No, I don’t want to buy one. This came out of a discussion about my brother, who is so much weirder than me if you can believe it, who owns a real human skull.
I don’t know how he got it. I don’t know where he got it from, maybe this company, more importantly, I don’t know why he would want such a thing. He is not a scientist, he works in IT. He did get an MFA in theater, wanted to be a professional theater director and loves Shakespeare, I can’t believe the reason was because he wanted Hamlet to be super authentic.
We’re not all that close, so it really hasn’t come up in conversation. I only know about it because he posted elsewhere a while back that he was on a Zoom meeting at work and he showed it off and couldn’t understand why everyone stopped laughing and got silent. So obviously he thinks it’s cool to own it.
It used to be a person. I’m an atheist and I don’t believe in an afterlife, but that’s just basic disrespect.
Anyway… how can you ethically source a skull and then sell it on the open market?
Propably the same way universities get theirs. If you don’t get a passing grade you pass.
You could collect skulls after informed consent. People could potentially sell/donate the rights to their skull after they’re done using it, with maybe some permission from next-of-kin, since they have a certain degree of claim as well.
If everyone agrees though, you could then ethically take that skull and sell it to a third party I suppose. It’d be somewhat similar mechanically to using remains for medical education and/or research, except without the noble cause or broader societal benefit.
Otherwise, in my eyes, this would qualify as grave-robbing and definitely be frowned upon. Nonetheless a fairly common practice throughout history though.
I think informed consent is key - and I know I would give mine for the right sum, unless a family member called first dibs. I am planning to be cremated and a few ounces of ashes more or less won’t make a difference.
I can hardly see any other way to obtain a human skull ethically. If the seller is honest, they should make the signed consent form available to the buyer upon request.
Herein lies the problem. Nowhere on their website can you find any details about informed consent or traceability. All you have are the words “ethically” peppered around the website without any definition as to what they mean by ethically nor any of their processes they use to ensure “ethicalness” of any of their skulls.
Historical digs, people donating bodies to science (but aren’t chosen to bomb tests), John/Jane doe.
I don’t think taking them from historical digs would be ethical (archaeologists certainly don’t), and people who donate their bodies for science are donating them for science, not for anyone to buy off of a website. So I don’t think either of those work here.
The article guy linked states that body donations are regulated at the state level, unlike organ donation. That means some states don’t regulate or poorly regulate body donations, and the organizations that accept donations are free to lie to donors and sell bodies and body parts to other organizations, like the military or who-the-fuck-knows. Without regulation, you can get some weirdo employee that just takes a skull after they’re done blowing up the body or studying it at Red State University and sells it privately.
Or it could be some weirdo died and his taxidermied great grandma from the box in the garage didn’t make the cut for the estate sale, so someone took it to the pawn shop. Watch the show Oddities. Fucked up shit gets bought and sold all the time.
See, that’s exactly why I’m thinking there really isn’t an ethical way to do this overall except in circumstances like great grandma (although even then, I’d call selling human body parts on the open market is pretty ethically questionable in general).
This is where I disagree with the rest of society. Dead people are dead and don’t have rights, so I don’t see how most skulls would be unethical.
So the real question is will it upset the living and how much do you want to accommodate those people’s feelings? I’m not sure there’s a clear and unambiguous answer to this question.
I think it’s a murkier area than you’re thinking. What if the skull was of a slave or of a Holocaust victim? I think selling such skulls would be highly unethical.
Does it matter? I understand this could be emotionally sensitive for some people but the only reason I could see this being relevant is if my purchase somehow induced more slavery or genocide. That seems very unlikely—in fact I can think of a number of common purchases people make all the time without a second thought that are far more likely to encourage such crimes.
I think it does matter, yes. I think it’s exploiting a horrific tragedy. You don’t know why the person is buying it. Maybe the person is buying the Holocaust victim skull because they’re a Neo-Nazi and they intend to stomp on it at a party.
I agree with you but I don’t think it’s intrinsically unethical because they are skulls, but because there might be humans emotionally attached to the remains of the diseased. Those skulls belong to someone (not the dead person anymore), and it is up to that person like with the rest of their property. In this regard, selling the remains of a loved one so you can feed the living, sounds exploitative to me, but I could say the same thing about any other economic injustice. All of with fall under unethical consumption under capitalism.
If no one has a connection to said skull, then I’d agree that it is just a piece of bone, and dealing with it is no more ethical or unethical than with a piece of bone your dog finds outside.
I think selling such skulls would be highly unethical.
Would you? Why? FWIW I agree that as long as there’s a living person who cares about the fate of the bones then selling them would be unethical, I’m just curious as to your specific reasons - like, what is the hypothetical you’re imagining, behind this statement? Are you contending it would be unethical even if nobody living cares, just due to the provenance? I can see why you would object if the former user of the anatomy believed in the sanctity of remains, for example.
I’m not sure I’d agree, but I’m not sure I’d disagree either. I’d need to think on it more. Right now, I’m leaning towards respecting the wishes of the dead as far as their remains go, because the universe is big and cruel and the only kindnesses are those we make for each other, so why shouldn’t that extend as far as we do?
Because I think there are living people who care about the fate of the bones. You don’t think there are lots of people who would object to such things? There are.
This isn’t theoretical. People are criticizing museums for having the bones of slaves.
just wanted to note that the fundamental basic of civilization is burying your dead. at least according to archeologists. without honoring those who came before you, we are beasts.
Making it a commercial business makes it unethical. Who’s to say they won’t be exploiting the poor, desperate people and twisting the legality, cross country loopholes to profit?
Do you think diamonds, lithium, rare metals are ethically sourced too, just because the retailer/marketing says so?
Does exploiting people for profits upset you? How many of the “most” need to be unethical to upset you?
Post like these confirm to people saying only the most lunatic fringe, out of touch with reality left reddit during/after the reddit controversy.
I’m opposed to capitalist exploitation but don’t you think that’s a bit tangential here? Like we don’t see this sort of hand-wringing about buying a video game console.
Personally I try not to participate in capitalist consumption more than necessary, so I wouldn’t buy a skull for that reason. But that’s not why this upsets people. Otherwise they wouldn’t be constantly buying new clothes, gadgets, etc. to amuse them. Those industries are if anything more likely to exploit and harm people, so focus your scrutiny there if you are so concerned with the global workers.
This reminds me of the fake concern for sex workers that is used to shun and exile them from polite society. Yes, sex-workers are exploited, but when you’re using that exploitation as a shield for your real agenda, that needs to be examined critically.
Fine, the dead are dead and don’t have rights.
But what about the living relatives and descendants do they have rights?
Dead person or dead person’s family donates his body to science. This is usually done under the agreement that when whatever organization is done sciencing with it, it will be respectfully disposed off(cremated or buried) or returned to the next of kin. It is not usually left to the whims of the organization to sell it like scrap parts.
Without traceability for each and every skull there is no assurance that this was done ethically. There are just so many hypothetical scenarios in which this could affect the rights of next of kin. If its not traceable, its not ethical.
Not saying you and I would call it “ethical” but there are for profit companies who will pay for someone’s funeral expenses to claim the body and sell it to researchers, universities, etc. So they didn’t donate their body to science but their family sold it because they couldn’t afford the service on their own.
Maybe not ethical, but legal, and therefore they may be able to claim it’s “ethical” in advertising.
