The Weird and Wonderful World of Wikipedia

[Paddy™]

Ah, haha, kinda took a 180 there huh? I'm still on the fence about this whole case though. No idea whether he actually deserves punishment. I mean, it was consensual, but does that make him exempt? I mean, homicide laws are in place to protect people who don't want to be killed from being killed. If it was provably consensual, then should the sentence be just as strict? Food for thought.

Haha I didn't think you did a 180 (at least not in a flip-flop kinda way), it's hard to know where to stand on something as bizarre as the Meiwes case; I agreed with what you wrote the first time and I still agreed with your latest edit even though it was a different position!

I think if someone wants to be killed and eaten - or wants to kill and eat someone - it's not unfair to assume they've got mental problems of one flavour or another. With that in mind I don't think the victim's consent was all that meaningful. That said, if we assume they were both sane enough to decide to do this crazy shit, I don't think the intoxication should be that big a deal; if he were sober, but had his penis cut off and was bleeding profusely and was thus unable to think rationally due to the blood loss and oxygen deprivation, he wouldn't be able to rationally say "actually I've changed my mind, stop!" any more than if he were blind drunk. So the question is, do you have to be completely conscious and rational right up until the very moment of death before it can be accepted as "consensual"?

One aspect of the case makes me more inclined to take the side of Armin's defence, and that's the fact of his having arranged a similar scenario with another man before this and that man changed his mind at the last minute and Armin accepted it and they went their separate ways. Try backing out of an eBay bid and you'll have a harder time than this guy had of backing out of his arrangement with Armin!