The Extreme of Frugality: When a Beloved Cat Dies, Should It Become Meat on the Table?

Survival is important, but if you destroy the solace of your heart just to fill your stomach, you lose the original purpose of living. There are some lines that, once crossed, can never be uncrossed. This isn't just about being frugal; it's a betrayal of past friendships.

Can cats really eat it?

Some countries do eat it........ it probably depends on the region.

This is a question with no conclusion. Under normal circumstances, there wouldn't be an issue with eating, but during a true famine, people would eat anything they could find without being picky. Who would be discussing these problems then? Therefore, hypothetical questions are simply not worth discussing.

There's no absolute answer.

In a way, after you eat it, you'll be together forever. (Though I probably couldn't do it!)

Thanks for sharing.

It depends on how he defines that cat. A pet? He doesn't seem capable of raising one. Livestock? He probably can't claim ownership either. Family? Some people do consider pets family, but can you really call someone family when a stray cat accompanies them in their state of not having enough to eat? I think at least in that context, the cat wouldn't be defined as food, so the argument of wasting food doesn't hold. Whether he eats it or not depends on whether his physiological or psychological needs win out? As for moral justification, since the cat is already dead, there's no abuse or subjective malice. So, are there any particular moral issues? Some people even have their pet's remains made into taxidermy, and taxidermy doesn't preserve the whole body intact and goes against the laws of nature, but they aren't particularly condemned for it, so the moral issue doesn't stand, right?

Discussing moral values itself is a false premise, as it's not something with a standard answer. It's like eating meat, not eating beef, not eating land animals... So, there's no right answer to this question. From a realistic survival perspective, when you're starving, cooking and eating meat to survive and not waste food is indeed maximizing resources. But emotionally, a cat is family, and eating it is like destroying that deep bond with your own hands. When the instinct to survive clashes with inner moral guilt, the struggle everyone faces between self-interest and emotion perfectly proves that morality is truly complex and has no absolute right or wrong.

Thanks for sharing.

In a state of extreme hunger, the choice between life and morality. My view is to prioritize survival. If you can't even live, how can you talk about morality?

— In Fujiki Shun's works, there was a similar plot in 'Silent Möbius'. When facing an opponent you love and hate, who you can't eliminate and constantly fight, the act of consuming them completely prevents their regeneration. After reading it at the time, I pondered whether this act held positive meaning, and concluded that it did. I'll omit the details to stay on topic. The foremost of the three primary human desires is appetite. Objectively, all real life forms need to consume other life to sustain their existence. In simpler terms, survival is based on killing other life, so the act of eating doesn't inherently carry a blasphemous meaning. From certain perspectives, it could even be seen as sacred. And traditional funeral customs are essentially just a ritual for the living to bid farewell to the deceased. At the moment of death, the true cat has already departed, leaving only its shed skin. In that case, rather than keeping the cat's fur and ashes as a memento, wouldn't eating the cat's body and making it a part of oneself be a more profound farewell ritual, embodying the sentiment, 'Even though you left first, a part of you will always be with me'? Finally, let's consider it from another angle. Suppose today it was Armin who died, and the cat, out of hunger, ate Armin's corpse. If Armin's spirit is watching all this from heaven, do you think he would blame the cat?

Once you eat it, it becomes a part of you~

Thanks for sharing, still thinking about it.

Everyone's answers are different.

It depends on the needs at the time, everyone sees it differently.