)

[ezekielraiden]

The argument with the sanctity of the dead is an interesting one. In DnD world with its abundance of necromancers, a culture might develop a habit of eating their dead in order to prevent them from being meddled with.

Alternatively, because of the ghoul thing, it could emphasize crematory and dispersal funerary rites. People can't be raised in any form (except maybe ghosts) if you burn the body until the bones are fragments, grind up said fragments, and disperse them in the sea or something like that.

[Particle_Man]

We can outlaw the selling of human organs and eggs, as well as the renting out of female bodies, without harming anyone

For the latter many argue that making prostitution illegal actually puts prostitutes in more danger than otherwise. For example, if Johns hurt them or pimps hurt them they are less likely to seek aid from the authorities.

Transmetropolitan has a post scarcity society in which cloned human meat is eaten (which removes the killing a person to eat them part of the equation).

[Cruiser1]

Cannibalism may be bad in humanoid societies, but monster societies believe differently. In the Eberron novel "Tales of the Last War", there's the following exchange between a warforged named Spear and a sahuagin (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/sahuagin.htm) named Bulubba:

"And what is it you savages practice? I hear you eat your own as soon as they prove unable to defend themselves."
"It is sea's way. Strength prevails over weakness."

[Albions_Angel]

So as a couple of people have mentioned, eating things of the same species as you is a really bad idea, biologically. Diseases are usually pretty targeted. Only a few can jump ship from species to species. Bacteria do it better than viruses, because bacteria just require a warm, damp host. Viruses are the really, really nasty ones, but because they are not TECHNICALLY alive, they need to hijack the hosts DNA creators to replicate, and so care whose cells they are hijacking. Its WAY more complicated than this, but you get the idea, right? Then there are these nasty little things called Prions. Prions are... well, bad. They are rapidly replicating, brain destroying, incurable, misshapen proteins. Some of them can jump ship from species to species (mad cow disease), but they generally do better inside a species, where they know their way around. They are even more not alive than viruses. There is no reasoning with a prion. And no way to check. You get one, you die 30 years later. They live in brains, which is a massively nutritious part of an animal... and so a bit you might want to eat...

Basically, in the real world, Cannibalism is evil, and icky, because large cultures that practice it DIE. Same as incest. Small groups can survive on it, but they need to be small because the populations need to be free of deadly disease. Which is also true of incest. A family with ABSOLUTELY ZERO recessive genetic disorders, and PERFECT genes can, in theory, practice incest indefinitely. But incest will concentrate recessive disorders and poor genes so imperfections will soon dominate. And even if you were prefect to begin with, if you mix, even once, with someone who is not, then it all falls down. Same with cannibalism and disease. Isolated tribes may be fine for centuries, but one day some guy eats a monkey that was a little slower than the rest, a prion is introduced, and when he dies and is eaten, it spreads. No more tribe. So as societies build, it becomes more taboo. And we, as humans, tack on myths and legends to reinforce it. And thus we build a moral code. And that moral code becomes stronger than the real reason. "Dont eat people or the faries will take you away", "Dont eat people because you will become a vampire", its more visceral than "Dont eat people because there is a chance you might die, and then people will eat you, and then they will die, or you might be fine".

So, chances are, the same moral code exists for all intelligent races in D&D. Once upon a time, people tried it, and it didnt work. So society built the moral code around it. And before long, cannibalism isnt just taboo, its EVIL. Its probably chaotic too, because there is always someone willing to be evil, but still follow the rules, so laws end up backing up moral codes. Which is good, because now you have 2 reasons to hate people that do it. Not only are they evil, but also a lawbreaker. And so society slowly pushes those people to the fringe. Until one day, an elf looks up from playing "Stars and Starmen" and says "Why is cannibalism evil?" Because people forgot all the small tribes that died, and all the myths that were used to reinforce the code, and only the code was left.

And then another elf looks up and says:

So as a couple of people have mentioned, eating things of the same species as you is a really bad idea, biologically. Diseases are usually pretty targeted. Only a few can jump ship from species to species. Bacteria do it better than viruses, because bacteria just require a warm, damp host. Viruses are the really, really nasty ones, but because they are not TECHNICALLY alive, they need to hijack the hosts DNA creators to replicate, and so care whose cells they are hijacking. Its WAY more complicated than this, but you get the idea, right? Then there are these nasty little things called Prions. Prions are... well, bad. They are rapidly replicating, brain destroying, incurable, misshapen proteins. Some of them can jump ship from species to species (mad cow disease), but they generally do better inside a species, where they know their way around. They are even more not alive than viruses. There is no reasoning with a prion. And no way to check. You get one, you die 30 years later. They live in brains, which is a massively nutritious part of an animal... and so a bit you might want to eat...

Basically, in the real world, Cannibalism is evil, and icky, because large cultures that practice it DIE. Same as incest. Small groups can survive on it, but they need to be small because the populations need to be free of deadly disease. Which is also true of incest. A family with ABSOLUTELY ZERO recessive genetic disorders, and PERFECT genes can, in theory, practice incest indefinitely. But incest will concentrate recessive disorders and poor genes so imperfections will soon dominate. And even if you were prefect to begin with, if you mix, even once, with someone who is not, then it all falls down. Same with cannibalism and disease. Isolated tribes may be fine for centuries, but one day some guy eats a monkey that was a little slower than the rest, a prion is introduced, and when he dies and is eaten, it spreads. No more tribe. So as societies build, it becomes more taboo. And we, as humans, tack on myths and legends to reinforce it. And thus we build a moral code. And that moral code becomes stronger than the real reason. "Dont eat people or the faries will take you away", "Dont eat people because you will become a vampire", its more visceral than "Dont eat people because there is a chance you might die, and then people will eat you, and then they will die, or you might be fine".

