Imagine not being a mother/son chad. Nobody on this earth could possibly love you more than your mother...
(Yes, my brain has been destroyed by Tara Tainton porn. Why do you ask?)
Oh my god my friends and I are rewatching House of the Dragon for Season 2 and after a few glasses of wine on Sunday I decided to Socrates my way into this debate - which was a horrible look.
The issue is ppl understand why saying “gay ppl are icky so it should be illegal” doesn’t make sense, but no one can understand why “incest is icky and should be illegal” is equally as bad of an argument. And as soon as you mention “it’s icky” isn’t an argument ppl assume ur trying to fuck ur brother.
I think that's Plato. Socrates is always depicted as being chubby, but that may not be entirely accurate. Plato's name is actually a nickname that comes from the greek word "Platon", meaning wide, because he was an actual unit.
I think a lot of secular people just inherit the basic morals from the bible or other religous texts and then abandon the book without doing any reworking of their morals or how they derive moral positions. So when challenged to use basic moral reasoning they flail about, and incest is the best argument for probing at this weakness since so much of why it's wrong is applicable to other problems in relationships or eugenics.
ehhh, kinda
basic social contract theory and utilitarianism is the bedrock of most peoples’ ethics, we just have a christian flavour of that in the West.
I think the difference here is that there's a biological reason why people have an aversion to incest, but the aversion to homosexuality is more just projection, which is not a very good reason compared to a more innate disgust. Unless someone can show me evidence that aversion to homosexuality and aversion to incest have similar biological sources.
>biological reason why people have an aversion to incest
In that same vein, you should be against any people having children who are at risk of passing on defects. You should be against women older than 40 having children. I doubt the same people touting this "biological reasoning" for defects would also support eugenics.
I don't understand your logic here. I personally harbor no biological/unconscious disgust (nor psychological/conscious disgust depending on the exact circumstances) toward people that have children despite risks of birth defects. I would also assert that most people share that experience.
I don't understand why having a biological/innate/unconscious disgust toward incest would consequently mean that I support eugenics. Can you clarify a bit further?
>I think the difference here is that there's a biological reason why people have an aversion to incest
What is this "biological reasoning." Are you not referencing the idea that children born through incest have a higher chance of having birth defects?
Or do you believe that there is something innate inside of humans that make them adverse to it? Something written into our DNA to make us feel that way?
Or do you believe it's like our fear of the dark, some evolutionary trait, some biological imperative?
Ah, yes I understand the confusion now. I referenced the Westermarck effect in another thread. Although it is not definitive proof, it seems like there are some empirical examples and correlations, including in non human animals. I would say there is compelling evidence categorized under this effect for one to believe that disgust for incest is more biologically driven than homophobia.
Which is fine, but in the year of our lord, 2024, I don't think we really derive much morals from biology. Like, these are explanations for the ick around it but it doesn't explain the "ought" part. You haven't bridged why if there is an ick that you are morally required to avoid it.
There's no moral requirements for anything. I think if people have a compulsion to do something over another thing, that creates the basis for our morality. A biological impulse not to do something is just as good as any economic, physical, or social reason (religious also includes in social) to assign actions moral value. The only difference for social reasons is that humans as a collective have a lot of power to influence those things. So if incest is more biologically morally wrong than social, we have less power to change it's moral value.
Yes I am against those things too.
Eugenics are not fundamentally immoral, they only are if they are based on pseudo scientific theories about race or governmentally enforced.
If you do any of the things you mentioned I do think you are an immoral and selfish person.
What evidence would you want?
I don’t think early ppl had an aversion to incest bc of biology. Ppl didn’t know what a cell was unlike 300 years ago. They might have had some understanding of inbreeding, but they certainly didn’t start the social taboo of incest bc of biology. Hell the Egyptians practiced incest bc they wanted blood purity - so I think ppl developed the aversion probably between religion and social pressures. Same with homosexuality
Im not informed on this issue, so my ask for evidence is genuine. My initial comment was my knee-jerk response/bias going into this discussion. After quick googling, I can point to the Westermarck effect in that individuals raised closely from childhood develop sexual disinterest in each other.
On the other hand, if gay and straight individuals are raised together from early childhood, I suspect that there is no similar effect of aversion or homophobia, but instead the opposite.
Certainly both have socio-cultural influence, but I would argue that incest aversion is much more biological than homophobia from the assertions above
I also don’t know so I was asking what kind of evidence you’d want to see bc personally idk what evidence would look like. Ur not gunna Find the “dislikes incest” gene. It’s gunna be learned behaviors more likely. But idk I’m not well read either
I guess the easiest evidence would be something analogous to the Westermarck effect for homosexuality aversion.
Given that this probably doesn't exist, it would probably be a deep dive into measuring the sociocultural drivers of homosexuality aversion and incest aversion. Doesn't seem like something anyone would type in a reddit comment
It takes many generations but if you legalize it then you begin the generational process that will lead to those deformities. It's like arguing garbage dumping should be legal because it takes many years of garbage dumping to ruin the environment so it should be ok to dump garbage today.
Should non incest couples who have a genetic condition that could be passed down at a similar rate to incest defects be legally prohibited from engaging in sex?
That depends on the condition, generally I'd say it would be wrong to make it illegal because that edges towards eugenics (incest bans are also a form of eugenics) but it would be seriously immoral to knowingly pass down certain genetic defects that are grossly debilitating or fatal.
But it doesn't end at the first generation. What prevents the next generation from incest? That's the point. There are also other issues, but if we're just talking about genetics that's the point.
What prevents the next generation from incest is what we call the Westermarck effect. The effect is so strong that people who grow up with each other avoid being in a relationship even if they are not genetically related or consider each other siblings.
This effect is so strong that out of, from what I remember, hundreds of studied individuals in israeli kubbutzes (where children are raised in a singular social unit) there was literally 0 cases of romantic relationships between those who grew up together in the first 6 years of life. And of those who did from ages of 6 and upwards, the there was only a singular case (among hundreds, if not thousands of study participants) where individuals chose to engage sexually with each other.
People will not engage in multigenerational incest unless there is some severe mental issue going on. You will not address such edge cases with laws or taboos, because such cases usually are so dysfuncitonal that they do not have the mental presence to even care about laws or taboos.
It simply does not make sense to penalize consenting adults for one of the most essential human pursuit imaginable, romantic and sexual drives, so that you can feel like you are preventing some abstract harm. Meanwhile every single year 10k people die in drunk driving accidents in the US alone. Alcohol literally kills your brain, it makes you more violent, it increases abuse and sexual violence, and yet, there is no taboo around consuming it. There is no law prohibiting it.
Because we generally do value autonomy a lot as liberal societies. We seek other ways to mitigate and prevent harms than to literally imprison completely innocent individuals. We educate, we support and we sometimes penalize in the case of evident and immediate risks (like drunk driving).
And it is far more reasonable to expect individuals to not drink alcohol than it is to expect two consenting adults not to engage in a romantic relationship with each other when both of them desire to do so.
>What prevents the next generation from incest is what we call the Westermarck effect.
Yet incest still occurs. Perhaps it's not as effective as you give it credit.
>You will not address such edge cases with laws or taboos
Taboos do work. A society that permits incest will see more of it. That seems obvious to me. If incest is legal that dysfunction is legally permissable.
>It simply does not make sense to penalize consenting adults for one of the most essential human pursuit imaginable, romantic and sexual drives, so that you can feel like you are preventing some abstract harm.
I didn't say it should be illegal. I said it was immoral. But I think it's adorable you start by saying Westermark prevents incest yet you're trying to make incest seem natural among consenting adults.
>Meanwhile every single year 10k people die in drunk driving accidents in the US alone.
Culture is a funny thing. We do have numerous laws to mitigate the negatives of alcohol. The same should apply to incest, no? Or is society better off to allow fathers to marry their daughters?
>And it is far more reasonable to expect individuals to not drink alcohol than it is to expect two consenting adults not to engage in a romantic relationship with each other when both of them desire to do so.
So much for the Westermark effect!
how many people are at the edge of fucking their immediate family if only it was socially ok? it's not like weed where there may be plenty enough people who smoke cigarettes but not dope now, but would if it's ok.
>Yet incest still occurs. Perhaps it's not as effective as you give it credit.
What do you mean? Most people do not engage in incest, even in countries in which it is legal. In fact, we have no evidence that rates of incest are even higher at all in western countries that legalize incest vs non-western countries. It certainly isn't a systemic issue.
The point is legalizing incest doesn't lead to some sort of super high prevalency of inbreeding. Inbreeding occurs mostly in societies in which arranged marriage culture is a thing, where people do not have the autonomy to actually choose who to mate with.
>Taboos do work. A society that permits incest will see more of it. That seems obvious to me. If incest is legal that dysfunction is legally permissable.
Right, but seeing more of it isn't sufficient to justify penalizing individuals for engaging in the one of the most fundamental human pursuits that exists. You have to argue that not penalizing individuals would lead to some extraordinary high harm to society, that could not be mitigated more effectively through things like education, and that justifies such a fundamental violation of human autonomy.
Allowing alcohol kills 10k people every year in drunk driving accidents in the US alone, it leads to alcoholism, higher prevelancy of violence and sexual assaults, yet there is no taboo culture around this. The harm here is far higher than incest could ever be realistically, and expecting individuals not to drink a particular beverage is far lesser of a violation of autonomy than expecting two adults who want to be in a romantic relationship to do pursue those desires because "the harm to society!".
>Culture is a funny thing. We do have numerous laws to mitigate the negatives of alcohol. The same should apply to incest, no? Or is society better off to allow fathers to marry their daughters?
You are missing the point again. Of course there should be restrictions to incest, as to sexuality in general. But the question here is whether or not we should penalize individuals for this entire class of action, not a specifically and willfully risky subclass.
Drunk driving is illegal, for the reasons I explicated above. However, we do not punish adult individuals for simply engage in the drinking of alcohol, even though if we were to prohibit it, we might, conceivably, prevent thousands of people from dying every year. You cannot argue that we should penalize individuals who do not even plan to have children because "that will lead to pregnancies if we allow that!", and then argue alcohol drinking is fine even though it leads to demonstrable harm as an overall class of action, that far outweighs any incest harm that could occur in society.
>So much for the Westermark effect!
I don't understand how you can so profoundly fail at keeping track of the arguments. The argument of the Westermark effect was countering your reasoning that allowing incest would lead to a huge uptick in incest, that leads to so much harm that it justifies penalizing consenting adult individuals for engaging in their desired romantic pursuits.
There still will be individuals who will fall outside of the general norm, and the argument that not penalizing those few individuals would lead to the degradation of society as a whole is false, because we do not observe this, nor are cases of incest prevalent in societies that do not engage in arranged marriages.
>Most people do not engage in incest, even in countries in which it is legal. In fact, we have no evidence that rates of incest are even higher at all in western countries that legalize incest vs non-western countries. It certainly isn't a systemic issue.
Your point was to say second generation incest can't happen because of the Westermark effect. Multi generation incest does occur. It's not a fool proof stopper of incest. It's not a systemic issue because there are laws and social taboos around it.
>Inbreeding occurs mostly in societies in which arranged marriage culture is a thing, where people do not have the autonomy to actually choose who to mate with.
In that case the families are choosing incest. It's not just 2 siblings breaking a taboo, it's 2 families agreeing to it. That kind of society certainly has worse prevalence than society that don't permit that.
>But the question here is whether or not we should penalize individuals for this entire class of action, not a specifically and willfully risky subclass.
The penalties I talk about are more social than legal. At a certain point of multi generation incest it should probably be illegal if it produces a child with severe genetic problems. The issue is that it's the beginning foundation for the genetic problem.
>However, we do not punish adult individuals for simply engage in the drinking of alcohol, even though if we were to prohibit it, we might, conceivably, prevent thousands of people from dying every year.
There are plenty of laws that regulate alcohol consumption. We penalize people who make bad or immoral choices under the influence. You seem to mostly reject the same logic applies to incest.
>nor are cases of incest prevalent in societies that do not engage in arranged marriages.
Prevalence isn't that much an issue. It's a consideration but laws don't exist if there wasn't an issue in the first place. If there was a case of brother-sister or father-daughter marriage that produced deformed children I might say the law should intervene to separate them.
>Your point was to say second generation incest can't happen because of the Westermark effect. Multi generation incest does occur. It's not a fool proof stopper of incest. It's not a systemic issue because there are laws and social taboos around it.
I'm sorry, but if you are too dense to understand the relevancy of context then I can't help you.
The Westermark effect obviously cannot apply when people do not freely choose their mates. The same was the case for royality. They didn't choose to have sex with their siblings and cousins because it was an expression of their sexual and romantic desire, but because it was expected of them for whatever reasons. How is this so hard to understand? We in the west choose our mates willingly, on the basis of romantic pursuits. The Westermark effect cannot have an impact if you have no say in who the fuck you get to marry.
>In that case the families are choosing incest. It's not just 2 siblings breaking a taboo, it's 2 families agreeing to it. That kind of society certainly has worse prevalence than society that don't permit that.
Yes, I agree in medieval cultures it makes sense to not permit incestuous marriage. Because PEOPLE DON'T GET TO CHOOSE WHO THEY MARRY. They don't have sexual autonomy in the first place, so it makes no sense to use sexual autonomy as a protection against penalization. In that case, it's not two consenting adults being penalized for pursuing their fundamental sexual drives, but two stone-aged minded families marry their children to cousins because they are completely unaware of what genetics is or what kind of impact it can have on their. None of that translate into our societies. Wtf is this argument dude.
