What is actually wrong with incest?

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

It needs just to be of no harm to society.

I'd say it needs to go further than that.

We don't exist for the benefit of our society. Our society, laws, government exist for our benefit. Lots of people choose to do things that have a net negative impact on our society - but we allow it because we value choice and freedom.

In an ideal world, scientists would formula 'people-chow' and we'd all eat it. Save money, decrease obesity and decrease medical costs....but we're free to eat pizza and candy, because we value freedom and have concepts of rights.

Lams wrote: »

I think you should read up on the concept of analogies. Just because homosexuality and incest are in the same sentence doesn't mean they are the same thing.

I think you should read the post I was replying to. It wasn't me who tried to equate incest with gay marriage. Perhaps it's you should learn the difference between an analogy and a misguided correlation.

Why is incest inherently wrong?

I have explained my opinion on why I think incest is inherently of no benefit to society numerous times already. I have explained why incest is of no benefit to the parties involved other than sexual gratification already. I have explained why it has far more disadvantages to an individual than it has benefits already.

All you need do, if you actually HAD an interest in the discussion, is read my previous posts in this thread, as opposed to just dismissing them as evasive waffle simply because you disagree with me. I have been courteous and respectful enough to entertain your ill informed pie in the sky idealism, the least you could do is take the five seconds to read my posts.

What is immoral about two brothers in their thirties having a sexual relationship if they aren't harming anyone else?

That's too specific a set of circumstances to discuss the issue of incest. But here, I'll run with it for a few minutes, if only to help you see that it's not ME who's being evasive and trying to limit the discussion to my own little specific set of circumstances.

The immorality of it is that they are related to each other. It's that simple. That's morality out of the way. Now can we move the discussion on to discuss the legal, medical and ethical considerations of the concept of incest itself without getting bogged down with the morality of it?

I reckon you would think homosexuality was wrong if that was the popular opinion of the vast majority. Then if someone where to question your beliefs you would spout off similar evasive waffle.

You'd reckon wrong. I am not averse to expressing an unpopular opinion. You on the other hand are so bogged down by your morality persecution complex that the first thing that comes to mind is my opinion on homosexuality.

Again, incest has nothing to do with homosexuality, nor has it anything to do with my firm belief in legalising euthanasia and abortion, but those are topics for another thread.

Lyaiera wrote: »

The anti-gay marriage people are a bit transparent, aren't they?

"We need to keep gay marriage illegal. Gay marriage will lead to incestuous marriage!"
'What? Why? Why would you think that?'
"Because if gay marriage is allowed I'm going to argue for incestuous marriage!"

I don't think anyone here is objecting to gay marriage tbh Lyaiera. Some posters who would advocate for incestuous marriage are trying to use gay marriage as a springboard for the idea alright, but as I have repeated time and again- the two are completely separate and distinct issues.

Those who advocate incest clearly have no understanding of the issues involved if they are trying to equate it with homosexuality.

Lyaiera wrote: »

The anti-gay marriage people are a bit transparent, aren't they?

"We need to keep gay marriage illegal. Gay marriage will lead to incestuous marriage!"
'What? Why? Why would you think that?'
"Because if gay marriage is allowed I'm going to argue for incestuous marriage!"

Nobody is making that argument. Do keep up for the love of God, its relatively simple argument. If sexual adults are not harming themselves, children, or society it's their business.

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

Nobody is making that argument. Do keep up for the love of God, its relatively simple argument. If sexual adults are not harming themselves, children, or society it's their business.

I completely agree with you as regards the above. However where I disagree with you, is your point of view that incest does no harm to anybody. In my opinion- it absolutely causes harm to people, and not just those involved in the relationship, but to other people they come in contact with too, and can also have serious repercussions on their future relationships.

So now that I have been courteous enough to entertain your limited scope scenarios, when are you, or anyone else for that matter, going to give your opinion as to why a 12 year old male and his 19 year old sister cannot enter into a consensual incestuous relationship, and why does that go against YOUR morals?

