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| Incest...ok or morally reprehensible?; Talk about whether you think it's ok to have in society or if it is so vile it deserves ALL OF YOUR HATE. | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 24 2013, 01:50 PM (1,319 Views) | |
| Himmelgeher | Jun 26 2013, 01:37 PM Post #51 |
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False analogy. Again, a case-by-case basis is irrelevant to what the law should be. It doesn't matter if the student genuinely loves their professor, because this is not the case the overwhelming majority of the time. Morally speaking, I am a deontologist, so I am against the concept. Everyone always thinks of themselves as the exception, and they almost never are. If you're an act-utilitarian or an ethical egoist, more power to you, but you can't convince me that this would ever be a good idea. It sets too dangerous a precedent. No, you can't force people to divorce, obviously. But most western companies have policies in place to prevent coercion, and sexual harassment laws are commonplace in western countries, even if they don't have the best track record when it comes to enforcement. And it's still a problem a great deal of the time, for something that, relative to student/teacher relationships, should be much easier to establish and enforce guidelines for. I find it hard to believe that none of your siblings have any authority over one another whatsoever, but I'll go ahead and take this at face value for now. That's anecdotal evidence at best, and like I said, it's far more the exception than the rule. You can go ahead and not support the idea of power dynamics existing in a family, but nearly every facet of human existence depends on someone having more power than someone else. It's not nice, and it doesn't make the person with power a better person than the one without, but that's the way it is. First of all: argumentum ad passiones. I'm sorry about your friend-of-a-friend, but suicide is not something a healthy brain does. His family should have been supportive and helped him seek out a professional psychologist, or even a psychiatrist. While the unfortunate reality is that the mentally ill are often shunned and mocked, that doesn't mean they can't otherwise be good people. However, it also doesn't mean they should make no effort to get healthy or correct their symptoms. And maybe he didn't have a mental illness, but there are plenty of people who don't have full blown mental disorders that require therapy anyway. If he killed himself, he would definitely fall into that category at least. |
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| ViperKang | Jun 26 2013, 02:17 PM Post #52 |
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Hey Himmel. Your opinion will obviously be respected and you and Warden can continue to counter each other but just be sure you don't start laying your opinion down as some universal law and be sure that you speak as respectfully as possible. Remember that this is a civil discussion about people's opinions not what people think are facts of life as it is hard to find aspects of life set in stone and found to be absolutely true. |
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| Gir | Jun 26 2013, 05:19 PM Post #53 |
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While I'm enjoying this debate, it's in my opinion a bad idea to throw in Latin in the middle of your argument. Whenever I see someone quoting Latin outside of a Warhammer 40k session, I tend to roll my eyes and say "oh here we go..." And as to the whole "siblings having authority over each other" thing...I have a sister. She has no more say in what I do than any friend who is unrelated, and the reverse is true. I haven't seen any different from the families' of my friends, barring cases where there's a severe age-gap (around ten years) between the siblings. This is admittedly a small pool of "test data," but I've yet to see the kind of dynamic you're talking about outside of Sitcoms. |
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| Warden of Wisdom | Jun 26 2013, 06:22 PM Post #54 |
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The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent. -Carl Sagan
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What you said about my friend-of-a-friend is true, I never knew the guy. But plenty of non mentally ill people kill themselves, so we can't jump to the conclusion that he was ill. I just don't see how having an attraction to a family member means one should see a mental health specialist. Plenty of marriages that are legalized shouldn't be, and usually end in divorce pretty soon. If the exception of relationships where one would have authority over another that work is even, like, 0.000001%, I still think they should be able to be together without society despising them. The ones that don't work out can get divorces like the other some large percent of americans. I personally would have absolutely no problem working for me wife, or having my wife be my professor or any such thing. I don't see why coercion would be an issue if we both fully consent. I understand the idea is that if, say, I want to divorce my wife could say "If you divorce me I'll fire you", but in most marriages it comes to "If you divorce me I'll sue for custody and alimony". Both of these scenarios can be taken to court. And you're not in the position to know, but as Gir can assure there is no hierarchy among my siblings and I.
How many legal marriages exist where one or more party does not genuinely love the other. My guess is a lot. I guess if I had to classify myself I would be a Individual Ethical Egoist, but I would draw the line on certain actions. For example, if murdering someone would make the murderer happy, I still wouldn't allow it. However, if two siblings marrying each other would, go on ahead. The thing about morals and ethics is that it's all entirely subjective. Edited by Warden of Wisdom, Jun 26 2013, 06:31 PM.
