Not morally different from non-incestuous relationships
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Is incest necessarily immoral? Is it ever immoral? Under what conditions is it right or wrong?
How does the morality of incest vary based on the closeness of the relation? Is brother-sister incest better than parent-child incest? How about incest between first cousins?
Incest is a manifestation of a confusion. While the English language has only one word for love, other languages have many different words which more properly divide the concept into its respective positions. Though, I am sure we can all agree that both 1) English speakers do recognize that there are not merely different degrees of love but also different kinds of love as well as 2) it isn’t merely a linguistic phenomenon, it happens all over the world.
That said, incest arises when the love one feels for a brother or a sister or a parent or a child becomes sexualized. Now, since the basis of society is a stable-family unit, and incest violates the natural order of the family, that is why it is immoral.
That said, I’m mostly talking about within the nuclear family.
There are no actions in themselves, or at least, not in moral discourse. All actions are described and the act of describing them delimits a series of habitual associations and implications that are largely responsible for the moral judgment regarding that action.
Sexual actions are largely (but not entirely) divided by a binary opposition between ‘acceptable’ and ‘perverse’. Indeed, without a notion of sexual perversion (more precisely, one that is in opposition to sexual acceptability) one probably would have ANY discussion about the morality of sexual acts in the first place.
In the OT incest was ok (Adam’s sons with their mother, unless there were other creations of female humans in the land of Nod, Lot’s daughters with their father., etc.) In those days it was mandatory by tribal law that humans preserve the seed of god-chosen persons. Some religious pundits even argue that god made it moral and sanitary. Biology proves otherwise. Inbreeding in royal families produced hemophilia among other physical and mental abnormalities. So the question for religious persons is when can god undo physical laws to make incest non-toxic? For the rest of us, it’s I may be enticed by my sister’s pheromones, but to act on that would be, for me at least, immoral in the sense of biological karma. Not only that, but a higher morality would entice me to love someone without wanting to seduce them, to smell the flowers without having to pick them.
In some respects, I agree with Xunzian - brother and sister, who are raised together, should have familial love for each other. It seems almost a matter of confusion if they actually become sexually attracted to each other.
However, it turns out that the “familial love” bond is created not by sharing the same genes, but rather by growing up in the same household. Unrelated people raised together (adopted kids, for example) will almost never be attracted to each other - and related kids raised apart can easily be attracted to each other when they meet.
So if brother and sister are raised apart, meet for the first time at 16, and fall in love, what is the morality of that situation?
There is the genetic argument - repeated inbreeding brings out unhealthy recessive traits, like hemophilia, retardation, and so on. This is quite true - however, a single generation of inbreeding, even between brother and sister, is actually more good than bad. A single generation of inbreeding isn’t expected to yield birth defects of any kind, and is more likely to strengthen positive traits. Einstein and his sister would be likely to produce smarter offspring than Einstein and (someone else).
Also, in relation to Twiffy’s post, what of a brother and sister who were raised apart, met at 16 and fell in love, and didn’t KNOW they were brother and sister? It seems acceptable.
But somehow KNOWING that you’re a biological relative makes something perverse?
I am an only child and had no direct experience, so I asked my fiancee who has a sister a year younger than himself about this . He said that it was impossible to think of his sister Kim in a sexual way. That it felt ‘wrong’ and while she is a beautiful girl, she has never had that effect on him. I asked if he thought it was simply because he was conditioned by society to feel that way, and he admits that this is possible but then wrinkles his nose at me and just says “No, I just can’t imagine my sister that way.”
So somehow being raised with someone dampens the development of sexual attraction? If that is the case, then the distinction should be with upbringing.
But it seems that most people get hung up on biology. You’ve seen the movies where the main character guy falls in love with the main character girl and someone says EWWW she’s his sister, and then someone says actually no, she was adopted, and then they are like “Oh, okay.”
Seems backwards, to me. But my perspective as an only child is different, I can’t directly relate to this.
Well, I would argue that if they were raised apart that there was already a pre-existing moral problem, so the act of incest would only compound this.
