WHY IT IS PROBABLY OKAY TO EAT

MITCHELL SARUWATARI:
A BRIEF AND FACETIOUS DEFENSE OF CANNIBALISM
-OR-

YOU ARE WHO YOU EAT?

-OR-

ESTABLISHING THE RELATIONS BETWEEN

QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE JUDGEMENTS IN
REGARDS TO IDENTITY

By Derek Schimanski

1. Preface.
I am going to give my best effort to make this essay accessible to the layman. That is, Ill
try to spare you of reading anything too technical or dry. After all, what we are concerned with
here is whether or not we can fire up the barbeque and make some Mitch-kebabs without our
moral conscience getting the best of us, not whether or not I can get this sucker published in the
Journal of Moral Philosophy. (Although if someone from the Journal of Moral Philosophy is
reading this and wants to publish my article, I think we can work something out.) Anyway, on
with it!
2. The Conversation.
As is the case on many days at Canadian Tire, the topic of conversation between myself
and my supervisor had wandered into the territory of the absurd. I do not remember who, nor what
caused the topic of cannibalism to arise, but never-the-less thats where our deliberation had taken
us. Now, we werent exactly debating whether or not it was morally correct to eat another person.
Rather, we were debating the meaning of a quip that Shane, my supervisor, had said, You are
who you eat. I immediately interpreted this line that Shane had uttered in the complete opposite
context of what Shane had intended. Admittedly, Ive been known to needlessly contradict people
from time to time when Im on a warpath. At this point in time Mitchell Saruwatari had arrived at
the office we were having this discussion in, and I asserted, By simply eating another person you
do not assume their identity. If I ate Mitchell I would not suddenly become Mitchell.
My error in interpreting what Shane had intended to say was that I assumed that the who
in You are who you eat referred to the conscious entity and personality of a person, rather than
the material meat and tissues that make up a persons body. To which, it is all too obvious that if
I did, in fact, eat Mitchell that the proteins contained within his muscle mass, organs, etc., would
be absorbed by my digestive system and then become a part of me. Meanwhile, the personality
and consciousness of Mitch would cease to exist and not be absorbed by my digestive tract. When
I realized my error, I voiced that the categorical difference between these distinctions was much
akin, if not analogous, to the quality vs. quantity distinction. As it is, we often think of a person
in terms of their personal qualities and attributes, and less so as a material object that is made up
of a quantity of cells, tissues, and organs, etc.
Now, before I go on, it is important to understand that Mitchell is a conceited pile of hubris
who is constantly seeking to justify his imperious nature. So, granted, when I said my train of
thought was in terms of the qualitative in defining what a person is, I was immediately bombarded
with a retort that this is due to my inferior philosophical discourse and that Mitchells superior
empirical scientific discourse led him to the quantitative, material, measurable answer. (Mitchell
is pursuing a degree in chemistry and education, meanwhile I am pursuing a degree in philosophy
and political science.) Thusly, I have been left no option but to write this paper in order to sort out
the importance of the quality vs. quantity distinction in terms of cannibalism and personal identity.
Thank you Mitchell Saruwatari.
3. What is a person?
Think of another individual. It can be a friend, family member, cousin, teacher, whatever
you like. If you are like me, you are probably visualizing them in terms of their physical qualities.

