I'm a practicing cannibal so you really don't want to be in that sort of situation with me around. And just in case you're wondering, it tastes a bit like chicken....
But seriously, I wouldn't know unless I was in that situation. What if there were no other people around to eat? Would you cut off one of your own limbs if it could help you survive for a few more days?
i think there are many people who would say 'no i would never do that!' but they could well be the first to eat human flesh. like you said champagne, you cannot tell until you are in that situation. when you are starving to death (and even freezing like in the film Alive) you are forced to desperation aren't you. any of us are capable.
Of course I would, as would everybody else if they were starving and miles from help. Your will to survive is amazingly strong when you are up against it, and I'm 99.9% sure that nearly everyone would if pushed enough by circumstance.
In principle, yes, if it were the only thing that could keep me alive, I would eat human flesh from those who had died. The ethics seem reasonably clear cut to me and I wouldn't have too much problem from a philosphical perspective.
Being faced with actually having to do it is another thing entirely though!
Your question "donegal" poses another; Is it only because we know it's human that we feel repulsed by the initial idea of having to eat from our own kind when in a survival situation?
It's strange how many of us do welcome the idea of eating sheep,cows or pigs but then we only usually see them already killed,cut,coloured and wrapped ready to cook from our local supermarket or butchers but then we rarely see them killed just before eating them.
Is the connection from our minds image of the alive animal that we're about to have for dinner disassociated from the later dead item?
I had to do blunt dissections ( with your fingers) of the human lower limb at university, and I can't even eat chicken drumbsticks any more, so I'd have to stick to choice cuts only.
It might have been a 'wind up' but, to the best of my knowledge, the cooked 'human flesh' (allegedly a woman's severed arm nicked from Sheffield University) served to me by a group of medical students, back in the 1970s, was genuine.
I don't think that boiling it was the best method of preparation but it was edible, if a bit greasy and tough.
I know that doesn't directly answer your question but I think that my answer is self-evident ;-)
Maybe you'd have to set some ground rules if there was a group of you, as in the filme 'Alive'. E.g. you 're only allowed to eat somebody if they're actually dead and they're carrying a donor card.
I'd insist on eating them as soon as they've died though. And I'd like my human tenderized and served up rare please! Thank you.