= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Viliam comments on Open Thread - Aug 24 - Aug 30 - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (318)
Is sexual relationship between two consenting adult siblings ethically okay and should it be legal? It's an interesting ethical problem because there are so many complicated dimensions and it could go either way. I think generally when it comes to social issues our society seems to head in a right direction, people are becoming more tolerant of people who choose differently and so on, but incest between siblings seems to become maybe more taboo even though there are some rational justifications you could make for it.
Some have made parallels to homosexuality as in it doesn't directly hurt either of the sides of this kind of relationship. There are social problems, I mean if I got to choose I wouldn't like any of my relatives to get together because that would evoke feelings of disgust, unnecessary drama and awkwardness, but I think I would have said the same thing about homosexuality 70 years ago. In theory inbreeding shouldn't be a problem, but in practice it probably is. Even though contraception is widespread in this day and age, if large number of siblings have sex with each other, some of them will inevitably end up having kids.
German ethics council decided that it should be legal because it's a person's fundamental right and people's right to self-determination is more important than the protection of your family.
(trigger warning: rape)
How much can we be sure, if this would be made legal, that the consent of the adult siblings would mean the same thing as the consent of two random unrelated people. If someone wants to have sex with their sibling who is not really happy about that idea, how much opportunity would they have to pressure them into "consent", if they merely have to wait until their 18th birthday, as opposed to the opportunity to pressure into "consent" someone who is not a relative?
Even if the person who wants to have sex with their sibling waits with the coitus until the sibling's 18th birthday, they still have plenty of opportunity to "groom" them before they are 18. Imagine siblings with large age difference, where the older sibling uses their mental superiority to "brainwash" their younger sibling, to ruin their other relationships and make them socially isolated, to make them emotionally dependent, so that when the younger sibling becomes 18, they are not in a position to say "no".
Also, many people at 18 are not really ready to be economically independent on their family. Imagine a family with two children, one strongly loved by the parents, the other disliked by the parents. When the unloved child becomes 18, their sibling can blackmail them into sex by threatening that if they refuse, the popular child will convince the parents to throw the unpopular child out on the street. (Yes, blackmail is technically illegal, but you would have to prove it. Also, if you are the unpopular child, getting the popular child thrown in jail will not help you get your parents' love; you will still remain on the street.)
In families there is too much power disparity: parents vs children, but also some children vs other. If we care about consent in sex, it is better to not leave open any paths that would allow abusing this power disparity to enforce "consent". Making sex between close relatives illegal is a simple Schelling point.