You see how big their stature is, their hair and eye colour, how old they are, you hear how deep
their voice is, etc. That being said, you havent actually established who they are by visualizing
them, have you? Essentially, we are more concerned with their mental states, their memories, and
the behaviours that result from those mental states and memories. Let me demonstrate that to you
with a thought experiment.
Suppose your mother was in a horrific car accident. The severe trauma has rendered her
both an amnesiac and a quadriplegic. However, time is of the essence. A neurosurgeon has
approached you and says that if he acts immediately, he has time to cure one of the two conditions
that has afflicted your mother. He could repair the spinal cord damage and give your mother the
use of her body again, however all of her memories would be lost. Her personality would be
forever changed as well. Had she been sweet and endearing, or malicious and cruel, it may or may
not be the case anymore after the procedure was complete. On the other hand, the surgeon could
reverse the amnesia and preserve both her memories and personality. However, she would be
forever restricted to beds and wheelchairs with a very limited lifestyle.
I know, this thought experiment is grim, but it demonstrates some key distinctions in how
we perceive ourselves as individuals. Suppose that you were only concerned with preserving who
your mother is. If the primary means of establishing her identity was through assessing her
physical attributes, such as her height, facial features, how she moves about, etc., then surely we
would opt to fix the spinal cord and alleviate her of being a quadriplegic. After all, whether or not
she had her memories and personality would be of no concern if we only identified her by assessing
how she looked and physically functioned. However, it is quite obvious that we are not solely
concerned with her appearance. In fact, that might seem as the more superficial component of
defining who your mother is. Once again, if we are only concerned with preserving who she is,
then it seems we ought to save her memories and personality. For those who disagree, I direct you
to the many individuals who have loved ones who have succumbed to Alzheimers disease. It is
not uncommon for those who care for the afflicted individual to say that they have lost their loved
one already as the person in the body is not reminiscent of the individual who used to occupy that
body. As such, it seems that if we are concerned with saving your mother, we ought to reverse the
amnesia. Otherwise, we will simply have your mothers body walking around with a new
individual occupying it.
Now, some may retort that this thought experiment is fundamentally flawed. This is due
to the fact that our respective psychological and mental states are entirely dependent on the
physical structuring of the brain and neurological chemistry. As such, to afflict our physical
components, such as our neural pathways is one and the same as afflicting our psychological and
mental states. Likewise, vice versa, to afflict our psychological and mental states means to change
how we are physically wired. To which, my response is that in order to recognise the changes
in structure we are actually performing an exercise in qualifying how these structures work as
opposed to measuring them quantitatively. Allow me to expand this point.
4. Burlap sacks, cars, and containers of gas.
When assessing an object, individual, or action in terms of their qualities we are essentially
recognising that there is a certain criteria that defines what that object, individual, or action is. As
such, we are not only concerned with what the object is composed of, but also its design. Let me
give you an example. Think of your car. (If you dont have a car, humour me, pretend you own
one.) What makes it a car? Is it the fact that it has a radiator, a steering wheel, engine,

transmission, seats, etc.? Or is it the fact that we have taken all of those components and arranged
them in a particular way such that, combined, they act as a means of transportation? That is,
suppose I took your car and broke it down into its core components. Every screw unscrewed,
every sprocket removed, and every wire, tube, and manifold disconnected. I then gather all these
parts and throw them into a giant burlap sack. If I handed you the burlap sack and told you, Here
is your car, would you agree that I gave you back the same object? Would you simply hop in
and drive away? Of course not. A car is a functional object that performs certain tasks that a pile
of parts cannot. You would, more than likely, be furious that I took apart this complex piece of
machinery and deprived it of its capacity as a vehicle. The salient point here is that if you were
simply concerned with your car in terms of its quantitative properties, then you have taken no
value in it being assembled into a vehicle. I would have handed you the burlap sack and you would
have recognised the car to be of the exact same value as when it was assembled.
Furthermore, these notions of how we qualitatively define objects, people, or actions
permeate through scientific discourse as well. Say I were to hand you a sealed container that was
full of two parts hydrogen gas to one part oxygen gas. (This mixture is often referred to as
oxyhydrogen.) Would it be valid for me to say that I handed you a container full of water? Any
competent chemist would say, No. Despite the fact that it contains the correct atomic
components, the atomic structures have not been arranged into the molecule, H20. As such, the
quantifiable components, while they play a significant role, do not permit you to identify the object
that is in the container. In order to make that identification, you need to be able to make judgements
in terms of the qualities of said object. Thus, even within the scientific discourse we cannot dismiss
the value of identifying objects in terms of their qualities.
As an important side note, there is a question of whether or not we can treat a quantitative
value as a quality. To which, while it would not be incoherent to do so, it would not provide
anything meaningful in terms of identifying an object. For instance, what it means to have 3 of an
object is quite simply for there to be 3 of said object. Is it a quality? Yes, but a self-explanatory
one.
5. Im hungry.
On to the topic at hand. We have established that we are concerned with our respective
psychological and mental states when it comes to identifying who a person is. As these mental
states are abstract constructs, it is preferable to treat them as qualifiable entities as opposed to a
quantifiable entities. That is, while I could measure certain behaviours, or even stick a person into
an MRI and watch the brain light up in certain areas, all that this will demonstrate is the
mechanics of how a mental state is formed or the results of a mental state in the form of an action.
These quantitative measures do not describe the mental state itself. To describe a mental state we
talk in terms of its qualities.
So, keeping in mind all of these notions of mental states, their qualitative aspects, and how
we use those to identify a person, is there anything morally abhorrent about eating Mitchell
Saruwatari? (I should also note, that for the sake of this paper, we are going to assume that
murdering people is morally wrong.) It seems that out of the definition of a person being a
construct of mental states, there is a greater problem in regards to eating Mitchell. I dont know
how to eat mental states. Never mind whether or not it is morally correct to do so, the pragmatic
issue does not allow me to access the ethical one. That is, we are back the conversation between