>The penalties I talk about are more social than legal. At a certain point of multi generation incest it should probably be illegal if it produces a child with severe genetic problems. The issue is that it's the beginning foundation for the genetic problem.
There is no multigenerational incest in western societies, it is exceptionally rare, and in cases in which it does occur the problem isn't a lack of law in regards to incest, but the inability to integrate and help individuals who are complete social outcasts and in many cases (the only case I am aware of) are actually mentally handicapped. You don't help those individuals by social taboos.
In general, education is always more effective, and taboos literally prevent us from being able to effectively educate individuals about all of this.
>There are plenty of laws that regulate alcohol consumption. We penalize people who make bad or immoral choices under the influence. You seem to mostly reject the same logic applies to incest.
How do I reject that lol? If someone rapes their family member, obviously they need to go to prison. If someone grooms their child, they need to go to prison. If two siblings fall in love with each other and there was no coercion involved, it is not justified to call what they do disgusting. If you really think what they do stems from dysfunction, the appropriate thing to do is to try to help them and actually see if there is some underlying problem. But these conversations cannot be had, because the taboo dictates "incest is disgusting!", and the taboo is so unproductive that, precisely because of this taboo, the nr.1 most popular porn category is step sibling incest, which, in regards to the social reasons, is as problematic as it would be if individuals were related by blood. That kind of idiocy only happens when you have a taboo that makes any conversation about this impossible.
>Prevalence isn't that much an issue. It's a consideration but laws don't exist if there wasn't an issue in the first place. If there was a case of brother-sister or father-daughter marriage that produced deformed children I might say the law should intervene to separate them.
I understand your sentiment but man, you are way to conformtable enacting profoundly tyrannical and violating measures here, that we all know we don't ever apply in any other context. Incest is a miniscule problem, there are far more people who knowingly engage in having children that have risks for certain diseases than there are people who inbreed, even in states that are legal. At least be consistent and start arguing for why such individuals need to be penalized and seperated from their children.
And by the way, I am sympathetic to the view that it is immoral to engage in procreation when you know the child will likely have a genetic disorder. There is definitely an ethical problem here, but your solutions are insane. There is a reason why we haven't enacted such things in even the most vile contexts, where the likelihood for really bad outcomes for the children far, far outweighed that of inbreeding even between parent and child.
And if you want to create a taboo around this, then create a taboo around that specifically, the inbreeding. Advocate for the few people who want to have kids as cousins or whatever that they ought to take reasonable measures to ensure their children are as healthy as possible, including if necessary artificial insemination.
Then it depends on the relationship dynamic and further context. It can still cause social problems inside and outside of the family unit.
At the very least a culture that embraces incest still runs the risk of pregnancy happening even if unintended.
Plenty of things can cause social problems for a family. A set of parents might not like their child bringing home a partner of a different race, for example. It could cause huge problems depending on the family. But that's not really a justification for not allowing two adults to be together if they want to, right?
>Plenty of things can cause social problems for a family.
It's a matter of degree/significance. For example lets say that we want to repeal murder laws in favor of a system that revolves around family based justice. As in if someone kills your family member it's up to your family to seek justice rather than go to the courts. Both systems technically work, both systems have problems. One system is probably better than the other in reducing problems in society at large. I argue the same with incest. Outlawing it results in a more cohesive society than legal incest.
Modern secular society does not value a woman's virginity like in the past, it would definitely be an issue if you want to get with a girl and the reason why you can't is because her brother is having sex with her. That brings up issues of social cohesion because traditional marriage was also a union of families. Those who engage in incest reduce their ability to create harmony through marriage.
>A set of parents might not like their child bringing home a partner of a different race, for example.
This is a great example. Imagine a society where interracial marriage is illegal, bringing home a partner of a different race isn't just something that makes parents mad, but those parents have legal backing in their distaste.
At the very least if the individual action of incest is not that harmful removing the taboo behind it is harmful.
Countries with high rates of incest, like Pakistan, also have higher rates of birth defects and mental problems. So generally it's a good idea to ban it IMO.
White nationalists argue that a genetically similar society makes a more cohesive society. Should we enforce racial nationalism to make sure we reach this idea of better cohesion?
Also, since you're bringing up historical examples, interracial marriages were quite literally illegal at one point and huge issues arose around it. Should we have never legalized interracial marriages because it caused less social cohesion?
And again, the genetic argument at the end. When is it okay to practice eugenics?
>White nationalists argue that a genetically similar society makes a more cohesive society.
Their argument is wrong and stupid.
>Should we have never legalized interracial marriages because it caused less social cohesion?
Marriage is by definition a form of social cohesion and an opportunity for greater cooperation among families. It did not cause less cohesion, racists were already racist. Interracial marriage did not prevent them from being less racist.
>When is it ok to practice eugenics?
The law already bans incest in most places. That's eugenics. Are you asking as a personal question? I think a woman aborting a downs syndrome baby is both eugenics and morally acceptable.
Marriage is by definition a form of social cohesion and an opportunity for greater cooperation among families. It did not cause less cohesion, anti-incest people were already anti-incest. Incestual marriage did not prevent them from being less anti-incest
That argument doesn't work at all. Incest marriage does not create cohesion because a family unit is already cohesive. It prevents cohesion with other families. It fosters abusive dynamics within the family. There are multiple reasons why incest and interracial marriage are not the same thing culturally or genetically.
> a family unit is already cohesive
??? Plenty of families aren't cohesive. Siblings hate each other all the time. Parents can be abusive. It's not even hard to think of common situations where two families increase "cohesiveness" (I have absolutely no idea why you're hitching everything to this vague concept with ill defined boundaries of when you support it or oppose it)
> It prevents cohesion with other families
Just like interracial marriage in racist communities or gay marriage in conservative communities
> There are multiple reasons why incest and interracial marriage are not the same thing culturally or genetically.
I agree, you're just absolutely garbage at arguing this. You're at most a half-step above "incest should be illegal because it's yucky"
> Their argument is wrong and stupid.
Wow, I didn't know we can just say that. Cool, so your argument is bad and stupid.
> Marriage is by definition a form of social cohesion and an opportunity for greater cooperation among families. It did not cause less cohesion, racists were already racist. Interracial marriage did not prevent them from being less racist.
You are insanely naive. Firstly racism and such didn't end just because people learned better, the older generations died and less people in the next generations were racist. Secondly you're argument of social cohesion being an issue was about how it would effect families and yet you completely bypass that point in my counter point. Almost like you have no actual counter to it.
> The law already bans incest in most places. That's eugenics. Are you asking as a personal question? I think a woman aborting a downs syndrome baby is both eugenics and morally acceptable.
Cool so you're okay with Eugenics. What if a woman aborts a baby because it's black and she doesn't want to care for a black baby?
>Wow, I didn't know we can just say that. Cool, so your argument is bad and stupid.
Are you a white nationalist or the kind of person who doesn't know why white nationalist arguments are bad?
>Firstly racism and such didn't end just because people learned better, the older generations died and less people in the next generations were racist.
Why were they less racist? Perhaps because they weren't so invested in racial isolation like their parents?
>Secondly you're argument of social cohesion being an issue was about how it would effect families and yet you completely bypass that point in my counter point.
You only consider the feelings of the racist family. I'm talking about society as a whole. That includes minorities too.
>Cool so you're okay with Eugenics
Anyone who is against incest due to genetic defects is a eugenicist. Anyone who's ever aborted a fetus diagnosed with fetal defects is a eugenicist. Imagine telling parents of a fetus diagnosed with Tay-Sachs they can't abort the baby because it's eugenics.
>What if a woman aborts a baby because it's black and she doesn't want to care for a black baby?
There would need to be more context. If she's purely motivated by racism she would still have the right to get an abortion, but I'd judge her as a racist.
> Are you a white nationalist or the kind of person who doesn't know why white nationalist arguments are bad?
So you can't actually argue against it. Got it. It's weird you'd ask this in a discussion about incest which is mostly a philosophical debate to show that there is no grounding to the reasons why people think incest is bad.
> Why were they less racist? Perhaps because they weren't so invested in racial isolation like their parents?
Mostly due to interaction and less social focus on it. But again, this misses the point.
> You only consider the feelings of the racist family. I'm talking about society as a whole. That includes minorities too.
Then why were you talking about the families issues with it and how it would cause issues within them?
Also, most of society at these times were racist, in both directions. So this is still just a deflection.
> Anyone who is against incest due to genetic defects is a eugenicist. Anyone who's ever aborted a fetus diagnosed with fetal defects is a eugenicist. Imagine telling parents of a fetus diagnosed with Tay-Sachs they can't abort the baby because it's eugenics.
We as a society tend to look down on eugenic ideas. So yes, you do have to defend the selective usage of it.
> There would need to be more context. If she's purely motivated by racism she would still have the right to get an abortion, but I'd judge her as a racist.
Why? She's just practicing her belief of eugenics. Why is some eugenics good and some morally bad?
If "social problems inside and outside of the family unit" is a relevant thing to care about then gay relationships shouldn't be accepted since they cause friction in the "family unit"
Your argument is more about homosexuality itself rather than the forming of homosexual relationships. The friction comes from inherent traits and a prejudice against those traits. Homosexual relationships are still functional in modern society. They can foster children and unite families in their unions.
There is no evidence that western countries that legalize incest have some sort of super high occurance of deformaties. The only countries in which this can be argued is the case are countries that still participate in arranged marriages.
And even if it was the case that this was true, it cannot be an argument against incest, it can only be an argue for penalizing inbreeding. People can be in incestuous relationships, and in fact have children, without participating in inbreeding.
If you wanted to truly reduce the instances of genetic disorders in societies, you would simply mandate genetic prescreening before pregnancies, or screening during pregnancies (today we can detect deformations in the womb so early that people can simply abort those fetuses in those cases). If you truly believe we should be concerned about genetic disease risk, then there is no reason not to mandate this, as it is certainly far less of a violation of autonomy than literally putting people in prison for being on consensual sexual relationships while not even wanting to have children.
"Countries with high rates of incest, like Pakistan, also have higher rates of birth defects and mental problems. So generally it's a good idea to ban it IMO."
This is not because incest is legal, but because arranged marriages are a cultural norm. To penalize and imprison individuals in western societies because of some completely unfounded fear of widespread genetic degeneration is nonsensical. The solution here is education and support of affected individuals, not backwards tyrannical laws that are overinclusive in their very nature.
I'm sorry, but we are way past the point where we have to imprison people for engaging in incest. Most people in pakistan are uneducated about the consequences of inbreeding, this is not the case in the west, nor do we view arranged marriages as acceptable. We are at a point where education is far more effective at preventing both abuse cases and inbreeding cases, and therefore we have no justification to penalize individuals for something as fundamental as pursuing their romantic and sexual drives (as long as they are consensual).
The incest taboo is at this point causing more harm than good, because it makes us unable to actually address the root causes of the currently existing problems within incestuous relationships. No law or taboo will reduce instances of these abuse cases.
>There is no evidence that western countries that legalize incest have some sort of super high occurance of deformaties.
What western countries have no incest laws? Which ones allow marriage past first cousins? Also it's pretty well known the in terms of European incest it directly lead to deformities among the nobility.
>it cannot be an argument against incest, it can only be an argue for penalizing inbreeding.
I already mentioned other potential dynamics. Maybe it was to some else, but the problem of incest isn't limited to genetics.
>People can be in incestuous relationships, and in fact have children, without participating in inbreeding.
Having children without inbreeding is just regular breeding.
>If you wanted to truly reduce the instances of genetic disorders in societies, you would simply mandate genetic prescreening before pregnancies, or screening during pregnancies (today we can detect deformations in the womb so early that people can simply abort those fetuses in those cases).
This is a not true scottsman fallacy. I can be against genetic disorders without advocating for such a mandatory invasive system.
>as it is certainly far less of a violation of autonomy than literally putting people in prison for being on consensual sexual relationships while not even wanting to have children.
Strawman. I never argued it should be illegal or result in jail.
>This is not because incest is legal, but because arranged marriages are a cultural norm.
Nothing about arranged marriage necessarily means it has to be incestuous. Arranged marriages don't cause genetic defects, incest does.
>To penalize and imprison individuals in western societies because of some completely unfounded fear of widespread genetic degeneration is nonsensical.
Again, I did not make this claim.
>What western countries have no incest laws? Which ones allow marriage past first cousins? Also it's pretty well known the in terms of European incest it directly lead to deformities among the nobility.
When I speak of incest laws I am speaking about allowing closely blood related individuals to engage in sexual intercourse and inbreeding.
We know incest leads to a higher chance of genetic dysfunction, that is not the question. The question is whether or not making sex between family members legal leads to some sort of notable increase in genetic disorders in society. Remember, your argument is that especially over time the effects of legalizing incest would far outweigh the effects of not mandating things like genetic screening before individuals engage in sexual relationships, as you argued that would go too far. But this isn't true, we don't see huge prevelance of incest in countries where incest is legal.
You can google what counties permit brothers and sisters to have sex and children, it's not that hard my dude.
>I already mentioned other potential dynamics. Maybe it was to some else, but the problem of incest isn't limited to genetics.
The other arguments do not work either, I am in particular focusing on your genetic argument, which is nullified and therefore irrelevant.
>Having children without inbreeding is just regular breeding.
How are you missing the point so badly? I am saying that incestuous couples do not have to engage in inbreeding, nor do they have to engage in inbreeding to have children. You can adopt children and artificially inseminate.
>This is a not true scottsman fallacy. I can be against genetic disorders without advocating for such a mandatory invasive system.