So, chances are, the same moral code exists for all intelligent races in D&D. Once upon a time, people tried it, and it didnt work. So society built the moral code around it. And before long, cannibalism isnt just taboo, its EVIL. Its probably chaotic too, because there is always someone willing to be evil, but still follow the rules, so laws end up backing up moral codes. Which is good, because now you have 2 reasons to hate people that do it. Not only are they evil, but also a lawbreaker. And so society slowly pushes those people to the fringe. Until one day, an elf looks up from playing "Stars and Starmen" and says "Why is cannibalism evil?" Because people forgot all the small tribes that died, and all the myths that were used to reinforce the code, and only the code was left.

And then another elf looks up and says:

So as a couple of people have mentioned, eating things of the same species as you is a really bad idea, biologically. Diseases are usually pretty targeted. Only a few can jump ship from species to species. Bacteria do it better than viruses, because bacteria just require a warm, damp host. Viruses are the really, really nasty ones, but because they are not TECHNICALLY alive, they need to hijack the hosts DNA creators to replicate, and so care whose cells they are hijacking. Its WAY more complicated than this, but you get the idea, right? Then there are these nasty little things called Prions. Prions are... well, bad. They are rapidly replicating, brain destroying, incurable, misshapen proteins. Some of them can jump ship from species to species (mad cow disease), but they generally do better inside a species, where they know their way around. They are even more not alive than viruses. There is no reasoning with a prion. And no way to check. You get one, you die 30 years later. They live in brains, which is a massively nutritious part of an animal... and so a bit you might want to eat...

Basically, in the real world, Cannibalism is evil, and icky, because large cultures that practice it DIE. Same as incest. Small groups can survive on it, but they need to be small because the populations need to be free of deadly disease. Which is also true of incest. A family with ABSOLUTELY ZERO recessive genetic disorders, and PERFECT genes can, in theory, practice incest indefinitely. But incest will concentrate recessive disorders and poor genes so imperfections will soon dominate. And even if you were prefect to begin with, if you mix, even once, with someone who is not, then it all falls down. Same with cannibalism and disease. Isolated tribes may be fine for centuries, but one day some guy eats a monkey that was a little slower than the rest, a prion is introduced, and when he dies and is eaten, it spreads. No more tribe. So as societies build, it becomes more taboo. And we, as humans, tack on myths and legends to reinforce it. And thus we build a moral code. And that moral code becomes stronger than the real reason. "Dont eat people or the faries will take you away", "Dont eat people because you will become a vampire", its more visceral than "Dont eat people because there is a chance you might die, and then people will eat you, and then they will die, or you might be fine".

So, chances are, the same moral code exists for all intelligent races in D&D. Once upon a time, people tried it, and it didnt work. So society built the moral code around it. And before long, cannibalism isnt just taboo, its EVIL. Its probably chaotic too, because there is always someone willing to be evil, but still follow the rules, so laws end up backing up moral codes. Which is good, because now you have 2 reasons to hate people that do it. Not only are they evil, but also a lawbreaker. And so society slowly pushes those people to the fringe. Until one day, an elf looks up from playing "Stars and Starmen" and says "Why is cannibalism evil?" Because people forgot all the small tribes that died, and all the myths that were used to reinforce the code, and only the code was left.

And then another elf looks up and says:

So as a couple of people have mentioned, eating things of the same species as you is a really bad idea, biologically. Diseases are usually pretty targeted. Only a few can jump ship from species to species. Bacteria do it better than viruses, because bacteria just require a warm, damp host. Viruses are the really, really nasty ones, but because they are not TECHNICALLY alive, they need to hijack the hosts DNA creators to replicate, and so care whose cells they are hijacking. Its WAY more complicated than this, but you get the idea, right? Then there are these nasty little things called Prions. Prions are... well, bad. They are rapidly replicating, brain destroying, incurable, misshapen proteins. Some of them can jump ship from species to species (mad cow disease), but they generally do better inside a species, where they know their way around. They are even more not alive than viruses. There is no reasoning with a prion. And no way to check. You get one, you die 30 years later. They live in brains, which is a massively nutritious part of an animal... and so a bit you might want to eat...

Basically, in the real world, Cannibalism is evil, and icky, because large cultures that practice it DIE. Same as incest. Small groups can survive on it, but they need to be small because the populations need to be free of deadly disease. Which is also true of incest. A family with ABSOLUTELY ZERO recessive genetic disorders, and PERFECT genes can, in theory, practice incest indefinitely. But incest will concentrate recessive disorders and poor genes so imperfections will soon dominate. And even if you were prefect to begin with, if you mix, even once, with someone who is not, then it all falls down. Same with cannibalism and disease. Isolated tribes may be fine for centuries, but one day some guy eats a monkey that was a little slower than the rest, a prion is introduced, and when he dies and is eaten, it spreads. No more tribe. So as societies build, it becomes more taboo. And we, as humans, tack on myths and legends to reinforce it. And thus we build a moral code. And that moral code becomes stronger than the real reason. "Dont eat people or the faries will take you away", "Dont eat people because you will become a vampire", its more visceral than "Dont eat people because there is a chance you might die, and then people will eat you, and then they will die, or you might be fine".

