• 10 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 16th, 2023

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  • Very true, I agree with your points. Just like procuring a file of CSAM, procuring a shrunken head or even something like an elephant’s tusk would be imo contributing to a demand for more to be made, as well as perpetuating a culture where those things are desired or even accepted to a degree, which could in turn lead to even more morally unsound methods of producing/acquiring them.

    However I would also add that I think even in the hypothetical where accessing or even storing/viewing some CSAM files somehow didn’t contribute to any more being produced or shared by anyone, it would still be fundamentally unethical to access it/store it/view it, because while the most clearly abusive component has already happened, continuing to view or use the product of those actions is further violating the child’s right to not have themselves commodified or exploited like that, and disrespecting their right to privacy… for the same reason that a peeping tom is violating someone’s right by spying on them in their privacy, even if the person doesn’t know it happened (except in this case, it’s a violation on top of another violation - the child has been exploited, and then people are further violating the child’s rights by viewing it).

    This aspect of something being fundamentally unethical even if it doesn’t contribute to more bad things happening in a measurable/utilitarian sense but in more of a deontological way where the action itself is violating certain moral duties by disrespecting their bodily autonomy, is where I’m coming from by thinking that using/displaying the dismembered body part of a person is unethical regardless of whether doing so contributes to more of that product being created.


  • I think when it comes to consent, we usually do assume that someone’s not okay with something (or err on the side of caution that they might not be) rather than assume it’s okay to do something to a person unless they’ve explicitly requested that it not happen. It works the other way round, where we only do something to them if they’ve said it’s okay. Of course there are exceptions to this, such as helping someone when they can’t help themselves if it’s extremely critical or if it doesn’t violate them at all (like putting a warm garment over someone who’s fallen asleep in the cold), or what might be argued as necessary to do for a child’s development so that they can live a functional/healthy life. And then there are cases where it’d be ideal if we could not do anything, but the situation forces us to choose an option of what to do, such as dealing with someone’s dead body. In those cases I think the safest thing to do would be to choose one of the most common methods of interment, since 1. The person was likely aware (though not necessarily) of the main methods of disposing of someone’s body that are usually practiced by humans when someone dies, and probably had the opportunity during their life to object to them and request something different if they didn’t like it. 2. Those methods are generally regarded as the most respectful options available, and so statistically someone would be likely to also agree with that sentiment. 3. They’re also arguably some of the least invasive/violent/brutal ways of dealing with someone’s body, though of course none of them are completely nice since you’re disposing of a dead body after all.



  • So is necrophilia acceptable if the person doesn’t experience it and no one is around to see it?

    If not I don’t really see why necrophilia is unacceptable but using a person’s distorted and preserved body as a display item is acceptable.

    Doesn’t the consideration of what a person would have wanted/not wanted to happen to their body after their death matter? While someone is alive, even when unconscious (asleep), it is a violation to exploit or violate their body in some way without their consent. Why is it that as soon as someone dies and loses physical control of their body, we should no longer respect their bodily autonomy and it’s now fair game to do what we want with it? That’s still their body that they may have felt uncomfortable with people doing things to.


  • Yeah but it’s less brutal, violent and visceral than vultures tearing your body apart and leaving a skeleton. I agree cremation seems nicer actually but the fact remains that burying and cremation are the 2 most common ways of disposing a body, which the person (usually) had an opportunity to object to in their life if they preferred a different option, and generally seen as the most respectful & least invasive. So it can’t be perfect but not violating/desecrating/defiling or exploiting/using a body for something or disposing of it in an unconventional and gnarly way seems like a reasonable thing to do.

    And keeping someone’s head preserved and distorted and using it for display purposes for all time seems way more disrespectful and exploitative of their bodily autonomy than really any form of just disposing of the body/laying it to rest normally.