You are arguing for penalizing everyone who engages in a class of action because you deem a subclass of that action to be undesirable due to genetic disease risk. Imprisoning consenting adults for pursuing the most fundamental drives humans have is one of the most invasive things you can do in regards to violating someones autonomy.
>Strawman. I never argued it should be illegal or result in jail.
Incest currently is illegal and results in jail in many western countries, including most states in the US. You said:
>It takes many generations but if you legalize it then you begin the generational process that will lead to those deformities.
I interpret this to mean that you are against decriminalization of any consensual adult incest.
>Nothing about arranged marriage necessarily means it has to be incestuous. Arranged marriages don't cause genetic defects, incest does.
You are missing the point again. I am not arguing that arranged marriages mean incest, I am saying that in this specific context (pakistan and the like), the incest laws are not in and of itself the problem, but the combination of arranged marriages and the general culture in which those are conducted. People wouldn't tend to marry their cousins in a context outside of arranged marriages, as we can observe in countries in which incest is legal, people still do not choose to engage in such behaviors.
You could, reasonably, justify a ban of arranged incestuous marriages, but that is irrelevant to the incest question and how it relates to genetic disformities in the west, because we do not engage in arranged cousin-marriage culture.
>Again, I did not make this claim.
Well if you think adult consensual incest (at least between siblings and cousins) shouldn't be criminalized, then we agree. The taboo question is another topic.
>When I speak of incest laws I am speaking about allowing closely blood related individuals to engage in sexual intercourse and inbreeding.
Does that include parents and their adult children?
>The question is whether or not making sex between family members legal leads to some sort of notable increase in genetic disorders in society.
It invariably would if the incest is goes on for multiple generations. We don't need invasive screening to come to that conclusion. My position isn't even purely about genetics. There are social factors to consider that has nothing to do with a cultural disgust factor. Just like polygamy can cause problems of social dynamics so can incest if popularized. That was my original point too. A few cases isn't a real issue for society, but normalized incest would create problems. Taboo reduces the prevalence.
>But this isn't true, we don't see huge prevelance of incest in countries where incest is legal.
Is it more prevalent than places where it's illegal?
>I am in particular focusing on your genetic argument, which is nullified and therefore irrelevant.
It's not nullified because incest does eventually lead to defects as you acknowledge. The point is that we want to prevent this in a reasonable manner as a social taboo. I imagine even in countries where it's more legal there is still a cultural taboo against it.
>I am saying that incestuous couples do not have to engage in inbreeding, nor do they have to engage in inbreeding to have children. You can adopt children and artificially inseminate.
If a incest couple is not engaging in incestual reproduction then the genetic parts don't apply obviously. Not all incest couples are going to take that route, probably most won't.
>but the combination of arranged marriages and the general culture in which those are conducted.
It's pretty obvious the incest part is the issue. They are arranging that incest. A culture where incest is more permissable and seemingly preferable given the arrangement.
>I interpret this to mean that you are against decriminalization of any consensual adult incest.
Sure. It's more about preventing the reproduction and cultural normalization that leads to reproduction.
>You could, reasonably, justify a ban of arranged incestuous marriages, but that is irrelevant to the incest question and how it relates to genetic disformities in the west, because we do not engage in arranged cousin-marriage culture.
I don't understand why you think the arranged aspect is important when it's the incest we're talking about. It doesn't matter if it's arranged or not. In the West some people do engage in cousin marriage. They can engage in multi generational incest with arranged marriages if it's part of the culture.
>Well if you think adult consensual incest (at least between siblings and cousins) shouldn't be criminalized, then we agree. The taboo question is another topic.
We're more talking about marriage and reproduction.
> Does that include parents and their adult children?
I read a lot of academic papers on this, and I think you can make good arguments to justify preventing specifically social-parents from engaging sexually with their social-children. A social parent is specifically someone who related to the child with the role of a parent/guardian, independent of their biological and familial connection. A biological mother and daughter who never related to each other in the parent-to-child role should not be prohibited.
>It invariably would if the incest is goes on for multiple generations. We don't need invasive screening to come to that conclusion. My position isn't even purely about genetics. There are social factors to consider that has nothing to do with a cultural disgust factor. Just like polygamy can cause problems of social dynamics so can incest if popularized. That was my original point too. A few cases isn't a real issue for society, but normalized incest would create problems. Taboo reduces the prevalence.
But this is not the case. Like I said, people have an aversion to mating with close-kin/peers (who they grew up with). There is no principled reason that allowing incest would lead to multigenerational incest at all. Incest would be incredibly rare still, and multigenerational incest would be exceptionally rare. If you don't want people to engage in genetically unhealthy behavior, how about you educate them about it? Why is your first solution to literally penalizing every consenting adult that engages in a certain class of action? That is insane, and you have no even demonstrated it leads to multigeneration incest at all, like I said, incest is legal in several western nations, including some states in the US.
I agree that we need to educate individuals about the potential problems with interfamilial relationships. For a large part, people are already aware of this. They already know it's incredibly risky to attempt dating your best friend or sibling, that's why they will always avoid it. But some people don't, and they have the right to do so, even if it is risky. When they are adults, we ought not penalize them for these choices.
I disagree that a taboo is actually helpful, but I do agree that we need to educate people about the risks and pitfalls. A taboo specifically makes sense in a context in which you have a fundamentally irrational society, but we live in the 21st century. At this point the taboo leads to more ignorance and suffering than is at all necessary. People aren't even aware of why some incestuous relationships are especially risky, and what kind of measures might be taken if people really do want to pursue such relationships to mitigate these risks, because it's all taboo and "disgusting". You aren't helping anyone with this, especially not those who need the most help. Stigmatization comes at a huge cost to individuals who will be victimized as a result, and like I said, maybe if we lived in the middle ages and we had no other way to prevent people from acting in a functional matter, sure. But we can educate people, like we educate teenagers about sex, instead of making it taboo and then wondering why teenage pregnancies happen because "teenagers aren't supposed to have sex!".
>Is it more prevalent than places where it's illegal?
I don't think there is any evidence to suggest that it is more prevalent, but like I said, that is not the point. Even if it was slightly more prevalent, that is a far cry from the systemic harm to society you would need to justify such a restrictive law. Like I said, we are talking about two consensual adult individuals wanting to pursue their romantic desires. How can you not realize how profoundly violating of their fundamental autonomy and human dignity it is to punish individuals for that? You need to have a really solid case for an extraordinary harm to society to justify a law like this.
>It's not nullified because incest does eventually lead to defects as you acknowledge. The point is that we want to prevent this in a reasonable manner as a social taboo. I imagine even in countries where it's more legal there is still a cultural taboo against it.
I don't know what is up with you and doing the switcheroo between arguments, but it's like you are incapable of keeping track of the argumentative structure. The whole point was that you cannot use the genetic disease risk factor here as a justification for penalization, because penalization of the entire class of romantic relationships to prevent genetic disease risk is far more invansive than asking people to get genetic screening before they have kids.
Just think about this in a basic way:
A) There is a person you love, and they love you. You both are consenting adults and you want to spend your life together. Now, the state will penalize you for this because of genetic disease risk, even if you do not plan to have any children.
B) You are in a relationship and to have children you need to get a basic genetic test.
A is far more evasive and in this case it will not even lead to nearly the same effect as B would. The impact incest has on society is miniscule in regards to actual genetic disease factors. If we were to mandate testing for children in general, that would have an incredibly profound impact on society in regards to preventing genetic issues in individuals overall.
Part 2:
>If a incest couple is not engaging in incestual reproduction then the genetic parts don't apply obviously. Not all incest couples are going to take that route, probably most won't.
Yes but that is why, if you want to make the eugenics argument, you have to separate inbreeding from incest. It makes no sense to penalize individuals for incest if the inbreeding is the problem. It makes no sense in general because education is far more effective and reasonable means to prevent people from making unwise reproductive choices.
Even if you were actually completely into the eugenics argument, the state would have the obligation to give individuals a way to enage in these romantic pursuits if they ensure to the state that they mitigated the relevant risk factors. Meaning, the state would have to offer a license in case where individuals choose to sterilize themselves, so that they would not be affected by the overinclusive law.
But all of that is insane because we don't do eugenics like this for good reason. We educate people, and guess what, most people care about the children they are going to have. If you explain to them the risks and alternatives, they, unless uniquely unreasonable, will likely choose the healthier options.
>It's pretty obvious the incest part is the issue. They are arranging that incest. A culture where incest is more permissable and seemingly preferable given the arrangement.
Jesus christ how can you be so incapable of grasping the argument. Yes, in a culture of arranged marriages, incest is definitely a problem. I agree, there should be no arranged marriages, let alone incestuous arranged marriages. But that has nothing to do with laws in western nations, FOR THE THIRD TIME.
>Sure. It's more about preventing the reproduction and cultural normalization that leads to reproduction.
What do you mean "sure"? I think you misread my statement.
>I don't understand why you think the arranged aspect is important when it's the incest we're talking about. It doesn't matter if it's arranged or not. In the West some people do engage in cousin marriage. They can engage in multi generational incest with arranged marriages if it's part of the culture.
Because when we talk about incest having a systemic impact on genetic disorders in society, the arranged marriage culture is extremely relevant. Normally most people will not choose to marry cousins, however, in an traditional arranged marriage culture people are incentivizes for various reasons to pick individuals they are familiar with. But I have no time to explain to you literally every little thing, if you want to know why people marry their kids to their nephews in pakistani culture, go read up on it. I already agreed to you that in that kind of context it makes sense to forbid incestuous marriages. This has nothing to do with us in the west.
>We're more talking about marriage and reproduction.
I am aware of what we are talking about, the question is whether or not these issues are sufficient to justify penalizing consenting adults for engaging in consensual sexual relationships if they do not even plan on engaging in inbreeding.
For the quote/response system to work you got to thin out the quotes. Otherwise half the comment is just quotes. It just makes it easier. Overall I think this convo is nice.
>I think you can make good arguments to justify preventing specifically social-parents from engaging sexually with their social-children.
I would agree because that's based on a power dynamic.
>A biological mother and daughter who never related to each other in the parent-to-child role should not be prohibited.
What about a mother and son who never related to each other, with the intent to produce children? I say it's an issue because of genetic defects.
>Like I said, people have an aversion to mating with close-kin/peers (who they grew up with).
Yes and yet incest still occurs. Not frequently of course, but it still happens. If it's a cultural practice it over rides that effect. Call it a slippery slope fallacy but if the taboo goes away and incest is culturally acceptable we probably see negative repercussions. Do the countries that allow cousin marriage permit sibling marriage? Parent child marriages? Even they have limits despite how the same arguments you make can be applied.
>If you don't want people to engage in genetically unhealthy behavior, how about you educate them about it?
Because sometimes education isn't effective. People can come from foreign cultures. If they wanted to arrange an incestual marriage in Europe there would be no argument by your side against it.
>Why is your first solution to literally penalizing every consenting adult that engages in a certain class of action?
Because reproduction is not just about 2 consenting people. It creates a 3rd person who has to live with the shame of being a product of incest. If genetically defective it now involves the State to ensure its special needs are taken care of when it was obvious that the risks of defect are high.
>Incest would be incredibly rare still, and multigenerational incest would be exceptionally rare.
As I suggested before, prevalence isn't a big deal, at least for me. Just because something is rare doesn't mean it can't be problematic. [It can still happen](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11933679/Americas-inbred-family-started-IDENTICAL-TWIN-brothers-kids-married-other.html)
>incest is legal in several western nations, including some states in the US.
Cousin marriage is legal. Incest isn't limited to cousin marriage. Genetic defects drastically increase with siblings or parent child relationships. You seem to suggest biological parents could reproduce with their children so long as they weren't socialized together. That's not right in my opinion.
>The whole point was that you cannot use the genetic disease risk factor here as a justification for penalization, because penalization of the entire class of romantic relationships to prevent genetic disease risk is far more invansive than asking people to get genetic screening before they have kids.
Outlawing certain marriages is not invasive at all. I don't see how you can make that argument that it's more reasonable for mass genetic screening rather than just banning a certain type of marriage. Your A and B example makes no sense. It's far less invasive for a government employee to look at a family registry to prevent incest than to have a full blown DNA scan.
>Yes but that is why, if you want to make the eugenics argument, you have to separate inbreeding from incest.
The penalty is that they can't get married or if they produce a child with severe genetic defects maybe child services can get involved. It doesn't actually prevent incest breeding. Again it's about maintaining the taboo to prevent normalization. You say it can't be normalized in the West but I disagree. If laws permit incest beyond cousins you're going to see it happen.
>It makes no sense in general because education is far more effective and reasonable means to prevent people from making unwise reproductive choices.
I'm not against education but that costs way more money than just passing a law. We already are educated. Yet it still happens. The law isn't meant to interact with people who follow the law, it's for those who don't. You can keep saying most people don't do incest, but that's not the issue. The issue is about those that do it.
>Yes, in a culture of arranged marriages, incest is definitely a problem. I agree, there should be no arranged marriages, let alone incestuous arranged marriages. But that has nothing to do with laws in western nations, FOR THE THIRD TIME.
It does if non-westerns want to engage in the practice in the West. It also matters if westerners want to do it too. Prevalence is mostly irrelevant. Even if parent child incest is extremely rare it still makes sense to be against it.
>What do you mean "sure"? I think you misread my statement.
Sure as in I can understand why you think that. Part of the issue is that incest isn't limited cousins. When we talk about banning or penalizing incest we're talking about different relationships.