So, chances are, the same moral code exists for all intelligent races in D&D. Once upon a time, people tried it, and it didnt work. So society built the moral code around it. And before long, cannibalism isnt just taboo, its EVIL. Its probably chaotic too, because there is always someone willing to be evil, but still follow the rules, so laws end up backing up moral codes. Which is good, because now you have 2 reasons to hate people that do it. Not only are they evil, but also a lawbreaker. And so society slowly pushes those people to the fringe. Until one day, an elf looks up from playing "Stars and Starmen" and says "Why is cannibalism evil?" Because people forgot all the small tribes that died, and all the myths that were used to reinforce the code, and only the code was left.

And then another elf looks up and says:

...

[Blue Jay]

The risk of disease from cannibalism is being vastly overstated here. For sure, there is a chance of diseases being transmitted through cannibalism, but it's not really any greater than the chance of getting a disease from any other meat that you didn't prepare properly. Diseases that spread from human to human are usually not adapted to transmit through the digestive system, so the act of eating another human actually carries a relatively low risk of disease transmission.

Rather, it's the act of handling a dead human body that runs the greatest risk of transmitting diseases. So, the actual taboos in human societies usually are usually broader in scope: they're about the uncleanness of dead bodies in general, and about the perverseness of handling and interacting with dead bodies. So, cannibalism is detested because it's part of the greater milieu of corpse-related taboos, or because it's a superlative form of "interacting with" a dead body; not because it's a specific danger to human health in its own right.

[Particle_Man]

Cannibalism may be bad in humanoid societies, but monster societies believe differently. In the Eberron novel "Tales of the Last War", there's the following exchange between a warforged named Spear and a sahuagin (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/sahuagin.htm) named Bulubba:

"And what is it you savages practice? I hear you eat your own as soon as they prove unable to defend themselves."
"It is sea's way. Strength prevails over weakness."

I don't think using the sahuagin race as an example will help to convince people that cannibalism is not evil, though. :smallbiggrin:

[ezekielraiden]

The risk of disease from cannibalism is being vastly overstated here. For sure, there is a chance of diseases being transmitted through cannibalism, but it's not really any greater than the chance of getting a disease from any other meat that you didn't prepare properly. Diseases that spread from human to human are usually not adapted to transmit through the digestive system, so the act of eating another human actually carries a relatively low risk of disease transmission.

Rather, it's the act of handling a dead human body that runs the greatest risk of transmitting diseases. So, the actual taboos in human societies usually are usually broader in scope: they're about the uncleanness of dead bodies in general, and about the perverseness of handling and interacting with dead bodies. So, cannibalism is detested because it's part of the greater milieu of corpse-related taboos, or because it's a superlative form of "interacting with" a dead body; not because it's a specific danger to human health in its own right.

It's worth noting that prions, which are extremely subtle and often take a long time to kill you, cannot be removed by any of these methods. Even autoclaving is not a guaranteed (https://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/basics/prions/) method of removal: "Prions cannot be destroyed by boiling, alcohol, acid, standard autoclaving methods, or radiation. In fact, infected brains that have been sitting in formaldehyde for decades can still transmit spongiform disease. Cooking your burger 'til it's well done won't destroy the prions!" One of the reasons we discovered prions at all was that the Fore tribe was contracting kuru, now known to be a prion disease, in (comparatively) large numbers...specifically due to funerary ritual cannibalism.

So, while disease risks may be exaggerated in this thread, they aren't unfounded either. This is a real problem.

[ShurikVch]

Cannibalism: Cannibals are creatures that eat others of their own kind. In the broader sense, cannibals may be defined as creatures that eat other intelligent creatures for whatever perverted pleasure they gain from it. Many creatures do this - dragons eat humans and other intelligent creatures all the time - but usually they gain no more pleasure (and definitely less sustenance) from a human than they do from a cow.
Cannibals gain pleasure, and in some cases power (see the absorb mind and absorb strength spells in Chapter 6), from eating others. Often cannibals consume foes that they have defeated in battle, but sometimes they simply murder their meals.
Diseases, many of which involve mental disorders, may be transmitted through cannibalism. Eating particularly foul creatures, such as trolls or fiends, can be very dangerous (see the blue guts disease in Chapter 2).Also, "Birth of the Dead: Origins of the Walking Dead" article (Dragon #336) says malignant cannibals may turn into Ghouls or Ghasts after death

Also, I can't find it right now, but, IIRR, it was said somewhere: tradition- or/and religion-based cannibalism isn't Evil (presuming dead wasn't killed just to be eaten)

[Blue Jay]

So, while disease risks may be exaggerated in this thread, they aren't unfounded either. This is a real problem.

Yes, but prion diseases are really rare and they usually don't transmit easily, so they rarely have the kind of show-stopping potential that really drives myth and legend.

