My Thought On Personal Liberty

[Jaggernaut]

just out of interest tho sige sige, how does your libertarian stance which seems to presuppose a capitalist economy (prostitution, pornography - these involve market exchange right?) sit with your communist standpoints. are you a libertarian communist, ie anarchist?

Now you've done it.....

[Steven H]

Based on what though? All I keep hearing are words like "repulsive" "wrong" "sickening" and "disgusting" without any actual evidence that incest itself is either harmful, or by a rational measure of morality, wrong or unacceptable.

 

Ok, I haven't read the whole thread yet but am a bit shocked at your views Woody. Go to ANY parent, or any child abused by their own parent/brother and tell them there is no harm in incest (your points re consenting adults and non-reproduction are noted). Having twins (a boy and a girl) I can tell you there is a bit of confusion with them...they are gona marry each other, but they're only 6 and are being taught about the difference between brother/sister and husband/wife relationships.

 

Nature/nurture debate time....in your view what breeds incest, natural impulse or nurture as you grow? I believe it is the former and the latter needs to reduce these impulses....we're not wild animals who cannot control our impulses!

 

That's before we got into the religious blah blah about what the bible says

[Allan Heron]

Ok, I haven't read the whole thread yet but am a bit shocked at your views Woody. Go to ANY parent, or any child abused by their own parent/brother and tell them there is no harm in incest (your points re consenting adults and non-reproduction are noted). Having twins (a boy and a girl) I can tell you there is a bit of confusion with them...they are gona marry each other, but they're only 6 and are being taught about the difference between brother/sister and husband/wife relationships.

 

Nature/nurture debate time....in your view what breeds incest, natural impulse or nurture as you grow? I believe it is the former and the latter needs to reduce these impulses....we're not wild animals who cannot control our impulses!

 

That's before we got into the religious blah blah about what the bible says

 

To be fair to WJ, he's not advocating that he would support incest but using it as an example to make what amounts to a philosophical rather than a practical point. What he's doing is creating some consternation as he's challenging how the societal norms are established. I'm not certain that I agree with many of his conclusions but I don't think people are differentiating between his use of incest as a means of progressing the argument he is making from what he would actually advocate.

 

Perhaps the conclusion to be reached is that despite what was previously though that there's not as many philosophers amongst the Jags support as we once thought.

[Woodstock Jag]

Ok, I haven't read the whole thread yet but am a bit shocked at your views Woody. Go to ANY parent, or any child abused by their own parent/brother and tell them there is no harm in incest (your points re consenting adults and non-reproduction are noted). Having twins (a boy and a girl) I can tell you there is a bit of confusion with them...they are gona marry each other, but they're only 6 and are being taught about the difference between brother/sister and husband/wife relationships.

 

Nature/nurture debate time....in your view what breeds incest, natural impulse or nurture as you grow? I believe it is the former and the latter needs to reduce these impulses....we're not wild animals who cannot control our impulses!

 

That's before we got into the religious blah blah about what the bible says

 

As Allan has explained, I'm challenging the notion of how we approach incest as a moral issue. I'm not necessarily "advocating" it or arguing that it is desirable, or necessarily even that it is permissible. What I'm questioning is our pre-conceived notion of what incest is any why people think it is "wrong".

 

What you have engaged are several "emotive" arguments. Invoking contexts of child abuse, whilst persuasive to an anecdotal gallery, fails to acknowledge that whilst a lot of incest cases involve pressure, rape, paedophilia etc, the components at which people are really morally outraged (at least in their reasoning) is everything around the incest, and not the incest itself. It's like saying that sticking a knife into someone is always morally wrong. Whilst undoubtedly in the immediate context you think of, sticking a knife into someone is wrong, what about the surgeon who is cutting open someone on the operating table? What about the woman who is battered and bruised and under threat of her life from her abusive husband? It's not the sticking the knife into someone that is the thing that is wrong; it's the context: the motive, the intention, the consent of the person into whom the knife is inserted.

 

Incest is conceptually the same. People are instinctively revolted by the concept: by the idea. What I argue is that this is a product of social conditioning, harking back to both historical religious authorities on the matter and a historical lack of understanding why incestuous relationships produced, statistically, a higher number of deformed offspring. What I want to know is why social taboos like homosexuality, transexuality etc have been fundamentally challenged in and of themselves, yet in many respects, the incest taboo has become more ingrained.

