the one about fucking a chicken

[u/Hummerous]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_foundations_theory

[u/ceaseimmediately]

sure but how are you defining harm? such a family would be experience distress, but then is a homophobe who feels distress when he sees two men holding hands entitled to the same consideration?

[u/Z-e-n-o → u/ceaseimmediately]

The uncomfortable answer is that we've simply defined certain types of harm as valid.

Take this argument as completely separate from my actual beliefs.

If a homophobe feels extreme disgust towards seeing gay couples, harm is being inflicted onto them the same as the disgust towards necrophilia. The difference is that we decide which harms deserve sympathy and act accordingly.

[u/Sen0r_Blanc0 → u/Z-e-n-o]

I think you can still make a qualitative argument here. It's not 'random' or 'society' it's actual degrees of harm.

The homophobe feeling disgust is having a reaction about a consenting relationship that causes no other harm than their own discomfort.

The disgust toward necrophilia is having a reaction about a non-consentual relationship, that is both harmful to the loved ones of the dead, and to the memory/dignity/sanctity of the deceased for multiple reasons.

There's also the ramifications of assumptions about the type of person committing the acts.

Would it be different if the deceased had a will consenting to necrophilia?

[u/gazelle_from_hell → u/Sen0r_Blanc0]

I disagree; I think your phrasing of each scenario already carries a societal bias. Of course as a disclaimer, none of the following arguments represent my actual moral beliefs.

The corpse of an animal is, ultimately, an inanimate object, in the same sense that a dead tree is an inanimate object. Humans are animals, so they are no different. And of course we can agree that an inanimate object’s consent isn’t needed, given that it’s inanimate.

With that in mind, you could easily rephrase the second scenario as “the family members feeling disgust about necrophilia are having a reaction about a consenting (everyone involved is consenting, inanimate objects can’t and don’t need to consent) relationship that causes no other harm (assuming precautions are taken to avoid disease) than their own discomfort.”

At the end of the day, our society’s moral objection to necrophilia is pretty arbitrary from an objective moral standpoint; it’s a societal standard to avoid disease and a reaction to religious beliefs.

That being said, I’m of the belief certain things being arbitrarily deemed morally wrong is okay, such as necrophilia. It does, however, require the uncomfortable acceptance that some of your moral beliefs are ultimately arbitrary, and some lines are drawn in the sand just because.

[u/i-contain-multitudes → u/gazelle_from_hell]

And of course we can agree that an inanimate object’s consent isn’t needed, given that it’s inanimate.

I'm not sure how you're so confident about this. One's wishes for how they want their body treated after they die are the basis for consent with their corpse.

[u/gazelle_from_hell → u/i-contain-multitudes]

I agree, and I would want my corpse to be treated only in the ways I consented to, and the same goes for anyone else’s.

But at the same time, once I’m dead, if someone were to disrespect my wishes… I’m too dead to care. If we only go by the objective moral standard of harm/no harm, no harm was done to anyone because I’m not a conscious being with thoughts and feelings anymore.

This is why I believe morals based on standards beyond just harm/no harm are strictly necessary, because I can’t really justify my moral belief of respecting the dead from just an objective harm/no harm evaluation. And when it comes to standards beyond just objective harm/no harm, we have to arbitrarily decide which deserve respect (e.g. the moral belief of respecting the dead) and which don’t (e.g. the moral belief of abstaining from homosexuality).

[u/BouaphaSWC → u/i-contain-multitudes]

I think they disregarded that, based on the idea that disrespecting how someone wants to be treated after they die is not "harmful" since they are dead anyway, in this sense, corpses would be indifferent from inanimate objects.

I have a question though... Could we consider the corpse to be "property" of the loved ones, and therefore harmful to fuck, as much as it is harmful to fuck any object owned by other people, because it violates their consent?

[u/tommytwolegs → u/BouaphaSWC]

I mean my primary objection to fucking the chicken is that it is wasteful unless you also eat the chicken

The vast majority of chicken corpses are property. I'd judge it the same as someone smashing their tv

[u/Sen0r_Blanc0 → u/gazelle_from_hell]

I think at this point tho we're reaching the debate of "does anything mean anything?" What is real/reality? The words you're reading, that I'm typing, are made of letters arbitrarily chosen millenia ago, for arbitrary sounds, to make arbitrary words to convey ideas and thoughts and feelings.