Plus, the long incubation times for most prions means that pre-modern humans would basically never have discovered the connection between the disease and the factors that caused it, so it's doubtful that diseases caused by prions have anything to do with cannibalism taboos.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Yes, but prion diseases are really rare and they usually don't transmit easily, so they rarely have the kind of show-stopping potential that really drives myth and legend.

Plus, the long incubation times for most prions means that pre-modern humans would basically never have discovered the connection between the disease and the factors that caused it, so it's doubtful that diseases caused by prions have anything to do with cannibalism taboos.

The effects of cannibalism based disease don't need to be dramatic allowing one smarty-pants to figure out the connection. Cannibalism triggering a disgust reaction could have been a fluke mutation, but it conveyed a competitive advantage. That advantage doesn't need to be dramatic, just enough to tip the scales a little bit each generation.

Any cannibalism related disease doesn't necessarily need to cut down people in the prime of life either. Grandparents can be a big advantage in Hunter gatherer societies providing childcare to free parent's hands and serving as the only store of knowledge in a preliterate culture.

When non cannibals become dominant they'll make rules against it because they "know" they're right.

[Albions_Angel]

Also, as I said, cannibalism will CONCENTRATE problems. Prion diseases may be rare, but if you get one, and then eat the body after it dies, and transmit it to the eaters, they will then die, and be eaten, and... You see the problem? Cannibal tribes will have exhibited greater signs of these diseases. Prion diseases, touch or blood born diseases (contracted during butchery), etc. It would have been very noticeable to our ancestors.

[Blue Jay]

The effects of cannibalism based disease don't need to be dramatic allowing one smarty-pants to figure out the connection. Cannibalism triggering a disgust reaction could have been a fluke mutation, but it conveyed a competitive advantage. That advantage doesn't need to be dramatic, just enough to tip the scales a little bit each generation.

I'm skeptical of the notion that you can explain social taboos as the result of biological evolution. It's pretty well-documented that ideas like this are transmitted via oral and written traditions, so evoking natural selection as causative mechanism is kind of unparsimonious.

[SangoProduction]

I'm skeptical of the notion that you can explain social taboos as the result of biological evolution. It's pretty well-documented that ideas like this are transmitted via oral and written traditions, so evoking natural selection as causative mechanism is kind of unparsimonious.

You can be skeptical all you want.
But, behavior has it's most basic roots in genetics. That's how domestication works. YOu go through tons and tons of generations of [wild animal], selecting only those with a natural tendency for friendliness towards humans. At the end of it, you have [domesticated animal] that sits in your purse.

Almost all cultures have some means of "respect the dead," regardless of distance from each other. This often entails "make sure the body isn't rotting nearby." The specific myths surrounding the "why" change, but the fact that they do it does not. Even before having any sort of "understanding" of diseases.

Furthermore, a disgust response is received when a developed adult sees a dead body. While some disgust responses and fears can be taught, the ubiquity of it (and the fact that being near a rotting corpse predisposes you to disease/death), entails a high likelihood of a strong genetic component, as is the aversion to snakes.

[Blue Jay]

Also, as I said, cannibalism will CONCENTRATE problems. Prion diseases may be rare, but if you get one, and then eat the body after it dies, and transmit it to the eaters, they will then die, and be eaten, and... You see the problem? Cannibal tribes will have exhibited greater signs of these diseases. Prion diseases, touch or blood born diseases (contracted during butchery), etc. It would have been very noticeable to our ancestors.

You're not saying anything here that distinguishes cannibalism from any other route of disease transmission. Prion diseases are rare precisely because they don't transmit as easily or as rapidly as bacterial or viral diseases. Again, most diseases you catch from cannibalism will come from mishandling the corpse or preparing the meat improperly.

The widespread cultural notion the cannibalism is evil is most likely a result of a broader aversion to dead bodies and to death in general, and not because people have specifically drawn connections between eating humans and diseases.


You can be skeptical all you want.
But, behavior has it's most basic roots in genetics...

Okay, just because I'm skeptical of the idea that evolution explains cultural taboos, doesn't mean I don't believe that behaviors have genetic determinants. What I'm saying is that a person with a genetic predisposition towards some particular behavior can teach that behavior to other people, even if those other people lack the genetic predisposition. In a human population, behaviors are transmitted both genetically and culturally, and generally speaking, cultural transmission will usually be the dominant mode of transmission, because it's faster and more efficient than natural selection.

And where cultural transmission is effective at spreading beneficial behaviors, people who are genetically predisposed to those behaviors really aren't at much of a competitive advantage, because even people who lack the genes are displaying the phenotype; so there will be very little (if any) natural selection for those genes.

[redking]

What about ritual cannibalism? Imagine two mighty warriors fighting. One prevails and eats the heart of the defeated warrior to partake of his strength. Furthermore in the belief system of winning warrior, by eating the heart of his enemy his enemy yet lives in spirit.

Is this evil?

[Albions_Angel]

You're not saying anything here that distinguishes cannibalism from any other route of disease transmission. Prion diseases are rare precisely because they don't transmit as easily or as rapidly as bacterial or viral diseases. Again, most diseases you catch from cannibalism will come from mishandling the corpse or preparing the meat improperly.

The widespread cultural notion the cannibalism is evil is most likely a result of a broader aversion to dead bodies and to death in general, and not because people have specifically drawn connections between eating humans and diseases.


