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Moral Disgust

whatthebutlersaw said:
No, he's not. If he were, he would treat the discussion with intellectual honesty.

There would be discourse, instead of JAQuing off. There would be dialectic, instead of goalpost moving. There would be arguments, instead of green-eggs-and-hamming.

Ivor was not this coy when he claimed that you would have to be mentally ill to get a tattoo and his disgust of overweight people is well documented. In fact, his disgust of anyone who isn't, essentially, ItE, is well documented.

All of which stances that in themselves or in how they were argued clearly did not convey any lack of emotional investment, nor any fertile source of critical thinking.
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I haven't spent much (any?) time perusing these other topics you speak of which have involved Ivor. It isn't clear to me why they should be germane to this thread, though. If you are chasing after him to continue disagreements which were the subject of other threads wouldn't those threads be a more appropriate venue?

Why can't your disagreement here stand on its own merits without bringing up past history as a defense?

(What does "ItE" mean?)

Lionking had good reason to suspect that this is where the thread is going, because frankly, Ivor has form. It is beyond me why some posters find they need to enable that. He certainly gets no real benefit from that enabling, particularly not in the long run.
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I usually enjoy Lionking's contributions, and feel somewhat sad in this instance, because from where I sit it appears to me that he was a prime instigator in "where the thread is going", and thus one of the enablers you are finding fault with.

The thread began with a question about the perceptions of others toward an intimate act between two consenting adults. In the second and fourth posts Lk had upped the ante to bestiality, murder, and cannibalism. Pedophilia wasn't far behind.

Maybe you're reading a different thread than I am, or perhaps you are too invested in earlier ones.
 
ItE prob means Ivor the Engineer

Eta: I even previewed to check no one had answered and still get beaten to it!
 
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Skwinty said:
The topic of discussion is to find a moral justification for why one would not find these acts disgusting.

Give me one moral justification for why one should not find these acts disgusting.

The acts that I am referring to are adult and children or human and animal sex.

For the sake of argument, lets just stick to the legal definitions of childhood and adulthood.
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Do you find consensual sex between a 19 year-old and a 17 year-old reprehensible? Why or why not?

Skwinty said:
Don't apply the same criteria to animals that you do to humans.
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That's not what I meant. I meant that there is also a grey area for sex with animals. For instance, you've stated that you do not find it reprehensible to sexually stimulate a cow if this increases the chances of conception (and thus the production of delicious delicious cow-babies), but it becomes morally reprehensible once one should choose to do so using ones penis. Why?

Skwinty said:
When I am stating my feelings and opinions about the subject, I tend to state the extremes first and work from there.
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I don't see how that is helpful given scenarios like the one in the OP, which is very far from the extreme.

Skwinty said:
I fail to see how you would find a moral justification that says its not reprehensible.
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That's not the question, though. The question is if there are rational justifications to say that this is morally reprehensible. And whether or not a rational moral choice is better than saying: "That's disgusting! Burn him!"

In the case of badger-fondling, I think a good rational case can be made that it is reprehensible.
 
H'ethetheth said:
Do you find consensual sex between a 19 year-old and a 17 year-old reprehensible? Why or why not?
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That's funny, because my daughter is all but 18 and her boyfriend is 16, and we just had a conversation about this.



Do you know that Folger's commercial where the brother comes home for the holidays, and the sister says "You're my present"? You know those two are totally "keeping it in the family".
 
Seismosaurus said:
But that misses the point of the OP, or at least what I took to be the point of the OP. Is incest inherently wrong? Is incest wrong even in a situation where those involved are willing partners without coercion or particular risk of genetic issues or whatever?

I see no reason to think that it is.
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I have not missed the point of the OP, but you seem to be missing mine. I showed two reasons - psychological and sociological - why incest is wrong even if there are willing partners without coercion or particular risk of genetic issues or whatever. I gave two reasons why the hypothetical fails to do what it thinks it does - invoke moral outrage without rational basis.

If the OP can show a situation which actually causes moral outrage without causing harm, I'll be glad to discuss that scenerio. So far, he has failed.


Ivor the Engineer said:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/t188h6334n81313g

The above doesn't cover all possible harm from such behaviour, but I'd have expected at least some of those outcomes to be different between groups if sibling incest was as harmful as our strong negative emotional reactions to it leads us to believe.
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O.M.G. That's what you're quoting? Let's have a look at the text just above the part that you chose to highlight:



ong-term differences in young adults' sexual behavior and adjustment following preadolescent sibling and nonsibling peer childhood sexual experiences were investigated. Questionnaire data were collected from 526 undergraduate college students. Of this sample, 25 (5%) reported having had only a sibling sexual encounter, 61 (12%) reported having had both a sibling and a nonsibling childhood sexual experience, 236 (45%) reported having had only a nonsibling sexual experience, and 204 (39%) reported no sexual experience with another child prior to age 13. No differences ...
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The study limits itself to incestuous experiences between two preadolescent children. Yet, your hypothetical involves sex between two mature adults.

And you have no way of tying this study to anything other than to say, "but I'd have expected at least some of those outcomes to be different." Your argument from incredulity is noted. What expertise do you have that entitles your expectations to be taken as fact?

I, personally, would have expected none of those outcomes to be different. Now, I've written down my personal feelings about what I wish the data would say. Do our expectations cancel each other out? Do you have any data that makes your expectation more real than mine?

