Are taboo's based upon emotions or reason?

C~G said:
Nice post. It's somehow concerning that this comes from a mormon though.
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I am sneaky, a philosophical ninja.

C~G said:
Actually it's been claimed that there's both natural instincts and psychological reasons for incest taboo (brother-sister relationship).
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I guess some studies showed that regardless of cultural views of incest, most people would be less attracted to other individuals based on having witnessed their mother showing care to the other person. Hence one may be adopted to a full sibling separated at birth, but not to a stepsibling.
 
Eran of Arcadia said:
I am sneaky, a philosophical ninja.
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That is Tag material (Sig).
Eran of Arcadia said:
I guess some studies showed that regardless of cultural views of incest, most people would be less attracted to other individuals based on having witnessed their mother showing care to the other person. Hence one may be adopted to a full sibling separated at birth, but not to a stepsibling.
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Exactly.
There's some sort of relation people living certain amount of time in particular age together with inthe situation you presented.

However as we're human beings taboos aren't unbreakable rules. Which is very important notion. Human can overwrite these rules and norms to be able to cope better with different circumstances.
 
Masquerouge said:
Yeah, exactly. (I ninjaed you on the debatable part ;) )
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I saw :(

C~G said:
Actually it's been claimed that there's both natural instincts and psychological reasons for incest taboo (brother-sister relationship).
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Wonder what Adam and Eve's kids did then....

But again, look to the animal kingdom. Often times there's a social structure that keeps inbreeding from happening, but it does happen. A male lion might kill his father and take over the pride. There's nothing that keeps him from mating with his mother, sisters and aunts.

It's also not always bad either.

All cheetahs for example are derived from a very small gene pool from about 50,000 years ago. Lots of inbreeding for the species to not go extinct. As a result, there are very few genetic illnesses around in cheetahs today.
 
C~G said:
Actually it's been claimed that there's both natural instincts and psychological reasons for incest taboo (brother-sister relationship).
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There definitely are physchological/social reasons, and to validate that you simply have to look at how the definition of incest varies in different populations.

Iroquois, for instance, used to marry cross-cousins but frowned on parallel-cousins unions (a cross-cousin is comes from your father's mother or mother's brother, while a parallel cousin comes from your father's brother or your mother's sister).

If it was purely natural instinct then the definition would be the same all across mankind.
 
All taboo's had a reason at some point, but the reasons die and the taboos live on. I've heard the reason some jews won't eat pork is that a long, long time ago they couldn't cook it safely.

The incest taboo is a natural instinct to encourage genetic variation.
 
I say taboos are transmitted because of emotion (and ignorance), but sometimes the emotional response of a taboo prescribes a logical reaction.
 
Drool4Res-pect said:
All taboo's had a reason at some point, but the reasons die and the taboos live on. I've heard the reason some jews won't eat pork is that a long, long time ago they couldn't cook it safely.

The incest taboo is a natural instinct to encourage genetic variation.
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To what extent? Marriage among cousins is said to account for as much as 20% of the world's current marriages. The US is the only western nation with prohibitions on cousins marrying (and then, only 24 states have such a prohibition). All of these laws predate modern genetics.

"Why marry a stranger?" is quite a prevalent thought.

There have been numerous societies that not only tolerated but required siblings to marry for some things. The Inca and (ancient) Egyptians come to mind.
 
augurey said:
To what extent? Marriage among cousins is said to account for as much as 20% of the world's current marriages. The US is the only western nation with prohibitions on cousins marrying (and then, only 24 states have such a prohibition). All of these laws predate modern genetics.
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Source?

augurey said:
"Why marry a stranger?" is quite a prevalent thought.
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I would want to know the person I marry, but that doesn't mean I want to marry my sister.

augurey said:
There have been numerous societies that not only tolerated but required siblings to marry for some things. The Inca and (ancient) Egyptians come to mind.
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Incest was common for royalty, but the royalty made up a small percentage of the population.
 
Probably a little on either side. Perhaps the reason for a taboo on homosexuality is that material would get into crevices and cause infections when diets were poorer or maybe. Or a taboo on pork because people in the old days couldn't get rid of parasites in pig flesh.
 
leonel said:
Probably a little on either side. Perhaps the reason for a taboo on homosexuality is that material would get into crevices and cause infections when diets were poorer or maybe. Or a taboo on pork because people in the old days couldn't get rid of parasites in pig flesh.
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Define material. Please.
 
Drool4Res-pect said:
All taboo's had a reason at some point, but the reasons die and the taboos live on. I've heard the reason some jews won't eat pork is that a long, long time ago they couldn't cook it safely.
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Yes I agree with this. Taboos may be based on some reasoning, but it's sad that people forget the reasoning, and stick to the emotional response even when the reasoning no longer applies.

Incest is a good example - there's the issue of genetic variation, but people don't have the same intolerance against people passing on genetic diseases otherwise, also it doesn't explain why people have intolerance against incest which doesn't produce children (either other forms of sex, or same-sex partners).

Sex in general is another example, namely that sex should only be for procreation. Presumably because for much of history, sex meant children, so this was to avoid unwanted children, but even now, sex for pleasure is often seen as a taboo, and something that's not seen as a right (e.g., it's easy to pass laws against sexual acts, people just respond "Why should perverts have a right to do X").
 
As far as I'm aware, Indian taboos start out with reason, and emotion ends up being attached to them.

For instance, the original reason why you ate with your dominant hand, and wiped your arse with your other, was because of simple cleanliness.

The reason you did not eat beef was because the cow, like the mother, provided milk, and the same way that it would be horrible to kill you mother, similarly, compassion compels us not to kill the cow. In fact, the injunctions are that people should try their utmost to avoid meat of all kinds.
 
Right, and I will be the first to say that humans do not always act according to "reason"; some of our greatest accomplishments are a result of this. I think a lot of taboos do not in fact have clearly reasonable origins (how was eating pork any more unhealthy for the Jews than their neighbors?) and I think the Hindu cow one is an example; nonetheless, even if it is not a reasoned response, it is still a part of human nature.
 
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