Good day fellow Vizzed board members.

So I've been trying to think of an interesting debate topic, but I haven't been able to think of a good one. So after going through the list of Debate topics, I found that we don't have a topic about Cannibalism (unless I overlooked...but we do have a ton of threads about Sex). So I figure I make one about this topic.

So I'm sure as all of you know, Cannibalism is the act of a human eating another human. It was a common practice in some ancient cultures (usually Native American or African); but today we tend to think of Cannibalism as a great evil thing to do (I say this loosely).  There are also legal cases that had been decided as well...

In the case of R v Dudley and Stephens, 4 men had their boat sank and they were stuck in the middle of the ocean without any food. The men decided that the only way to survive is to eat someone. They drew lots and a Seventeen year old was the loser (talk about bad luck), but the 3 other men couldn't do it. After a couple of days later in which the same Seventeen year old lost conciseness (supposedly) and the 3 men finally gave in to the hunger and killed/ate the boy. A couple of days after killing him, a passing ship rescued them. The 3 men were arrest and charged with murder. 2 of the man (Dudley and Stephens) were convicted of murder and sentenced to 6 months imprisonment (both men were later pardoned by the Queen...at least according to my Law book, but then again this was an English Case Law and I was reading it from an American Case Law book).

Dudley and Stephens claimed that necessity defense. This is a defense that argues that had these 2 men not killed and eaten the 17 year old boy, both they and the boy would have died from hunger. While the defense failed to get them off the charge, the defense raised an interesting issue.

And as some of you might know, during the infamous Donner Party crossing of 1846; these people also resorted to cannibalism after they were trapped in a freak snowstorm and had little to no food available.

In a more modern area, there was a story involving a person posting an ad on a computer (I think it was in Germany) were a guy was asking people if they would mind if he could eat them. One person said yes to the ad, the two people met up, and the guy who posted the ad ate the person.

Now in todays Modern area, most "civilized" societies view cannibalism as an immoral or evil act to commit, unless a person is forced to commit cannibalism in order to save his life (at which point the public still views it as immoral or evil, but they can see why they would commit such an act)

So that is a little background on the history of cannibalism. Now its time for you guys to speak you mind about this topic...

What is your guys opinion on Cannibalism?

Should a person in the same situation as Dudley and the Donner party be excused for killing/eating someone if they know they will die if they don't (make sure you read the Dudley and Donner stuff before you answer this question)?

Is performing an act of Cannibalism an immoral/evil act to commit?

I'd sooner die of starvation than take a bite into another human being. It's just... disgusting. In the Dudley case I'm sure if they had a couple functioning brain cells they could at least try to make a makeshift fishing net/rod and catch something. And the human body can go without food for about a week I think.... or was that water? ;

Well regardless I'd lose over 100 pounds before I decided to bite into my fellow man.

Zephyr: I believe it is three weeks without food, three days without water. But after the first week, I'm sure that people begin getting desperate. Not to mention cranky, can you imagine? XD

I've never put much thought into Cannibalism. But litteraly EATING a person alive is just, CRUEL in my opinion. Even thinking about it make me a little bit sick. In the case of Dudley, like Zephyr said, making a makshift rod isnt that hard (i think). Plus, wouldint they have like a survival box nearby? Rations, anything? Like in the case with the Mansion, ration, ration, RATION. I cant stress it enough, manage the food and youll be FINE. Besides, surviving 3 weeks without food couldint be that hard, unless the body was so used to having a readily availble supply of food it adapted to it.