Farren

I was gonna post this on Philosophy but it seemed more relevant to Moral Foundations. Moderators feel free to move it if you disagree.

I was chatting to a client (at a left-wing non-profit org) today about polygamy, which is quite a hot topic here. A lot of black south african men assert their cultural right to have many wives, and an equal number of urban black women see it as a lopsided equation.

Anyway, we got into evolution-based psychology and I trotted out some of the standard stuff about men having an endless supply of sperm and women having a limited number of eggs, hence difference sexual strategies. My client (who is a black woman) was saying that killing is, under certain circumstances, instinctive but we can't simply endorse it in our cultural codes because its our animal nature - I agree.

The whole conversation got me thinking about something else, though - the "Meta-issue" if you like - should there even be a prescriptive model ("best practice") for something like sexual behaviour? I don't think so.

To elaborate, while many people cherish and support the notion of freedom of sexual practice, not as many believe that the sexual practice that works for them (monogamy, polygamy, polygyny, sex for pleasure, sex for procreation only, sex with someone you love only, sex with any stranger that gets you hot and can certify their STD status...), is not the "best practice" for everyone.

I've personally been very experimental. I lived with someone for 5 years and condoned (actually promoted) her freedom to have sex with other partners if sex between us was getting boring (she did, I didn't, and it definitely spiced things up for us). The reaction among my fairly open-minded friends at first ranged from surprise to horror, although it settled into simple acceptance eventually.

Over the years I haven't wavered from my extremely liberal views on sex, but in defending my position I've encountered the same thing over and over - my argument is "its right for me, it may not be right for you and your partner(s), but if it is, you shouldn't be afraid to do it". The counter always seems to be "I respect your right to it. But its wrong for me, and here's why I think its wrong for EVERYONE". While this may seem to be true of a lot of hot topics, its not true for all.

For instance, if we were discussing clothing, no-one would suggest that an Inuit living in the Arctic Circle would feel more comfortable on a frozen beach in a bikini. They would simply say "It works for me in my circumstances".

There seems to be an a priori assumption that beliefs about certain things (such as sex) must be universal in nature, while others are accepted as personal.

Please note I'm distinguishing here between respecting someone else's right to choose and actively believing that your behavioural beliefs don't cover their situation.

In the former case, you pass judgement, but believe it is in the interest of society to tolerate difference. In the later, you might even celebrate their lifestyle for its positive influence on them, but practice a completely different one for its positive influence on you.

The invisible blinkers I'm referring to in the title of this post are exactly these kind of a priori assumptions. Shouldn't we be promoting the meta-value that as long as any equation involves FULL consent of all (uninfluenced by factors such as overwhelming social coercion), any critique or discussion is entirely contextual to a particular individual or relevant class of individuals?

Old Man

You have a great deal of company of course. It is the practice of most occidental countries now to refuse to enforce, or repeal, any law prohibiting adultery. Their government's view is that if the populations of their countries want to live in a large universal free love commune, so be it. Of course, that is what the ancient fertility cult devotees practiced as well. There is nothing new under the sun.

But these governments are mightily hypocritical. The ministers of these governments refer to their wives as "THEIR" wives. But they aren't "legally". Because under human law, "THEIR" wives have a legal right to fornicate with whom ever they wish (and frequently do so). They are not "THEIR" wives under law, because there is no law (effectively).

The point is, sexually immorality begets deceit and hypocrisy like nothing else. Once you abolish the marriage laws - your "partner" then has a "right" to invite any man into "your" house to spend the night with her. When a man objects, the woman goes to court and gets the man ejected from the house for "threatening behaviour". So a man pretty soon becomes an object of contempt and ridicule - his wealth gets given over to whores and prostitutes, for all women soon become prostitutes. The whole fabric of social respect, courtesy, and decency is thrown aside and surrendered to libertine indulgence in the desires of the flesh.

So far I have'nt mentioned where God fits in. But somehow, I don't think you would acknowledge his existence.

seanie

Just whereabouts are you in the UK, and what are the house prices like?

danlowlite

Why do you say that? Sexual "immorality" begets deceit when it's practised inequally, and so hypocrisy is born. Given a couple of adults here, who view each other as equal, they, theoretically, would realize that if they wanted such benefits as an open sexual relationship, the other partner would get the same, and some days would be with the partner and other days wouldn't.

Of course, people are irrational beings.

That's a pretty big step, and I see no possible reason why it would be elevated to a court-level issue.

Though people are more litigous (sp) today. Is it that bad in the UK?

The solution is simple, of course, for a mature couple, either the temporary mate and spouse should head for a hotel or they should all join in the fun. This is "sexual immorality," isn't it?

Furthermore, if it's immoral, then why does sex even matter? I'm no professional at this (obviously), but I don't see the logic of your slippery slope

But because of sexual immorality, prostitues become professional workers like anyone else. I'm sure there are plenty of nice, smart, moral prostitutes that simply don't see what they do as wrong.

That actually sounds kind of cool if you say it aloud with all the right pauses.

Quite right, since we can all admit that people existed before the Bible was written, where would they get their morality from?

Nevermind I asked that.

Primarily, the concern is the inequality of this sexual "immorality."

Primal

Well this actually does not mean men want more partners and women want less.

To explain: Lets say you do in ancient hunter-gatherer days had 20 kids with 20 different women. Now who's going to feed them? Other males in the band? The females by themselves? Are you capable of raising and protecting 20 kids by yourself?

It should be noted that human males are one of the only sets of males the animal kigndom that plays a strong role in raising offspring.