Your hypothetical does not create the situation that you want it to. It is worthless as a means of discussing moral outrage.
 
quadraginta said:
If there is a contest by number of studies on that topic which have been cited in this thread the score stands 1 to 0, so far.
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Of course, if the contest were between relevant studies, the score is still tied at zero.
 
Loss Leader said:
<snip>

What expertise do you have that entitles your expectations to be taken as fact?

<snip>
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What expertise do you have which entitles your unsupported opinion about the effects of incest in adulthood to be considered anything more than, well, your unsupported opinion?
 
Loss Leader said:
<snip>

Unfortunately, there are other reasons why incest causes actual harm.

Incest is harmful to the psyche of the individual.
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Evidence?

The family is designed as a safe place for the ego.
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You're using Freudian concepts? Are you aware of what Freud thought about sexual attraction in families?

Out in the world, a growing child may be under a barrage of sexual demands. A 13 year-old girl, for example, may suddenly find herself the object of attention of 50 year-old men. How she negotiates this passage into adulthood is at least partially dependent on her having a safe haven to return to when things get too difficult. The family, with its utter lack of sexual demands, allows a child to retreat to safety,

If a family places sexual expectations on each other, the cocoon of safety disappears.
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Not according to the study I linked to.

Now, in the very silly hypothetical, the brother and sister are adults and some may think this exempts them from the above rationale. It does not. All family must always observe the incest taboo in order for all children - those existing and those yet born - to be raised safely. Perhaps the siblings in the OP have a 15 year-old sister. Will they be able to return to the household for Thanksgiving without her world being affected a little? Perhaps the siblings one day have children of their own (by different partners). Will their experiences change how they raise the children?

A second strong rational reason for the incest taboo is sociological. Successful human society depends on social interaction. The incest taboo forces families to interact and not retreat into isolation.

So, there's lots to talk about before "it's icky." Moral disgust may simply be hiding real social and psychological reasons that are as important to human development as genetic diversity.
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You may like to do a bit of research on the variations of the incest taboo in different cultures. For example:

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

An Incest taboo is any cultural rule or norm that prohibits practices of sexual relations between relatives. All human cultures have norms regarding who is considered suitable and unsuitable sexual and/or marriage partners, and usually certain close relatives are excluded as possible partners. However, there is little agreement among cultures, about which types of blood relations are permissible partners and which are not. In many cultures certain types of cousin relations are preferred as sexual and marital partners, whereas others are taboo. In other cultures relations between clan-members are excluded, even when no traceable genealogical relations exist, while members of other clans are permissible irrespective of the existence of blood ties. Many cultures allow sexual and marital relations between aunts/uncles and nephews/nieces. In some cultures brother-sister marriages have been practiced by the elites with some regularity. This poses the question of the origin of the incest taboo as a cultural universal, and the question has often been framed as a question of whether it is based in nature or nurture.
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lionking said:
Sigh. Is there nothing that can be hidden behind the cloak of skepticism? Murder, cannibalism?
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I don't have any problem with sexual choices made by consenting adults, and my reaction to sex between siblings can be summed up as ho-hum.

That said, bear in mind that even moon landing deniers self-identify as skeptics.

Irrational deviants : "Free Thought"
Moth: Light
 
H'ethetheth said:
Do you find consensual sex between a 19 year-old and a 17 year-old reprehensible? Why or why not?
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No, the couple consent and they are young adults.

H'ethetheth said:
That's not what I meant. I meant that there is also a grey area for sex with animals. For instance, you've stated that you do not find it reprehensible to sexually stimulate a cow if this increases the chances of conception (and thus the production of delicious delicious cow-babies), but it becomes morally reprehensible once one should choose to do so using ones penis. Why?
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Appeal to appetite noted.;)

Firstly, I am not conflating sexual stimulation with bovine foreplay.
The sexual stimulation I had in mind was hormonal.

My question is why would you even consider using your penis. The cow wouldn't feel a thing.:D

I think that the act of artificial insemmination is so cold and calculated that the recipient is not aware of the act.

H'ethetheth said:
I don't see how that is helpful given scenarios like the one in the OP, which is very far from the extreme.
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We all know the background to ItE and his opinions. Everyone is entitled to an opinion.

H'ethetheth said:
That's not the question, though. The question is if there are rational justifications to say that this is morally reprehensible. And whether or not a rational moral choice is better than saying: "That's disgusting! Burn him!"
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Sure, I got the question muddled, but the punitive "Burn him" are your words,not mine.
I may be disgusted but I am not vindictive.
Can one be rational and immoral at the same time?

H'ethetheth said:
In the case of badger-fondling, I think a good rational case can be made that it is reprehensible.
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I am sure the badger would have something to say about it.
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
Are our feelings and intuitions about particular behaviours a better guide for what acts we ought to prohibit or condemn than rationally evaluating whether there was any harm from those acts?
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What does harm have to do with it? Why are you even mentioning harm?
 
Skwinty said:
Whatever two consenting adults of any gender do to each other is their business.

Bringing animals and children into this scenario is not by any means normal.

Once again my opinion.
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I would agree, with three additions:

  1. why limit it to two people?
  2. sexual activity should occur where there is a reasonable presumption of privacy (don't scare the horses) so as to avoid forcing others to participate, even if just visually
  3. reasonable consent includes the ability to understand what's happening and what harm may result
 
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