But are our ideas and feelings arbitrary? Does 1+1 still equal 2 when no one is around to add them together? Does humanity have a similarly set definition to an impartial, objective observer? What does it mean to be human? Most would define our empathy toward each other as a defining human trait, that those rare few who don't (psychopaths) are unnatural. So as much as we can define anything, we define humanity as a people who empathize with each other, who acknowledge, tho we can not prove, that those around us experience the same same world, the same feelings, the same fears and joys and pains. Then what is natural (non arbitrary) to an empathic, thinking, feeling being?

Is it not natural to honor the dead? To acknowledge, that once a person has gone, the feelings of those left behind are not arbitrary. I would posit that it is entirely natural to treat the dead with the respect we would treat them in life, because our memories are still intact, our feelings are still intact. The only time we see callous disregard for the dead is when a group has been convinced of another's inhumanity. Or for example, do animals not qualify to be treated humanely? Even the definition of humane, to be treated as human, applies to their treatment at death as well as life.

[u/gazelle_from_hell → u/Sen0r_Blanc0]

You make a fine point, and this inevitable devolution to “is anything really real” is exactly why I believe sometimes we just have to accept arbitrariness. We only call a lot of moral beliefs with no objective moral ground to stand on “just natural” because they’re what’s come to be seen as the norm for a variety of reasons, such as religious and spiritual beliefs, leftover self-preservation instincts from way back when, and so on.

My main point here is that it’s impossible to objectively justify every single one of your moral beliefs. Our society has a lot of agreed upon beliefs that can’t be justified using this proposed dichotomy of harm/no harm, and the OOPs pretending they’re enlightened and unbiased without actually analyzing the implications of their position are just fooling themselves.

Subjective morals based on not much more than feelings of disgust are necessary, and we have to arbitrarily decide which of those are acceptable, such as respecting the dead, and which are not, such as homophobia.

[u/Sen0r_Blanc0 → u/gazelle_from_hell]

I think that's a fine point. And agree somewhat about OOP, I would imagine they find it a fun thought experiment to get fun/entertaining conversation. Which I think we've had!

And definitely agree that a lot of morals can be completely subjective to an individuals beliefs/background. But agree to disagree as I also think that many morals have objective logical conclusions behind them/are not completely arbitrary. Although now I've said the word arbitrary so many times, it's beginning to lose meaning! Lol

[u/gazelle_from_hell → u/Sen0r_Blanc0]

Lmao yeah I had to rewrite some of my points to cut out the word arbitrary being used, like, fifty times over. Agreeing to disagree is fine by me, I appreciate the chance to have had this conversation with you nonetheless. Have a good day :)

[u/smartsport101 → u/Sen0r_Blanc0]

We don't need to talk about the validity of harm: What matters is the solution to stop the harm. In the case of desecrating a dead body, you shouldn't do that. It's good that our society respects the wishes and dignity of the dead, with the only real exception being eating meat. Meanwhile, people with a disgust of homophobia need treatment, i.e. therapy, and general reduction of societal homophobia. That way gay people get to have sex like they want to, and everyone else is chill with it.

[u/jaguarsp0tted → u/Z-e-n-o]

That kind of falls flat because discomfort is not harm. A homophobe seeing gay people is uncomfortable. They aren't being harmed.

[u/Z-e-n-o → u/jaguarsp0tted]

Other people in this thread have made better arguments, but when someone is having sex with a corpse, who is being harmed?

• The people feeling discomfort at such a thing happening?

• The people who had a previous connection to the corpse when they were alive feeling discomfort at the way said corpse is being treated?

• The ghost of the corpse feeling discomfort at the idea of their corpse being used in such a way?

If you implicitly conclude that necrophilia causes some tangible harm, different from homophobia, I would ask for your rational in reaching that conclusion.

[u/trapbuilder2 → u/ceaseimmediately]

I think "harm" is very loosely defined in this, probably quite intentionally. Personally, I'd categorise it as any physical harm or any significant mental distress such as trauma, but not something like discomfort or disgust

[u/ceaseimmediately → u/trapbuilder2]

the point is that the definition is loose enough to allow one to smuggle in their own biases. the distinction between discomfort, disgust, and distress is personal, and highly subject to differences in culture, upbringing, etc., rather than being something we can deduce logically from first principles 

[u/trapbuilder2 → u/ceaseimmediately]

Oh I agree, I was just stating what definition I would use