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Incestous Marriage Should Be Permitted

Rebuttals No case presented by Con except “Incestuous relationships should not be permitted in a democracy” “This, for, evidently, virtually all subjects of society on the globe do not think Incest should be allowed (for social & religious reasons). Thus, permitting it goes against the principal of democratic rule.” How is this supposed to be an argument? Whether or not people think it should or should not be allowed is independent of whether or should be permitted in statute, Con would need to affirm the latter (that majority opinion is sufficient). Moreover, if the majority of people lack sound reasons for thinking it should be prohibited, then it follows that the majority opinion is irrelevant. Furthermore, as I have argued so far, prohibiting incestuous marriage yields concessions in other areas of democracy which are much deeper routed than simple public opinion (such as right to privacy, etc.). Such justifications could have been used to justify permitting slavery for example in 1700’s US/Europe, we simply do not and should not create policies purely from public opinion, lest every single minor issue be settled by myopic vote. Defence C1. Benefits & Impact Con would need to actually demonstrate how my argument is a fallacy of affirming the consequent/equivocation rather than just asserting it. “Con has to show why incestuous relationships ought to be permitted or recognised in the first place, regardless of the legal benefits of Marriage itself!” Con strawmans my argument here, since I argued for much more than just legal and constitutional benefits, it has manifest benefits too. Also I am not sure what Con is attempting to suggest here – that we should not always extend benefits where possible? Is Con suggesting that we should also withhold something that demonstrably improves quality of life on several levels for people. Society generally ought to act for the best benefit of society, and if these benefits come at minimal or no cost to the state, then there is hardly an argument that can be made against it. Given that many of the benefits I convey are emergent, rather than direct, then these are essentially “free” benefits. Further, I have no idea how Con thinks pedophilic relationships are remotely analogous, given they run into serious issues of consent that are completely off-topic to incestuous marriage. At the very least this sets the premise for the rest of my arguments, where we demonstrably have an advantageous position given to married couples which incestuous couples do not currently have. 2. While it is true that the studies of marriage do not include incestuous relationships (due to the obviously limited dataset for the latter), Con would have to provide very good reason to think why they would not also apply (since virtually all other variables are identical except for their biological relation). A useful analogy here would be the study of falling objects (such as spheres, bowling balls, human dummies) to gauge how gravity would affect other falling objects, such as people. Con attempts to do this by appealing to biological issues of incestuous childbirth, however this debate is about incestuous marriage, not childbirth – thus is a red herring fallacy. Furthermore, if childbirth is an issue, then it is also irrelevant, since marriage is not a pre-requisite for childbirth. Also this line of reasoning would entail that we ought to prohibit all syndrome sufferers from getting married (Huntington disease, ADPKD, etc.), or any person with a hereditary disease for that matter – since they have a very high chance of passing it down. Clearly we do not rule on marriage due to potential offspring. Furthermore this is not an argument against same-sex incestuous marriage – who obvious cannot naturally conceive children. Thus, while there perhaps is a case to be made against incestuous childbirth/conception, there isn’t one to made against the marriage itself. 3. I am not sure what Con’s point here is supposed to be. The first citation I gave was a German court case where the couple was fighting for their right to marry. Clearly they are consenting to incest, even if they only discovered it was incestuous after they started dating/having sexual intercourse. Further this is cutting the point away from its context, which was simply to show that there clearly is an impact to be made, since these types of consensual relationships have and do exist. The nature of how they “first met” is irrelevant here . C2. No harm principal Con appeals to two harms, biological & social pressure & stigmatisation. Biological I have already addressed this in my rebuttals to C1, potential for genetic defects in offspring is irrelevant to the question of incestuous marriage since: a. Marriage is not a prerequisite to childbirth. b. It’s only an argument against incestuous childbirth, not marriage c. Entails serious repercussions if we apply this policy uniformly across all categories (such as those with inheritable genetic diseases wanting to marry) d. It is an invalid argument against all incestuous marriages since some couples cannot reproduce (via. artificial means, or naturally incapable, or being of the same sex) Social Pressure & Stigmatisation Surely this is an argument in favour of incestuous marriage, since it would reduce social pressure & stigmatisation via. desensitisation! Much like the movement to promote gay marriage has come with demonstrable effects in reducing stigmatisation and social pressures against those at victim here (the minority group in question). It is the social pressure & stigmatisation that is at fault, not the incestuous couple. Further, this is an argument against self-harm, since the only victims identified here are the people wishing to marry in the first place. In society we rule based on harm, or infringing on the liberty of others, not ourselves. 2. This argument of Con’s ignores the no harm principle. We do not arbitrarily impinge upon the liberty of people unless it impinges upon the liberty others. If a crime is victimless (yes, it is a crime because of current statute, this debate is about legalising it, so appealing to its criminal status is a circular argument), then obviously it does not impinge upon the liberty of others, and thus ought to be permitted. 3. “The Harm Principal is not sufficient reason enough to permit something.” Note that the default position isn’t to prohibit something, but to permit it (otherwise absurd consequences of needing to write into statute each and every possible action would entail). The no Harm Principle is a demonstration that we lack sufficient reason to prohibit something. “Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law” Dropping the harm principle would leave open serious repercussions on liberty, for example the reintroduction of slavery, since harm is no longer the necessary and sufficient means to prohibit something. In a democratic society, people will inevitably want their reduced harm represented first and foremost, thus harm is the principle driver of prohibition. 4. Con conflates myopic interests (what people want superficially) with more basic interests (such as general wish to avoid harm). People of the US may want to go to war with Russia for example, however their myopic interests contradict their more basic interest of avoiding harm which the inevitable nuclear war with Russia would certainly entail (via. various obvious means). Thus even ifincestuous marriage is against the immediate myopic interest of the people, then it wouldn’t follow it should be prohibited. Furthermore Con has not actually shown that this interest to prohibit incestuous marriage is universal, he just assumes it, for example incest (including marriage) is currently legal in France, Spain, Benelex and Portugal.[10] The former for over 200 years. “Con here makes a straw-man analogy, as we can’t see which aspect of Incest & these actions is shared!” It seems Con has ignored the argument is about discriminating based on immutable characteristics. Cutting arguments out of context does that. I extend this until Con acknowledges this. C3. Arbitrarily nature of prohibiting incestuous marriage & relationships 1. How is this anything but a concession? Obviously it would entail that all laws that are inherently arbitrary in any nation should be discarded. 2. Con’s source here doesn’t back up his claim of universal prohibition. Moreover it is a red herring to my argument, since I was showing that closeness of relation (in statute via. prohibition) is not well-defined and thus arbitrary. Con also misunderstands my “incest on some level is occurring within every single relationship on some level”, since it is a basic scientific fact that all humans are related to a certain degree (at most 16 generations apart). C4. Discrimination Con essentially concedes my point that it is indeed discriminatory to prohibit incestuous marriage. The notion of the majority not oppressing the minority is not inherently democratic, true, but it is a consequence of our more basic self-interest in no harm and all possessing liberty. We do not live in a society where we do have the value of arbitrarily oppress minorities, that is a basic value of people that will is realised in a democracy(and evidenced by our changing stances on such, with increasing abolishing of discrimination against coloured people, slavery, gender, religion, etc.). I presented my argument as a conditional “if we value…”, Con doesn’t refute either the conditional statement, nor the condition of the conditional (“we value a society in which the majority does not oppress the minority on its own whims”), thus Con has refuted nothing. References 10. http://en.wikipedia.org...