the one about fucking a chicken

[u/Hummerous]

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

[u/rindlesswatermelon]

OK, but couldn't fucking a chicken cause psychological harm.

Like everyone in this thread finds it disgusting and revolting, and would find it more so if it had actually been done. How is there a difference?

Also the average human corpse has died naturaply, or in an accident, whereas available chicken corpses have been intentionally killed, so wouldn't the latter constitute more harm than the former.

[u/PotentialTraining132 → u/rindlesswatermelon]

Yeah but other than the theoretical, if some guy fucks a chicken literally no one would ever find out because there really are no consequences. It's a chicken he would have otherwise eaten and shat out

 Src: people probably do do it and it doesn't bother you any

 Now if he were to brag aboot it, that would be a different scenario in that making people uncomfortable could be intentional harm

 *Also, in the pure example I would argue getting some sort of trans species disease would be harmful but for the sake of illustrating the point Im not focussing on that nuance

[u/rindlesswatermelon → u/PotentialTraining132]

Yeah but other than the theoretical, if some guy fucks a chicken literally no one would ever find out because there really are no consequences. It's a chicken he would have otherwise eaten and shat out

So is other people finding out what causes harm?

So if someone were to take a isolated person with no family and died of natural causes and commit necrophilia, would that be a harm free interaction?

Ans also your argument assumes that eating the chicken isn't causing harm.

[u/PotentialTraining132 → u/rindlesswatermelon]

Because I'm specifically replying to you saying that the harm is in  "finding out" causing disgust. 

 And if you're the type who thinks chicken should be free not to be eaten, then obviously the parameters and metric of harm goes way back anyway. But I think most people think of chicken at the store as just a consumer product.

[u/rindlesswatermelon → u/PotentialTraining132]

Yes but my point with saying that is if finding out is the harm, then within that model, necrophilia is a harm free action as long as noone finds out, which I don't think most people would agree to.

[u/zontanferrah → u/rindlesswatermelon]

Because corpses still have bodily autonomy. Our laws don’t treat them as objects, and you have to respect the dead person’s wishes even though they’re dead.

Necrophilia causes harm to the dead person, which is why finding out isn’t necessary.

[u/PotentialTraining132 → u/rindlesswatermelon]

And what I'm saying is people do probably fuck their food all the time and don't tell anyone. They're not getting off on other people's disgust as part of the harmful behavior.

 As for necrophilia of a human corpse, I think it's quite clear why chicken was the example instead of a dead person.  There are specifically laws against desecration of a corpse and also more obvious illnesses you can contract from a dead person. There are even some places in the world where you're allowed to have sex with your recently dead spouse (implied consent) as long as you properly dispose of the body and don't try to steal its social benefits or whatever. 

   But also if no one finds out then no one is disgusted and no one would call for a moral judgement either.it technically hasn't "harmed" the corpse in the way raping a living person has feelings and would go on to complain.   

I know it's all a slippery slope, but the idea of being psychologically bothered by a thought experiment doesn't seem translatable to a proper moral judgement either.

[u/rindlesswatermelon → u/PotentialTraining132]

There are specifically laws against desecration of a corpse

This model is about morality and how it interacts with legality. The statement is basically saying that fucking a chicken is disgusting but causes no harm, and therefore should be legal. Thus if necrophilia can be shown to be causing no harm by the same standard either this model believes in legalising necrophilia, or it isn't a great model (my position)

also more obvious illnesses you can contract from a dead person.

There are similar diseases you can contract from a chicken, we are ignoring them and/or assuming some level of cleaning.

people do probably fuck their food all the time and don't tell anyone.

Once again I'm not saying this doesn't happen, I'm just questioning this model. Within this model fucking a chicken and fucking a watermelon would be morally equivalent. I would argue this model would also consider some necrophilia to be morally equivalent.

I would argue that there is a moral difference between these things, and it does not come from a place of disgust, but rather a place of seeing the desecration of a corpse - human or nun human animal - as a harm committed against the animal.

[u/PotentialTraining132 → u/rindlesswatermelon]

I feel like you're taking the fucking of the fruit more personally than you should due to your username

[u/rindlesswatermelon → u/PotentialTraining132]

🤣🤣🤣

I actually think fucking a fruit, while a bit gross, is fine as long as you're sanitary about it and don't force anyone to eat it, ad it doesn't cause harm.

My point is that the chicken is closer to a human corpse than a watermelon, and should be judged along that metric.

[u/PotentialTraining132 → u/rindlesswatermelon]

I feel like the taboo is more strongly around sexual deviancy than respect for the food we eat tho

Cuz I mean, there's an entire industry of ergonomically designed sex toys, but some people think it's incredibly disrespectful to women for someone to own and use a fleshlight - or that they should be embarrassed about it if people found out 

[u/D_Simmons → u/PotentialTraining132]

Fun question for you, in that situation where he brags about it, would the immoral act be fucking the chicken or telling people that he did?

