Is this really how you feel taken to its logical extremes? Do you think humans should be allowed to eat other humans? Other live humans?
Eating is clearly a very personal thing, but it's silly to pretend that morality suddenly ceases applying.
Eating is clearly a very personal thing, but it's silly to pretend that morality suddenly ceases applying.
If we're going to try to come up with a system, mine is simply (borrowed[1]): I like beef and broccoli, mind your business. I readily admit this doesn't cover every corner case, but I don't think there can be a satisfactory system that does. Many things have to be determined by context and taste, and usually aren't even worth thinking about if you're not in a position of power and responsibility over the lives of others.
[1] http://genius.com/Immortal-technique-beef-and-broccoli-lyric...
What if a person whose fantasy was to kill and cook another person met a person who fantasy was to be killed and cooked? Then this happened. What penalty should ensue for the (well-fed) survivor?
And lest you think this is some weird hypothetical, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes may enlighten you otherwise.
Person A kills person B and B wants to be dead/killed.
...what about human meat grown in a lab...?
Firstly, the wealthy (and then the middle classes) will have meat prepared that is genetically identical to themselves, and will serve it to dinner guests.
Secondly, one will be able to buy celebrity meat at the supermarket. The future equivalent of a Tom Cruise burger, or a Scarlett Johansson steak.
If someone said "I'm comfortable with the legal consequences of cannibalism and murder along with the possibility that the person may actually kill me before I get to them" and they actually are held to those postulations, including say, life-imprisonment AND they still want to do it all just so they can eat human for supper, then sure, go for it!
If you say "Well nobody would be ok with industrial slaughterhouses or a number of other things" I say, "yes, that's kinda the point here."
So if we're willing to say a specific action is worth jailing someone for the rest of their life, why shouldn't we say "This action is not okay and we're going to do our best to prevent it"?
Basically, free will (and the physical manifestation of it: liberty) is argued to be more important than the lack of evil. And you can't have realistic free will and liberty without accepting that bad things will happen.