Should incest be banned?

[nnmartin]

but there are many cases where informed consent is given and the act is still illegal (eg:cannibalism) so what makes incest a special case for having an informed consent exception?

 

[nnmartin]

Oh come on. You're stretching more here than ever.

By this logic, spanking a child is related to incest, because some people think spanking is wrong too!

incest and cannibalism are wrong because they are interfering with the internal part of someone else's body in a manner contrary to nature; spanking is not.

 

[rageoftyrael]

I don't know what thread you were in, cause i didn't notice that many people in the cannibalism thread who thought it was inherently wrong. Gross, yeah, but not wrong, so long as consent is given, of course.

 

[rageoftyrael]

I don't know about other people, but i am sick and tired of people trying to use "nature" as some kind of argument for their position. Incest, cannibalism, homosexuality, and more are ALL found in nature. Of course, when i say nature, i mean with animals, though i find it interesting that we imagine ourselves to not be a part of nature. We are, so anything we do is by extension, natural. How is this not a self evident truth?

 

[nnmartin]

I agree that Man is part of nature.

But we have the natural argument here as I've already explained.

Nature shows us Incest is wrong because of the birth deformities, and we should not eat each other as it can cause strange diseases, as can necrophilia.

 

[InformedIgnorance]

but there are many cases where informed consent is given and the act is still illegal (eg:cannibalism) so what makes incest a special case for having an informed consent exception?

Yes, there are many cases where informed consent is given by all parties directly affected by objective outcomes and yet it is still illegal.... (e.g. consensual incest, consensual cannibalism, consensual X) they should not be illegal, there is not justification for banning them if everyone who is directly effected (in that they experience objective outcomes, some of which may be 'negative') gives their informed consent. If anyone else does not approve, it does not matter - it is none of their business, because they are not DIRECTLY affected by OBJECTIVE outcomes.

That is the crux of the informed consent argument.

Edit: Though I grant you that it creates the issue of determining whether or not someone is capable of (or are giving their) informed consent, however that is an entirely different issue, one of the application of law rather than its design.

 

[nnmartin]

we have to think long term here though and how society may be affected in the future.

One of the reasons why drugs are banned even though most people don't use them.

 

[InformedIgnorance]

... BS ...

By the same token ANYTHING can be banned. Religions and atheism alike may well be bad for society in the future; certainly such philosophies, the institutions that promote them and the behaviours that they encourage are potentially worse for society (and with a higher probably of delivering such negative outcomes) than the limited effect of consensual incest where willing participants likely comprise a very small proportion of the general population. Likewise, we should ban smoking, food with high salt, sugar, fat or artificial additives, contact sports, driving and so much more.

That is why I stressed the effects should be DIRECTLY attributable and OBJECTIVELY negative. Anything else is BS.

 

[Zoe Doidge]

I agree that Man is part of nature.

But we have the natural argument here as I've already explained.

Nature shows us Incest is wrong because of the birth deformities, and we should not eat each other as it can cause strange diseases, as can necrophilia.

Nature is not a conscious entity, and doesn’t make any judgements on whether something is right or wrong. It simply presents us with an issue to deal with, namely that inbreeding causes genetic problems.

The sex itself doesn’t cause that problem, only conception/birth does. Both of which are entirely preventable through use of contraception/abortion. Neither of which even applies if one or both partners are infertile, or if the relationship is a homosexual one.

we have to think long term here though and how society may be affected in the future.

One of the reasons why drugs are banned even though most people don't use them.

The future is a bad place to go for your argument, contraceptives and resolving medical issues is only going to get more advanced over time.

 

[rageoftyrael]

Well, it's pretty obvious you didn't read any of my links, because in one of them, it explained how incest doesn't inherently cause defects. In fact, it explains that if you "keep it in the family" for long periods of time, it can actually cause genes to become better, due to the fact that since people in the same family tend to have all the same bad genes, and by pairing them together, the bad genes can and will eventually disappear. There is an example in one of them of a group of people that is about 300 strong now, that was once about 150 strong, who pretty much exclusively practiced incest, due to the fact that their religion required them to only be with people of their own particular religion. To be fair, incest sporadically practiced in a large population is NOT beneficial, due to the fact that in that scenario you are getting random sets of bad genes being mixed together. Nonetheless, i thought it would be good to show you how incest can actually be, if not good, then not bad.

It should be noted that the group of people who had been practicing rampant incest for a long period of time have no more irregularities in their genes than the average person anywhere else.

 

[Tiberius]

The 'informed consent' argument relates to EVERYTHING that more than one party is effected by (i.e. any interaction)... buying a coffee, taking part in a sexual encounter, nullification of a legal arrangement pertaining to guardianship and so forth... If anything, the informed consent argument undermines your position, since it is the argument that anything is permitted if all parties directly affected by objective outcomes of the event/relationship etc give their informed consent to it... such an argument does not help your support your position to ban something regardless of whether or not the people involved give their informed consent.

Right. So let's take it that when we are talking about incest we are dealing with incest between two adults who have both given each other informed consent for the incestuous sex to take place.

incest and cannibalism are wrong because they are interfering with the internal part of someone else's body in a manner contrary to nature; spanking is not.

Please explain, step by step, the method by which one can determine if something is according to nature or contrary to nature.

Because it seems to me that cooking food is also contrary to nature (fire is difficult to control, no other species routinely cooks its food).

I agree that Man is part of nature.

But we have the natural argument here as I've already explained.

Nature shows us Incest is wrong because of the birth deformities, and we should not eat each other as it can cause strange diseases, as can necrophilia.

Seems to me that this would be showing that the act of procreation between closely related individuals is wrong, not the act of sex.

 

[Tiberius]

I guess Martin CAN'T explain how we can determine if something is according to nature or not, as I asked in the post above this...