myself and Shane. As long as the who in You are who you eat, refers to the psychological
and mental aspects of a person, it seems that there is nothing to eat and absorb.
But, what of the parts that we can eat and absorb? Since we pragmatically cannot eat
mental states, can we at least comment on the morality of eating someones body? At face value,
it might seem morally acceptable to consume someones body, given that we have defined a person
as a psychological construct, and not as a physical one. Thus, seemingly we can go ahead and
consume their organic components as it will not compromise them as a psychological being.
However, I cannot ignore the fact that these physical organs, nerve tissues, etc., are hosting the
mental faculties that an individual will possess. Thus, the destruction of these physical
components through the act of consumption will be causally connected to the destruction of the
mental faculties of an individual. With enough consumption, and destruction, we may end up
destroying the psychological assets of a person. To which, this would constitute killing a person.
As such, on moral grounds, it seems we cannot allow this.
Now, on what grounds could we allow the eating of a human body? It would seem that
under my view, as long as we take the criteria of identifying a human as a psychological construct,
that if we came across a body that was absent of any psychological or mental states, then there
would be nothing morally wrong with consuming said body. Thus, if we came across a recently
deceased Mitch, then we can, without any kind of moral grievance, chow down. Think of this
as the Soylent Green defense for cannibalism.
6. So we arent going to eat him? I just fired up my BBQ.
Now, if you look at the title for this paper youll notice it says Why it is probably okay to
eat Mitchel Saruwatari. I have laid out a fairly straight forward defense of why it is not morally
correct to eat Mitchell Saruwatari. However, I also must remind you that Mitchell is a conceited
pile of hubris who is constantly seeking to justify his imperious nature. Knowing this, and the
fact that I arrived at the conclusion that eating people, even Mitchell, is morally wrong through the
use of my inferior philosophical discourse, I can only assume that Mitchell will invariably
disagree with the arguments I have laid out. We make this assumption through basic inductive
reasoning. That is, in more cases than not, Mitchell has disagreed with me. Therefore, it is
reasonable to assume that he will disagree with my arguments made here. Further, he has even
made a point of disagreeing with me when he knows I am correct, just simply for the satisfaction
of disagreeing with me. He has blatantly, and proudly, admitted this on multiple occasions. As
such, there is a probabilistic tendency towards my postulations and arguments being disagreed
with by Mitchell.
As such, supposing that we respect this decision to disagree with my sentiments and
arguments against eating people due to the fact that we identify people in terms of their respective
qualities, then it seems that we are only left to identify people as quantitative beings. As such, I
have a proposal. If people are, in fact, quantitative beings then Mitchell should have to give his
body up to feed starving children in Ethiopia. After all, like the car parts in the sack, if we identify
ourselves as quantitative beings then there is no value in Mitchell being assembled as a human
being. He would be of the same worth in the stomach of a child as he is as a fully formed human.
Alternatively, Mitchell can beat the odds, defying probability, and agree with my arguments
against eating people as they are qualitative beings. In the end, it is up to him.