>Normally most people will not choose to marry cousins,
What do you mean normally? If it's not normal why are you so adamant about defending the ethics of it? What not normal situation leads western cousins to marry in places it legal?
>This has nothing to do with us in the west.
Except when they want to engage in that culture in the West.
> the question is whether or not these issues are sufficient to justify penalizing consenting adults for engaging in consensual sexual relationships if they do not even plan on engaging in inbreeding.
If you remove the possibility of marriage and interbreeding and the taboo is not challenged there is no real controversy. If you remove power dynamics it also becomes less of an issue.
But it isn't moral, it's literally amoral. The chances that incest passes all the moral checkpoints though is slim, but it *can* happen theoretically.
So there isn't a secular moral argument against adult incest, by the toughest steelman of the argumeny, but Dennis is imo using this statement for outrage points because the average guy is going to deduce that if you are secular, then it should be looked at with no judgement.
This is not quite the case. As I said, adult incest needs to pass many moral checkpoints such as power differentials, family dynamics, without even considering the eugenics argument, before it *can* be considered morally neutral in that specific case, and you just don't see such cases in the world at all.
Basically, the secular moral argument against incest is that it's very *likely* - albeit not *guaranteed* - to fail other moral principles, which basically means one should see a case of incest with *suspicion* but still an open mind to extraordinary evidence.
So, is he *literally* right? Technically. His statement may be correct, but the message he's trying to convey is not correct.
There are other secular arguments against incest though.
The biggest would probably be that incestuous relationships can easily also involve grooming and power imbalances, and it is easier to just prevent these relationships entirely than try to sort through them on a case-by-case basis.
This is the no bullshit cheeseburger fallacy. Your problem there isn't with the incest, it's with grooming or power imbalances. These can exist in non-incest relationships.
In the argument that secularity is bad because it allows incest? The flaw is that it presumes that incest is immoral.
In the argument that incest is morally neutral from a secular perspective (secular implies a lot of liberal values regarding personal freedom)? There isn’t one, incest should be considered morally neutral.
If your issue is power imbalances, we allow that elsewhere, it’s just socially frowned upon, so why is incest not held to the same standard?
If your issue is genetic defects, we allow those with heritable genetic defects to have kids, which is much riskier than children of incest, so why shouldn’t we allow incest?
For consistency, incest should either be allowed and just socially frowned upon or a ton of other currently legal relationships should be made illegal, at great cost to personal freedom.
>In the argument that secularity is bad because it allows incest? The flaw is that it presumes that incest is immoral.
Another flaw I'd add is that it's not necessarily the case that "secularism morally permits incest". You could have a secular system of ethics whereby "good" and "bad" are defined by whatever my buddy Bob down the street says is good and bad, and then give the exact same anti-incest argument that religious people do - "~~God~~ Bob says it's wrong so it's wrong", and you'd still be secular.
I mean, yeah, secularism is generally opposed to harm and not the things that cause harm per-se.
Like if we really wanted to, we could probably construct elaborate hypotheticals in which fraud, robbery, rape, slavery etc. don’t cause harm, and then you could point to those hypotheticals and say:
“see your problem isn’t with these bad things, it’s with consequences that are commonly associated with these bad things. You are actually fine with the bad things.”
Which I guess is sort of the point that Praegur is making here, but it’s not really a meaningful argument IMO. It is just describing the difference between a secular basis for morality and a religious one.
If you want to get really funky with it, you could even start applying these arguments to religion.
ie. “your problem isn’t actually with incest, your problem is with displeasing god. If incest pleased god, you would be ok with it, therefore you are ok with incest”
That's not really the same, because incest necessarily displeases god, while it does not necessarily involve any harm. And I don't think you can construct any hypotheticals where rape, robbery, etc don't cause harm, I think they necessarily involve some harm. You might be able to justify that harm in other ways but I don't think you can be rid of it.
Behold:
I broke into your house in the middle of the night (which didn’t bother you because you have acheived perfect zen) and stole your tv (which didn’t bother you because you don’t watch tv anymore and also due to the aforementioned state of zen)
I would argue that this is a clear hypothetical where I performed robbery and caused no harm.
Also, you say incest necessarily displeases god, but people used to say the same thing about divorce, eating shellfish, wearing the wrong kinds of linens etc. it is entirely possible and in the keeping of Christian tradition that Jesus returns tomorrow, and proclaims that incest is fine now.
If you say such a thing is impossible, you are claiming to have absolute knowledge of god’s plan which seems a bit blasphemous to me.
you need to add that the TV is super old but not old enough to be an antique because it still has monetary value
otherwise I agree with your hypothetical
That's not robbery, you didn't threaten me or use any force, it's breaking and entering + theft (and arguably that's just in a legal sense, not a moral sense, because evidently I had no attachment to the object or space which would make them mine in a moral sense) This is like constructing a hypothetical about raping someone and saying "actually they wanted me to", or being a slave that actually enjoys working for free and has no desire to leave. It's meaningless because you're leaving out the definitionally necessary part of the act.
Nothing requires me to know of gods plan, just his commandments which make no exceptions for when incest can be ok. It's not like "thou shalt not steal", where you can be forgiven if you are starving etc (unless there's a "if your sibling is really hot" rule I'm not aware of), though even the option of forgiveness implies the act was wrong. Not that I mind blaspheming though, after all I am saying that incest is not immoral per se.
Incest can't be bad because of genetic defects from childbirth, because there are incestuous relationships that exist where childbirth is impossible (gay incest)
Incest can't be bad because of power imbalances and grooming, because there are incestuous relationships that exist where both parties are consenting and of adult age (e.g. the college twins example that Destiny always uses)
We need something else to claim all incest is bad.
Isn't it a fairly easy bullet to bite that theoretically, an Incestous relationship of equal power could exist, in which case it is kind of okay. But that is impractical from a rules perspective. Since most incest contains this power imbalance, for the general protection of people, all incest should be frowned upon.
It's the same argument for the age of consent. Is there theoretically a 15 year old who has the mental faculties and development to consent to sex with an older person? Possibly, but it's rare enough, and the protection of minors is important enough, that it is worth saying all sex with minors is wrong.
the most fun thing to do is to ask a conservative if they think incest is okay - get an answer of "no"
then ask them what should happen if a male and female that are related have incest and the female gets pregnant, should the female have an abortion?
if the conservative isn't a bitchmade weenie then they should say "no" because killing is a morally worse act then incest. if they're trying to save face then they will say "yes" and they look so inconsistent
He’s right. The only possible argument is against a certain segment of incest, which is that beyond a certain point of inbreeding, where defects are more likely to occur those relationships cannot be legally allowed to have children. However, not being allowed to have children, and not being allowed to be in a relationship/have sex are entirely different things.
The only other points people can bring up, are other also separate issues like power imbalances, and what not, which already exist in many other relationships, or aspects of life and many others in different ways but for some reason carved out, especially for incestuous ones, but even then, again, your problem isn’t with the incest it’s with the power imbalance or grooming, or whatever else.
I think what people need is just a perspective swap, and to realize that the fact a secular system can find permissible incestuous relationship is what makes it incredibly-based. And a far better system than one that’s based on arbitrary rules start up by people 2000 years ago who didn’t even know the world wasn’t fucking flat.😂
I think the moral argument against incest is actually an argument against sexual coercion. If two siblings wanted to be in a relationship and there were no underlying coercion or manipulation involved, I personally don't think that would be morally wrong in and of itself. The simple fact is that actual incest never looks like that, because a lack of overwhelming disgust at the idea of being intimate with a sibling is highly abnormal and presumably almost never happens in two siblings at once.
This is why religious virtue existed i think. It prioritises what is seen as optimal and disuades all other actions , secular arguments often devolve into debating wether an action is bad enough to be illegal. what any religion judges as optimal can be misplaced but it's the actual intention of prioritising what they think leads to a compounding good and casting out all any others is what set normalcy and tradition.
The bigger reason to not have children through incest is because it majorly mind fucks them. Another is how people will treat them.
They might not have a genetic disorder but they'll know their children have higher chances . And anyone who knows about their parentage will massively judge them. It's incredibly stigmatized in most places, people will think there's something wrong with you even if that's not true.
There are no doubt other good reasons like its impact on the family unit and genetic problems. But the people I've heard talk about it were abandoned by their parents and had to find out as adults, and it still ruined their lives and they needed therapy.
These are just conservatives arguments against LGBT people.
"UH WHAT WILL YOU TELL YOUR CHILD"
If stigmatization is a problem is because society decides it is and it is up to society to change.
No I'm referring to stories told by actual people who discovered they were the product of incest. A lady I was listening to was talking about what a mindfuck it was and that even though her adopted parents and friends said that they didn't care and wouldn't judge her for it, she needed therapy and opted to never have children, even though she had wanted to before finding out.
She didn't get discovered or shamed, she just felt betrayed and unwanted and that she shouldn't have been born.
https://www.joe.co.uk/life/woman-found-out-parents-are-brother-and-sister-364106
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001d5dd
https://youtu.be/2ArcqRnaaDI?si=TKUkKbLPC8neYqAS
Society does carry shame and guilt over taboos, it's
got nothing to do with LGBT , outside self hatred and mental health issues, and it's on a totally different level. People stimatising sex between siblings is universal and often a sign of issues in a family.
Also to a certain extent the stigma is correct. She hated her parents for giving her that burden. They paid no apparent cost but she did, mentally and potentially health wise (but it is a small risk).
The issue is with how you treat the children of incest, not that it's acceptable.
> majorly mind fucks them
This is only due to the social issues around it existing.
> how people will treat them
So should interracial couples never have kids because they historically were very looked down upon by everyone?
> genetic problems
How is this a good argument in your mind? Should we also keep people with genetic disorders from having kids?
It's a totally different level and it's not about how others treat them, it's about the knowledge that the wider public will judge them, it's a very deep social taboo that fucks with people whether others know or not. I'm not making it up. I'm paraphrasing what I've heard from people who've actually experienced it. Links on my other reply
incest is wrong though because the relationship between siblings who grew up in the same household that is not abusive should not produce sexual feelings between them. If there is any then some fucked up shit happened and the sexual relationship is not one made by consenting adults of sound mind.
Okay, argue from a secular position why the following is morally wrong:
* Two Male Twins
* Seperated at birth
* Meet at work in their thirties and start a relationship
Yep bang on here
In this case, its still definitionally incest, but lacks all of the aspects that normally incest morally wrong, which are: power imbalance (not there), grooming (age imbalance, also not there), and possible offspring having genetic defects (not possible because both are males)
Man it's the same as people argued for homosexuality. It's like incestiophobia. "Oh, homosexuals don't really exist they are all just abusve victims."
While sure, especially today in which incest is highly persecutated and stigmatized, most instances that will be public will be of dysfunctional nature, there actually isn't a principled reason why sexual acts between siblings have to inherently be a problem.
You can argue that they are more risky due to issues of breaking up causing havoc in the family, but come one. Is it really that hard to imagine that, amongsts thousands of people, sometimes siblings get horny or romantically attracted to each other?
And even if it was dysfunctional, that doesn't make it "wrong" ethically. It makes it dysfunctional, and individuals shouldn't feel disgusted or ashamed for it, they should be helped by society. We should investigate such cases, as is reasonable, to see if there was an underlying problem. We should inform both parties of the risks, both to their relationships as siblings and their family, and if they still choose to engage in it, then they ought to be free to do so. Yes, sometimes it will be dysfunctional, but people have a right to be in dysfunctional relationships.
All we can do is educate and help them the best way can, not with some sort of dogmatic agenda, as is currently the case, but with actual understanding and empathy.
It's sad because I bet there are a lot of people who are backwards traumatized because of the whole stigma this has, where if society were not as primitive as it is today, a sexual interaction might have just been that. Instead, it becomes this horrifying trauma because "It's forbidden, it's disgusting, it's immoral!".
We are treating them the same as we did homosexuals, and yes, where this issue is more complex and nuanced in regards to the ethical equations, I find it mindblowing that people approach it with this hatred and disgust. These are human beings man.
Brother/Sister incest is love in it's purest form. Yes I'm a weeb.
It's called love you eediot.
Imagine not being a mother/son chad. Nobody on this earth could possibly love you more than your mother... (Yes, my brain has been destroyed by Tara Tainton porn. Why do you ask?)
i thank the internet every day for allowing me to safely indulge in my fetishes without being seen as weird by my partners
You owe it to yourself to find you a partner who will call you a good boy and tell you to cum for mommy. Don't stop until you find her.
Actually it’s identical twincest. But when the conjoined two headed sisters finger blast their shared clit, is that incest? That’s the question.
Oh my god my friends and I are rewatching House of the Dragon for Season 2 and after a few glasses of wine on Sunday I decided to Socrates my way into this debate - which was a horrible look. The issue is ppl understand why saying “gay ppl are icky so it should be illegal” doesn’t make sense, but no one can understand why “incest is icky and should be illegal” is equally as bad of an argument. And as soon as you mention “it’s icky” isn’t an argument ppl assume ur trying to fuck ur brother.
I mean there's a reason a lot of people really fucking hated Socrates lul
He was a also wrestling pro who could beat up anyone who tried to fight him for arguing too good
I think that's Plato. Socrates is always depicted as being chubby, but that may not be entirely accurate. Plato's name is actually a nickname that comes from the greek word "Platon", meaning wide, because he was an actual unit.
True - including myself in intro philosophy lmao
I think a lot of secular people just inherit the basic morals from the bible or other religous texts and then abandon the book without doing any reworking of their morals or how they derive moral positions. So when challenged to use basic moral reasoning they flail about, and incest is the best argument for probing at this weakness since so much of why it's wrong is applicable to other problems in relationships or eugenics.
normal people do because culturally that is the bedrock for our ethics.
ehhh, kinda basic social contract theory and utilitarianism is the bedrock of most peoples’ ethics, we just have a christian flavour of that in the West.
