Miss. Psycho

On 12/17/2010 at 3:58 AM, Pangloss said:

A professor at Columbia University has been arrested and charged with having a sexual relationship with his 24-year-old daughter. Some info may be found here: http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2010/12/10/professor-david-epstein-charged-incest-his-daughter

 

Ok, it's kinda scummy and I'm sure some would say disgusting, but why is it illegal? They're both adults. Seems to me that it's just another example of the government sticking its nose into people's private business.

 

This is also creating an interesting ruckus in media circles. Some info on that may be found here (comments invited):

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/12/abc-news-asks-on-facebook-if-incest-should-be-legal-slate-says-incest-is-cancer.html

On 12/17/2010 at 4:02 PM, Marat said:

Since probably 99.9% of intercourse today occurs with contraceptive protection, why should genetic concerns be the determining factor in prohibiting incest? It is technically a criminal assault to have sex with anyone if you have AIDS, but if you wear a condom and have sex with someone even though you have AIDS, it is not an assault. So if the criminal law can make this distinction for people with AIDS having sex, then why not just require incestuous couples not to have children? Or why not allow incest after one of the partners has passed the breeding age? In any case, the genetic risk of consanguinity is not that great, since even though the Egyptian ruling family, in order not to dilute the royal blood by marrying outside the immediate family, for a long time required brothers and sisters to marry, the genetic problems in that group were minimal, as far as history records.

 

Obviously incest is forbidden simply because the majority of people find it disgusting, not because it is actually harmful. This violates John Stuart Mill's famous 'harm principle,' which states that a liberal society cannot make anything illegal unless it causes some demonstrable physical harm.

 

This thread touches on some of the same themes as my earlier thread on the harm of sexual relationships between adults and children. Society dislikes the idea so much on the basis of its sense of values that it simply assumes it must also somehow be physically or psychiatrically harmful, even apart from the panicked way that society would react to such encounters and traumatize the children involved, but it is difficult to pin down exactly what the harm consists in, especially when it was practised in Ancient Greece for so long and managed to produce people who grew up to be among the greatest and most creative geniuses the world has ever seen, rather than producing the shattered lives we would expect from today's perspective.

On 12/17/2010 at 2:34 PM, ParanoiA said:

 

Oh, then you're also "all for" denying procreation rights for anyone with potentially genetically inheritable mental and physical afflictions then, right? No mating for those with Down Syndrome or Haemophilia, right?

 

Not to mention, I could use that logic to make a case against every cancer victim that procreated after they were diagnosed. Or hell, for that matter, everyone with cancer in their family that procreates is assaulting people not yet conceived.

 

And that's just breaking the surface of inheritable disease. And we still have non-disease related inheritable physical and mental afflictions too.

 

Inbreeding increases the *chances* of afflictions, just as cancer victim procreation increases the *chances* of afflicting their offspring with cancer.

 

No, laws on this are silly and the subsequent violation of principle is far more damaging to a free society than the potential achievement of prosecuted weirdos.

 

This is the job of culture, to provide the appropriate level of shame and keep it on the fringe. Nothing to see here.

On 12/17/2010 at 5:08 PM, swansont said:

 

Oner might say the same about prostitution or bigamy, and it depends on your definition of harmful. Or, one might merely conclude that the US is not a liberal society under John Stuart Mill's definition.

On 12/19/2010 at 1:15 PM, Dak said:

 

 

 

What's the justification for criminalizing homosexual incest?

On 12/19/2010 at 3:40 PM, Mr Skeptic said:

 

There is however a difference between telling someone they can't have a child with a very small subset of the population (close family) vs telling them not to have a child at all. Of course now with birth control, its a different story, and likewise it is possible to genetically screen children for genetic diseases before it progresses past the stage of being a few dozen cells or so. But incest is traditionally taboo/icky, and there is some legitimate concern about family problems or abuse that could result from allowing incest. For example, you can't distinguish between consensual incest turned sour and sexual abuse. Likewise a lot of people tell you not to have sex with your best friend since it could ruin your relationship.