And low and behold, many things dealing with dead people that are likely to spread disease are also considered evil. Grave robbing, despoiling a body, necrophilia, organ harvesting. Even autopsy was considered taboo for all but priests (in ancient history) and later doctors (after the victorian period, where autopsies were conducted in secret).

Cannibalism is evil because people that do it a lot in large societies die quicker. So are all those other things for the same reason. Eating dead bodies transmits disease, and so does preparing them.

[ezekielraiden]

What about ritual cannibalism? Imagine two mighty warriors fighting. One prevails and eats the heart of the defeated warrior to partake of his strength. Furthermore in the belief system of winning warrior, by eating the heart of his enemy his enemy yet lives in spirit.

Is this evil?
Let me break this up into some distinct interpretations:
1. A society which forces all duels to be "to the death" has introduced evil into the equation before the cannibalism happens anyway, so yes, it would be evil but the cause of the evil is not the cannibalism per se. I don't think there is enough information to make a universal statement about the cannibalism in this case, as it is too wrapped up in something already evil.

2. In a society where duels are not generally expected to be "to the death" but you are expected to eat a slain one-on-one foe, where a particular warrior always forces them to be deadly. Again, this has introduced evil separate from the cannibalism, e.g. looking for ways to get sanctioned murders. Under this scenario, the cannibalism aspect may be "because I have to" (society says so) or "because I want to," and I would call the former not (solely in itself) evil, instead a rather ugly consequence of an evil act (exploiting your society's traditions to justify murder). While the latter is as I mentioned earlier the "hunger for human(oid) flesh" evil.

3. Society doesn't require duels to be deadly, nor eating your opponent, and a particular warrior (say) fights only while drunk and enraged, so her attacks may not "hold back" the way she might in other (non-duel) circumstances. This is...iffy. I again feel reluctant to make a hard rule. It depends on intent and procedure. Such reckless disregard for the lives of the people you fight may be evil, or it may just be non-good, I need to know more.

So I'd say overall it tends to not be determinative without more info about intent and history. Someone who has only duelled once before, and followed her people's traditions of respectful burial of the deceased and honoring their memory with a careful, minimal extraction of the heart? Okay, maybe not evil, but I wouldn't call the cannibalism part a good act either--it might not damn you, but it certainly doesn't save you. Contrast with a man who's notorious for brutally killing every person he duels, and coming up with "perfectly legitimate" reasons to duel people who cross or offend him, then delighting in the taste of each fallen opponent's flesh? Nah bro, that's hardcore evil, I don't care what your belief system says about cannibalism.

[magic9mushroom]

It's also worth noting that most D&D games will take place in circumstances where food is abundant and not at all difficult to aquire, so being a cannibal in a D&D game comes with the implication you are doing it as part of a fetish or need of stimuli for an evil act. It is therefore evil, because you commit it knowingly as an evil act.

If you run a game where cannibalism can be a necessity, I wouldn't apply the evil attribute to it, it's just survival at a point. Depending on the setting I also make differentiations between what is and isn't cannibalism between races.

Consider the following:
In some cultures consuming sentient beings (that is anything with an intelligence score of 3 or above) as a form of cannibalism.
In some cultures consuming the same race is considered cannibalism, but consuming others isn't (so a human eating an elf might not be a cannibal? But a human eating a human is.)
In some cultures consuming the same race category is considered cannibalism, but others are fine (consuming an abberation or animal isn't cannibalism, but consuming another humanoid is, even if as distant as a reptile)
In some cultures consuming anything outside of a very few specific categories is considered cannibalism. (Abberations, undead, giants, humanoids and outsiders and such are no-go, but animals, oozes and vermin are fine.)

And in some places cannibalism is the local funeral rite. It's not a matter of survival, it's a matter of respect for the dead. Just a different sort of respect.

I've heard someone liken it to Catholic Communion with a little less metaphor.


1. It leads to evil

2. It is easily avoided.


We can outlaw the selling of human organs and eggs, as well as the renting out of female bodies, without harming anyone, thereby preventing the evil that would be caused by it.
Which results in those being outlawed in most places.

It always makes me roll my eyes when Americans assume that because prostitution's illegal there, it's illegal everywhere.

This is not (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prostitution_laws_of_the_world2.svg) the case. Prostitution is legal in much of the Western world and a few other places.


One of the reasons we discovered prions at all was that the Fore tribe was contracting kuru, now known to be a prion disease, in (comparatively) large numbers...specifically due to funerary ritual cannibalism.

So, while disease risks may be exaggerated in this thread, they aren't unfounded either. This is a real problem.

Yes, eating people who have eaten other people is a viable pathway for transmitting prions (although it was mostly the people who ate the brains that got it, IIRC).

On the other hand, in D&D there is this 3rd-level spell called Remove Disease which kinda obviates the problem (you don't actually need many castings of it to break the chain).

[Quertus]

according to Book of Exalted Deeds p.37 only if it is the skin of an evil or neutrally aligned human!

I'm feeling a character idea forming here...


Also in general wearing dragon armor is enough to make you an enemy of dragons...

Guaranteed to be CR-appropriate, and *triple* standard loot drops? Bring it!


We can outlaw... as well as the renting out of female bodies, without harming anyone, thereby preventing the evil that would be caused by it.