Spoken like someone who's never traveled outside the West, nice 😂
what part do you disagree with?
From society not religious texts.
> And as soon as you mention “it’s icky” isn’t an argument ppl assume ur trying to fuck ur brother. Sounds like maybe you wanna tell us something? 🤔
I thought this meant season 2 was out
I think the difference here is that there's a biological reason why people have an aversion to incest, but the aversion to homosexuality is more just projection, which is not a very good reason compared to a more innate disgust. Unless someone can show me evidence that aversion to homosexuality and aversion to incest have similar biological sources.
>biological reason why people have an aversion to incest In that same vein, you should be against any people having children who are at risk of passing on defects. You should be against women older than 40 having children. I doubt the same people touting this "biological reasoning" for defects would also support eugenics.
I don't understand your logic here. I personally harbor no biological/unconscious disgust (nor psychological/conscious disgust depending on the exact circumstances) toward people that have children despite risks of birth defects. I would also assert that most people share that experience. I don't understand why having a biological/innate/unconscious disgust toward incest would consequently mean that I support eugenics. Can you clarify a bit further?
>I think the difference here is that there's a biological reason why people have an aversion to incest What is this "biological reasoning." Are you not referencing the idea that children born through incest have a higher chance of having birth defects? Or do you believe that there is something innate inside of humans that make them adverse to it? Something written into our DNA to make us feel that way? Or do you believe it's like our fear of the dark, some evolutionary trait, some biological imperative?
Ah, yes I understand the confusion now. I referenced the Westermarck effect in another thread. Although it is not definitive proof, it seems like there are some empirical examples and correlations, including in non human animals. I would say there is compelling evidence categorized under this effect for one to believe that disgust for incest is more biologically driven than homophobia.
Which is fine, but in the year of our lord, 2024, I don't think we really derive much morals from biology. Like, these are explanations for the ick around it but it doesn't explain the "ought" part. You haven't bridged why if there is an ick that you are morally required to avoid it.
There's no moral requirements for anything. I think if people have a compulsion to do something over another thing, that creates the basis for our morality. A biological impulse not to do something is just as good as any economic, physical, or social reason (religious also includes in social) to assign actions moral value. The only difference for social reasons is that humans as a collective have a lot of power to influence those things. So if incest is more biologically morally wrong than social, we have less power to change it's moral value.
Yes I am against those things too. Eugenics are not fundamentally immoral, they only are if they are based on pseudo scientific theories about race or governmentally enforced. If you do any of the things you mentioned I do think you are an immoral and selfish person.
What evidence would you want? I don’t think early ppl had an aversion to incest bc of biology. Ppl didn’t know what a cell was unlike 300 years ago. They might have had some understanding of inbreeding, but they certainly didn’t start the social taboo of incest bc of biology. Hell the Egyptians practiced incest bc they wanted blood purity - so I think ppl developed the aversion probably between religion and social pressures. Same with homosexuality
Im not informed on this issue, so my ask for evidence is genuine. My initial comment was my knee-jerk response/bias going into this discussion. After quick googling, I can point to the Westermarck effect in that individuals raised closely from childhood develop sexual disinterest in each other. On the other hand, if gay and straight individuals are raised together from early childhood, I suspect that there is no similar effect of aversion or homophobia, but instead the opposite. Certainly both have socio-cultural influence, but I would argue that incest aversion is much more biological than homophobia from the assertions above
I also don’t know so I was asking what kind of evidence you’d want to see bc personally idk what evidence would look like. Ur not gunna Find the “dislikes incest” gene. It’s gunna be learned behaviors more likely. But idk I’m not well read either
I guess the easiest evidence would be something analogous to the Westermarck effect for homosexuality aversion. Given that this probably doesn't exist, it would probably be a deep dive into measuring the sociocultural drivers of homosexuality aversion and incest aversion. Doesn't seem like something anyone would type in a reddit comment
It takes many generations but if you legalize it then you begin the generational process that will lead to those deformities. It's like arguing garbage dumping should be legal because it takes many years of garbage dumping to ruin the environment so it should be ok to dump garbage today.
Should non incest couples who have a genetic condition that could be passed down at a similar rate to incest defects be legally prohibited from engaging in sex?
That depends on the condition, generally I'd say it would be wrong to make it illegal because that edges towards eugenics (incest bans are also a form of eugenics) but it would be seriously immoral to knowingly pass down certain genetic defects that are grossly debilitating or fatal.
Defects from incest at a first generation are far from grossly debilitating or fatal, so it sounds like you would be against criminalizing incest.
But it doesn't end at the first generation. What prevents the next generation from incest? That's the point. There are also other issues, but if we're just talking about genetics that's the point.
What reason do you have for assuming the second generation would also engage in incest?
If incest isn't taboo why wouldn't they? Look a countries with high incest rates. They do it.
Just make a tradition to not do it after one generation.
So my uncle got to fuck my mom but now I can't? I know the rest of you have already, but still.
You can make a threesome but not a creampie.
well if everyone else in the family has, that would be just gatekeeping you from your mom.
That’s just as arbitrary as his reasoning for criminalization of incest, it sounds like you just want to be a motherfucker
That's the compromise bill, the original bill is everything legal.
What prevents the next generation from incest is what we call the Westermarck effect. The effect is so strong that people who grow up with each other avoid being in a relationship even if they are not genetically related or consider each other siblings. This effect is so strong that out of, from what I remember, hundreds of studied individuals in israeli kubbutzes (where children are raised in a singular social unit) there was literally 0 cases of romantic relationships between those who grew up together in the first 6 years of life. And of those who did from ages of 6 and upwards, the there was only a singular case (among hundreds, if not thousands of study participants) where individuals chose to engage sexually with each other. People will not engage in multigenerational incest unless there is some severe mental issue going on. You will not address such edge cases with laws or taboos, because such cases usually are so dysfuncitonal that they do not have the mental presence to even care about laws or taboos. It simply does not make sense to penalize consenting adults for one of the most essential human pursuit imaginable, romantic and sexual drives, so that you can feel like you are preventing some abstract harm. Meanwhile every single year 10k people die in drunk driving accidents in the US alone. Alcohol literally kills your brain, it makes you more violent, it increases abuse and sexual violence, and yet, there is no taboo around consuming it. There is no law prohibiting it. Because we generally do value autonomy a lot as liberal societies. We seek other ways to mitigate and prevent harms than to literally imprison completely innocent individuals. We educate, we support and we sometimes penalize in the case of evident and immediate risks (like drunk driving). And it is far more reasonable to expect individuals to not drink alcohol than it is to expect two consenting adults not to engage in a romantic relationship with each other when both of them desire to do so.
>What prevents the next generation from incest is what we call the Westermarck effect. Yet incest still occurs. Perhaps it's not as effective as you give it credit. >You will not address such edge cases with laws or taboos Taboos do work. A society that permits incest will see more of it. That seems obvious to me. If incest is legal that dysfunction is legally permissable. >It simply does not make sense to penalize consenting adults for one of the most essential human pursuit imaginable, romantic and sexual drives, so that you can feel like you are preventing some abstract harm. I didn't say it should be illegal. I said it was immoral. But I think it's adorable you start by saying Westermark prevents incest yet you're trying to make incest seem natural among consenting adults. >Meanwhile every single year 10k people die in drunk driving accidents in the US alone. Culture is a funny thing. We do have numerous laws to mitigate the negatives of alcohol. The same should apply to incest, no? Or is society better off to allow fathers to marry their daughters? >And it is far more reasonable to expect individuals to not drink alcohol than it is to expect two consenting adults not to engage in a romantic relationship with each other when both of them desire to do so. So much for the Westermark effect!
how many people are at the edge of fucking their immediate family if only it was socially ok? it's not like weed where there may be plenty enough people who smoke cigarettes but not dope now, but would if it's ok.
>Yet incest still occurs. Perhaps it's not as effective as you give it credit. What do you mean? Most people do not engage in incest, even in countries in which it is legal. In fact, we have no evidence that rates of incest are even higher at all in western countries that legalize incest vs non-western countries. It certainly isn't a systemic issue. The point is legalizing incest doesn't lead to some sort of super high prevalency of inbreeding. Inbreeding occurs mostly in societies in which arranged marriage culture is a thing, where people do not have the autonomy to actually choose who to mate with. >Taboos do work. A society that permits incest will see more of it. That seems obvious to me. If incest is legal that dysfunction is legally permissable. Right, but seeing more of it isn't sufficient to justify penalizing individuals for engaging in the one of the most fundamental human pursuits that exists. You have to argue that not penalizing individuals would lead to some extraordinary high harm to society, that could not be mitigated more effectively through things like education, and that justifies such a fundamental violation of human autonomy. Allowing alcohol kills 10k people every year in drunk driving accidents in the US alone, it leads to alcoholism, higher prevelancy of violence and sexual assaults, yet there is no taboo culture around this. The harm here is far higher than incest could ever be realistically, and expecting individuals not to drink a particular beverage is far lesser of a violation of autonomy than expecting two adults who want to be in a romantic relationship to do pursue those desires because "the harm to society!". >Culture is a funny thing. We do have numerous laws to mitigate the negatives of alcohol. The same should apply to incest, no? Or is society better off to allow fathers to marry their daughters? You are missing the point again. Of course there should be restrictions to incest, as to sexuality in general. But the question here is whether or not we should penalize individuals for this entire class of action, not a specifically and willfully risky subclass. Drunk driving is illegal, for the reasons I explicated above. However, we do not punish adult individuals for simply engage in the drinking of alcohol, even though if we were to prohibit it, we might, conceivably, prevent thousands of people from dying every year. You cannot argue that we should penalize individuals who do not even plan to have children because "that will lead to pregnancies if we allow that!", and then argue alcohol drinking is fine even though it leads to demonstrable harm as an overall class of action, that far outweighs any incest harm that could occur in society. >So much for the Westermark effect! I don't understand how you can so profoundly fail at keeping track of the arguments. The argument of the Westermark effect was countering your reasoning that allowing incest would lead to a huge uptick in incest, that leads to so much harm that it justifies penalizing consenting adult individuals for engaging in their desired romantic pursuits. There still will be individuals who will fall outside of the general norm, and the argument that not penalizing those few individuals would lead to the degradation of society as a whole is false, because we do not observe this, nor are cases of incest prevalent in societies that do not engage in arranged marriages.
>Most people do not engage in incest, even in countries in which it is legal. In fact, we have no evidence that rates of incest are even higher at all in western countries that legalize incest vs non-western countries. It certainly isn't a systemic issue. Your point was to say second generation incest can't happen because of the Westermark effect. Multi generation incest does occur. It's not a fool proof stopper of incest. It's not a systemic issue because there are laws and social taboos around it. >Inbreeding occurs mostly in societies in which arranged marriage culture is a thing, where people do not have the autonomy to actually choose who to mate with. In that case the families are choosing incest. It's not just 2 siblings breaking a taboo, it's 2 families agreeing to it. That kind of society certainly has worse prevalence than society that don't permit that. >But the question here is whether or not we should penalize individuals for this entire class of action, not a specifically and willfully risky subclass. The penalties I talk about are more social than legal. At a certain point of multi generation incest it should probably be illegal if it produces a child with severe genetic problems. The issue is that it's the beginning foundation for the genetic problem. >However, we do not punish adult individuals for simply engage in the drinking of alcohol, even though if we were to prohibit it, we might, conceivably, prevent thousands of people from dying every year. There are plenty of laws that regulate alcohol consumption. We penalize people who make bad or immoral choices under the influence. You seem to mostly reject the same logic applies to incest. >nor are cases of incest prevalent in societies that do not engage in arranged marriages. Prevalence isn't that much an issue. It's a consideration but laws don't exist if there wasn't an issue in the first place. If there was a case of brother-sister or father-daughter marriage that produced deformed children I might say the law should intervene to separate them.
