Scrutable

This is an interesting article. Why do many people think shagging an animal is worse than eating one? More generally, how do we separate what disgusts us from what we rationally consider wrong?

Jonathan Haidt, in his book The Righteous Mind, talks about a phenomenon called “moral dumbfounding”. That is: when something is disgusting, and you want to say that it’s immoral, but you can’t think of a reason why it’s immoral. So you end up simply saying it just is. One example he gives is of a man going to the shops and buying an oven-ready chicken. That evening, before cooking it, he has sex with it. Then he cooks it and eats it. Is that immoral?

https://unherd.com/2021/06/why-is-besti ... isgusting/

In terms of the topic of the moral value of f.cking a chicken, I don't disagree with the formulation of the argument per se, but I find it interesting that he focused on f.cking an eviscerated chicken corpse rather than a freshly-killed human corpse. Possibly because that just complicates things too much and he had a word limit.

I'm pretty sure most people would agree that f.cking dead humans is morally wrong (and I'd agree), and probably that's tied in with not entirely philosophically consistent views on things like honouring the dead, the nature of souls, cannibalism, and whether someone who has recently died still has rights (such as a duty on society to treat their body with respect). Each of those points, if accepted, would probably cause further arguments as to whether they apply to non-human animals. I'm a meat-eater, and so I have an instinct to say that they don't apply, because I want to feel good about myself. But that doesn't mean they don't apply. I agree that eating meat (at least, if other nutritionally-complete sources of food are available) does quite possibly fail to meet the same moral standards as honouring dead humans. I'm still going to eat meat, though. No one said I have to be morally consistent.

Overall, the disgust that comes from the idea of f.cking a raw chicken is probably the combining of the disgust of necrophilia and the disgust of bestiality. Each thing is understandably disgusting in its own right, and the two at once don't necessarily cancel each other out.

Necrophilia can severely injure a living human. The distress when a loved one dies would be magnified if you learned their body was abused. Death rituals are all about protecting the living and allowing us to cope with grief.

So very different to a dead chicken.

In a similar way, much of the bestiality taboo comes from protecting other humans. Privacy is imperfect. People don't want to see things that disgust them, so do they have a right to prevent others doing disgusting things? Each society forms certain bounds around what protects the disgusted yet limits the freedoms of tiny minorities.

The idea that it's wrong because animals can't consent is interesting. If a man were shagging a large animal - cow, horse, elephant - would the animal even notice? The greater risk is to the man, of being kicked, gored, bitten etc.

There's the old story of Catherine the Great having sex with a horse which is now generally considered to be propaganda by her opponents. Logistically, it's harder (and riskier) for women but there are far more jokes about men shagging animals than women (eg the Welsh being sheep shaggers), which says something about gender-based attitudes towards sex.

On a more general note, the 'I don't like it therefore it's wrong' approach to morality is pretty common. It's a view taken by many children who haven't learnt the difference between subjective and objective opinions - and one that persists into adulthood for many. My parents thought many things were disgusting and morally wrong (eg tattoos, piercings, women getting drunk) for no good reason they could justify.

Disgust has some survival value (keeping us away from vomit, for example) but cultural disgust, as the article says, is shifting and often indefensible although none the less entrenched and hard to challenge. One example I remember from a talk about disgust is: would you lick a toilet bowl that had never been used? Most people say no. Or, more complex, would you wear a serial killer's jumper? Are they disgusting or are they morally repugnant acts?

lpm - I'm not convinced that bestiality taboos are about protecting other humans. It's more likely some religiously-inspired taboo based on not mixing species, cleanness and uncleanness etc.

Religion/deep history doesn't really illuminate anything. Plenty of religions have torture and killing of animal at their very heart, imagining magical outcomes from animal sacrifices etc.

I suspect it's more that religious leaders really love telling people what to do. Proscriptions come from bossiness first and foremost, with post hoc explanations about uncleanness etc coming later as a fig leaf. Isn't the biblical rules on bestiality just one part of the endless prohibitions in Leviticus? Why waste a chance to ban something you personally find disgusting?

In any case my wording was poor and I was more intending to argue that bestiality taboos should be about protecting other humans. Vegetarians can make different arguments, but as an animal killer and eater I struggle to come up with any arguments via protecting animals.

The author is making the old point that there isn't a source for human morality beyond what we think is right or wrong.

Certainly those thoughts are often based upon emotions like disgust. However, disgust itself is fickle and isn't a good guide to what is and isn't moral. Somethings are consistently provoke disgust over space and time, like infanticide. But things that would have disgusted my late grandfather - eg gay sex or Catholic worship - are no longer considered disgusting, and indeed, these days homophobia or religious bigotry are themselves treated with disgust by some.

Tessa K wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 12:34 pm

The idea that it's wrong because animals can't consent is interesting. If a man were shagging a large animal - cow, horse, elephant - would the animal even notice? The greater risk is to the man, of being kicked, gored, bitten etc.

There's the old story of Catherine the Great having sex with a horse which is now generally considered to be propaganda by her opponents. Logistically, it's harder (and riskier) for women but there are far more jokes about men shagging animals than women (eg the Welsh being sheep shaggers), which says something about gender-based attitudes towards sex.