But what about all the transgender and gender-fluid people? Wouldn't they be harmed by being unable to rent female bodies?


(The argument with the sanctity of the dead is an interesting one. In DnD world with its abundance of necromancers, a culture might develop a habit of eating their dead in order to prevent them from being meddled with.)

My vote's on elves. Seriously, they *burn* their dead to prevent undead? When they live in *forests* (and on space ships)? Cannibalism sounds like a much smarter plan.

[Particle_Man]

Reminds me of Lunars in exalted. Don’t know if this is still true but they used to get the magical ability to take the form of any human whose heart they have eaten. Makes dungeons and dragons doppelgängers seem like saints relatively speaking.

[Necroticplague]

It’s not. In the BoED, killing someone to eat them is described as evil. If you simply happen to have a sapient’s dead body, you’re OK to eat it.

Although, on the Undead angle, I’m not sure destroying a body helps much. That simply changes the type of undead you’ll get to lean towards skeletal and incorporeal.

[Bohandas]

The answer to the OP question is that it's basically due to a straw man*. People hear "cannibalism" and immediately think of either Hannibal Lecter or Jeffrey Dahmer, who both have a myriad of negative traits not strictly denoted by the word "cannibalism". Nobody ever considers situations like the Donner Party.


*or something very much like a straw man argument but unintentional. Is there a word specifically for an unintentional strawman style argument?

[hamishspence]

according to Book of Exalted Deeds p.37 only if it is the skin of an evil or neutrally aligned human!

I couldn't actually find anything on page 37 that said it's OK.

It specifically says that killing a Good being in order to harvest its parts or organs is Evil - but it doesn't say that killing a neutral being in order to harvest its parts or organs is not Evil.


Nobody ever considers situations like the Donner Party.

In 4e, people who commit cannibalism out of "desperation" still risk becoming Wendigos (Demonomicon).

In that book, it makes the point that cannibalism creates a spiritual gateway to the abyss, through which it is possible for wendigos to travel, transforming the cannibal into a wendigo.

[ezekielraiden]

The answer to the OP question is that it's basically due to a straw man*. People hear "cannibalism" and immediately think of either Hannibal Lecter or Jeffrey Dahmer, who both have a myriad of negative traits not strictly denoted by the word "cannibalism". Nobody ever considers situations like the Donner Party.


*or something very much like a straw man argument but unintentional. Is there a word specifically for an unintentional strawman style argument?

Strawman isn't quite accurate--that's building up a false opponent and then acting like taking down that false opponent were the same as taking down the real one. Both the intentional and unintentional thing you talk about here sounds like guilt by association, or at least a very similar type of genetic fallacy.

Also, uh...on the subject of fallacies, you might want to check your hasty generalization here. Yes, a lot of people do that. I have explicitly addressed this kind of thing, and although I didn't explicitly reference the Donner Party, I was responding to a discussion about it. I also noted that just as it's not money-making but the love of money that is a root of much evil, the hunger for human flesh is what is Definitely Always Evil whereas the act itself may not always be in every situation. (Kind of like how killing is always bad, but not all "killing" is "murder," e.g. killing in self-defense.)

[Quertus]

Basically, in the real world, Cannibalism is evil, and icky, because large cultures that practice it DIE. Same as incest. Small groups can survive on it, but they need to be small because the populations need to be free of deadly disease. Which is also true of incest. A family with ABSOLUTELY ZERO recessive genetic disorders, and PERFECT genes can, in theory, practice incest indefinitely. But incest will concentrate recessive disorders and poor genes so imperfections will soon dominate. And even if you were prefect to begin with, if you mix, even once, with someone who is not, then it all falls down.

Wait... Are you saying that "generic purity" incest fanatics aren't laughably dumb - that it actually makes sense? That if they actually did have "generic purity", that they could keep said purity through incest?

My mind is blown.

[LudicSavant]

*or something very much like a straw man argument but unintentional. Is there a word specifically for an unintentional strawman style argument?

An unintentional strawman argument is just called a strawman argument.

A logical fallacy is an error in reasoning; a kind of mistake. A mistake is a mistake whether you do it on purpose or not.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Wait... Are you saying that "generic purity" incest fanatics aren't laughably dumb - that it actually makes sense? That if they actually did have "generic purity", that they could keep said purity through incest?

My mind is blown.

There is randomization in the generation of zygotes. Not much, but you would need a group without this trait. Thus, this train goes off the rails as we essentially need flawless creators making the Adam and Eve.

[SangoProduction]

Wait... Are you saying that "generic purity" incest fanatics aren't laughably dumb - that it actually makes sense? That if they actually did have "generic purity", that they could keep said purity through incest?

My mind is blown.

Based on your change of their language, I believe you are trying to conflate what he said with a real world ideology, and I believe the forums forbids that.

[Yogibear41]

I remember watching a documentary on discovery or something about this tribe of people who lived on some remote island with a pretty limited and non-diverse food supply. That whenever someone died they ate them to not waste the meat because it was such a precious resource. They didn't actively go and kill people to eat, unless the person was a murderer or something bad like that already. I wouldn't necessarily say that is evil, more like survival.

[ezekielraiden]

An unintentional strawman argument is just called a strawman argument.