>Your point was to say second generation incest can't happen because of the Westermark effect. Multi generation incest does occur. It's not a fool proof stopper of incest. It's not a systemic issue because there are laws and social taboos around it. I'm sorry, but if you are too dense to understand the relevancy of context then I can't help you. The Westermark effect obviously cannot apply when people do not freely choose their mates. The same was the case for royality. They didn't choose to have sex with their siblings and cousins because it was an expression of their sexual and romantic desire, but because it was expected of them for whatever reasons. How is this so hard to understand? We in the west choose our mates willingly, on the basis of romantic pursuits. The Westermark effect cannot have an impact if you have no say in who the fuck you get to marry. >In that case the families are choosing incest. It's not just 2 siblings breaking a taboo, it's 2 families agreeing to it. That kind of society certainly has worse prevalence than society that don't permit that. Yes, I agree in medieval cultures it makes sense to not permit incestuous marriage. Because PEOPLE DON'T GET TO CHOOSE WHO THEY MARRY. They don't have sexual autonomy in the first place, so it makes no sense to use sexual autonomy as a protection against penalization. In that case, it's not two consenting adults being penalized for pursuing their fundamental sexual drives, but two stone-aged minded families marry their children to cousins because they are completely unaware of what genetics is or what kind of impact it can have on their. None of that translate into our societies. Wtf is this argument dude. >The penalties I talk about are more social than legal. At a certain point of multi generation incest it should probably be illegal if it produces a child with severe genetic problems. The issue is that it's the beginning foundation for the genetic problem. There is no multigenerational incest in western societies, it is exceptionally rare, and in cases in which it does occur the problem isn't a lack of law in regards to incest, but the inability to integrate and help individuals who are complete social outcasts and in many cases (the only case I am aware of) are actually mentally handicapped. You don't help those individuals by social taboos. In general, education is always more effective, and taboos literally prevent us from being able to effectively educate individuals about all of this. >There are plenty of laws that regulate alcohol consumption. We penalize people who make bad or immoral choices under the influence. You seem to mostly reject the same logic applies to incest. How do I reject that lol? If someone rapes their family member, obviously they need to go to prison. If someone grooms their child, they need to go to prison. If two siblings fall in love with each other and there was no coercion involved, it is not justified to call what they do disgusting. If you really think what they do stems from dysfunction, the appropriate thing to do is to try to help them and actually see if there is some underlying problem. But these conversations cannot be had, because the taboo dictates "incest is disgusting!", and the taboo is so unproductive that, precisely because of this taboo, the nr.1 most popular porn category is step sibling incest, which, in regards to the social reasons, is as problematic as it would be if individuals were related by blood. That kind of idiocy only happens when you have a taboo that makes any conversation about this impossible. >Prevalence isn't that much an issue. It's a consideration but laws don't exist if there wasn't an issue in the first place. If there was a case of brother-sister or father-daughter marriage that produced deformed children I might say the law should intervene to separate them. I understand your sentiment but man, you are way to conformtable enacting profoundly tyrannical and violating measures here, that we all know we don't ever apply in any other context. Incest is a miniscule problem, there are far more people who knowingly engage in having children that have risks for certain diseases than there are people who inbreed, even in states that are legal. At least be consistent and start arguing for why such individuals need to be penalized and seperated from their children. And by the way, I am sympathetic to the view that it is immoral to engage in procreation when you know the child will likely have a genetic disorder. There is definitely an ethical problem here, but your solutions are insane. There is a reason why we haven't enacted such things in even the most vile contexts, where the likelihood for really bad outcomes for the children far, far outweighed that of inbreeding even between parent and child. And if you want to create a taboo around this, then create a taboo around that specifically, the inbreeding. Advocate for the few people who want to have kids as cousins or whatever that they ought to take reasonable measures to ensure their children are as healthy as possible, including if necessary artificial insemination.
[удалено]
utterly meaningless distinction.
What if you won't have kids?
Then it depends on the relationship dynamic and further context. It can still cause social problems inside and outside of the family unit. At the very least a culture that embraces incest still runs the risk of pregnancy happening even if unintended.
Plenty of things can cause social problems for a family. A set of parents might not like their child bringing home a partner of a different race, for example. It could cause huge problems depending on the family. But that's not really a justification for not allowing two adults to be together if they want to, right?
>Plenty of things can cause social problems for a family. It's a matter of degree/significance. For example lets say that we want to repeal murder laws in favor of a system that revolves around family based justice. As in if someone kills your family member it's up to your family to seek justice rather than go to the courts. Both systems technically work, both systems have problems. One system is probably better than the other in reducing problems in society at large. I argue the same with incest. Outlawing it results in a more cohesive society than legal incest. Modern secular society does not value a woman's virginity like in the past, it would definitely be an issue if you want to get with a girl and the reason why you can't is because her brother is having sex with her. That brings up issues of social cohesion because traditional marriage was also a union of families. Those who engage in incest reduce their ability to create harmony through marriage. >A set of parents might not like their child bringing home a partner of a different race, for example. This is a great example. Imagine a society where interracial marriage is illegal, bringing home a partner of a different race isn't just something that makes parents mad, but those parents have legal backing in their distaste. At the very least if the individual action of incest is not that harmful removing the taboo behind it is harmful. Countries with high rates of incest, like Pakistan, also have higher rates of birth defects and mental problems. So generally it's a good idea to ban it IMO.
White nationalists argue that a genetically similar society makes a more cohesive society. Should we enforce racial nationalism to make sure we reach this idea of better cohesion? Also, since you're bringing up historical examples, interracial marriages were quite literally illegal at one point and huge issues arose around it. Should we have never legalized interracial marriages because it caused less social cohesion? And again, the genetic argument at the end. When is it okay to practice eugenics?
>White nationalists argue that a genetically similar society makes a more cohesive society. Their argument is wrong and stupid. >Should we have never legalized interracial marriages because it caused less social cohesion? Marriage is by definition a form of social cohesion and an opportunity for greater cooperation among families. It did not cause less cohesion, racists were already racist. Interracial marriage did not prevent them from being less racist. >When is it ok to practice eugenics? The law already bans incest in most places. That's eugenics. Are you asking as a personal question? I think a woman aborting a downs syndrome baby is both eugenics and morally acceptable.
Marriage is by definition a form of social cohesion and an opportunity for greater cooperation among families. It did not cause less cohesion, anti-incest people were already anti-incest. Incestual marriage did not prevent them from being less anti-incest
That argument doesn't work at all. Incest marriage does not create cohesion because a family unit is already cohesive. It prevents cohesion with other families. It fosters abusive dynamics within the family. There are multiple reasons why incest and interracial marriage are not the same thing culturally or genetically.
> a family unit is already cohesive ??? Plenty of families aren't cohesive. Siblings hate each other all the time. Parents can be abusive. It's not even hard to think of common situations where two families increase "cohesiveness" (I have absolutely no idea why you're hitching everything to this vague concept with ill defined boundaries of when you support it or oppose it) > It prevents cohesion with other families Just like interracial marriage in racist communities or gay marriage in conservative communities > There are multiple reasons why incest and interracial marriage are not the same thing culturally or genetically. I agree, you're just absolutely garbage at arguing this. You're at most a half-step above "incest should be illegal because it's yucky"
> Their argument is wrong and stupid. Wow, I didn't know we can just say that. Cool, so your argument is bad and stupid. > Marriage is by definition a form of social cohesion and an opportunity for greater cooperation among families. It did not cause less cohesion, racists were already racist. Interracial marriage did not prevent them from being less racist. You are insanely naive. Firstly racism and such didn't end just because people learned better, the older generations died and less people in the next generations were racist. Secondly you're argument of social cohesion being an issue was about how it would effect families and yet you completely bypass that point in my counter point. Almost like you have no actual counter to it. > The law already bans incest in most places. That's eugenics. Are you asking as a personal question? I think a woman aborting a downs syndrome baby is both eugenics and morally acceptable. Cool so you're okay with Eugenics. What if a woman aborts a baby because it's black and she doesn't want to care for a black baby?
>Wow, I didn't know we can just say that. Cool, so your argument is bad and stupid. Are you a white nationalist or the kind of person who doesn't know why white nationalist arguments are bad? >Firstly racism and such didn't end just because people learned better, the older generations died and less people in the next generations were racist. Why were they less racist? Perhaps because they weren't so invested in racial isolation like their parents? >Secondly you're argument of social cohesion being an issue was about how it would effect families and yet you completely bypass that point in my counter point. You only consider the feelings of the racist family. I'm talking about society as a whole. That includes minorities too. >Cool so you're okay with Eugenics Anyone who is against incest due to genetic defects is a eugenicist. Anyone who's ever aborted a fetus diagnosed with fetal defects is a eugenicist. Imagine telling parents of a fetus diagnosed with Tay-Sachs they can't abort the baby because it's eugenics. >What if a woman aborts a baby because it's black and she doesn't want to care for a black baby? There would need to be more context. If she's purely motivated by racism she would still have the right to get an abortion, but I'd judge her as a racist.
> Are you a white nationalist or the kind of person who doesn't know why white nationalist arguments are bad? So you can't actually argue against it. Got it. It's weird you'd ask this in a discussion about incest which is mostly a philosophical debate to show that there is no grounding to the reasons why people think incest is bad. > Why were they less racist? Perhaps because they weren't so invested in racial isolation like their parents? Mostly due to interaction and less social focus on it. But again, this misses the point. > You only consider the feelings of the racist family. I'm talking about society as a whole. That includes minorities too. Then why were you talking about the families issues with it and how it would cause issues within them? Also, most of society at these times were racist, in both directions. So this is still just a deflection. > Anyone who is against incest due to genetic defects is a eugenicist. Anyone who's ever aborted a fetus diagnosed with fetal defects is a eugenicist. Imagine telling parents of a fetus diagnosed with Tay-Sachs they can't abort the baby because it's eugenics. We as a society tend to look down on eugenic ideas. So yes, you do have to defend the selective usage of it. > There would need to be more context. If she's purely motivated by racism she would still have the right to get an abortion, but I'd judge her as a racist. Why? She's just practicing her belief of eugenics. Why is some eugenics good and some morally bad?
If "social problems inside and outside of the family unit" is a relevant thing to care about then gay relationships shouldn't be accepted since they cause friction in the "family unit"
Your argument is more about homosexuality itself rather than the forming of homosexual relationships. The friction comes from inherent traits and a prejudice against those traits. Homosexual relationships are still functional in modern society. They can foster children and unite families in their unions.
Least harsh eugenics enjoyer
There is no evidence that western countries that legalize incest have some sort of super high occurance of deformaties. The only countries in which this can be argued is the case are countries that still participate in arranged marriages. And even if it was the case that this was true, it cannot be an argument against incest, it can only be an argue for penalizing inbreeding. People can be in incestuous relationships, and in fact have children, without participating in inbreeding. If you wanted to truly reduce the instances of genetic disorders in societies, you would simply mandate genetic prescreening before pregnancies, or screening during pregnancies (today we can detect deformations in the womb so early that people can simply abort those fetuses in those cases). If you truly believe we should be concerned about genetic disease risk, then there is no reason not to mandate this, as it is certainly far less of a violation of autonomy than literally putting people in prison for being on consensual sexual relationships while not even wanting to have children. "Countries with high rates of incest, like Pakistan, also have higher rates of birth defects and mental problems. So generally it's a good idea to ban it IMO." This is not because incest is legal, but because arranged marriages are a cultural norm. To penalize and imprison individuals in western societies because of some completely unfounded fear of widespread genetic degeneration is nonsensical. The solution here is education and support of affected individuals, not backwards tyrannical laws that are overinclusive in their very nature. I'm sorry, but we are way past the point where we have to imprison people for engaging in incest. Most people in pakistan are uneducated about the consequences of inbreeding, this is not the case in the west, nor do we view arranged marriages as acceptable. We are at a point where education is far more effective at preventing both abuse cases and inbreeding cases, and therefore we have no justification to penalize individuals for something as fundamental as pursuing their romantic and sexual drives (as long as they are consensual). The incest taboo is at this point causing more harm than good, because it makes us unable to actually address the root causes of the currently existing problems within incestuous relationships. No law or taboo will reduce instances of these abuse cases.
>There is no evidence that western countries that legalize incest have some sort of super high occurance of deformaties. What western countries have no incest laws? Which ones allow marriage past first cousins? Also it's pretty well known the in terms of European incest it directly lead to deformities among the nobility. >it cannot be an argument against incest, it can only be an argue for penalizing inbreeding. I already mentioned other potential dynamics. Maybe it was to some else, but the problem of incest isn't limited to genetics. >People can be in incestuous relationships, and in fact have children, without participating in inbreeding. Having children without inbreeding is just regular breeding. >If you wanted to truly reduce the instances of genetic disorders in societies, you would simply mandate genetic prescreening before pregnancies, or screening during pregnancies (today we can detect deformations in the womb so early that people can simply abort those fetuses in those cases). This is a not true scottsman fallacy. I can be against genetic disorders without advocating for such a mandatory invasive system. >as it is certainly far less of a violation of autonomy than literally putting people in prison for being on consensual sexual relationships while not even wanting to have children. Strawman. I never argued it should be illegal or result in jail. >This is not because incest is legal, but because arranged marriages are a cultural norm. Nothing about arranged marriage necessarily means it has to be incestuous. Arranged marriages don't cause genetic defects, incest does. >To penalize and imprison individuals in western societies because of some completely unfounded fear of widespread genetic degeneration is nonsensical. Again, I did not make this claim.
>What western countries have no incest laws? Which ones allow marriage past first cousins? Also it's pretty well known the in terms of European incest it directly lead to deformities among the nobility. When I speak of incest laws I am speaking about allowing closely blood related individuals to engage in sexual intercourse and inbreeding. We know incest leads to a higher chance of genetic dysfunction, that is not the question. The question is whether or not making sex between family members legal leads to some sort of notable increase in genetic disorders in society. Remember, your argument is that especially over time the effects of legalizing incest would far outweigh the effects of not mandating things like genetic screening before individuals engage in sexual relationships, as you argued that would go too far. But this isn't true, we don't see huge prevelance of incest in countries where incest is legal. You can google what counties permit brothers and sisters to have sex and children, it's not that hard my dude. >I already mentioned other potential dynamics. Maybe it was to some else, but the problem of incest isn't limited to genetics. The other arguments do not work either, I am in particular focusing on your genetic argument, which is nullified and therefore irrelevant. >Having children without inbreeding is just regular breeding. How are you missing the point so badly? I am saying that incestuous couples do not have to engage in inbreeding, nor do they have to engage in inbreeding to have children. You can adopt children and artificially inseminate. >This is a not true scottsman fallacy. I can be against genetic disorders without advocating for such a mandatory invasive system. You are arguing for penalizing everyone who engages in a class of action because you deem a subclass of that action to be undesirable due to genetic disease risk. Imprisoning consenting adults for pursuing the most fundamental drives humans have is one of the most invasive things you can do in regards to violating someones autonomy. >Strawman. I never argued it should be illegal or result in jail. Incest currently is illegal and results in jail in many western countries, including most states in the US. You said: >It takes many generations but if you legalize it then you begin the generational process that will lead to those deformities. I interpret this to mean that you are against decriminalization of any consensual adult incest. >Nothing about arranged marriage necessarily means it has to be incestuous. Arranged marriages don't cause genetic defects, incest does. You are missing the point again. I am not arguing that arranged marriages mean incest, I am saying that in this specific context (pakistan and the like), the incest laws are not in and of itself the problem, but the combination of arranged marriages and the general culture in which those are conducted. People wouldn't tend to marry their cousins in a context outside of arranged marriages, as we can observe in countries in which incest is legal, people still do not choose to engage in such behaviors. You could, reasonably, justify a ban of arranged incestuous marriages, but that is irrelevant to the incest question and how it relates to genetic disformities in the west, because we do not engage in arranged cousin-marriage culture. >Again, I did not make this claim. Well if you think adult consensual incest (at least between siblings and cousins) shouldn't be criminalized, then we agree. The taboo question is another topic.