But if one were to reject that idea, then I could see how they would view it as acceptable. Though, if they decided to have children, they should get some genetic councilling first. There could be some rather nasty recessive genes lying around in that very shallow pool.
A rooster will screw his mother, daugter, sister, aunt and first cousin–all in a day’s work. Raised on a farm, I know whereof I speak. We humans have a larger prefrontal cortex , which has gotten a whiff of recessive genes and has translated the bad smell of death into cautions of social mores. What prevents chickens from becoming dysgenic?
Xunzian,
If the government decides to take up eugenics despite horror scenarios found in writings of Aldous Huxley and Kurt Vonnegut, or even in a brilliant Twiltght Zone episode, what or whom will it use for the norm or standard for human improvement?
Yeah, I think people are highly irrational about their dislike of eugenics, all thanks to Hitler.
Killing people who don’t fit your mold = BAD. But breeding people for specific traits isn’t necessarily bad at all. If you’re going for health, intelligence, creativity, morality, etc., why on earth WOULDN’T you want to have a breeding program? After all, we all want our children to be as healthy, smart, and moral as possible - and genes affect those traits very strongly.
I think the main reason eugenics is out is because it doesn’t work, and the belief that it did is very old science.
I’m a carer for people with intellectual disabilities and I can tell you that smart people breed to create dumb people all the time, and the other way around.
I think the reasons for the objection are what’s most often overlooked in these kinds of considerations.
Just like the incest argument. Depends on why.
I mean, we’re rarely talking about incest in a sterile scientific environment with nothing else going on. Often we’re talking about people who are under-age. Of family environments that might have subtle coercive elements (and LOTS of families have these).
My objection to incest is that it’s often a form of narcissism.
Xunzian,
Agreed! But I still don’t see why chickens don’t get so retarded that they can’t peck anymore. Maybe God loves them more than us? Intervenes in their genetic programs? He(?) really seems to prefer bacteria to any other life form anyway. We’re not so special.
APR,
Narcissism? Please explain.
Well . . . first off, some animals have gotten pretty dumb.
Domestic Turkeys, or so I am told, are so dumb that they will drown in the rain. In the rain!
Also, having seen a wild turkey (and not just the kind from Austin Nichols) and a domesticated turkey, I’ve gotta say, the domesticated one looks like it is some seriously damaged goods.
But it packs on a lot of meat.
With most other animals, we’ve had thousands of years to weed the bad genes out of the pool. All inbreeding does is increase the chance of defective genes (which are recessive) stacking up. When that happens with your mind, well, it ain’t good.
As for bacteria and whatnot. I’m always reminded of a quote from the late 1800s. At the time it was common to study nature to try and understand God (he made nature, after all). So, a man asked a scientist what he knew of God, and the scientist replied, “He has an inordinate fondness for beetles.” Maybe the Egyptians had something going on with the dung beetle after all?
If there’s any truth to this - and I’m no anthropologist, but I suspect there might be - then surely looking for love in the same gene pool you’re created from is the strongest expression of that principle? I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but it smacks slightly of narcissism to me.
There’s a lot of truth to what you say, and there’s also a lot of truth to its opposite.
Brother and sister separated at birth, as well as first cousins, have a higher incidence of attraction to each other than to random people, when they are unaware of any genetic relation. This is presumably because of seeking out similarity, and of the genetic foundation for personality.
On the other hand, people are statistically more attracted to those with OPPOSITE immune systems. There’s a huge correlation between how similar a couple’s immune system is, and the likelihood that the woman cheats on the man.
In solidifying good traits (intelligence, physique), a single instance of inbreeding is usually a good thing. Two or more successive instances, and the recessives start to accumulate. However, immunologically, you’re better off going for someone your immunological opposite, which usually means someone not closely related to you.
it seems to me that no one has considered the psychological affects on a person or persons of incest. it can be damaging, to the psychological make up of that person. they can either become attracted to the same sex( I think that this is a way of seeking not to betray the love? to that person) and they can become unloving to any partner in which they become involved. they don’t give the totality of the love to that person in which they are capable. so for the most part the person or persons which are involved in incest hurt the person, who are outside this incest loop.
they can’t have a normal and healthy relationship with another, unrelated person.