This is because human children require more then just a few months of carring and feeding to be raised. Human children require more, in terms of rescources and attention then other mammals. Children must learn social customs, language, tool making, over a 14-18 year stretch. Thus the male must contribute more then just sperm to insure the welfare of his child.

In thie enviroment males have to play an active role in providing for such offspring if they are to have a good chance of making it. Spreading yourself too thin among offspring for humans is disasterous. A man who has one child and devotes his rescources there has a better chance of having an heir then a man who has 20 and devotes very little rescources to each one. That is why human harems are a very modern phenomenon.


So why then do we have so much sperm? This is probably because human females practice hidden ovulation(a unique human trait) and are relatively hard to impregnate. Human males must mate with them many,many times in order to copulate at all. Likewise human beings are also rare in that sex for them is more for fun then copulation anyways, why is this? Nobody knows.

I should also like to note that human males have the second largest testicles of all primates, and that harem based primates(gorillas and orangutangs) have among the smallest. This is because they do not mate more then necessary(their females do not have hidden ovulation) and they do not compete in sperm contests like chimps(who have the biggest testes).
For more on this read jared diamond's "The Third Chimpanzee".

In any event why should we take instincts into account when determining conduct or morality? Because our biological preferneces represent desires who's satisfaction or lack thereof effects our happiness.

If we are thus to put them off, we should have a good reason to do so. Murdering for example, would hamper the satisfaction of many other biological dispositions and is thus outlawed and looked down upon. I would argue also that killing those outside the group can have a small instinctive basis but harming those within the group probably has an underlying biological mechanism which causes us to not want to do this. (I imagine bands in the past in which members wanted to kill eachother wouldn't have been very succesful.)

As for sex and morality, besides the obvious emotional apeal some may have, I am pretty tolerant of it except where it causes harm.

What kind of harm? Well someone sleeping with you who has an STD and doesn't say so. Cheating. Having sex with a chicken/other beast or a minor(by which I mean infants and children, teens can be exceptions as they are developed.)

Ruling out the above I feel people should go with what they want when it comes to sex. Though I imagine most will lean towards monogamy as human beings are generally pairing/monogamous animals.


Hence biology plays a large part in who we are, what we want and what we value. So biology is very relevant in discussions concerning human conduct,morality and happiness.

Farren

Thanks for the references. I wasn't actually arguing that men or women follow particular sexual strategies. Simply that, since some of thier biological algorithms are different, they will engage in different sexual strategies.

With respect to EITHER men or women being monogamous by instinct, I find that extremely difficult to believe. The vast majority of societies prior to the Judeo-Christian-Islamic ones and thier antecedents involved institutionalised polygamy in some way, and in the case of some hunter gatherer cultures of the Russion steppes, institutionalised polygyny.

History makes a far stronger case that monogamy is an imposed cultural norm, subsequently convenient to equality of the sexes in emerging post-religious societies.

That said, I don't think following our instincts always produces a pleasurable existence. The chaos of natural selection has produced instincts in species which are outright scary - the male black widow spider dashing in to fertilize the female, then sprinting away in terror as the female attempts to catch and eat him is an example.

I agree our choices should take cogniscence of our instincts, but should ultimately find the combination of compromise, outright rejection, and acceptance of instincts that creates a harmonious life for the individual.

tronvillain

Old Man:
Exactly how is that hypocritical? To me, it appears to be a normal use of language. After all, I suspect that the wives of those ministers refer to their husbands as their husbands. The girl I am going out with is my girlfriend and I am her boyfriend. It is simply how we use language to distinguish our relationships from those of other people.

Well, I do not see marriage laws being abolished any time soon, but I do hope that marriage contracts become more flexible (various options, time limits, permit multiple partners, etc.) Besides, this scenario seems extremely unlikely even in the absence of marriage laws.

tronvillain

Farren:
To propose that humans are naturally completely monogamous is beyond ridiculous, but we are certainly closer biologically to monogamy than many (though not all) of our fellow primates. Yes, many societies have had institutionalized polygamy, but what proportion of relationships in those societies actually were polygamous? Human males may be inclined towards having more than one partner, but they usually have to settle for closer to one and are not usually overly upset about the fact - harems are the exception, not the rule. As for institutionalized polygny, it appears to have been a matter of survival (in that environment it was the optimum reproductive strategy).

Primal

Diamond on human sexuality:

http://www.redbrick.dcu.ie/~odyssey/...himpanzee.html

Farren

I suppose what I'm trying to drive at is not that polygamy, polygyny, monogamy or any variants (such as serial polygamy) are "right" or "wrong", but that the assumption of any as being "right" and "true" is in itself wrong. I've posted a similar argument in another thread on the morality forum about "sex & childhood innocence" so I don't want to repeat the whole thing here but I'll paraphrase it.

Memes (cultural and individual ideas) and genes are in dialogue. I'm working from the position that even animals have culture (behaviours transmitted outside of genes). Many birds learn their mating songs and cannot find suitable mates if isolated from childhood. These mating songs change over time. Chimps trained in sign language attempt to teach it to their offspring.

These memes have a direct result in mating choices, et al, and by extension, on the physical makeup of the species. To use the example of birds again, many have elaborate dances, songs and displays which appear to have no bearing on fitness to bear good offspring. In human societies, we engage in discourse that affects our selective breeding processes. That discourse is continuing today. It would take a remarkably short period of time for the height of the average female to match that of the average male, but we continue to worship "petite" women.

Similarly, our sexuality has been skewed by two millenia of "religions of the book". I'm not suggesting this has resulted in hidden ovulation, but its conceivable that _limited_ monogamy (several monogamous relationships over a lifespan), polygamy or even communal relationships would fit equally well as compatible cultural behaviours with this physical makeup.