Morality of incest

Normally, I'd second this point in an instant, though it comes into question the validity of 'how nature intended' when we compare things such as animals who copulate homo-sexually or biological entities with phosphorus instead of carbon as their base element;

however, there is little surface area to explain why animals of lesser consciousness do engage in homo-sexually activity, though it does happen. The truth is that nature does permit homo-sexually in multiple instances.

Incest, on the other hand, is close to nonexistent in nature, save for humans. The event of incest in what I'll term 'lesser-conscious' animals comes only as a combatant to general-population extinction; humans are the only species that indulge in incest without biological reason, and since one could strongly argue that all expression of biological entities is derived psychologically from the need to survive, I'd be so inclined as to confidently attribute man's incestuous behavior to physiological defect rather than attempt to justify it.

 

Even if this is true, the fact that other animals do not perform this kind of act does not prove that it is a psychological defect in humans. There are plenty of things we do that other animals do not, and which we do not think are problems psychologically. There are similarly many things we do (including sexual acts) that are not biologically (for reproduction) beneficial (or even oriented), and yet are not considered a deficiency. An example is oral sex.

Also it's not enough to say that other animals participate in oral sex. The strength of the psychological defect argument flows from how a particular act pairs up with our biological imperative to reproduce, not by how many other animals share it.

 

While it's true that correlation does not equate to causation, the act of incest within nature is

1. non-existent in all environments conducive to the progression of life,

2. only ever present as a last resort to the extinction of a population (see: Fight or Flight)

&

3. mal-adaptive to the survival of the species, where all expression derives from our intrinsic need to survive, prosper, and feel pleasure.

Any biological expression that combats that innate will is both by definition and in practice a psychological defect.

A = B
B ≠ C
A ≠ C

The things that humans are capable of that other animals are not are caused by our physical and psychological differences, those being either superior or inferior.

A + B = C
A + C = B

A = B
B ≠ C
A ≠ C

Oral sex
1. has a direct correlation to the pleasure senses
2. stimulates libido
3. does not produce results mal-adaptive to survival

I repeat:

all expression derives from our intrinsic need to survive, prosper, and feel pleasure.

Any biological expression that combats that innate will is both by definition and in practice a psychological defect.

 

Where do you get the ability to claim that one of the qualifications for making something a psychological defect is how it pairs up with reproduction? This requires either:
a) an argument that our natural psychological tendencies should be for reproduction;
b) that the greatest majority of people display this kind of behaviour in their psychology

I don't think B is the case because people clearly are not taking into account reproduction in the majority of their sexual actions, or at any rate there is no consensus. So how can you prove A? What makes the biological considerations supreme over any other possibilities? What makes the continuity of the species an integral part of our actions? This isn't meant to be a silly question.

 

all expression derives from our intrinsic need to survive, prosper, and feel pleasure.

all expression derives from our intrinsic need to survive, prosper, and feel pleasure.

Orthogenesis

all expression derives from our intrinsic need to survive, prosper, and feel pleasure.

all expression derives from our intrinsic need to survive, prosper, and feel pleasure.

Orthogenesis
all expression derives from our intrinsic need to survive, prosper, and feel pleasure.

Put it this way

 

Okay, so under the terms of the article, if I'm pursuing what gives me pleasure how is it a defect? Incest gives me pleasure, let's say. What then?

Also I can totally say that what is innate is not always what encourages survival. If it is innate then how do you explain people who do not experience it? You call it a defect, but this means nothing because there is no absolute necessity for survival (because it is not innate). It's a circular problem.
It's just a contingent relation. To show an example, I can say that being born without an eye is a defect - but does this mean that being born with two eyes is innate? Of course not, otherwise everyone would be born with two eyes. The claim that something innate requires more strength than what biology is giving us. Without an absolute necessity for two eyes, calling the absence of one a defect means nothing. You might call it a biological defect, but this doesn't have to mean anything to us if we don't hold biology as important to this area (and there hasn't been proven a necessity to).

I think the only thing you can truly call innate in humans is the pursuit of pleasure. It is innate because there are no exceptions to it. So if I, again, derive pleasure from incest shouldn't we favour my innate tendencies over anything else?

Regardless, what is moral does not depend on what is innate (or what is biologically well-disposed). Certainly it often coincides with it, but in moral theory we never rely on either. So it really doesn't hold any weight for incest.

 

Great. You've qualified 1 out of 3 standards.

You still can't join the race because you didn't qualify for
maladaptive to species survival , among others.

Do it.