I disagree, but that's because I'd argue strawmanning requires a modicum of intent. You're specifically setting up a weaker argument than the actual one presented to you, and then act like it's the same. The only way I can think of to do that by accident is to misunderstand what the argument you're opposing even is--but that's not a fallacy, that's simply not having all the information. I can hardly fault Newton for the "fallacy" of not knowing that gravity is actually due to momentum and energy, and that the mass-based equation is simply a convenient shorthand at low energies/low momenta.


A logical fallacy is an error in reasoning; a kind of mistake. A mistake is a mistake whether you do it on purpose or not.

Unless the definition of the mistake includes intent. Consider voluntary vs. involuntary manslaughter--the crucial difference is intent. Another fallacy that can only be committed with intent (even if the person committing it may not know that it has a name) is the motte-and-bailey argument, which is sort of an inverse strawman. Instead of arguing against an easily-defeated false opponent, the motte-and-bailey argument makes a very strident claim that is relatively easy to defeat (for example, "religion causes violent crime"), the "bailey" part, only to retreat to a weaksauce, nearly-indisputable claim that seems sufficiently related ("I only meant that religion can be a motive for violence"), the "motte" part. Once the opponent lets off, though, I can march right back into the bailey and act like the strident-but-indefensible claim was what survived the opponent's critique. This is a fallacy which can only really be committed with intent--you have to be trying to get people to accept the strident claim, while only defending the nearly-indisputable lesser claim.

Like I said, I see strawman and motte-and-bailey as essentially mirror images of each other. The strawman is where you create a bailey around your opponent and then claim victory for having assailed it; the motte-and-bailey is where you want a claim that can be toppled like a strawman, but pretend that you are really defending a much more secure one. Mere ignorance does not a strawman make.

[Bohandas]

1. It leads to evil

2. It is easily avoided.


We can outlaw the selling of human organs and eggs, as well as the renting out of female bodies, without harming anyone, thereby preventing the evil that would be caused by it.
Which results in those being outlawed in most places.

Is this sincere or is it intended as reductio ad absurdium to show that the taboo is unwarranted?

[Thurbane]

Here at Karaan FarmsTM, we only use ethically sourced, free-range commoners.

Just as an aside, IMHO cannibalism is far from the oddest thing to be tagged as "eeeeevil" in D&D/BoED; there are implications or outright statements that body modification and sexual proclivities that deviate from the norm are also evil

[Doctor Awkward]

Why is cannibalism Evil?

In order to have cannibalism, you need to have a dead person. It would be a colossally stupid idea to eat someone who died of disease. And someone who died of old age would also not be very appetizing. Thus that means that deaths through accidents or violence would provide the best meat. It is in the best interests of society not to encourage murdering people in order to eat them.

[Mechalich]

In order to have cannibalism, you need to have a dead person. It would be a colossally stupid idea to eat someone who died of disease. And someone who died of old age would also not be very appetizing. Thus that means that deaths through accidents or violence would provide the best meat. It is in the best interests of society not to encourage murdering people in order to eat them.

It should be noted that, in most pre-industrial societies, it was not possible to reliably determine a cause of death, and since the germ theory of disease did not exist, there was no way to separate someone who died from something communicable via the flesh of a corpse, like malaria, versus something that is not, like an aneurysm.

This does raise the possible scenario that, in D&D, the taboo against cannibalism should be much more limited, because Purify Food & Drink. In Pathfinder, this spell is an Orsion, and can be cast literally every round, so the local Level One Cleric should be purifying everyone's food and no one should suffer from foodborne illness ever.

[Blue Jay]

This topic came back to my mind, and I realized that I'd just dropped it. Not that it's terribly important, but I feel like saying a few more words here.


And low and behold, many things dealing with dead people that are likely to spread disease are also considered evil. Grave robbing, despoiling a body, necrophilia, organ harvesting. Even autopsy was considered taboo for all but priests (in ancient history) and later doctors (after the victorian period, where autopsies were conducted in secret).

Cannibalism is evil because people that do it a lot in large societies die quicker. So are all those other things for the same reason. Eating dead bodies transmits disease, and so does preparing them.

You're still missing the point. Cannibalism is almost always going to be such a minority vector of a disease that very few people will notice it. Take malaria for an example. Mosquitoes transmit malaria much more efficiently than cannibalism does. So, in all likelihood, any tribe that's exposed to malaria via cannibalism will already be suffering from malaria brought in by mosquitoes several days or weeks earlier. And, all the villages in the area of the epidemic are going to have an outbreak, whether or not they engage in cannibalism, because mosquitoes are very efficient vectors. So, nobody is going to make the connection that cannibalism is enhancing the epidemic's spread, because it isn't!

Another example: measles. Measles is so contagious that you're almost certain to get it if you breathe the same air as someone who's infected. So, once again, you'll catch the disease if you even come anywhere near an infected person, regardless of whether you intend to eat him. And, as with malaria, cannibal tribes and non-cannibal tribes are all going to have an outbreak. Nobody will notice the difference.

Diseases that come specifically from cannibalism, and not from other vectors, and very rare; and diseases that come from cannibalism and from other vectors will almost always be spread more efficiently by the other vector than by cannibalism. So, the majority of tribes who engage in cannibalism are not going to see an increase in chances for disease.