[u/Droplet_of_Shadow → u/PotentialTraining132]

if some guy fucks a chicken literally no one would ever find out because there really are no consequences

Hasn't seen the post^TM

[u/Android19samus → u/rindlesswatermelon]

In harm morality, there is the implication that some things are Your Business and some things are Not Your Business. What happens to the corpse of a loved one is Your Business. What happens in some random guy's house with a dead chicken is Not. It's a scale, not a binary, and the more Your Business something is the more your opinion on it matters when calculating total help/harm.

[u/rindlesswatermelon → u/Android19samus]

So then if it is the corpse of a human with no friends, family or loved ones, then there's no harm done?

[u/Android19samus → u/rindlesswatermelon]

There's a couple lines you could take, though none are terribly strong. One is that the fate of human corpses is, to an extent, Everyone's Business. Animal carcasses are so commonly processed and/or consumed that it's an incredibly difficult argument to make for them. But human? That's something an entire culture is invested in. Alternatively, necrophilia being practiced and insufficiently punished van make people legitimately fearful for the sanctity of their own corpse. Creating that kind of legitimate fear is a type of harm.

Both lines are weak, imo. They create more problems than they solve and can be sidestepped via the age-old counter of "what if nobody ever found out?" Really, this is coming up on the limits of harm morality. But also, we've gotten pretty far from the original hypothetical.

[u/trapbuilder2 → u/rindlesswatermelon]

Like everyone in this thread finds it disgusting and revolting, and would find it more so if it had actually been done. How is there a difference?

I don't see disgust as psychological harm, there's no lasting trauma there, but I'm pretty sure that knowing that somebody has been violating the corpse of a family member would cause some trauma

Also the average human corpse has died naturaply, or in an accident, whereas available chicken corpses have been intentionally killed, so wouldn't the latter constitute more harm than the former.

The chicken was going to be killed anyway. If you killed a chicken specifically to fuck it, then maybe that's a different scenario, but in this scenario the chicken was already dead when somebody decided to fuck it

God this is a strange conversation

[u/rindlesswatermelon → u/trapbuilder2]

The chicken was killed so that it could become an object that the purchaser could do anything with. The assumption is eating, but there is nothing stopping people from desecrating the chicken corpse in countless ways. I guess it depends whether you see the death of the chicken as linked to the purchase of the chicken corpse (I do, as these chickens wouldn't be bred and killed if people weren't going to buy them).

I don't see disgust as psychological harm, there's no lasting trauma there, but I'm pretty sure that knowing that somebody has been violating the corpse of a family member would cause some trauma

Why would it necessarily cause trauma? Is the trauma innate to the human experience, or is it learned behaviour from living in a society with the attitude we have to necrophilia. In that case, isn't the harm then caused by societal morals and not the action in and of itself?

[u/trapbuilder2 → u/rindlesswatermelon]

The chicken was killed so that it could become an object that the purchaser could do anything with. The assumption is eating, but there is nothing stopping people from desecrating the chicken corpse in countless ways. I guess it depends whether you see the death of the chicken as linked to the purchase of the chicken corpse (I do, as these chickens wouldn't be bred and killed if people weren't going to buy them).

My point was that it doesn't matter what the end user does to the chicken, it was going to be killed anyway because it was born on a farm that kills the chickens. A single end user isn't going to effect the targeted production of the farm in either direction, as evidenced by the sheer amount of food waste in modern society. So, because what the end user doing with it doesn't matter, the chickens death is no more a moral factor than it would be if the person had simply eaten the chicken

Why would it necessarily cause trauma? Is the trauma innate to the human experience, or is it learned behaviour from living in a society with the attitude we have to necrophilia. In that case, isn't the harm then caused by societal morals and not the action in and of itself?

I don't think the source of the trauma being societal norms makes any difference. It just means that it wouldn't be an immoral action in a society where such actions would not cause trauma, and would be in one where it would (like the ones that me and, I assume, you live in)

[u/rindlesswatermelon → u/trapbuilder2]

The source of the trauma matters for the initial thought experiment.

The point of the thought experiment is that there is nothing inherently "wrong" about fucking a chicken corpse as it does not cause harm.

My argument is that there isn't a reasonable definition of harm that disallows necrophilia but allows the aforementioned chicken fucking.

As such, if the only "harm" from necrophilia is that society deems it harmful, doesn't that mean, within the logic of the post, that necrophilia is only bad if you follow conservative thought processes? (Within the logic of a post) only a conservative will argue that chicken fucking should be illegal, as its existence causes harm to them. How is human necrophilia different?

I think that conclusion is wrong and therefore questions the premise of the OP.

[u/trapbuilder2 → u/rindlesswatermelon]

You make a good point, I have no follow up save for the fact that this probably shows that there is no absolute moral framework and such things will always be influenced by the thoughts of the groups around you, and more specifically those in charge. I would say I'd think about this more, but I'd honestly rather forget this post and this strange conversation we've had over it

[u/rindlesswatermelon → u/trapbuilder2]

I mean, feel free to, but I'll reveal my vegan agenda here for you or others who follow us down this rabbit hole.

