An interesting tweet from Richard Dawkins:
Tissue culture “clean meat” already in 2018? I’ve long been looking forward to this. https://ind.pn/2F9xAwS
What if human meat is grown? Could we overcome our taboo against cannibalism? An interesting test case for consequentialist morality versus “yuck reaction” absolutism.
The Dawkinsphobes are spinning this like crazy, of course.
Phoebe Weston of the Daily Mail writes:
As if Dawkins has been longing for years to be a cannibal.
Wesley Smith of the Discovery Institute takes a similar dishonest tack:
The “yuck factor” regarding the consumption of human flesh — even if it is lab-grown — reminds me of Haidt et al’s classic paper on “moral dumbfounding”:
Even reason is based on reasons.
Emotions are the axioms of morality.
petrushka:
What’s interesting about the moral dumbfounding cases is that the judgments don’t follow rationally from the moral axioms that people think they hold.
Hence the laughter:
Christians, what do you think? Is it morally permissible to eat lab-grown human flesh?
And isn’t the sacrament of Holy Communion a form of cannibalism?
Not a christian but I’ll chime in and give my $0.02 worth…….From a moral perspective (whatever that might be) I’d say it depends. It depends on the society you live in and what its sociatal norms deems are acceptable. You (person eating human lab meat) might find themselves ostracized over such an act regardless if no harm came to any individual in its production. More of a societal ‘yuk’ factor than anything else. The implications of the documentary Soylent Green leaps to mind!.
From a personal perspective on morals sure why not but on a pragmatic basis it is probably not a good idea given the risk of prion/spongiform-type diseases resulting from such an act. Animal feed has ubiquitous warning labels on which animals should and should not be fed a specific feed formulation based on where the protein source came from. Meat digest (used to boost protein content) derived from cattle should not be fed back to cattle with similar caveats for other feed formulations and animal species and the various types of meat digest used in the feed industry.
As a disbelieving child I always found the sacrament to be a bit creepy.
“What if human meat is grown? Could we overcome our taboo against cannibalism? An interesting test case for consequentialist morality versus “yuck reaction” absolutism.
That would mean the “growing humans” from scratch is just around the corner, wouldn’t it?
No. It would mean only that it would be possible to grow cultures of human muscle cells.
As I understand it, the big issue in synthetic meat is that it doesn’t have the texture and flavor that we crave, because it’s just cloned muscle cells. But the flavor profiles of steaks and chops depend on the relative proportions of fat and bone to muscle, and the mouth feel depends on the right amount of connective tissue. Cloned muscle cells can function as a substitute for ground beef in a meat sauces or in a sausage or hamburger (if mixed with the right binding agents — maybe egg or soy derived?) but they won’t feel and taste right as a steak/chop substitute.
This means that eating cloned human muscle cells wouldn’t tell you much about what human flesh tastes like. Sadly, there’s just no substitute for the real thing.
I think that’s irrelevant to my point. Feelings do no need to be explicit or even rise to consciousness. The behavior of reacting is the functional definition of a moral feeling.
Now, it is generally useful to bring unconsciousness feelings to the level of awareness. That was the original basis for psychotherapy. But the behavior can be address directly, with or without conscious awareness or understanding.
It’s my understanding that (some?) Catholics believe they are eating the actual body of Jesus. So I don’t see a real problem here.
Can you make Jesus meat?
As I understand the doctrine of transubstantiation, the blessing of the wafer during the Eucharist transforms the wafer’s essential properties while preserving its accidental properties. So the person receiving Communion is taking in the body of Christ despite the fact that it looks and tastes like a wafer.
As variations on Orphic omophagy> go, it’s not bad.
Hey! Welcome back, Mung!
How did you manage the “rehab” from blogging? lol
I think we should all be true Christians like Barry and the Gang at UD and embrace cannibalism due to the catholic communion thingy… If Catholics can be certified cannibals, why can’t we?
We could also solve world hunger problems by this idea…Maybe not in the western world directly but in less developed countries were people eat once a day, like 300 grams of food…
But that could put funeral homes, graveyards and cremation facilities at risk… Donnie Trumpet probably wouldn’t allow it…as he owns a chunk of everything in this country…
My new business idea would be to charge a flat fee
1 for extra per pound over 150 pounds.
What’s an average weight of an average American? 245? 275 pounds?
Then burn a $6.45 chicken from Costco and sell the pure meat of the American (deceased) People to the 3rd world country…
At least once, American People would contribute something to the world economy rather than sucking out of it all the time because they have nukes….
You don’t understand anything because you don’t want to… If you did, you wouldn’t make a fool of yourself that a moron like Barry Arroganton noticed it…
Need a link?
Thanks J-Mac. I just replaced it with a different addiction.
Can I try to guess what it is?
There is nothing wrong with an addiction, it just has to be for the long-term benefit of the mind, such as true contentment, happiness and long-lasting satisfaction…
Anything outside of that can turn you into a miserable human being that can be both Barry Arroganton or an unbeliever ….
The fact that Arrington fails to understand why I’m right is on him. The fact that you agree with him is on you.
Mung:
It ain’t just Catholics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_presence_of_Christ_in_the_Eucharist
The shit that Christians will believe is remarkable. They describe the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist as “a mystery”, which is Christianese for “something incredibly stupid that we believe anyway.”
keiths:
petrushka:
No, because there are many emotional reactions and behaviors that don’t amount to “moral feelings”.
Yes.
I’m all in favor of the role that emotions play in moral experience, and I’m not averse to the idea that emotions are cognitive as well as affective. (Nussbaum has been promoting this idea.) But I worry that the more emphasis we give to emotions in getting the moral psychology right, the less room we’ll have for understanding the role of justification and argument in moral life. Is this worry misplaced? Or is that a bullet you’re willing to bite?
We believe that God loves us. That includes you. And even Adapa and Glen.
I agree, it’s a mystery. 🙂
It’s not a mystery…We just don’t know all the details…I’m working on it though… 🙂
keiths:
Mung:
The Christian concept of a powerful God who loves humans is indeed “something incredibly stupid that they believe anyway”. The evidence tells a different story.
It is stupid only if one has evidence that an ompotent Being is incapable of such an action otherwise it is faith.
keiths:
newton:
No, it’s just plain stupid.
Such a belief would only make sense if you
a) knew that God existed;
b) knew that he was capable of this magic trick; and
c) knew that he actually wanted, for some odd reason, to convert bread and wine into the body and blood of an apocalyptic Jewish preacher from around 2000 years ago.
Christians don’t know any of those things.
Another dishonest take, this time from Breitbart:
An overwrought and dishonest reaction from cnsnews.com: