Despite this most obvious reading, however the essay can also be seen to critically reflect on the relationship between conceptions of barbarism and conceptions of civilization. It is possible to explicate this by paying attention to key moments within the essay. Rendall, , Any understanding of the essay that does not take this rhetorical purpose into account have failed to understand it and has, in fact, revealed themselves to the exactly the kind of individual whom Montaigne wishes to criticize within his writing.
This extent of this criticism is made clear in key passages in the essay itself when Montaigne effectively juxtaposes the practices of the cannibals that he is talking with the torture methods that were common in the Europe of his day.
Montaigne begins the primary rhetorical section of the essay by actually describing the manner in which an individual person is killed. If this is correct, the above argument fails in the case of cannibalism, despite the fact that the duty holds among the living. This seems to indicate that respect for persons, alive or dead, is compatible with at least some kinds of cannibalism and hence that cannibalism does not necessarily involve the absence of respectful treatment.
In a strict case of emergency cannibalism, for example, an absolute and universal right against cannibalism entails that starving to death is morally required. An emergency situation, by its very nature, is exceptional. Moreover, one might argue that certain otherwise immoral actions are permitted when these actions are necessary for life preservation.
Utilitarian arguments can also be given against cannibalism. Before considering these arguments, one should distinguish between those arguments that aim to show it would be immoral to legalize cannibalism a policy question and those arguments for the view that any individual act of cannibalism is immoral.
If we come to see one another as a source of food, this argument goes, we will have a fundamentally diminished view of other persons, and the consequences of this will be both far-reaching and dire. Because a healthy society must cultivate and maintain mutual respect among its citizens, accepting cannibalism when it occurs violates utilitarian principles.
Ultimately, accepting cannibalism will diminish the well-being of every member of the society that practices it. An increase in this anxiety, it might be argued, would thus produce more pain than pleasure and hence should be rejected on utilitarian grounds.
Given that there have been cannibalistic societies where the above argument does not seem to hold, one can respond to the above argument by pointing out that there is no necessary connection between anthropophagy and viewing persons as having diminished worth.
After a few generations, the shock of cannibalism may no longer cause the kind of adverse reactions we currently associate with it. Nevertheless, this hardly entails that we have any reason whatsoever to pursue cannibalism at the level of social policy. As a policy question, then, utilitarian considerations seem to indicate that nothing speaks in favor of allowing cannibalistic practices.
In fact, utilitarian considerations would seem to justify cannibalism in emergency situations. In such a case, the initial revulsion one faces is outweighed by the desire to avoid death and starvation. This argument in favor of emergency cannibalism presumes that the person cannibalized is already dead. To argue against the consumption of human beings from within a tradition of virtue ethics, one would need to show that those traits that lead to anthropophagy are themselves not consistent with, or at least not conducive to, the virtuous life.
However, simply asserting that cannibalism is not virtuous is not an argument, as it presupposes the very thing it attempts to establish. For example, one might argue that engaging in cannibalism makes it easier to view a person as a thing and that viewing persons in such a way is not part of the virtuous life. Indeed, in at least some ritualistic cannibalism, the body of the cannibalized is regarded with a kind of reverence.
While it is certainly possible that these cultures were engaging in practices incompatible with virtue, more argument is required to establish this.
To insist that these cultural practices are illegitimate without providing such an argument may well be ethnocentric. These arguments, however, rarely if ever cover every kind of cannibalism, and all face serious objections. The absence of arguments establishing a universal prohibition of cannibalism is not equivalent to the claim that cannibalism is morally permissible.
It may be permissible in certain cases, but such cases will have to be assessed individually. Nicomachean ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Amherst: Prometheus Books. Princeton: Princeton University Press. The rights of war and peace: Including the law of nature and of nations.
Ithaca: Cornell University Library. Practical philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Political essays. An essay on the principle of population. New York: Hackett Press. The complete essays. New York: Penguin. On the duty of man and citizen according to natural law. A defense of cannibalism. Public Affairs Quarterly, 18 3 , — Murder, cannibalism, and indirect suicide: A philosophical study of a recent case.
Philosophy in the Contemporary World, 14 1 , 11— Details Required Q1 Please check if author affiliation is okay. Q2 Please provide details of Avramescu , Wisnewski in the reference list. Q4 Please cite Askenasy , Avramescu , Wisnewski in text. This primal anthropology directly guided a rapacious discovery of the lands of both wild cannibals and golden kings. Whitehead is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, latin american originals Madison.
September pages 5. Pesoutova La representacion y la interpretacion de los paisajes culturales By Jana Pesoutova. European visitors in native spaces: Using palaeography to investigate religious dynamics in the New World By Alice Samson. Who speaks what to whom?
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