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 ~~Title:Incest~~
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 Increased homozygosity becomes an issue when there are deleterious recessive alleles in the gene pool of a family. For humans in particular, inbreeding can generally be considered harmful for the child, as it substantially increases the risk of expressing deleterious recessive genes. This is especially problematic in small populations where genetic variation is already limited. Now, this isn't said and done, as it is entirely possible for inbreeding to lead to the expression of beneficial traits as well. As far as the resulting offspring is concerned, this is on a case by case basis. For the parents however, especially if they don't have a genetic study done, this is not a reasonable risk and I believe it it justified to say that humans should abstain from inbreeding (procreative incest) for medical reasons.
-====== 2. Inbreeding and Incest ======
+<wrap hi>No Procreative</wrap>
+===== 1.1 Inbreeding and Incest =====
 This medical reason, however, begins to point us into an important moral direction - there is a difference between incest and inbreeding. Inbreeding is a problem associated with genetic problems in the offspring. However, while inbreeding can be part of incest, it doesn't have to be. As RationalWiki puts it:
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-"An additional problem with most anti-incest arguments is that they tend to focus only on procreative sex [...], ignoring the likely possibility that many incestuous couples don't want, or even can't have, children (like gay couples, or those that use birth control). Humans do in fact engage in recreational sexual intercourse after all."
+An additional problem with most anti-incest arguments is that they tend to focus only on procreative sex [...], ignoring the likely possibility that many incestuous couples don't want, or even can't have, children (like gay couples, or those that use birth control). Humans do in fact engage in recreational sexual intercourse after all.
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 On its own, the medical reasons against inbreeding would give rise to a crime like "sexual recklessness", if you want to call it that way, but that is only a good reason against inbreeding, not //all// kinds of incest.
-====== 3. Family & Power Dynamics ======
+====== 2. Family & Power Dynamics ======
 Another interesting angle on incest is the problem of power dynamics. Parents and their children, even if both are above the age of consent, have an inherent power dynamic that encroaches on the ability of the child to actually give consent. This pervades across the hierarchy as everyone lower on the family tree answers, in one way or another, to those higher on the family tree. For simplicity sake, I will refer to an individual's height in the family tree as a //"Rank"//.
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 Between brothers/sisters/cousins/cousins-in-law, no such power dynamics exist. For where these power dynamics do exist, bringing up incest as a problem is a reasonable objection. Personally, I care more about the potential age difference than about whether it's the same family - both must be of the age of consent or - if underage - roughly the same age. If this condition is satisfied, I find "family" to be a weak argument against it, unless of course the goal is to have //procreative// sex, see [[Incest#1. Genetics|1. Genetics]].
-====== Unnaturality ======
+<wrap hi>If strict: No rank differences</wrap>\\
-Others put forward that incest is "unnatural", but this argument runs into the same problem as the "it's disgusting" line does: It's a [[value judgement]]. Why is it unnatural? Who decides what is or is not natural? Why does being counter-intuitive make it unnatural? What's bad about doing unnatural things? Does it harm or hurt anyone? I have yet to see an argumentum ad nature that isn't just purely based on intuition.
+<wrap hi>No age of consent discrepancies (applies to sexual relations anywhere)</wrap>
+====== 3. Development Issues? ======
+One argument that I do not know whether it is true/valid is whether incest can cause developmental issues. If siblings of similar age engage in incest, does it genuinely cause harm to either of them? I don't know. I wouldn't have thought that it would, and as usual I'm not typically very knowledgeable; but, if that is the case then of course incest is problematic.
+The other question is about whether incest can be an indicator for pre-existing developmental issues. To me, this question does not really matter because engaging in developmentally malformed behavior does not necessarily increase the harm experienced by these individuals. Sexual encounters following the previously established restrictions don't, as far as I understand, hurt anyone. Yes, developmental issues often contribute to a person exhibiting harmful or maladapted behaviors, but I don't see how incestuous sexual relations hurt anyone. Unless of course they reinforce other developmental issues. Does it? Here again, I am underinformed. I think it would be bold to presume so.