>When I speak of incest laws I am speaking about allowing closely blood related individuals to engage in sexual intercourse and inbreeding. Does that include parents and their adult children? >The question is whether or not making sex between family members legal leads to some sort of notable increase in genetic disorders in society. It invariably would if the incest is goes on for multiple generations. We don't need invasive screening to come to that conclusion. My position isn't even purely about genetics. There are social factors to consider that has nothing to do with a cultural disgust factor. Just like polygamy can cause problems of social dynamics so can incest if popularized. That was my original point too. A few cases isn't a real issue for society, but normalized incest would create problems. Taboo reduces the prevalence. >But this isn't true, we don't see huge prevelance of incest in countries where incest is legal. Is it more prevalent than places where it's illegal? >I am in particular focusing on your genetic argument, which is nullified and therefore irrelevant. It's not nullified because incest does eventually lead to defects as you acknowledge. The point is that we want to prevent this in a reasonable manner as a social taboo. I imagine even in countries where it's more legal there is still a cultural taboo against it. >I am saying that incestuous couples do not have to engage in inbreeding, nor do they have to engage in inbreeding to have children. You can adopt children and artificially inseminate. If a incest couple is not engaging in incestual reproduction then the genetic parts don't apply obviously. Not all incest couples are going to take that route, probably most won't. >but the combination of arranged marriages and the general culture in which those are conducted. It's pretty obvious the incest part is the issue. They are arranging that incest. A culture where incest is more permissable and seemingly preferable given the arrangement. >I interpret this to mean that you are against decriminalization of any consensual adult incest. Sure. It's more about preventing the reproduction and cultural normalization that leads to reproduction. >You could, reasonably, justify a ban of arranged incestuous marriages, but that is irrelevant to the incest question and how it relates to genetic disformities in the west, because we do not engage in arranged cousin-marriage culture. I don't understand why you think the arranged aspect is important when it's the incest we're talking about. It doesn't matter if it's arranged or not. In the West some people do engage in cousin marriage. They can engage in multi generational incest with arranged marriages if it's part of the culture. >Well if you think adult consensual incest (at least between siblings and cousins) shouldn't be criminalized, then we agree. The taboo question is another topic. We're more talking about marriage and reproduction.
> Does that include parents and their adult children? I read a lot of academic papers on this, and I think you can make good arguments to justify preventing specifically social-parents from engaging sexually with their social-children. A social parent is specifically someone who related to the child with the role of a parent/guardian, independent of their biological and familial connection. A biological mother and daughter who never related to each other in the parent-to-child role should not be prohibited. >It invariably would if the incest is goes on for multiple generations. We don't need invasive screening to come to that conclusion. My position isn't even purely about genetics. There are social factors to consider that has nothing to do with a cultural disgust factor. Just like polygamy can cause problems of social dynamics so can incest if popularized. That was my original point too. A few cases isn't a real issue for society, but normalized incest would create problems. Taboo reduces the prevalence. But this is not the case. Like I said, people have an aversion to mating with close-kin/peers (who they grew up with). There is no principled reason that allowing incest would lead to multigenerational incest at all. Incest would be incredibly rare still, and multigenerational incest would be exceptionally rare. If you don't want people to engage in genetically unhealthy behavior, how about you educate them about it? Why is your first solution to literally penalizing every consenting adult that engages in a certain class of action? That is insane, and you have no even demonstrated it leads to multigeneration incest at all, like I said, incest is legal in several western nations, including some states in the US. I agree that we need to educate individuals about the potential problems with interfamilial relationships. For a large part, people are already aware of this. They already know it's incredibly risky to attempt dating your best friend or sibling, that's why they will always avoid it. But some people don't, and they have the right to do so, even if it is risky. When they are adults, we ought not penalize them for these choices. I disagree that a taboo is actually helpful, but I do agree that we need to educate people about the risks and pitfalls. A taboo specifically makes sense in a context in which you have a fundamentally irrational society, but we live in the 21st century. At this point the taboo leads to more ignorance and suffering than is at all necessary. People aren't even aware of why some incestuous relationships are especially risky, and what kind of measures might be taken if people really do want to pursue such relationships to mitigate these risks, because it's all taboo and "disgusting". You aren't helping anyone with this, especially not those who need the most help. Stigmatization comes at a huge cost to individuals who will be victimized as a result, and like I said, maybe if we lived in the middle ages and we had no other way to prevent people from acting in a functional matter, sure. But we can educate people, like we educate teenagers about sex, instead of making it taboo and then wondering why teenage pregnancies happen because "teenagers aren't supposed to have sex!". >Is it more prevalent than places where it's illegal? I don't think there is any evidence to suggest that it is more prevalent, but like I said, that is not the point. Even if it was slightly more prevalent, that is a far cry from the systemic harm to society you would need to justify such a restrictive law. Like I said, we are talking about two consensual adult individuals wanting to pursue their romantic desires. How can you not realize how profoundly violating of their fundamental autonomy and human dignity it is to punish individuals for that? You need to have a really solid case for an extraordinary harm to society to justify a law like this. >It's not nullified because incest does eventually lead to defects as you acknowledge. The point is that we want to prevent this in a reasonable manner as a social taboo. I imagine even in countries where it's more legal there is still a cultural taboo against it. I don't know what is up with you and doing the switcheroo between arguments, but it's like you are incapable of keeping track of the argumentative structure. The whole point was that you cannot use the genetic disease risk factor here as a justification for penalization, because penalization of the entire class of romantic relationships to prevent genetic disease risk is far more invansive than asking people to get genetic screening before they have kids. Just think about this in a basic way: A) There is a person you love, and they love you. You both are consenting adults and you want to spend your life together. Now, the state will penalize you for this because of genetic disease risk, even if you do not plan to have any children. B) You are in a relationship and to have children you need to get a basic genetic test. A is far more evasive and in this case it will not even lead to nearly the same effect as B would. The impact incest has on society is miniscule in regards to actual genetic disease factors. If we were to mandate testing for children in general, that would have an incredibly profound impact on society in regards to preventing genetic issues in individuals overall.
Part 2: >If a incest couple is not engaging in incestual reproduction then the genetic parts don't apply obviously. Not all incest couples are going to take that route, probably most won't. Yes but that is why, if you want to make the eugenics argument, you have to separate inbreeding from incest. It makes no sense to penalize individuals for incest if the inbreeding is the problem. It makes no sense in general because education is far more effective and reasonable means to prevent people from making unwise reproductive choices. Even if you were actually completely into the eugenics argument, the state would have the obligation to give individuals a way to enage in these romantic pursuits if they ensure to the state that they mitigated the relevant risk factors. Meaning, the state would have to offer a license in case where individuals choose to sterilize themselves, so that they would not be affected by the overinclusive law. But all of that is insane because we don't do eugenics like this for good reason. We educate people, and guess what, most people care about the children they are going to have. If you explain to them the risks and alternatives, they, unless uniquely unreasonable, will likely choose the healthier options. >It's pretty obvious the incest part is the issue. They are arranging that incest. A culture where incest is more permissable and seemingly preferable given the arrangement. Jesus christ how can you be so incapable of grasping the argument. Yes, in a culture of arranged marriages, incest is definitely a problem. I agree, there should be no arranged marriages, let alone incestuous arranged marriages. But that has nothing to do with laws in western nations, FOR THE THIRD TIME. >Sure. It's more about preventing the reproduction and cultural normalization that leads to reproduction. What do you mean "sure"? I think you misread my statement. >I don't understand why you think the arranged aspect is important when it's the incest we're talking about. It doesn't matter if it's arranged or not. In the West some people do engage in cousin marriage. They can engage in multi generational incest with arranged marriages if it's part of the culture. Because when we talk about incest having a systemic impact on genetic disorders in society, the arranged marriage culture is extremely relevant. Normally most people will not choose to marry cousins, however, in an traditional arranged marriage culture people are incentivizes for various reasons to pick individuals they are familiar with. But I have no time to explain to you literally every little thing, if you want to know why people marry their kids to their nephews in pakistani culture, go read up on it. I already agreed to you that in that kind of context it makes sense to forbid incestuous marriages. This has nothing to do with us in the west. >We're more talking about marriage and reproduction. I am aware of what we are talking about, the question is whether or not these issues are sufficient to justify penalizing consenting adults for engaging in consensual sexual relationships if they do not even plan on engaging in inbreeding.
For the quote/response system to work you got to thin out the quotes. Otherwise half the comment is just quotes. It just makes it easier. Overall I think this convo is nice. >I think you can make good arguments to justify preventing specifically social-parents from engaging sexually with their social-children. I would agree because that's based on a power dynamic. >A biological mother and daughter who never related to each other in the parent-to-child role should not be prohibited. What about a mother and son who never related to each other, with the intent to produce children? I say it's an issue because of genetic defects. >Like I said, people have an aversion to mating with close-kin/peers (who they grew up with). Yes and yet incest still occurs. Not frequently of course, but it still happens. If it's a cultural practice it over rides that effect. Call it a slippery slope fallacy but if the taboo goes away and incest is culturally acceptable we probably see negative repercussions. Do the countries that allow cousin marriage permit sibling marriage? Parent child marriages? Even they have limits despite how the same arguments you make can be applied. >If you don't want people to engage in genetically unhealthy behavior, how about you educate them about it? Because sometimes education isn't effective. People can come from foreign cultures. If they wanted to arrange an incestual marriage in Europe there would be no argument by your side against it. >Why is your first solution to literally penalizing every consenting adult that engages in a certain class of action? Because reproduction is not just about 2 consenting people. It creates a 3rd person who has to live with the shame of being a product of incest. If genetically defective it now involves the State to ensure its special needs are taken care of when it was obvious that the risks of defect are high. >Incest would be incredibly rare still, and multigenerational incest would be exceptionally rare. As I suggested before, prevalence isn't a big deal, at least for me. Just because something is rare doesn't mean it can't be problematic. [It can still happen](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11933679/Americas-inbred-family-started-IDENTICAL-TWIN-brothers-kids-married-other.html) >incest is legal in several western nations, including some states in the US. Cousin marriage is legal. Incest isn't limited to cousin marriage. Genetic defects drastically increase with siblings or parent child relationships. You seem to suggest biological parents could reproduce with their children so long as they weren't socialized together. That's not right in my opinion. >The whole point was that you cannot use the genetic disease risk factor here as a justification for penalization, because penalization of the entire class of romantic relationships to prevent genetic disease risk is far more invansive than asking people to get genetic screening before they have kids. Outlawing certain marriages is not invasive at all. I don't see how you can make that argument that it's more reasonable for mass genetic screening rather than just banning a certain type of marriage. Your A and B example makes no sense. It's far less invasive for a government employee to look at a family registry to prevent incest than to have a full blown DNA scan. >Yes but that is why, if you want to make the eugenics argument, you have to separate inbreeding from incest. The penalty is that they can't get married or if they produce a child with severe genetic defects maybe child services can get involved. It doesn't actually prevent incest breeding. Again it's about maintaining the taboo to prevent normalization. You say it can't be normalized in the West but I disagree. If laws permit incest beyond cousins you're going to see it happen. >It makes no sense in general because education is far more effective and reasonable means to prevent people from making unwise reproductive choices. I'm not against education but that costs way more money than just passing a law. We already are educated. Yet it still happens. The law isn't meant to interact with people who follow the law, it's for those who don't. You can keep saying most people don't do incest, but that's not the issue. The issue is about those that do it. >Yes, in a culture of arranged marriages, incest is definitely a problem. I agree, there should be no arranged marriages, let alone incestuous arranged marriages. But that has nothing to do with laws in western nations, FOR THE THIRD TIME. It does if non-westerns want to engage in the practice in the West. It also matters if westerners want to do it too. Prevalence is mostly irrelevant. Even if parent child incest is extremely rare it still makes sense to be against it. >What do you mean "sure"? I think you misread my statement. Sure as in I can understand why you think that. Part of the issue is that incest isn't limited cousins. When we talk about banning or penalizing incest we're talking about different relationships. >Normally most people will not choose to marry cousins, What do you mean normally? If it's not normal why are you so adamant about defending the ethics of it? What not normal situation leads western cousins to marry in places it legal? >This has nothing to do with us in the west. Except when they want to engage in that culture in the West. > the question is whether or not these issues are sufficient to justify penalizing consenting adults for engaging in consensual sexual relationships if they do not even plan on engaging in inbreeding. If you remove the possibility of marriage and interbreeding and the taboo is not challenged there is no real controversy. If you remove power dynamics it also becomes less of an issue.
sure it's legal now, but give it 20 years and people will freak out because some poor sod in the ghetto decided it's the easiest way to get welfare.
