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One Month of Analyzing Moral Dilemmas: #21 Survival Via Cannibalism
A plane crashes in the mountains. The survivors, stranded for weeks with no food, face an impossible choice: consume the flesh of the dead or succumb to starvation. The act is unthinkable—taboo in every culture, condemned by morality, outlawed by law. And yet, history has shown that when starvation tightens its grip, the unthinkable becomes inevitable.
The Cannibalism Dilemma forces us to confront the dark extremes of survival. When life itself is at stake, do moral laws still apply? Is the act of consuming human flesh an ultimate betrayal of humanity, or does necessity override ethics? And if survival justifies the means, where do we draw the line between instinct and morality?
The History of Survival Cannibalism
As horrifying as the question is, history offers real-world cases that force us to grapple with it. The Donner Party, trapped in the Sierra Nevada during the winter of 1846, resorted to cannibalism after exhausting all other food sources. The Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which crashed in the Andes in 1972, left survivors no choice but to consume the bodies of their deceased friends to endure the bitter cold. In both cases, those who partook in cannibalism did so not out of malice, but desperation.
Survivors of such events often describe their decision not as a betrayal of their lost companions, but as a form of reverence—the dead giving life to the living. But does necessity absolve an act of its horror? Does survival make the forbidden acceptable?
The Morality of Last Resort
Traditional ethics would say no. Cannibalism is considered the ultimate violation of human dignity, a taboo deeply ingrained in religious and cultural teachings. From the Biblical condemnation of eating human flesh to the ancient world's horror at societies rumored to practice it, the act is viewed as the final degradation of civilization.
Yet, the moral framework collapses when death is certain. In survival scenarios, the choice is not between right and wrong—it is between life and death. If morality is meant to preserve human life, then does it not contradict itself when it demands adherence to laws that lead to certain death? If we judge actions by their consequences, is it not more ethical to live by breaking a taboo than to die adhering to it?
The Slippery Slope: When Survival Becomes Self-Justification
But survival itself cannot justify everything. If we accept that consuming the dead is morally excusable, does that open the door to darker justifications? What happens if one person is still alive but too weak to contribute? If their death would sustain the group, does the survival instinct evolve into something more sinister—a justification for choosing who lives and who dies?
This is the danger of breaking moral absolutes. Once we allow necessity to override ethics, we risk moving from an act of desperation to one of rationalized murder. The infamous case of the Mignonette (1884) saw shipwreck survivors kill and eat a sick cabin boy to extend their own survival. When rescued, they were tried and convicted—not for cannibalism itself, but for crossing the line between endurance and execution.
What It Means to Be Human
The Cannibalism Dilemma is not just about survival. It is about the essence of what makes us human. Are we merely animals, driven by instinct, or are we creatures of principle, bound by laws even when they threaten our existence? Is humanity defined by the will to live at any cost, or by the ability to say, "There are things I will not do, no matter the price?"
Perhaps the real moral test is not whether we could justify such an act in the grip of starvation—but whether, once we have survived, we can still live with the knowledge of what we have done.