So according to the vast majority of the medieval authorities, there is no prohibition against eating human flesh!
A practical Jewish-law question: if a dangerously ill person has before him non-kosher animal meat and human flesh, what should he eat?

According to most of the medieval authorities, it really is only a rabbinic prohibition
(according to the Ra’ah, if I’m not mistaken, it is a Torah-level prohibition).
The Dor Revi’i on tractate Hullin (a descendant of the Vilna Gaon) actually addresses your question and writes that in principle he should have to eat the human flesh, but since it cannot be that Jews should be beneath the manners of the nations, he should eat the non-kosher meat.
I’ve always seen this as an example of a ruling in which morality defeats Jewish law; interesting whether anyone here has seen it inside and agrees.

I saw it, and Rabbi Amital wrote the same. In my opinion this is nonsense. Clearly one should eat the human flesh. Of course, if he isn’t capable of it (it disgusts him), then he should eat whatever he can in order to recover.
I don’t see what is morally problematic about eating human flesh. It’s disgusting and repulsive, but why is it immoral?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n763JzywcsQuzlM_7SaX97efIzNzzWPWklgaAjQHJjk/edit?usp=drivesdk

A breakdown of the sources I looked at back then, for anyone interested

Thanks, interesting. The truth is, Rabbi, you’re right—when all is said and done, what is immoral about it?

But let’s say for the sake of discussion that it really is immoral, and also disgusting and repulsive, but still there is no formal prohibition against it (according to most views). What should such a sick person eat? The halakhic prohibition of non-kosher meat, or the moral-universal-conventional-social prohibition of human flesh?

EA, I answered that.

Eitan, how did you conclude that according to Maimonides it’s a rabbinic prohibition, when he explicitly writes that it is a Torah-level positive-commandment prohibition?

Maimonides expounded there an interpretation that doesn’t appear in the Talmud. Can one rely on it? Does he have the authority to innovate and derive new laws?

The Rabbi is right, I’ll change it (I wrote that many years ago)
A — that really is what the Ra’ah challenges him on.

Rabbi, you answered that according to your view he should eat human flesh, since in your opinion it isn’t immoral.
I’m asking: if it were immoral, and a social disgrace to eat it, would he still have to eat it, or prefer non-kosher meat? It’s just an example used to understand something more general about the relationship between Jewish law and morality.

An explicit prohibition from the medieval authorities that is in the Torah:
“Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you.”
A human is not included in “moving thing,” and is therefore forbidden to eat.

EA,
In the trilogy (third book) I explained that there are situations in which morality overrides Jewish law. I don’t have a sweeping rule, and each case is judged on its own merits. But this is a hypothetical question, because I don’t see any moral problem here, and therefore I don’t know how to discuss it.

A,
This is not an interpretation but the plain meaning of the verses. Maimonides understood that anything not permitted for eating is forbidden (as opposed to the general halakhic conception that whatever is not forbidden is permitted—the principle of legality).
An interesting question is whether, when there is a law that arises from the plain meaning of the verses but does not appear in the words of the Sages, it has binding force. I tend to think it does. I have an article on Mida Tova about uprooted verses, where I point to several such laws (like the cessation of one’s son’s labor, for example).

The reality is that most of the world sees cannibalism as a serious moral flaw; it’s really strange to me that the Rabbi doesn’t see anything immoral in it.
I’ve also seen it appear as an argument by deontologists against consequentialists, from the fact that everyone agrees there is some moral defect in cannibalism.

The permission for cannibalism is explicit in the Torah: “Every beast and creeping thing shall be food for you,” and after all man is a “living being,” and Targum Onkelos translates: “a speaking spirit.” Man too is called a “creeping thing,” for Isaiah rebukes his generation: “Who asked this of you, to trample My courts,” so bowing in the courts of God is called “trampling.”

It is not fitting for the wicked to trample in the courts of God, and therefore it is not fitting to eat them, so as not to absorb their evil traits (just as predatory animals are not eaten); but upright people are certainly fit to be eaten, as the wise man said: “The humble shall eat and be satisfied,” and therefore David could say to Abigail: “Blessed be your taste.”

All this is on ordinary days, when only upright people are eaten; but in time of war the Torah commanded: “And you shall eat all your enemies” (just as “walls of pigs” were permitted). And for this reason Israel customarily on Purim eats Haman’s ears filled with sweet poppy seeds.

It is also proven in Ethics of the Fathers that only “the fear of the government” prevents cannibalism. Among the nations of the world there were two taboos: not to write a marriage contract for a male and not to weigh human flesh in the butcher shop. In our generation humanity has advanced and freed itself from the archaic taboo and recognizes same-sex marriage, out of the understanding that realizing one’s sexual inclination is among man’s basic freedoms.

After we have understood that “same-sex attraction” is completely normative, the time has come for us to free ourselves also from the archaic taboo against “same-species eating,” and to understand that specifically “only you are called man.” What is more moral than honoring a person even in death? Instead of casting him away to rot and become food for worms—how much honor there would be for a person when “friends would dig into him” and say: “How sweet he was!” “What a good taste he had!” and similar praises and compliments.

The value of “sustainability” too requires us to avoid wasting precious land for burial; eating a person is optimal recycling—the dead flesh returns to being alive! What sustainability could be finer than that?

With blessings,
Hayyim Bala’o, Forum “Religious Sustainability — Recycling the Human Being”

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… (just as “pig walls” were permitted). And for this reason Israel customarily…

The Sages themselves say that it is immoral to eat human flesh.
For they write that one of the few things the nations of the world observe is that they do not sell human flesh in the market.
And more deeply—disgust too is sometimes a moral matter.

In the Shulchan Arukh, Yoreh De’ah, the prohibition of “do not make yourselves detestable” also applies to drinking from filthy vessels or from the bloodletting vessels used for bloodletting.