Lets say for the sake of my special circumstances argument that there is no age of consent, and that both parties are fully informed and aware of the possible consequences of their relationship from purely a practical perspective, completely leaving aside any emotional arguments.

Jernal wrote: »

There are two main aspects to incest and a distinction also has to be made between grooming and consensual incest.

First the distinction of grooming with regard to incest. This is when a person is psychologically conditioned into loving their bloodline. Usually it occurs from a early age and it's effectively brainwashing a child into accepting sexual abuse. Obviously this is immoral and wrong.

The first aspect to incest is incest where an offspring will never be produced. This is just two adults doing what they want.

The second aspect is incest where an offspring is produced. This one is more complicated. Statistically speaking the newborn is at a higher risk of genetic and immune deficiencies. But there are two points here:
First, we don't stop people with known hereditary conditions (e.g. Huntingon's, Cystic Fibrosis) from reproducing. Second, like the hereditary conditions, it's only a probabilistic risk - there's no guarantee the offspring won't be perfectly healthy.

Personally, I can't see anything wrong with Incest. What grown adults get up to with their lives as long as they're not harming others and remaining consensual is none of my business. I could never engage in incest but that doesn't mean others couldn't.
Where I get grayer on my stance is when kids are involved. I'm sort of against, emotionally anyway, but I'm not sure why? I don't think it's fair to assume any potential parents should be singled out when they're clearly one tiny exception to the society's rule of letting others carrying high risks to their offsprings of reproducing. It's hypocritical. And to suggest other wise is also threading the line on eugenics. Though, obviously there may a valid case to be made.

Finally, ethically there is one more point to make by analogy. Suppose science showed that people who committed infanticide were 90%* more likely to live to 100. Would that mean infanticide becomes more acceptable? The corollary of this is would you make the argument that not committing infanticide is somehow more ideal if science showed people who didn't commit infanticide were 90% more likely to live to 100. From the point of view of ethics, is it fair to use the argument of possible deficiencies in the offspring as a means to say something is wrong? In my opinion it possibly is but the line is a very fine one.

*I would have used a hundred here but there is philosophy issue of how science actually works and never being 100% certain. If you're okay with idealisations then please use 100%.

tl;dr if it's consensual I think I'm ok with it. Not absolutely sure why. Good question OP.

Finally, an intelligent post on the subject.

Thoughtful arguments > visceral disgust

Deleted User wrote: »

I am talking about the morality of the sex itself. Not the off spring involved. It should be a concern however yes. I believe so. But thats their choice to make not mine. There are lots of genetic disorders in the world and we do not seem to be demanding people with them be precluded from procreation - people who we KNOW have a genetic condition.

You haven't talked to many intellectually disabled people in Ireland, have you? Not only are they legallly precluded from reproducing, but they are legally precluded from having sex.

Yet in the subject of incest it becomes an issue only because they MIGHT have a condition. As a thought experiement ask yourself if it was proven that mixed race off spring - say between blacks and whites - was 30% less likely to produce children with genetic disorders would we be up in arms saying white people should never intermarry or have sex? Clearly not.

No, it is one of a number of issues concerned with incest, but you're so bogged down in the morality issue, you haven't even managed to get off the starting blocks with regard to the numerous other issues involved. I don't have to participate in any thought experiments, I know already how difficult the decision was with regard to having a child with an increased chance of having cystic fibrosis. It's proven that two carriers of the cystic fibrosis gene have a much higher risk of having a child with CF, and if two known carriers within the same family were to reproduce, they have a much higher chance of having a child with cystic fibrosis.

You can make all the intellectual arguments you like, but you're sure as hell not going to make me budge from my stance on the morality of having a child knowing that child could possibly suffer from cystic fibrosis. It's one that hasn't been just "a thought experiment" for me at least. I had to overlook my own morality on the issue and it was a risk I had to think long and hard about before I decided I was going to take that risk. I couldn't afford to be so blasé about the "what if's".