Edited May 3, 2011 by Woodstock Jag

[Steven H]

As Allan has explained, I'm challenging the notion of how we approach incest as a moral issue. I'm not necessarily "advocating" it or arguing that it is desirable, or necessarily even that it is permissible. What I'm questioning is our pre-conceived notion of what incest is any why people think it is "wrong".

 

What you have engaged are several "emotive" arguments. Invoking contexts of child abuse, whilst persuasive to an anecdotal gallery, fails to acknowledge that whilst a lot of incest cases involve pressure, rape, paedophilia etc, the components at which people are really morally outraged (at least in their reasoning) is everything around the incest, and not the incest itself. It's like saying that sticking a knife into someone is always morally wrong. Whilst undoubtedly in the immediate context you think of, sticking a knife into someone is wrong, what about the surgeon who is cutting open someone on the operating table? What about the woman who is battered and bruised and under threat of her life from her abusive husband? It's not the sticking the knife into someone that is the thing that is wrong; it's the context: the motive, the intention, the consent of the person into whom the knife is inserted.

 

Incest is conceptually the same. People are instinctively revolted by the concept: by the idea. What I argue is that this is a product of social conditioning, harking back to both historical religious authorities on the matter and a historical lack of understanding why incestuous relationships produced, statistically, a higher number of deformed offspring. What I want to know is why social taboos like homosexuality, transexuality etc have been fundamentally challenged in and of themselves, yet in many respects, the incest taboo has become more ingrained.

 

Wow, that's some deep thinking WJ and the subject matter is probably the most radical that could be used in such a debate. In addition to my earlier comment regarding the difference between humans and animals being our ability to resist the urges we know are wrong I would say our society (as opposed to those from radically diffferent cultures) is still effectively based on the bible and the taboo's outlined in it. Whether you believe in the bible or not, many of societies moral beliefs are borne from it. As times have changed so too have these beliefs (i.e. homosexuality, sex out of wedlock, transexuality etc). If you know of Thompsons PCS model you will know beliefs start from a Structural basis (the bible/church, the government, the media) and spread to become Cultural beliefs. From cultural beliefs we then get Personal beliefs and that is where things get mirky imo. Each persons personal belief is effectively borne from the Structural part of the model and in our culture incest is a major taboo.

 

Why? Can't answer it from a structural point of view, or a cultural...only a personal. Freud has plenty to say in relation to the eidopus (sp?) and electra complexes (Im sure you're aware of those), and my belief is the urges that come through these complexes are so strong that if we all followed through on them humans would soon become extinct. Sons would start killing their fathers and sleeping with their mothers, daughters would start killing mothers and sleeping with fathers...unless these urges are supressed or recognised for what they are. The next stage of Freuds theory (where son grows to love/admire/respect/trust his father, and vice versa with daughter and mother) would not exist. Ergo, society would die...or become a mass of gibbering mutants.

 

Open that door and who knows what sort of human race would be developed and that's where the nature/nurture debate rears it's head again...nature presents urges, nurture provides the ability to repress unwanted urges (the nurturing comes from parents, teachers etc). Without that nurturing what do we have? Let me put it into a football context..we all want to be winners, so why dont we all follow Rangers or Celtic? We all must have had that urge at some point in our lives, yet we supressed those urges...why? Because, in the views of Thistle fans, the less OF fans in the world the better? Most likely. Another reason could be forfeiting glory for the sake of the love of our Club (after we have been bitten by the Thistle bug).

 

Likewise with sexual attraction to your sister/mother/father/brother etc. In order to have a fruitful society those urges must be supressed. Put simply, if we all had incestual sex there would be no reproduction, without reproduction we have a society full of OF fans. In attempting to counter your next points, the reluctant acceptance of homosexuality etc can be tolerated by society (like OF fans can be tolerated, just)...but to accept incest in the same way would be akin to accepting a whole world full of homosexuals, transexuals etc (or OF fans, which Scotland is now becoming full of and which is now becoming less and less tolerated). Back to Frued again accepting incest in the same way we accept homosexuality etc (reluctantly or not) would see urges go unsupressed and an end to the human race.

