Is incest wrong?

Incest: Would you be able to have sex with your father comfortably? If both agree, then it's fine with me it's your choice, but I wouldn't do that. If a society embraces things like murder and stealing, then it wouldn't be wrong. This is something philosophical, what's wrong and what's right? When you really think about those words, they stop making sense. How can you call something wrong and something else right? It's society that makes us accept things. Maybe 1000 years from now, eating meat will be a felony. Time just changes everything. People grow wiser.

The incest taboo is mostly cultural/social. There have been cultures, such as among the Egyptian royal family, where incest was encouraged, so as to keep the blood line pure.

Some small isolated groups of people (isolated either by geography or choice, such as certain religious groups) do have a certain amount of inbreeding by necessity. Really the only concern with inbreeding is that if there is a disease or other anomoly carried on a recessive gene, it will tend to get concentrated if it expresses itself only after the age of reproductive capability. The really bad genes are fatal before the person has a chance to reproduce and pass them on to the next generation, so they tend to fade away after a few generations. In theory...if there are no bad recessive genes, there is no intrinsic harm with siblings or parents and children procreating.

The incest taboo likely arose because of genetic accidents by too close inbreeding. On the other hand, we use inbreeding in animals all the time to bring out desirable traits. That is how they turned cows into milk factories, and the wolf into Yorkies and Great Danes.

In other cultures at other times, incest is not immoral, in our culture and time it is.

ok, i understand this question is rather previous, yet I had to point something out. i do no longer understand the way people do no longer see this. wholesome kinfolk dynamics are an important section in ones progression,psychological well-being, habit, character and help structures. once you throw in intercourse, that thoroughly adjustments issues and can be risky on your psyche. issues can get extraordinary, what in case you start to argue and stuff? Sexual charm in the direction of kinfolk can recommend deep seeded psychological complications that have been left unaddressed. i'm no longer non secular or non secular or brining this up as a ethical concern, yet one isn't meant to be with a kinfolk member, evolutionarily and genetically talking, no depend if or no longer they produce offspring or no longer is beside the point. this is not any longer how our brains have been under pressure for desirable kinfolk relatives. And examine this to homosexuality is punctiliously off-based. there's a distinction between a taboo fetish and a violently protested orientation.

Not according to certain religions.

But ethically, it's wrong from a sociological and biological perspective. There will always be a (sociological/psychological) power differential between family members that is disproportionate and therefore there can be no equality in the relationship. One of them will always have undue influence over the other(s). This is considered a coercive relationship, and it's emotionally unhealthy to the people involved.

Also, the result of those unions, depending on the degree of shared genetics, is quite prone to increased health risks.

1) Evolution by natural selection occurs at the genetic level, rather than the species or the individual.

(2) A gene for altruism can be favored by selection if the altruism is primarily directed at other individuals who share the same gene.

(3) Humans feel better when they are happy -- and better is always better than worse.

(4) Humans are happier to love rather than hate or be charitable rather than selfish --because of 2 and 3.

(5) We ought to maximize happiness and minimize suffering --because of 3 and 4.

Basically, incest is not inherently immoral. It may be disgusting to us because of our culture, but this doesn't make it wrong. It's often linked to various types of abuse so in those (frequent) cases, it is immoral. Murder is immoral by definition.

Yes and no. It wasn't wrong when Cain, Seth, Adam, and Eve were around, because there was no one else, but now there are tons of people and spawning off with your siblings is disgusting and no longer accepted. Murder, stealing, and child molestation have always been wrong...no dogma. Just common sense.

Yes it is wrong. I don't care how long it has been happening. People have been killing each other since the begining of mankind, still doesn't make it right.

edited to add: Royal families used marry family members because they thought it kept the bloodline pure.

Yes. The risk of birth defects and deformities substantially rise when an incestuous couple produces a child.

The consequences upon the affected individual are horrible, regardless of the society.

It's called the collective unconscious. And from that we derive our innate and inborn ideas of right and wrong, I believe.