There are a number of good reasons I can think of, which I want to divide into different categories:
She might be ugly, she might be obnoxious. I’d be better off desiring wives who are attractive and pleasant.
She is presumably - for the moment - unable to become my wife or lover. I’d be better off desiring wives who can more easily become my own wife or lover.
She is in a relationship with my neighbour and it might annoy him that I want to make a move on his wife. I’d be better off desiring women who are unattached.
She is in a relationship with my neighbour and it might annoy her that I want to make a move on her. I’d be better off desiring wives/women who want to be desired, and not those who don’t want to be desired.
She is in a relationship with my neighbour and it might annoy some other person or group (e.g. his or her children, parents or friends) that I want to make a move on her. I’d be better off desiring those wives/women whose charms aren’t begrudged me by others around them (do such women exist?).
Now, what if I nevertheless persist in my desire of neighbour’s wife? She looks great, and seems a really nice person. I can’t help myself! How should I feel about it? And what should I do about it? Above all, which of the kinds of reasons outlined might exercise a decisive sway over how I decide to conduct myself?
I look forward to hearing your thoughts!
PS. To those who remember me, it’s good to be back on the forum!
Gee, I dunno, here’s what I’d be inclined to say to some guy obsessed with ‘desiring wives’:
The time you spent writing about it (which, one would conclude, is only a teensy fraction of the actual time spent on the obsessive occupation with the person) you could’ve been doing something that lifted yourself and/or the world in some way…
Or you could’ve spent it reflecting on the nature of your attachment to the person. It has nothing to do with who she is, right? But what do you know about what it has to do with? Desire is an emotion that arises and passes away, sometimes frequently, sometimes not so much. It doesn’t have to own you. Learn from it and become someone with a little more depth, someone more interesting than this.
Because she is involved in a relationship with someone else and in order for your to begin a relationship with her she will have to fuck up her current arrangements. How in the hell can you expect to have a good relationship with someone who is so selfish as to expect you to leave your spouse, fuck over your kids ect ect ect.
Likewise from your point of view, how do you intend to have a relationship with someone who readily ditched their previous relationship to get with you?
Plus if it’s my wife and I catch you, you shall never walk correctly again.
Of course some people are into the whole hotwife thing…I don’t get it but if they wanna get down like that…
I should clarify that this topic isn’t an attempt to address some specific situation in my own life! It reflects my more general interest in the nature of our moral regulations and in our reasons for upholding them.
There’s a lot that goes into formulating decisions. Clearly, Game theoretical frameworks can go a long way to explaining a good deal of how we behave and think. But what they often struggle to explain is what seem like ‘irrational’ behaviour and ideas.
Any answer to the question I’ve put forward needs to deal with at least two important considerations: are we to be held responsible to some higher code of practice which can transcend our considerations of the ‘interests’ of those around us? and if not, how do we go about thinking about ‘interests’ of others without reference to ‘higher’ philosophical ideas?
The everyday ethical situation of ‘Desiring your neighbour’s wife’ which so many of us have to deal with can act as a sort of window into these deeper philosophical questions. And our responses to the everyday ethical situation can perhaps guide our attempts to work out how we might respond to the philosophical questions themselves.
You should desire your neighbor’s wife. She is a great cook, a wonderful mother, has a lively personality, is great in bed, and always has that special way of looking at you like she thinks you are more interesting than insane. You should not covet your neighbors wife, because he is paying the bills, and she wouldn’t be half as shiney if she were yours. But; be happy for this: Good neighbors are harder to come by than good women. Good men can make good women just by being good. But a bad neighbor is hell on this earth, and is worse than any good wife can make better. If you have a lousy neighbor you can pray he moves away, move away yourself, kill him or commit suicide with equanimity. Alcohol and drugs will some day make you crazy, but a bad neighbor is the express line to the insane asylum. When you run across people you can care about, tell them how much you appreciate them. My neighbors are good people, better than gold. I never talk to them that I do not remind them how much I appreciate their tolerence.