 

Goin to bed now, my head hurts

[_mm_]

it should be mentioned that all incest isn't actually illegal. it is down the degree of incest. in scotland (unlike many other places it must be noted), first cousins can marry. it's the proximity of the consanguinity.

 

it is also unfair to assume that longstanding taboos or religious morals come from a lack of understanding or irrational basis. normative impulses are neither inherently good or bad, but representative of a particular need within the society that creates them. that need may not be relevant to another. both taboo and morality are social constructs acting as particular mechanisms of social control that served some purpose. that a incestuous relationship between a brother and a sister produced some questionable offspring was likely not lost on folk in those dark, harrowing days before the enlightenment and this arguably led to the incest taboo.

 

homosexual activity, for example, has not been soundly banned and punished in every society. there is an argument to be made that such activity has been "frowned upon" more in less settled and more threatened societies. This is why you see it early and often within the Old Testament, or why certain minority communities have a very low tolerance. further, what defines homosexual activity varies wildly. In Latin American cultures (if you will allow me widely generalize), it is only the receptive partner in the passionate throws of male homosexual congress that is looked down upon. this has more to do with cultural attitudes towards machismo and strength than any basis on reproduction or health concerns.

 

incest to various degrees has been quite strongly banned or punished across a substantial swathe of the world throughout history, which at least strongly indicative to people from many varied cultures having a longstanding understanding of what happens when brothers and sisters get a little too close.

 

i honestly believe the answer is that simple.

 

as to why it remains such in the age of contraception, my answer is that you just can't count on people to behave or be rational, and whether the healthcare is publicly funded or not (and as an American, i know all about lack of public funding), we're all going to have to deal with the result.

[phoenix1876]

does that make peadophilia a moral issue, considering that a girl is most fertile at 13 (i think).

 

what i think is that the feeling a attributed in incest which yous are portraying, like a brother being in love with his sister.

you are completely taking away the factor of moral issue.

 

what you have to ask yourself is "what is moral" before you can totally take away that factor in the topic of incest & peadophilia aswell.

 

moral - Concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character

 

and aslo what is love

 

love - Feel a deep romantic or sexual attachment to (someone).

 

What my point is that both moral & love stem from the brain & heart. Therefor you cant say oh if 2 people love each other then its ok, moral shouldnt be a factor. Well it should if moral code stems from the exact same thing.

 

Granted though both moral and love can be manipulated by surrounding and persons.

thus which leads onto, what is right and what is wrong.

if we start saying about incest etc, then it could easily lead onto, who says murder is wrong, theft, rape etc. just because we have the ability to do something, doesnt mean it is right or it should be allowed.

 

im going to go out my way to say that the uk have made it illegal because it can cause abnormalities at birth, i know yous are saying that its purely the relationships but children can come of it. Plus the fact the legal system in the uk is based upon the christian moral code hence why we swear on a bible. (obviously certain aspects have changed)

 

Little timmy 3 thumbs in school finds out his father is his uncle.

[Woodstock Jag]

does that make peadophilia a moral issue, considering that a girl is most fertile at 13 (i think).

 

Children are not considered to be capable of consenting to a number of things for precisely this reason. That is why paedophilia is unequivocally wrong.

[Allan Heron]

Children are not considered to be capable of consenting to a number of things for precisely this reason. That is why paedophilia is unequivocally wrong.

 

But other countries have different ages of consent - some higher than ours, whilst others are lower.

 

Jerry Lee Lewis was pilloried in the 1950's for marrying his 13 year old cousin (hitting two of our taboos square in the face). However, it was perfectly legal in his home state in the USA.

 

(Edited to add that you've also got different ages of consent for different activities as well!)

Edited May 4, 2011 by Allan Heron

[Woodstock Jag]

But other countries have different ages of consent - some higher than ours, whilst others are lower.

 

Jerry Lee Lewis was pilloried in the 1950's for marrying his 13 year old cousin (hitting two of our taboos square in the face). However, it was perfectly legal in his home state in the USA.

 

Indeed. I wasn't suggesting anything to the contrary. The age of consent is always an approximation by a society of the point at which people are capable of true consent, and some get it spectacularly wrong.