It seems to me the "what ifs" and "mights" are being rolled in to support the arguments of people who are starting out anti-incest rather than people who were led to an anti-incest position by that argument.

This goes back to what you were yourself saying earlier about the possibility of having a child with a genetic condition serving as a warning to those who would choose to engage in the practice of incest. I can assure you I didn't pull my morality out of my ass, and rather than explain that further on an internet forum, I can assure you I'm speaking from experience on the issue. This is why I am saying there is more to be considered than just the morality of the issue. Human beings can over-ride their own personal morality, but they cannot over-ride basic biology. I have been led to the position I hold because I have experienced the "what if's" and the "mights" for myself. You can draw your own inferences from there.

I am not sure why you are having such difficulty with this concept. Again: Consensual sex between two adult siblings is called "incest". Non-consensual sex between a father and his 10 year old daughter is also called "incest". Yet clearly the morality and arguments involved are massively differnt. The situations are barely comparable at all except for the sole commonality of being between relations. But all under the one term "incest". I just feel this does not help matters of conversation on the subject.

It's not me is having difficulty with the concept of incest at all. It is you who is trying to redefine the meaning of the word as if you need it to mean something else to justify your position. Incest is incest, not quote unquote incest.

It seems no one else can either given the complete dearth of arguments on the subject. The sole argument against it so far seems to amount to "I would not do it therefore no one else should either" or the even less convincing "It is wrong because it is just wrong, right!"

I have presented numerous arguments against incest besides the issue of morality, and you and other posters keep trying to drag it back to the morality issue, simply because that's the sole argument that suits you.

Until I see a moral argument against it I am hardly going to take a moral position against it. But I am seeing none - even less so from you.

Different people have different standards of morality. I'm ok with that, clearly you are not. Just because my morality doesn't jig with yours, you dismiss it out of hand, so when I leave the morality of the issue to one side to discuss the legal, medical and ethical considerations; you drag the discussion back to the morality of the issue within a very specific and limited set of circumstances that only suit you, at the cost of ignoring the issue as a whole. The OP asked "What is actually wrong with incest?", they didn't limit the question to "What is actually morally wrong with incest?", you and others have tried to do that with your limited scope scenarios that make it almost impossible to have a discussion on the wider issues of the concept of incest.

I can not refuse to acknowledge what I have not been offered. That would be like saying no to a cigarette that someone not only did not profer at me - but does not even posess. Start giving me such arguments against the morality of incest and I will deal with them. Until such time however suggesting I am ignoring something that is not there is just fantasy land.

I won't be giving you fannyadams after this tbh because you have done nothing but try and steer the discussion your way, ignoring any moral issues that don't jig with your world view. You asked for them, you were given them, you chose to ignore and dismiss them.

If you want me to engage in illogic and unreason then you are on your own son.

What IS morality then? Morality is an intangible concept. It differs for everybody. It has no basis in logic nor reasoning because it is up to an individual to say what is right or wrong for them. It's our conscience. It's a "gut feeling" of what's right or wrong -

Morality (from the Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behavior") is the differentiation of intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are "good" (or right) and those that are "bad" (or wrong). The philosophy of morality is ethics. A moral code is a system of morality (according to a particular philosophy, religion, culture, etc.) and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code. Morality may also be specifically synonymous with "goodness" or "rightness." Immorality is the active opposition to morality (i.e. opposition to that which is good or right), while amorality is variously defined as an unawareness of, indifference toward, or disbelief in any set of moral standards or principles. An example of a moral code is the Golden Rule which states that, "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself."

Most societies in the world live by a moral code that has no provisions, allowances, or tolerance for incest. That doesn't suit you. Then it is up to YOU to present the argument FOR incest, not up to me to refute it.

Ah so you are resorting to insults now I see. You can not produce an argument on the subject so you turn to calling people names like "selfish" and "self centred" and "immature". Nice. If insults are all you have then you let no one down in this thread but yourself.