No one gets to ethical behavior studying ethical situations. First of all, imaginary, or hypothetical situations never happen in reality. Whether in gross, or in detail your situation is always different. Second, ethical behavior flows out of ethical people. Ethical people do not suddenly become ethical in the light of a situation that calls for an ethical choice or ethical behavior. They are ethical all the time, and what the situation demands they attempt. There is no conscious choice involved. People do as they are.
I desire a rocket ship - something that i will never have. It’s okay to desire. If we think that we should have something, that we deserve something, simply because we desire it, then we may have many problems. If we know that desires may not always be fulfilled, and that this is okay, then we’ll probably be all right.
Christain morality deals with more than just actions - it deals with desires as well. Which is one reason that it’s all fucked up.
That Christianity in some forms deals with thoughts and attitudes rather than purely actions is to its credit. That it usually deals with desire in a screwed up way is screwed up (i.e. that desire is “wrong”). Martin Luther separated thoughts and attitudes from actions pretty completely, and I’m not so sure the results are very satisfactory.
EDIT: Actually, Luther even said one’s actions aren’t very important.
Jesus recognized that desiring was having without the taxes. And it is out of desire that men wrong. So, the Jews of an early age were wrong, and the Lutherens were wrong, and Jesus was right. It is not through the formality of religion that we are saved, but, by making it real with our hands. Jesus remade the whole moral landscape, and what does it matter if modern Jews do as ancient Jews all the time spouting hatred of Jews.
Jesus was talking about a personal, psychological relationship with God. Why should that matter to those chosen to be blessed? There is no disputing with fate, or faith. If your religion sanctifies the status quo, requires a certain hoki poki dance to get into a secret room of mysteries, it’s a relic. You can keep it. Jesus gave us a living God. I thank him.
What? I thought I was actually defending a possible interpretation of Christianity while rejecting the interpretations which are based on fundamentally flawed understandings of human psychology. But maybe Christianity for you is about a personal psychological relationship with God as opposed to your own self? Please tell me if I’ve misunderstood what you’re saying. In fact I’m fairly certain I have. Set me straight.
I would say that like prophets before him, Jesus was saying the formality of religion, law, sacrifice, priests and privilage is not what God wants for humans. On the other hand, he was affirming the relationship exressed in every commandment against psychological sins, that God knows our brief thoughts and desires out of which sin flows, and which, if accepted become sins. In the sense Jesus seemed to express it, sin is not in breaking a law that exists as a guide, but in placing a psychological barrior between self and God. Now, I don’t think there is much profit in disputing that for the godlike and those who accept God, there is only one reality, and that is God; and while we may express the tenderness of God toward our kind and all living beings, that ultimately all realities become God. I hope that helps.
Some thing else… Jesus commented on the failures of people to meet the law, and the celebration of those who could, and did, meet the law with horns blairing. Fulfilling the formality of the law seems on the surface like an easy task. As Paul might conclude, it was a hopeless task. But a relationship with God, as a religion might be conceived, is like all relationships, demanding, and open ended. The love of God is like every other sort of love in that it will often take all you have to give and leave you with nothing. And yet we have nothing God needs, and only one thing God wants, which is for us to love one another. Certainly, no loving God can be happy with the misery we spread far and wide, and that we pray God to expunge.
In all fairness, if there are no kids involved, the relationship can work just fine. You assume that the marriage is a good one…it might suck nards or something.
And you are lucky for that, and I apologize if my generalizations piss you off. I can’t speak for all the variables in your particular situation. My point is that cheating is not a good thing and once you have promised someone something you should stick to it. I’m not saying that there aren’t plenty of viable reasons to get out of a marriage, but I am saying you should get out of the marriage before you pursue a new relationship.
I thought I was actually defending a possible interpretation of Christianity while rejecting the interpretations which are based on fundamentally flawed understandings of human psychology. But maybe Christianity for you is about a personal psychological relationship with God as opposed to your own self? Please tell me if I’ve misunderstood what you’re saying. In fact I’m fairly certain I have. Set me straight.