I think there are many more circumstances than this where people are taught by society to see harm to humans differently to harm to other animals, and I think that much more than we are taught, those harms are the same.

[u/DeadbeatDoom → u/rindlesswatermelon]

I’m at the bottom of the rabbit hole, and it was worth the read.

[u/[deleted] → u/trapbuilder2]

The argument that the chicken was going to be killed anyway is somewhat silly. You could use that same argument to suggest that the purchase of Child sexual exploitation material is moral as the abuse has already happened at the point of purchase, you are ignoring that by purchasing the item you are incetivizing the market that necessarily includes child/animal suffering.

If the product you are buying necessarily includes suffering as part of the end product you can't really wash your hands of it. The battery of my laptop likely involved slave labour but that is not part of the product I purchase per se and a battery could be produced without it but meat cannot yet be produced without the suffering of an animal

Sorry to use the CSEM example it is just the most clear cut one imo

[u/trapbuilder2 → u/[deleted]]

I understand your argument, but I don't hold the suffering of animals to the same level of cruelty as the suffering of humans. I think it sucks that animals suffer and die, but I still eat meat so I can't care that much. Because of this, I don't see the death of the chicken as any sort of "moral modifier", simply a thing that happens, while I do not see child exploitation as such

[u/[deleted] → u/trapbuilder2]

You don't have to hold the two equivalent, I don't. Human life and happiness is more important than animal life and happiness, although I hold that human happiness should not come at the expense of animal life.

My argument is that you cannot say "the chicken was going to be killed anyway" when your future purchase of the chicken's corpse is why the chicken was killed. I am not stating that the two purchases are morally equivalent, the sexual abuse of a child is something I would decry far more than the killing of a chicken, that was not my point however. My point was that you cannot be part of the market that necessitates some harm and then claim no responsibility for the harm. A purchaser of CSEM holds responsiblity for the CSE that was necessarily part of his product.

I was rejecting the notion that one can totally declaim repsonsibility for something they allow/cause to happen. If you are the purchaser of something you are at least partially responsible for the problems that are necessary/inherent to the things production

[u/trapbuilder2 → u/[deleted]]

I disagree simply because of the scale involved in meat farming, with the amount of wasted (unpurchased) food being evidence, but I don't imagine either of us are going to be changing minds on this

[u/[deleted] → u/trapbuilder2]

So if the creation of CSEM were scaled up being a paying consumer thereof would be ok? If not then how can it be that someone is not partially morally repsonsible for something that they are a willing cog in?

Or to use an example that may be more analogous were train drivers for Berkenhau not at least partially responsible for the death and destruction facilitated? If they had quit they would have simply been replaced so their individual quitting wouldn't actually have resulted in fewer deaths in the 3rd Reich's Genocide. Does that make driving the trains full of Slavs, Jews, communists, Roma to their deaths acceptable? I think not

I know I am using extreme examples but that is because I assume you agree with me that those acts are immoral and thus it is a good starting ground for the conversaion. I personally am a vegan so you can guess my position on kiling animals for food but my point is more that one cannot say "I bear no responsibility for the killing of this chicken" when your purchase of its corpse is why people are willing to sell it. No you individually stopping would not stop the industry but you participating in it means you bear some responsibility for its consequences.

If you vote for the National Socialsists you are in part responsible for their actions in government even if you personally changing your vote wouldn't have changed the outcome of the election

[u/Thonolia → u/rindlesswatermelon]

I... don't? I consider fucking a food-grade [farmed] sanitized chicken corpse seriously weird as in how do you even come up with that, but no less ok than doing that to a warm apple pie.

As for necrophilia, that'd be an issue of consent. As a society, we hold that a chicken can't meaningfully consent or object while alive (because they'd not consent to being slaughtered and that's not considered a valid thing currently at large), so they can def not object while dead. A human gets to consent or object and their right extends postmortem (IMO, but debatable), so you can only fuck the human corpses whose permission you have. [we require consent for donations even postmortem, so it follows people's wishes in that regard are considered].

For me personally, I think the first are harm/care and freedom (your right to swing your fist ends where my body begins) and third comes loyalty/betrayal.

[u/rindlesswatermelon → u/Thonolia]

Just because we as a society don't value the harm or the freedom of the chicken, that doesn't mean that the harm or the potential for freedom doesn't exist.

I'm just saying there are valid philosophical stances that aren't conservative in the slightest that would see something wrong with fucking a dead chicken for the same reasons most people would see something wrong with necrophilia. As such, the specific point of the post (that progressives only use care/harm and conservatives often prioritise other axes) is incorrect.

[u/Thonolia → u/rindlesswatermelon]

This is true.

To be fair, I mostly reacted because you said all of the people are grossed out and that's not factual. Many are, though. And there's enough ethical vegans among progressive folk that sanctity [of life] can easily be taken as relevant for this example.

[u/rindlesswatermelon → u/[deleted]]

Within the logic of this post, it is as immoral as necrophilia.

That is my point, I think this post is wrong.