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TimS comments on Poly marriage? - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (127)
Yes thank you for the correction.
Same argument can and has been applied to other kinds of marriage.
Yes. Because legalizing such marriage would if anything improve the legal standing and options available to the women in such marriages. It would also ensure fairer distribution of resources, not to mention custody issues in case one of the parents dies. Also Polygamous marriages in the US and Europe are a fact on the ground, a social reality, that we should deal with. Refusing to do so is just perpetuating discrimination.
Status doesn't explain everything, it does explain situations like this.
Do you mean that status is a better explanation that in-group/out-group bias, or that status is equivalent to in-group/out-group bias?
It isn't fully equivalent. Out-group polygamous marriages are a-ok for us, one sees little lobbying on the UN level to forbid polygamous marriage. But I think Muslim immigrants in Europe and Mormon sects in the US are low status in-group members for most citizens when thinking about such issues.
Basically in-group out-group determines who has moral relevance. Status determines with who you wish to associate or disassociate.
After some thought, I'm still unsatisfied with "status" as an explanation of the phenomena. If we must use Hansonian terminology, I think the better explanation is signalling - specifically, signalling tribal affiliation. "who you wish to associate or disassociate" is either very imprecise or circular.
Additionally, I'm uncertain about Hansonian analysis of this phenomena because it makes the thought processes seem so deliberate and considered - when real world examples don't seem all that reflexively considered. I'm doubtful that people hostile to French Muslims could produce a coherent explanation on demand, and if you waited for them to collect their thoughts, they'd say things isomorphic to "Muslims in France are behaving unFrench." (whether that is the same thing as in-group bias is a separate question - I do think your explanation of in-group bias artificially narrows its scope)