Like what ? [Prepares link to 'defect definition' and 'psychological disorder']

Someone save us all.

No it's not.

You just applied a physical defect to the need for psychological explanation and then argued that it doesn't fit.

Then you challenge hundreds, perhaps thousands of years of documented biology and sociology which details hundreds of thousands of years biological entities and what we are.

You obviously haven't read any of the articles.

If 'all expression is derived from our innate will for species survival', then our collective sense of morality is no exception. Since incest is maladaptive to our innate will for species survival, then it does not fall under the jurisdiction of our collective sense of morality.

Since it does not fall under the jurisdiction of our collective sense of morality, I believe the burden of proof falls to you.

Prove:

a. all expression is not derived from our innate will of species survival
or
b. incest is not maladaptive to species survival

& you can't just say "because"

 

This is a standard is-ought fallacy, and the argument is extremely weak because you haven't justified why we ought to morally follow natures dictates. The statement is also incredibly ambiguous, if someone is going to have appendicitis, should they have their appendix removed? Is their death 'natures dictate', and one which should be obeyed?

 

Morals change from culture to culture and are socially constructed.

It is a social taboo (at least western society), but is in no way immoral.

The only thing arguably immoral would be the potentiality of increasing the chances of a mutation to an offspring. Even this isn't overly likely and often takes more than one generation to take shape.

Note: Not going to sift through all the prior posts on this thread

 

Appendicitis: look at the two possible outcomes. Death or survival, where the survival path yields no difference from life pre-disease aside from the removal of a non-essential organ. If you have sex with a sibling and a mutated child is the result - an unhealthy creation with clear issues - then that is a hint from nature to be followed. A better analogy to give along similar lines to yours regarding appendix removal would be to arbitrarily remove your own stomach. Clearly, this is unnatural as your body was unintended to worth in that way, and you will suffer consequences. By that logic this is another path of nature that should be followed. It's very cut-and-dry.

 

Like I said before however, this is still the is-ought fallacy, the fact that a state of affairs exists doesn't by itself tell us what we ought to do. You're saying that incest is unnatural or leads to birth defects, a state of affairs. Yet from this you immediately derive that therefore we ought not commit incest without justifying your position.

The argument should be:

Incest leads to .......
....... is bad.
Therefore incest is bad.

However you are skipping the middle statement; why is the potential consequence of incest bad?

Also, it should be noted that incest does not always lead to a mutated baby, it only increases the probability of inheriting unfavorable genes. If your argument is centered on the consequence of reproduction, then what is your non-arbitrary standard for differentiating between couples that ought to have a child, and couples that ought not to have a child. If your argument is centered solely on the unnatural act of inbreeding (meaning the same consequence of mutations occurring from non-inbreeding being acceptable), then like I said, is-ought fallacy.

 

Incest with intent is synonymous with the will to accept the possibility of inflicting a disability onto your own child. Sex is in itself used for reproduction, so if that purpose cannot be properly fulfilled by spawning a healthy child without an affliction, it stands to reason that the action is flawed and should not be performed for risk of the negative life-altering circumstance. I categorize this in the same bin as those suffering from AIDS reproducing. AIDS is passed down and would be present in the child. With incest, there is a chance for mutation, however that chance is extremely high and dips into the realm of certain causality instead of just pure odds vs. odds probability.

Incest leads to mutation.
Mutation is bad.
Therefore incest is bad.

However there is a hole in my argument where you eliminate the factor of a child. I suppose I'm arguing from the primal, biological standpoint as opposed to incorporating human intelligence where contraception and the human desire for sexual relationships without reproduction play a huge role.

 

How about those that do not realize incest causes such mutations? They may not be educated in biology, may not believe in it for x reason, or what not. As for those with intent, as I mentioned before, where do you draw the line in a non-arbitrary way? This may seem less important now, but as we increase our knowledge in the field of biology and medicine, we might detect characteristics that certain people have that would increase the probability of mutations occurring, so how do we draw the line?

As for your argument, I know it's very brief etc, but technically walking out in the sun increases mutations. While I totally agree with you that from a biological perspective, having a child as a result of incest is not the best idea. However, that in itself is insufficient for a whole moral argument because there is no standard of moral evaluation, a biological standard might work in this instance, but would be essentially unworkable in other instances such as is piracy morally acceptable (bit hard to evaluate that with a biological standard).

 

Can you tell me in your own words what you mean by expression, and after that how you say it is all derived from a will for survival? I'd rather just engage on a simple level instead of reading the articles.