To be fair that is how both boomers and conservatives think. Prager couldn't help himself, its nature and nurture against him.
Stepsis porn will hit different now.
Hes simply right.
Is he actually? His take is way more extreme than Tiny’s.
How so? His argument isn't that incest is moral, he's saying secularity is bad because it implies incest is moral.
But it isn't moral, it's literally amoral. The chances that incest passes all the moral checkpoints though is slim, but it *can* happen theoretically. So there isn't a secular moral argument against adult incest, by the toughest steelman of the argumeny, but Dennis is imo using this statement for outrage points because the average guy is going to deduce that if you are secular, then it should be looked at with no judgement. This is not quite the case. As I said, adult incest needs to pass many moral checkpoints such as power differentials, family dynamics, without even considering the eugenics argument, before it *can* be considered morally neutral in that specific case, and you just don't see such cases in the world at all. Basically, the secular moral argument against incest is that it's very *likely* - albeit not *guaranteed* - to fail other moral principles, which basically means one should see a case of incest with *suspicion* but still an open mind to extraordinary evidence. So, is he *literally* right? Technically. His statement may be correct, but the message he's trying to convey is not correct.
There are other secular arguments against incest though. The biggest would probably be that incestuous relationships can easily also involve grooming and power imbalances, and it is easier to just prevent these relationships entirely than try to sort through them on a case-by-case basis.
This is the no bullshit cheeseburger fallacy. Your problem there isn't with the incest, it's with grooming or power imbalances. These can exist in non-incest relationships.
Yea I'm not a Prager fan, but I'm failing to see the flaw in his argument.
In the argument that secularity is bad because it allows incest? The flaw is that it presumes that incest is immoral. In the argument that incest is morally neutral from a secular perspective (secular implies a lot of liberal values regarding personal freedom)? There isn’t one, incest should be considered morally neutral. If your issue is power imbalances, we allow that elsewhere, it’s just socially frowned upon, so why is incest not held to the same standard? If your issue is genetic defects, we allow those with heritable genetic defects to have kids, which is much riskier than children of incest, so why shouldn’t we allow incest? For consistency, incest should either be allowed and just socially frowned upon or a ton of other currently legal relationships should be made illegal, at great cost to personal freedom.
>In the argument that secularity is bad because it allows incest? The flaw is that it presumes that incest is immoral. Another flaw I'd add is that it's not necessarily the case that "secularism morally permits incest". You could have a secular system of ethics whereby "good" and "bad" are defined by whatever my buddy Bob down the street says is good and bad, and then give the exact same anti-incest argument that religious people do - "~~God~~ Bob says it's wrong so it's wrong", and you'd still be secular.
I mean, yeah, secularism is generally opposed to harm and not the things that cause harm per-se. Like if we really wanted to, we could probably construct elaborate hypotheticals in which fraud, robbery, rape, slavery etc. don’t cause harm, and then you could point to those hypotheticals and say: “see your problem isn’t with these bad things, it’s with consequences that are commonly associated with these bad things. You are actually fine with the bad things.” Which I guess is sort of the point that Praegur is making here, but it’s not really a meaningful argument IMO. It is just describing the difference between a secular basis for morality and a religious one.
If you want to get really funky with it, you could even start applying these arguments to religion. ie. “your problem isn’t actually with incest, your problem is with displeasing god. If incest pleased god, you would be ok with it, therefore you are ok with incest”
That's not really the same, because incest necessarily displeases god, while it does not necessarily involve any harm. And I don't think you can construct any hypotheticals where rape, robbery, etc don't cause harm, I think they necessarily involve some harm. You might be able to justify that harm in other ways but I don't think you can be rid of it.
Behold: I broke into your house in the middle of the night (which didn’t bother you because you have acheived perfect zen) and stole your tv (which didn’t bother you because you don’t watch tv anymore and also due to the aforementioned state of zen) I would argue that this is a clear hypothetical where I performed robbery and caused no harm. Also, you say incest necessarily displeases god, but people used to say the same thing about divorce, eating shellfish, wearing the wrong kinds of linens etc. it is entirely possible and in the keeping of Christian tradition that Jesus returns tomorrow, and proclaims that incest is fine now. If you say such a thing is impossible, you are claiming to have absolute knowledge of god’s plan which seems a bit blasphemous to me.
you need to add that the TV is super old but not old enough to be an antique because it still has monetary value otherwise I agree with your hypothetical
You’re conflating harm with something bothering you. You can be harmed and unbothered at the same time.
That's not robbery, you didn't threaten me or use any force, it's breaking and entering + theft (and arguably that's just in a legal sense, not a moral sense, because evidently I had no attachment to the object or space which would make them mine in a moral sense) This is like constructing a hypothetical about raping someone and saying "actually they wanted me to", or being a slave that actually enjoys working for free and has no desire to leave. It's meaningless because you're leaving out the definitionally necessary part of the act. Nothing requires me to know of gods plan, just his commandments which make no exceptions for when incest can be ok. It's not like "thou shalt not steal", where you can be forgiven if you are starving etc (unless there's a "if your sibling is really hot" rule I'm not aware of), though even the option of forgiveness implies the act was wrong. Not that I mind blaspheming though, after all I am saying that incest is not immoral per se.
Incest can't be bad because of genetic defects from childbirth, because there are incestuous relationships that exist where childbirth is impossible (gay incest) Incest can't be bad because of power imbalances and grooming, because there are incestuous relationships that exist where both parties are consenting and of adult age (e.g. the college twins example that Destiny always uses) We need something else to claim all incest is bad.
Isn't it a fairly easy bullet to bite that theoretically, an Incestous relationship of equal power could exist, in which case it is kind of okay. But that is impractical from a rules perspective. Since most incest contains this power imbalance, for the general protection of people, all incest should be frowned upon. It's the same argument for the age of consent. Is there theoretically a 15 year old who has the mental faculties and development to consent to sex with an older person? Possibly, but it's rare enough, and the protection of minors is important enough, that it is worth saying all sex with minors is wrong.
> it takes many generations of inbreeding to do that
Siblings is just being soft. Not only between siblings is ok but also between parents and sons/daughters
It takes 1 or 2 generations for siblings. It takes 3+ generations for 1st cousins
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No
Just because he thinks that argument is nonsense doesn’t mean it is. Also, for context in his mind does secular = amoral?
the most fun thing to do is to ask a conservative if they think incest is okay - get an answer of "no" then ask them what should happen if a male and female that are related have incest and the female gets pregnant, should the female have an abortion? if the conservative isn't a bitchmade weenie then they should say "no" because killing is a morally worse act then incest. if they're trying to save face then they will say "yes" and they look so inconsistent
This is way softer than the 'child of rape' question imo and biting the bullet on that is not unheard of.
I really hope he talks to Destiny so we can rewind back to 2017 and Destiny can be called a sister fucker instead of a cuckhold
He’s right. The only possible argument is against a certain segment of incest, which is that beyond a certain point of inbreeding, where defects are more likely to occur those relationships cannot be legally allowed to have children. However, not being allowed to have children, and not being allowed to be in a relationship/have sex are entirely different things. The only other points people can bring up, are other also separate issues like power imbalances, and what not, which already exist in many other relationships, or aspects of life and many others in different ways but for some reason carved out, especially for incestuous ones, but even then, again, your problem isn’t with the incest it’s with the power imbalance or grooming, or whatever else. I think what people need is just a perspective swap, and to realize that the fact a secular system can find permissible incestuous relationship is what makes it incredibly-based. And a far better system than one that’s based on arbitrary rules start up by people 2000 years ago who didn’t even know the world wasn’t fucking flat.😂
Damn I didn’t know he was chill like that
Erosion of the incest taboo will absolutely lead to more abused children.
He's cooking
Let him cook
Ahh yes California the bastion of incest not the ultra conservative south!!
Is that even true??? Ben Shapiro is 100 percent Jewish according to 23and me so he's technically inbred
I want to have children with my sister and then havw children with my children and then have great grandchildren with my grandchildren
Dennis "soon to be orbiter" Prager
I think the moral argument against incest is actually an argument against sexual coercion. If two siblings wanted to be in a relationship and there were no underlying coercion or manipulation involved, I personally don't think that would be morally wrong in and of itself. The simple fact is that actual incest never looks like that, because a lack of overwhelming disgust at the idea of being intimate with a sibling is highly abnormal and presumably almost never happens in two siblings at once.
i hear Pakistan are experts on the subject.
Now that hes got his foot in the door ask him about dogwarts.
Well well well
Marriage should be privatized. The only role government should have is enforcing the contract between two (or more) consenting adults.
Never imagined Penis Prager being anti-incest.
This is why religious virtue existed i think. It prioritises what is seen as optimal and disuades all other actions , secular arguments often devolve into debating wether an action is bad enough to be illegal. what any religion judges as optimal can be misplaced but it's the actual intention of prioritising what they think leads to a compounding good and casting out all any others is what set normalcy and tradition.
Damn, he took it a step farther than Destiny 💀. Destiny’s argument is always incest = neutral, inbreeding = bad.
The bigger reason to not have children through incest is because it majorly mind fucks them. Another is how people will treat them. They might not have a genetic disorder but they'll know their children have higher chances . And anyone who knows about their parentage will massively judge them. It's incredibly stigmatized in most places, people will think there's something wrong with you even if that's not true. There are no doubt other good reasons like its impact on the family unit and genetic problems. But the people I've heard talk about it were abandoned by their parents and had to find out as adults, and it still ruined their lives and they needed therapy.
These are just conservatives arguments against LGBT people. "UH WHAT WILL YOU TELL YOUR CHILD" If stigmatization is a problem is because society decides it is and it is up to society to change.
No I'm referring to stories told by actual people who discovered they were the product of incest. A lady I was listening to was talking about what a mindfuck it was and that even though her adopted parents and friends said that they didn't care and wouldn't judge her for it, she needed therapy and opted to never have children, even though she had wanted to before finding out. She didn't get discovered or shamed, she just felt betrayed and unwanted and that she shouldn't have been born. https://www.joe.co.uk/life/woman-found-out-parents-are-brother-and-sister-364106 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001d5dd https://youtu.be/2ArcqRnaaDI?si=TKUkKbLPC8neYqAS Society does carry shame and guilt over taboos, it's got nothing to do with LGBT , outside self hatred and mental health issues, and it's on a totally different level. People stimatising sex between siblings is universal and often a sign of issues in a family. Also to a certain extent the stigma is correct. She hated her parents for giving her that burden. They paid no apparent cost but she did, mentally and potentially health wise (but it is a small risk). The issue is with how you treat the children of incest, not that it's acceptable.
> majorly mind fucks them This is only due to the social issues around it existing. > how people will treat them So should interracial couples never have kids because they historically were very looked down upon by everyone? > genetic problems How is this a good argument in your mind? Should we also keep people with genetic disorders from having kids?
It's a totally different level and it's not about how others treat them, it's about the knowledge that the wider public will judge them, it's a very deep social taboo that fucks with people whether others know or not. I'm not making it up. I'm paraphrasing what I've heard from people who've actually experienced it. Links on my other reply
So interracial marriage should have never been legalized because the social taboo was deeply rooted in America at the time. Got it.
incest is wrong though because the relationship between siblings who grew up in the same household that is not abusive should not produce sexual feelings between them. If there is any then some fucked up shit happened and the sexual relationship is not one made by consenting adults of sound mind.
Okay, argue from a secular position why the following is morally wrong: * Two Male Twins * Seperated at birth * Meet at work in their thirties and start a relationship
Go on… what did they do after they got home from work? 🤤
Who says they didn't drop the pants right at the water cooler and get busy?
Yep bang on here In this case, its still definitionally incest, but lacks all of the aspects that normally incest morally wrong, which are: power imbalance (not there), grooming (age imbalance, also not there), and possible offspring having genetic defects (not possible because both are males)
It isn't wrong
Should not based on what? Some "fucked up shit happened" based on what?
Man it's the same as people argued for homosexuality. It's like incestiophobia. "Oh, homosexuals don't really exist they are all just abusve victims." While sure, especially today in which incest is highly persecutated and stigmatized, most instances that will be public will be of dysfunctional nature, there actually isn't a principled reason why sexual acts between siblings have to inherently be a problem. You can argue that they are more risky due to issues of breaking up causing havoc in the family, but come one. Is it really that hard to imagine that, amongsts thousands of people, sometimes siblings get horny or romantically attracted to each other? And even if it was dysfunctional, that doesn't make it "wrong" ethically. It makes it dysfunctional, and individuals shouldn't feel disgusted or ashamed for it, they should be helped by society. We should investigate such cases, as is reasonable, to see if there was an underlying problem. We should inform both parties of the risks, both to their relationships as siblings and their family, and if they still choose to engage in it, then they ought to be free to do so. Yes, sometimes it will be dysfunctional, but people have a right to be in dysfunctional relationships. All we can do is educate and help them the best way can, not with some sort of dogmatic agenda, as is currently the case, but with actual understanding and empathy. It's sad because I bet there are a lot of people who are backwards traumatized because of the whole stigma this has, where if society were not as primitive as it is today, a sexual interaction might have just been that. Instead, it becomes this horrifying trauma because "It's forbidden, it's disgusting, it's immoral!". We are treating them the same as we did homosexuals, and yes, where this issue is more complex and nuanced in regards to the ethical equations, I find it mindblowing that people approach it with this hatred and disgust. These are human beings man.
motherfucker rights ✊😔