Is sexual relationship between two consenting adult siblings ethically okay
I think it’s probably like drunk driving—most of the times it doesn’t result in anything bad, but there’s a non-negligible chance of outcomes so bad that the expected value still comes out negative.
should it be legal?
I haven’t given much thought to that, but for some reason your proposed solution of “legal unless you have offspring” sounds more reasonable to my System 1 than the analogous “legal unless you have a crash” in the case of drunk driving.
Or maybe a better analogy would be any driving = any sex between siblings, drunk driving = sex between siblings without contraception? Then again, a law against sex between siblings without contraception doesn’t sound easy to enforce to me.
Enforcing it then would mean castrating at least one of them when they appeal to the authorities for a marriage certificate or something. Doesn’t seem a viable solution.
I think it’s probably like drunk driving—most of the times it doesn’t result in anything bad, but there’s a non-negligible chance of outcomes so bad that the expected value still comes out negative.
Or like drunk driving on your own property, where there is no other traffic nor pedestrians, and you are alone in your car (well, ok, you are in the car with another person, but s/he is drunk as well, knows you are drunk, knows the risks of drunk driving and half of the time replaces you behind the wheel). Should it be illegal? (assuming there are no (health) insurance issues if you crash&injure yourself)
Well, in that case you two cannot affect anyone else but yourselves, whereas in the incest case… Hm, does creating a new person count as affecting them? That’s probably model-dependent… Hm...
Epistemic status: anally extracted
I think it’s probably like drunk driving—most of the times it doesn’t result in anything bad, but there’s a non-negligible chance of outcomes so bad that the expected value still comes out negative.
I haven’t given much thought to that, but for some reason your proposed solution of “legal unless you have offspring” sounds more reasonable to my System 1 than the analogous “legal unless you have a crash” in the case of drunk driving.
Or maybe a better analogy would be any driving = any sex between siblings, drunk driving = sex between siblings without contraception? Then again, a law against sex between siblings without contraception doesn’t sound easy to enforce to me.
Enforcing it then would mean castrating at least one of them when they appeal to the authorities for a marriage certificate or something. Doesn’t seem a viable solution.
Or like drunk driving on your own property, where there is no other traffic nor pedestrians, and you are alone in your car (well, ok, you are in the car with another person, but s/he is drunk as well, knows you are drunk, knows the risks of drunk driving and half of the time replaces you behind the wheel). Should it be illegal? (assuming there are no (health) insurance issues if you crash&injure yourself)
Well, in that case you two cannot affect anyone else but yourselves, whereas in the incest case… Hm, does creating a new person count as affecting them? That’s probably model-dependent… Hm...