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| Warden of Wisdom | Jun 26 2013, 11:06 PM Post #55 |
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The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent. -Carl Sagan
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Also, I apologize if I've offended anyone or come off as disrespectful. I respect everyone's opinions and I certainly don't mean to sound like an elitist or any such thing. |
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| Himmelgeher | Jun 26 2013, 11:36 PM Post #56 |
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The Latin that I used is simply the formal name of the logical fallacy: it was an appeal to emotion. If it makes you feel better, I'll only use the English names from now on. The rates of mental disorder among people who commit suicide are staggeringly high. From http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1489848/ (emphasis mine) Let's just say this makes it at least somewhat likely that if a guy killed himself, he might have had a problem. Just because you don't recognize the power dynamics does not mean that they don't exist. From Power in Family Discourse I'm not saying that it is impossible that everyone in your family is equal. But it is highly unusual, and the reason you aren't seeing it might be because you aren't looking for it. Or maybe everyone in your family really is equal. I can't pretend to know anything about the intimate workings of your personal life. But according to the academic community, they are very real in most families, and that is the position I am making my argument from. Unfortunately, it is impossible to create legal provisions for True LoveTM, it is simply too subjective and unverifiable. While the effects of a marriage gone wrong can be detrimental to both parties, it isn't something we can do anything about. To allow a large number of even more unhealthy relationships for the sake of an incredibly small number of healthy relationships just because things are already bad for some people is absurd. That is... not the problem. They shouldn't be together because the teacher/boss would be exploiting the student/employee (though in the latter case, it is possible to mitigate and correct the effects of coercion, which is why I'm not opposed to inter-office romance). It is not because one of them can sue the other. |
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| Warden of Wisdom | Jun 26 2013, 11:51 PM Post #57 |
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The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent. -Carl Sagan
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Does that study say what kind of mental disorders we're dealing with, or to what degree, because I'm pretty sure that in a suicidal person with, say, mild ADD, it doesn't make too much of an influence on their decision. Mild ADD is still a mental disorder. Maybe it's just my outlook on suicide making me bias, so for now I'll just accept the statistics for whatever their worth.
Can you elaborate on this a bit as to how they're being exploited? And of course True Love is subjective, and honestly I don't really believe in marriage. I just think it's wrong for society to hate people who are in love with their family, and force them away from each other romantically. If a husband has a history of abuse and violence, and is mentally ill in some sort, and he wants to marry a woman, we could probably predict that he might abuse her. But still, it's legal for them to get married. There are plenty of marriages that are just horrible set ups, but nothing is stopping them because it's a basic right for people to love each other. Hell, my dad works with a guy who's on his, like, 6th wife. Something tells me that he won't find a long time partner, but if he wanted to get married again, I wouldn't lift a finger to stop him. |
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| Himmelgeher | Jun 27 2013, 12:51 AM Post #58 |
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1489848/table/T1/ That's the breakdown in percentages. The study doesn't go into the severity of the diseases, but 98% having a mental disorder can't really be written off as incidental. It's exploitation because the professor has power over the student, and is attempting to initiate a romantic relationship with said student. Even without coming out and saying "if you don't sleep with me I'll fail you," that will still factor into the student's response, along with everything else involved in a traditional student/teacher relationship. Even if they really do love each other, the professor is abusing his/her authority and position by attempting to initiate such a relationship while the object of his/her affection is still a student. We can be pretty sure that a man with a history of domestic abuse will probably be abusive to his next wife. That's why we have domestic abuse laws. It's not a perfect set up we've got, but it's as close as we can get without moving in to some kind of 1984-esque totalitarian government and getting a president who claims "we don't have homosexuals." That doesn't mean we should just allow largely unhealthy practices in case it makes some people a bit more happy. Incest is nearly always the result or incarnation of abuse and/or some type of mental disorder. The consequences greatly outweigh the rewards, even if "healthy" incestuous relationships do exist, which I still very much doubt. Sorry this post took so long to get up. I had to revise my initial response a few times so that I didn't come across as excessively arrogant. |
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| Warden of Wisdom | Jun 27 2013, 01:15 AM Post #59 |
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The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent. -Carl Sagan
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Well, I guess this comes down to whether or not one is comfortable with allowing others to be in exploitative relationships, which in this instance, I am. But, if, say, one sibling was the "responsible over and protector" of another, and the two were in a relationship, how would the responsible one be exploitative like the professor would in your idea of the exploitation? This is just be wanting to hear your opinion on it. |
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| Vosoros | Jun 27 2013, 03:04 AM Post #60 |
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I'm reminded of a little historical hear-say I once came upon which basically goes; "some royals actually interbred to purify the family line". Yeah, I'm going off at a tangent here with the debate, but bare with me... Now, if we're actually talking of two very health genetic related folk consentually reproducing...isn't that survival of the fittest? The very reson our species exsist? Somebody may have to double-check my actual science here for me, but if it's sound, how in the hell could you have an issue with it? It's a sub-concious biological impulse that drives our species very survival (and all other species survival)...not to mention the reason we exsist. Again, if my historcial recollection's good, there have been times in the past where certian societies/cultures have encouraged such (abaite rarely). Are we talking of a valid biological argument against interbreeding...or for? Or are we talking about modern social and legal convention...and our social conditioning to accept such? I usually find people are so conditioned by social and legal conventions of the time, they couldn't rightly tell you... Anyhow, there's a few cents worth for you from me.
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1:56 PM Jul 11