Autonemesis

Because she's cheating on her husband.

premjan

Family members having sex with each other would naturally happen if other options were not available or if it was desirable to keep relations within the family for some other reason (e.g. royalty). Conventionally, this is not the case so it doesn't happen. There is some inbuilt kin aversion which tends to cause young people to choose mates from outside their family circle. At the same time marrying cousins (but not siblings) is a commonly sanctioned social practice in many societies.

Fayzal Mahamed

A major part of philosophy is to enquire about hypothetical situations and see the response and justification thereof. Stating the "hypothetical will never happen" is merely to state that you do not wish to respond to such questions!

You also state that incest is harmful to the child. I accept this opinion unless Doddy or anyone else out there can bring a cogent argument why this is not true. But I am curious to what attitude you will have if it came to be discovered that incest is HEALTHY for the child? Will you still have the same opinion?

It least you have the courage to admit that when it comes to adults making a decision to commit incest you are not clear about what is right and wrong.

Fayzal.

premjan

There is a little bit of infantile attraction to incest at the stage where children are figuring out their sexual identities (labeled as Oedipus and Elektra complex - I don't know of a comparable term for between siblings).

Fayzal Mahamed

If the only reason society is stating that it is illegal for a mother to commit incest because she has other options for having sex than this is no compelling reason why incest is illegal or immoral. Where's the harm. Similarly bestiality is condemned as immoral because the man commiting such an act has the option of having sex with another human being. yet I still cannot find any harm in such an act.

If you state that Young people choose mates from outside their family circles because society dictates this behaviour I will agree with you. But to claim with some sense of authority that humans have an innate desire to choose mates from outside their family circles is not true. you could have a clan that choose to only practice incest without allowing the young to choose outside the family. I presume in this case this behaviour will not be regarded as innate.

Fayzal

premjan

The moral and legal etc. arguments are post facto. I'm pretty sure that the basis of the incest taboo is some degree of kin aversion among humans. I'd guess that many animals also share such a kin aversion.

It probably isn't strictly genetic but developmental though.
http://www.dailynexus.com/article.php?a=13315

Fayzal Mahamed

I do not regard infidelity or adultery as morally wrong behaviour. Rather I am indifferent to such emotional feelings.

Fayzal

Tom Sawyer

The reason is that incest is almost universally considered a bad idea is because of the greater incidence of negative effects resulting from it. If it turned out to have good effects, the basis of it being morally wrong would be undercut and less people would be against it.

Moral rules aren't arbitrary things that are created in vaccuums. Usually, when a society has a restriction against a certain activity, there's a good reason for that restriction. If new information comes to light about the activity, it makes sense that the rationale for the restriction would be reevaluated.

Fayzal Mahamed

I fail to understand what you mean by this one line statement.

Nevertheless there seems to be many on this forum who regard the taboo incest as sacrosant without providing a reasonable explanation as to why this is so?

According to Freud there are only two universal taboos. One was incest and the other patricide. My opinion is that both these universal taboos are linked. In primitive societies like modern societies there is a competition by men for women. Often this competition leads to violent confrontation when two men may fight over the same "prize". In modern societies we face such violent confrontation with the legal law but in primitive societies such confrontation was often met with a fight to the death. In primitive societies the elders of each tribe must have come to realise that male children could fall in "love" with their mothers resulting in a competitive fight between son and father. In order to prevent patricide the elders of all tribes throughout the world applied the incest rule.

The problem in our modern world is why should such taboos be retained. Are our legal laws not adequate enough to punish the violent confrontation / competition without having to resort to enacting incest laws.

Also where is the harm when a widow decides to sleep with her eldest son to satisfy her sexually when she may have a difficult time meeting other men. Is it not psychologically better for the entire family if a woman in such a predicament is "satisfied".



While we are in the "guessing" mode here's my guess. I do not think animals are capable of understanding the intracies of relationships or at the very least the complexities of relationships are far more simpler in the animal kingdom than amongst human beings.

What you regard as an animals aversion to commit incest may simply be the natural behaviour of animals which has nothing to do with incest. For example the behaviour of animals to force the children upon reaching adulthood to leave the brood because it acts against the survival interest of the parent animals to retain the mature children in the brood.

We humans tend to conjure a romantic image of animal relationship similar to humans. I can guarantee you that if you take a female lion and remove it when it is young from its parents and re-introduce this lioness to her father say after a year or so, the father lion will commit "incest" with his daughter lioness if he has no other option for his sexual desires.

Fayzal

Fayzal Mahamed

I disagree. Take alcohol for example. It is a fact that a small quantity of alcohol has a health benefit, yet hardly anyone drinks alcohol because of it's perceived health benefits but because it causes people to become tipsy. The negative effects of consuming alcohol are immense. Drunk driving, alcoholism, abuse of children, women, alcohol leading to murder etc. etc. etc. Yet although alcohol has a large negative effect it is legal to consume in most parts of the world.

Also cannabis has been proven to have good effects medicinally yet the majority of the world refuses to legally allow its use even in a limited medicinal capacity.

Again, I disagree. Majority of moral rules and restriction comes about because of some ruler or priest who is in power applying his personal whims as to what is right and wrong. If this priest or ruler is powerful enough such rules and restriction may last for centuries and eventually becomes inbedded in humans as being "good" for humanity.

Look throughout the centuries and you will find thousands of such restrictions in various societies and tribes. Thousands of these restrictions and rules have also been replaced by myriad other rules and interpretations.

To conclude you will find that in the light of our modern world and modern information the vast majority of restrictions and rules are either baseless or made sense for a particualr environement and for a particular period of time. To suggest such rules and restrictions as having some sort of "universalness" about it, that it should apply everywhere and for all time is unreasonable.

I contend that incest is one of those moral laws that should be analysed and possibly revoked in view of our modern information in regards to such laws.

Fayzal