Consider yourself warned: this post is about nasty subject matter.
I was recently reading about Peter Singer, and his view that necrophilia (shudder) should be legal if the person consents before death. This is would be a totally revolting, despicable, and sickening act, to be sure. Mountains of consent wouldn't change that.
But can a libertarian really argue against his view? This has been bugging me lately.
I take the utilitarian approach to this.
What would piss me off most is if my next of kin decided to er...donate my body for sexual purposes.
Irish Liberty Forum
I'm ok with it.
What about public health?
How do you know that the person that "manipulates" the body has the necessary skills to avoid endangering the rest of the population?
It is a dead body after all.
In my opinion, Necrophilia would be fine. As long as the deceased, prior to his or her death, had given consent.
Looks like Harry has prior consent -
http://poetry.rotten.com/hooker-morgue/index1.html - very graphic image, viewer beware
Peter may be pressing buttons, but would be hard to argue against it.
I've heard stories of people preserving their spouses at home, now I may know why. .. true love knows no end I guess?
We are the soldiers for righteousnessAnd we are not sent here by the politicians you drink with - L. Dube, rip
I don't see why consent would need to be given prior to death. Who's property rights are you violating when you "homestead" a dead body?
Hey, I belong to my wife now, while alive, in a private arrangement that is nobody's business but ours. After I'm dead, she's free to do with my rotting corpse what she likes. It'll be her property. Nobody's business but hers.
Leaving necrophilia aside, there are a mountain of related issues where the state encroaches on survivors' rights. There's a "natural funeral" movement, sometimes billed as a "green funeral" or "home funeral" movement, that wants to secure the rights to have more traditional funerals: body prepared by your loved ones (who agree and desire to do so, of course; this is supposed to aid in their grieving process), buried in a plain wood coffin (often built by the deceased prior to his demise, or else built by the loved ones soon after), buried on one's own land, possibly in a family cemetary where loved ones can more easily continue to visit the burial site at terms of their own choosing. The state's got a million and one different ways of interfering with these practices, many of which were accepted as normal as recently as 3/4 of a century ago.
And then there's the cryonicists, who want their bodies frozen just prior to their death in the hopes that they will be revivable after fantastic advances in science that might come in the near or far future. Again, their bodies, their rights to do what they want, but the state loves to interfere here, too.
Who the heck cares if necrophilia disgusts you or anyone else? The real question is, who owns a body after death: the heirs, or "society" (which always means the state rulers and bureaucrats who love exercising power and often have no compassion or care for the feelings of the people actually affected).
nibbler491:I don't see why consent would need to be given prior to death. Who's property rights are you violating when you "homestead" a dead body?
Quite possibly the heirs. Or the cemetary owners.
Felipe: What about public health? How do you know that the person that "manipulates" the body has the necessary skills to avoid endangering the rest of the population?
People who want to avoid illness should bear the cost of avoiding illness and not socialize it to the rest of the population in the form of monetary costs and costs incurred through the loss of freedom.
You want to be kept safe? Don't get close to sick people or people who engage in sick practices.
What, you can't trust the people around you not to engage in risky practices? Maybe you should quit trying to build a world where the government guarantees through law that every stranger around you is trustworthy, because all you're doing is eliminating people's capacity for realistically assessing risk, risks that do not go away just because you passed laws.
I suppose I agree that people can fuck corpses all day long, if it's what makes them happy. (Just reading that back to myself makes me crack up.)
After all, Bill Clinton has been fucking a corpse for years. *que laugh track*
I just hope nobody ever asks me what the libertarian position is on this...LOL. And I sure as hell hope nobody asks a libertarian this question on live television.
jdavidb: nibbler491:I don't see why consent would need to be given prior to death. Who's property rights are you violating when you "homestead" a dead body? Quite possibly the heirs. Or the cemetary owners.
You're assuming that they have a legitimate claim to the body. If you stumble upon a dead body, why are the heir's claim to it any better than yours? There is nothing that separates a dead body from a tree trunk or any other piece of matter.
Although, like all other possessions, I suppose someone can contractually transfer the possession of their body after death to whomever they like, much like they can do with their tv, car, etc. But if no such contract exists, then it's first come first serve.
nibbler491: ... it's first come first serve.
... it's first come first serve.
well phrased ... lol
Cork:I was recently reading about Peter Singer, and his view that necrophilia (shudder) should be legal if the person consents before death.
It doesn't matter if they consented or not. It's up to the descression of whomever owns the body.
nibbler491: jdavidb: nibbler491:I don't see why consent would need to be given prior to death. Who's property rights are you violating when you "homestead" a dead body? Quite possibly the heirs. Or the cemetary owners. You're assuming that they have a legitimate claim to the body.
You're assuming that they have a legitimate claim to the body.
Did you miss the word "possibly" in my post?
If you stumble upon a dead body, why are the heir's claim to it any better than yours?
They aren't. In this case, you've found abandoned property. Have fun, you libertarian pervert! :P
In Libertopia, somewhere out there some far right Christian fundamentalist group has a website, http://sexualdeviantswiki.com. People can search for or submit names of people known to engage in practices they find disgusting. Because this far right Christian fundamentalist group wants their site to be reputable, they investigate and arbitrate in cases where a person listed believes his listing is inaccurate, and frequently inaccurate posters are disallowed from posting further. (There is another site, http://theseguysaresick.net, which does not do this, and is generally disregarded by most people.)
Having found names, people are then free to do whatever they want with it. If a business owner is concerned about the health risks of having a necrophiliac on the premises, they are free to refuse to employ or serve anyone listed as a necrophiliac. It's the same with the owners of apartment complexes, real estate agents, resident owned neighborhood corporations, transportation systems, and so on.
This calls for an essay on the homesteading of corpses.
I'm not sure the word "homesteading" applies to corpses.
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