The Cannibal in Philosophy

John Locke used the idea of a cannibal to refute thinkers like Sir Robert Filmer, who believed that kings had absolute right over everyone. On the one hand, in extreme necessity, you are allowed,. according to the doctrine of extreme necessity itself, to eat another body - but on the other hand, cannibalize was according to the natural of philosophers, a crime against nature. So we might call that the paradox of cannibalism. Pretty much so.