I believe there is harm done by the third, because I value the existence of natural beauty even when I can’t see it, and there are other problems with destroying unpopulated places as well. I have only a minor problem with the fourth. If it is known that the graves of people with no surviving relatives are often desecrated, this may make currently-alive people sad about their or their loved ones’ graves being desecrated later. If nobody knows about the desecration, it’s probably okay (excepting TDT-style concerns about people predicting future desecration from others’ moral opinions).
I suppose it depends on what precisely is meant by “destruction”—there’s been mention downthread of nuking the moon, which… I could see the argument that it would add value without harming anything worthwhile.
And I get how desecrating graves could make people unhappy about the prospects of their own remains. I was asking because I don’t quite see how necrophilia could be okay while corpse-desecration is not—one seems to require the other.
Oh, I see now. I was compartmentalizing pretty heavily there, wasn’t I? I think I know why: the hypothetical situation I was imagining for necrophilia was on a desert island, (probably borrowed from the default one for cannibalism). The hypothetical for grave-desecration was spray-painting a gravestone in a local cemetery. People are less likely to find out in the former, so I never took those considerations into account.
Yes, in situations where grave-desecrating in general is not okay, necrophilia isn’t either. I still think both are mostly okay if nobody finds out, and my saying this shouldn’t make anyone sad as I have no desire to do either.
I believe there is harm done by the third, because I value the existence of natural beauty even when I can’t see it, and there are other problems with destroying unpopulated places as well. I have only a minor problem with the fourth. If it is known that the graves of people with no surviving relatives are often desecrated, this may make currently-alive people sad about their or their loved ones’ graves being desecrated later. If nobody knows about the desecration, it’s probably okay (excepting TDT-style concerns about people predicting future desecration from others’ moral opinions).
I suppose it depends on what precisely is meant by “destruction”—there’s been mention downthread of nuking the moon, which… I could see the argument that it would add value without harming anything worthwhile.
And I get how desecrating graves could make people unhappy about the prospects of their own remains. I was asking because I don’t quite see how necrophilia could be okay while corpse-desecration is not—one seems to require the other.
Oh, I see now. I was compartmentalizing pretty heavily there, wasn’t I? I think I know why: the hypothetical situation I was imagining for necrophilia was on a desert island, (probably borrowed from the default one for cannibalism). The hypothetical for grave-desecration was spray-painting a gravestone in a local cemetery. People are less likely to find out in the former, so I never took those considerations into account.
Yes, in situations where grave-desecrating in general is not okay, necrophilia isn’t either. I still think both are mostly okay if nobody finds out, and my saying this shouldn’t make anyone sad as I have no desire to do either.