 

You're just trying to boost post count. Since I know you and your motives for posting.

Most humans are born with a genetic predisposition to not want to mate with somebody of blood relation. Others born without I imagine have an experience early in life which gives them those morals, just like I'm sure there's people born with a homosexual predisposition that develop morals against it. For me to argue if it's right or wrong for somebody else to do is the exact same thing as arguing if homosexuality is right or wrong. Yes, there are bad situations that could come from it for the people involved (just like anything in the world), but if it does not effect you than you shouldn't care if somebody else does it. It is not "wrong" for somebody to do something if it does not effect anybody involved or uninvolved negatively. I know there is ways it could negatively effect somebody not involved, but so can anything in the world. I'm sure somebody has been negatively effected by spongebob squarepants. It is all up to opinion and I can use all the relative terms I want to describe my opinions, which is what you asked for in the first words of your thread.

Definition of moral: a person's standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do.

TO ME, it's morally wrong because I find it disgusting. I am unable to tell anybody else if it is morally wrong for them to do anything, even kill a nun, because that is something they must do for themselves. This is the same exact argument as homosexuality and personally I do not see why somebody would give two shits what you do if it does not effect them.

To fill in the blank to the question you want answered:
I think incest is morally wrong because genetics.

Oh and if I wanted to boost my post count I think I could do better than 200 posts in 4 years. I'm angered that you think so little of me.

 

Fine. Sorry for assuming you were boosting post count.

I find it difficult to accept that we have an innate revulsion towards incest. Centuries ago incest was an accepted procedure among cousins, and even further along the line it was accepted generally. I think it depends on how you're raised to look at your family, and how your interaction with them is.
Regardless, I've already argued against scientifically-dictated morality. We clearly do not predicate our notions of morality on how they harmonize with science.
Morality derived from what is disgusting is even more implausible to me. Finding something gross reflects on your disposition towards it, not on the thing itself. This is why some people may find something gross while others are actually drawn to it. One of the few things we intuitively know about morality is that it tries to be universal, for that is what is fair. Such an individualized notion is really not universal.

 

So you're saying that all morals are relative? Are there any objective morals?

 

It still is I wouldn't say "accepted" but people still do it with cousins pretty commonly, especially in southern US (A redneck stereotype, yes, but stereotypes come from something). I don't like using Wiki as a source but:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_regarding_incest

I know this isn't a post discussing the laws of incest, but that's not why I am looking at it. There is a chart which shows the degree of relationship and I have a feeling the higher up on that list you go, the more of a instictual "disgust" for relations with that person. That is why maybe somebody would have the same views on incest I do, but still maybe find their second cousin attractive. I think there is something genetic about it, whether it's because morals are genetic or society over the past 500 years (or however long) has made us adapt to feeling that way.

It's basically like homosexuality, etc in that we really won't know much about it's cause until science advances another 100 years. But obviously enough people disagree with it to make it frowned upon to do. Society has shaped it that way, just like it's "morally wrong" to go kill somebody but 1000 years ago if somebody insulted you and you killed them it wouldn't have been near as big a deal as today.

As for it morally being wrong that is up for the person to decide. It is different in murder in that there is no malicious intent. So if you wanted to commit murder you would have to directly effect somebody else to do so. If you want to commit incest, you don't have the ability to just do it, you need another willing participant. Obviously you could just rape your family but I'm assuming rape would just be going to a whole different sort-of-irrelevant discussion.

Anyway i'm not sure where i'm going with this but I think nobody should have the ability to dictate your morals unless it IS something like murder that could effect you very negatively without you having a choice in the matter. Saying that it could emotionally damage the other family members is only partially a fair criticism because it only emotionally would damage somebody uninvolved if it was against their morals.

 

Yeah see I think there's a large difference between the revulsion towards incest being produced from society or being produced by genetics. I'll provide a different line of argument:

Clearly it cannot be genetic because the conception of cousin (or any relation) is not genetic. We don't come into the world with an awareness of who our family members are (nor of family members generally). We learn the taboo when we learn what family members means, and what it entails. On the other hand attraction is a more likely candidate to be innate because it seems to involve no external concepts.
Now obviously specific morality is also not passed down genetically in any way. That just doesn't make sense, it's like claiming that conditions acquired in one's lifetime are passed down through genetics (like losing an arm in war).

Also I would like to stress that just because people had a different idea of ethics in the past does not necessarily make ethics subjective. They could have just been wrong (or we could be wrong). To me, the more reliable method for figuring out morality is through reason, not through history.