sam0345 comments on Interview with Singularity Institute Research Fellow Luke Muehlhauser - Less Wrong

12 Post author: MichaelAnissimov 15 September 2011 10:23AM

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Comment author: sam0345 11 November 2012 08:08:20PM *  0 points [-]

But as Saint Paul rather delicately said, and people in the eighteenth century rather more plainly said, enforced abstinence is not going to fly.

So, if "rape" in marriage is a concept, marriage is not a concept. If marriage is not a concept, massive drop in female fertility and male investment in offspring, decrease in total children, increase in fatherless children.

Which is not moral progress.

Comment author: wedrifid 12 November 2012 12:50:22AM *  0 points [-]

Which is not moral progress.

While the detail of your arguments don't follow I do agree that enforcing moral values from our time onto another time without taking care to first change all sorts of other parts of the culture would make the selected change we call "progress" actually do significant damage to the people we force our values upon.

Being able to consider the issue of once-off vs ongoing consent to sex to be the particularly significant issue regarding marriage morality is something of a luxury. Compare this to the issue of easy no-fault divorce... which can translate to "the ability to casually destroy the life of the divorced (female) party, leaving her to starve or be forced into prostitution". This is another thing that I recall Paul speaking on and something far more controversial at the time.

It can be dangerous (and naive) to try to judge or force our values on other cultures without thinking through the effects such changes would have.

Comment author: Kindly 11 November 2012 08:19:01PM 0 points [-]

But as Saint Paul rather delicately said, and people in the eighteenth century rather more plainly said, enforced abstinence is not going to fly.

Yeah, in certain circumstances people are going to have incentives to break promises (and/or contracts). I don't think that this is specific to marriage, and I don't think it makes the concept of marriage invalid.

Comment author: sam0345 12 November 2012 10:41:29PM 3 points [-]

You cannot, or at least should not, ask people to contract to that which they cannot perform. Thus, moment to moment consent to sex, requires in practice moment to moment consent to marriage, which abolishes marriage. Abolishing marriage violates freedom of contract.

Which is not moral progress.

Comment author: MugaSofer 13 November 2012 09:09:51AM -1 points [-]

I don't understand this.

NOTE: please, no-one downvote the parent. I don't want another conversation cut off mid-discussion by the Troll Toll.

Comment author: Kindly 12 November 2012 10:52:12PM -1 points [-]

It's not as though people cannot obey a marriage contract that requires moment to moment consent to sex.