So, as much as it's comforting and satisfying to think that cultural beliefs like "cannibalism is evil" are rooted in reality, it's not always the case. Cannibalism doesn't have to be an actual health risk for your tribe in order for you to see it as evil. It's more likely that people see it as evil because of the trauma of watching it happen to someone they care about.

Most views about good-vs-evil probably ultimately derive from basic human empathy, rather than from the cold calculus of natural selection; and cannibalism is probably no different.

[Albions_Angel]

OK.

What we agree on. Diseases specifically from cannibalism are fairly rare in a per occurrence situation.

What I hope we can agree on. Diseases contracted from cannibalism, rare as they may be, are really, really bad. As are ones likely contracted from butchery of dead bodies. And those contracted from being in close contact with dead bodies.

Here is my counter to what you are saying. Rare contraction or not, the Fore tribe is living proof that people DO notice the effects of disease from cannibalism. The discovery of the Kuru prion source is a direct result of noting they they were contracting the disease at a relatively higher rate than others who did not practice funerary cannibalism.

Because of the low chance of disease in a one off situation, the odd cannibal in a society wont get noticed. But if everyone in a society is doing it, those tiny chances build and build. If 100 people eat an infected dead person, and only one gets sick, no worries, right? But then, presumably, when that person dies, the remaining 99 people then eat that person. And now everyone has had 2 independent chances to get infected. Likelihood is, another one falls ill. Then its 3 infected bodies everyone has eaten. Each occurrence has a low chance of infection, but the cumulative probability of independent events approaches 1 as the number of events approaches infinity.

And the events arnt independent. Prions will get more and more concentrated because of their infection mechanism. Viruses and bacteria will be selected to transmit better (the ones that transmit poorly die in the original host).

Isolated societies that practiced cannibalism will have been noted to die earlier and from more horrible diseases.

################################################## ###################

That covers my direct rebuttal. Now I am moving on. I dont want to be accused of moving goal posts, so this is a new point, one I just thought of.

Even in societies where cannibalism isnt common, people will get desperate. I am thinking siege or famine situations. More likely the latter, as sieges evolved after most western societies had decided eating people was evil. I cant speak for when either sieges or cannibalism emerged/fell in other societies. But in those two situations, at some point, someone is going to suggest eating the dead. Close, desperate conditions, rotting bodies, etc. People would have gotten sick. And the survivors would have noted that those that resorted to cannibalism died at a higher rate. They wouldnt have made the connection between being near dead bodies and getting sick. It would have been the obvious thing. The eating. It would have evolved into a cultural memory (the kind that is passed down in oral traditions, not the made up kind that is supposed to be passed down in genetics).

You dont need 100% transmission of diseases from eating people to form a cultural memory of the bad things that can happen. You just need it to be noticeable. And it is either through long term progression and compounding of very small chances, or through higher transmission rates of other diseases associated with practices related to cannibalism through desperation.

[Quertus]

Based on your change of their language, I believe you are trying to conflate what he said with a real world ideology, and I believe the forums forbids that.

Wait, there are people who promote that IRL, not just in movies (and books, and video games, and...)? My mind is blown again.

OK, I probably should have guessed, given how prevalent it is.


There is randomization in the generation of zygotes. Not much, but you would need a group without this trait. Thus, this train goes off the rails as we essentially need flawless creators making the Adam and Eve.

The only part of that I understood, I'll respond with, "I always thought that partners were created for Adam and Eve's children".

So, the rest... are you saying that, even with a flawless start, one might eventually find "generic purity" to fail, due to randon mutation?


It's more likely that people see it as evil because of the trauma of watching it happen to someone they care about.

And the trauma of seeing someone you care about die, and not be (symbolically or otherwise) added back to the tribe? The trauma that, instead, they're just "gone"? Why does this not make cannibalism be seen as "good", or "not cannibalism" seen as "evil"?

[jintoya]

It's evil simply because it's too decadent.
All the best things are evil.

[Yahzi]

Prions cannot be destroyed by boiling, alcohol, acid, standard autoclaving methods, or radiation.
I always learn something from these boards. :smallsmile:

Here's my contribution: a rattlesnake can bite you up to 15 minutes after you cut off its head. No joke; there's a guy in America who's missing two fingers because he learned this the hard way.

[Crow_Nightfeath]

In a lot of places it's not illegal to consume human flesh, now whether that in itself is an evil act is hard to say. I would say it depends on the circumstances of why you're eating human flesh (real world or D&D). The other part is how you obtained it, this is where pretty much any but one way is illegal. The only legal way I know of not breaking any laws to eat human flesh is for them to willingly give it to you while they are alive. Pretty much any other way breaks some law, usually assault, murder, desecration of a corpse, etc.

Side note, for those that are probably thinking it no I do not eat human flesh. I just looked into how you could legally do it. I look into some weird stuff when I'm bored.

[King of Nowhere]

it is one of those things that are generally assumed evil because they are mostly done in an evil way, but can be not evil in the right circumstances.
putting aside the obvious one of the starving survivors eating the first ones that dies, there are also a few non-evil ceremonial uses. A greek hystorian describes a people where their burial rites includes the sons of the deceased eating the body, because "they think there is no better resting place than inside your own sons". It's plenty squick, but it's also a use I wouldn't consider evil.