I didn't call anyone any names. I called your point of view selfish, self-centred, quite frankly immature, which it is, and told you it was never going to fly, which it isn't. I didn't call YOU any names, and to try and infer that I did so is indeed letting no one down in this thread but yourself.

Because you say so?

Not just because I say so, but because society says so, because the constitution of this country says so, because the medical profession says so. It's only yourself and a few others in this thread who say it isn't, so it is up to you (again based on your very limited experience of knowing only two people who were involved in an incestuous relationship), to say why you think it isn't. Because two people you know were OK with it? That's hardly a substantive sample against the mountain of evidence that contradicts your opinion now, is it?

No. I did not. Nice misrepresentation.

You did -

Deleted User wrote: »

The problem here is we have one word "incest" for a whole host of behaviours. A word that can equally apply to consensual sex between adult siblings as well as to pederastry between father and child is clearly going to muddy the waters of any rational discussion.

And when you were shown that the two concepts of incest and pedastry are two completely different concepts, well, you just carried on regardless. I did not misrepresent you in any way, shape or form. You introduced pederasty to a discussion which had nothing to do with pederasty, which shows you misunderstand both concepts.

What I was _actually_ doing was showing that there is a difference between consensual sex between adults - and a father shagging his own underage son.

No, what you were actually doing was trying to muddy the waters of any rational discussion regarding incest, and now you're backpeddalling faster than a clown on a unicycle.

That is not comparing incest with pederastry at all. It is making a distinction WITHIN incest.

So it's incest then? So why did you introduce pederasty at all? Pederasty has nothing to do with incest. Pederasty if I must explain again is -

Pederasty or paederasty (US /ˈpɛdəræsti/ or UK /ˈpiːdəræsti/) is a (usually erotic) homosexual relationship between an adult male and a pubescent or adolescent male outside his immediate family. The word pederasty derives from Greek (paiderastia) "love of boys",[1] a compound derived from παῖς (pais) "child, boy" and ἐραστής (erastēs) "lover".

I am not sure what agenda you have that makes you purposely and obtusely fail to acknowledge that "incest" can mean any one of a number of things - each of which requires a seperate conversation.

I don't have any agenda at all tbh, there's no need to carry on looking for something that isn't there. Your agenda though is to ask people to ignore their own moral standards and accept that there is nothing wrong with incest from your own limited perspective. To do this, you have tried to say that "incest can mean one of any number of things - each of which requires a separate conversation".

I'm telling you that incest only means ONE thing -

Incest is sexual intercourse between family members and close relatives. The term may apply to sexual intercourse between individuals in a close "blood relationship", members of the same household, step relatives, those related by adoption or marriage, or members of the same clan or lineage.

The moral and intellectual arguemnts related to two adult siblings or cousins copulating are massively different to the arguments related to a parent sexually exploiting an under age child. The distinctions are clear - if not to you - and all I was doing was making those distinctions explicit.

You can pull and tease out all the literal meanings you want. Incest is incest, no matter what way you want to spin it. The distinctions in your limited scope arguments are clear, but society does not have the luxury of your tunnel vision.

So pocket your misrepresentations of what I was saying thanks.

I haven't misinterpreted you in any way, shape or form. It is you have tried to introduce irrelevant examples and limited scope scenarios to the discussion. I've only tried not to let you limit the discussion only to what suits you and ignore what doesn't suit you.

I don't have to convince you of anything, it is you must make the argument for incest seeing as you are the one putting forward the idea that there is nothing wrong with it, when it has been pointed out to you time and again that your opinion is at best misguided.

If you'd care to make that argument any time soon, I'm all ears... all three of them.

Czarcasm wrote: »

snip

I still haven't seen any arguments from you

Can you summarise?

For simplicity's sake, take the reproduction issue out of the question: if two consenting adults get surgery to remove the possibility of pregnancy, and they happen to be related, why should it be illegal for them to have the sex?

edit

Is your argument really just "because they are related"? Incest is bad because... it's incest.