+====== Full List ======
+In the previous topics I have established the reasons for why I agree with some arguments against incest and the extent to which I think these reasons justify restrictions on incest:
-====== god ======
+  * No procreative
-There are so many problems with this. Which god? Why that one? How can we verify our chosen god is real? If those three questions can be answered, then next why care about what a god has to say? Gods are an opinion and people are entitled to theirs, but whether something is "good" or "bad" is an empirical and philosophical question with near-absolute answers, upon which god only has a bearing if we know or at least have reasonable grounds to believe that one exists.
+  * No rank differences
+  * No age of consent discrepancies (applies to sexual relations anywhere)
-====== But it's children! ======
+To me, purely recreational incest where no rank differences occur and everyone involved is capable of consenting to everyone else involved, is still possible here. This would apply to siblings of similar age, or for example siblings of similar age who were seperated at birth. In fact, that is the classical example, as siblings seperated at birth do in fact often experience sexual attraction to each other if they get to know each other later in life, no development issues or other problems required. This is particularly interesting to observe in such pairings where both don't even know that they are related.
-Actually a good point. The age of consent for incest is definitely something that would require some attention. We could even agree that it should be higher than that for normal sex, but it should be reasonable. Maybe 18+? I think the biggest source of damage to the livelihood of incestuous people comes from societal stigma, not incest itself. Ethically this may be considered flawed, but either way this means that falling such decisions((The decision of whether or not to engage in incest.)) requires some additional maturity.
-====== It's a sign of development issues ======
+This example - of seperated siblings who get to know each other later in life and don't even know that they are related - illustrates why I think that families are primarily an elective brain thing. There is no practical difference between them and siblings that grew up together. Whether they are "family" or not is entirely an opinion in their brain and doesn't change any physical realities.
-I actually don't even know here. It might be. Is incest related to developmental disorders? Does removing the prohibition on incest promote those disorders? I mean, I don't know why people would do incest in the first place, I've never talked to one about their motivations. I could understand younger people, especially children who don't really make these kinds of distinctions (but then also run into the issue of being unable to consent), kind of just experimenting around; and their family members, especially siblings, will be the easiest test subjects to come by. Look, I don't know when, why and how that kind of stuff happens, I'm really just pulling things out of my ass right now.\\
-Anyway, seeing how counter-intuitive and disgusted even //I// feel thinking about incest with what little family I have, I can't rule it out that there could be psychological issues attached to the emergence of incestuous behaviors. Not causative factors per se, if anything then probably just correlation, but maybe just nothing at all. But then again, [[Statistical inevitability|on a large enough population, all kinds of things are mathematically bound to happen eventually]], so in case it //is// strongly correlated to developmental disorders, there would still be more than enough circumstances in which it would //just happen//. Just like that.
-====== Parents and children ======
+====== Addendum: Unnaturality and other Subjective Arguments ======
-The relationship between a parent and their child is special. It is based on safety and mutual trust. It feels like a parent engaging in sexual activity with their child is violating those principles of trust and compromises the safety of that child.((Remember, [[Pedophilia|sexual activities with a minor]] constitute sexual abuse and/or rape. I am talking about people that have both passed the age of consent - both the legal age of consent AND the proposed age of consent for incestuous sex [[Incest#But it's children!|as proposed earlier]].)) However, while I can agree that it really does kind of feel that way, I can't really explain it. Why would it compromise the safety of the child? Why would it break their trust? Because //I// set different expectations for myself? Who decides that the line of trust ends //before// and not //behind// incest?
+Arguments I do not like are arguments that are based entirely around subjectivity. If someone's opinion is based on an entirely subjective perception of the world then it is valuable for them to guide their own behavior - and they are free to do that! - but it is entirely worthless in a general discussion of the ethicality of the thing in question. This includes, amongst others, being disgusted and similar subjective experience, or religiously motivated god arguments ("god says we shouldn't"), because god is exclusively subjective and cannot be externalized or measured in any way.