I think that the consent argument is spurious. Aside from killing and eating them, we do all sorts of things to animals without their consent. Even when an animal looks contented, in the great majority of cases its been trained to be that way.

Woodchopper wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 1:05 pm

Tessa K wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 12:34 pm

The idea that it's wrong because animals can't consent is interesting. If a man were shagging a large animal - cow, horse, elephant - would the animal even notice? The greater risk is to the man, of being kicked, gored, bitten etc.

There's the old story of Catherine the Great having sex with a horse which is now generally considered to be propaganda by her opponents. Logistically, it's harder (and riskier) for women but there are far more jokes about men shagging animals than women (eg the Welsh being sheep shaggers), which says something about gender-based attitudes towards sex.

I think that the consent argument is spurious. Aside from killing and eating them, we do all sorts of things to animals without their consent. Even when an animal looks contented, in the great majority of cases its been trained to be that way.

I agree (probably). Consent is transferring human moral structures onto animals. We don't ask consent to put them in zoos, experiment on them, breed them or even to photograph them shagging. I don't imagine putting a ferret down your trousers is very pleasant for the ferret, either.

Having read the piece, which wasn't easy given it had a giant "subscribe" banner across the middle of the article for the first few paragraphs, it feels like bestiality is just the clickbait to get people to read it and then doesn't really have anywhere to go. There's definite moral questions to be asked about our relationship with animals but I don't know that the piece really does that, at least not in a way that has engaged me. It seems to be mostly a rather poor discussion of moral relativism based on some very cursory reading of the subject.

I disagree vehemently that Dawkins's position is "implicit" and that he merely "said the quiet part out loud" when he told a woman that not aborting a foetus with Down's Syndrome would be immoral. Pro-choice does not mean advocating eugenics. And while many women will, and do, choose to abort their baby if diagnosed with disabilities with Down's, those who do are not doing so to be moral, and those who don't are not being immoral, they are responding to their circumstances and understanding of their ability (or not) to cope with a disabled child in our profoundly ableist world. What is immoral is we treat disabled people as a burden who are better off never to be born.

I think this the New Yorker is a much more interesting and thorough piece on disgust.

Woodchopper wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 1:02 pm

The author is making the old point that there isn't a source for human morality beyond what we think is right or wrong.

Certainly those thoughts are often based upon emotions like disgust. However, disgust itself is fickle and isn't a good guide to what is and isn't moral. Somethings are consistently provoke disgust over space and time, like infanticide. But things that would have disgusted my late grandfather - eg gay sex or Catholic worship - are no longer considered disgusting, and indeed, these days homophobia or religious bigotry are themselves treated with disgust by some.

Yes, I think we tend to assume that morality must be underpinned by some consistent logic even if we can't quite work out what it is, when actually we're preloaded by evolution with a whole array of things we instinctively think are right or wrong plus probably a whole lot of cases we learn to categorise with cultural training. A grab bag of guidelines we "just know" are good or bad and which don't necessarily have to be internally consistent. And even the bad stuff isn't one category because some bad things are things you instinctively want not to do while others are things you do want to do but instinctively know you don't let anyone know you're doing it.

Woodchopper wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 1:02 pm

The author is making the old point that there isn't a source for human morality beyond what we think is right or wrong.

Certainly those thoughts are often based upon emotions like disgust. However, disgust itself is fickle and isn't a good guide to what is and isn't moral. Somethings are consistently provoke disgust over space and time, like infanticide. But things that would have disgusted my late grandfather - eg gay sex or Catholic worship - are no longer considered disgusting, and indeed, these days homophobia or religious bigotry are themselves treated with disgust by some.

I think children only feel disgust at a certain stage in their development, suggesting it’s more than just learned behaviour. Babies are cheerfully disgusting all the time. I don’t think it’s necessarily a human trait either: my dog understands disgust, as it only shits outside and would be very distressed if I didn’t let it out for a crap.

Martin Y wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 1:43 pm

Woodchopper wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 1:02 pm

The author is making the old point that there isn't a source for human morality beyond what we think is right or wrong.

Certainly those thoughts are often based upon emotions like disgust. However, disgust itself is fickle and isn't a good guide to what is and isn't moral. Somethings are consistently provoke disgust over space and time, like infanticide. But things that would have disgusted my late grandfather - eg gay sex or Catholic worship - are no longer considered disgusting, and indeed, these days homophobia or religious bigotry are themselves treated with disgust by some.

Yes, I think we tend to assume that morality must be underpinned by some consistent logic even if we can't quite work out what it is, when actually we're preloaded by evolution with a whole array of things we instinctively think are right or wrong plus probably a whole lot of cases we learn to categorise with cultural training. A grab bag of guidelines we "just know" are good or bad and which don't necessarily have to be internally consistent. And even the bad stuff isn't one category because some bad things are things you instinctively want not to do while others are things you do want to do but instinctively know you don't let anyone know you're doing it.

Yes, I agree. We also need to be aware that people in the future may be fine with things we currently think are wrong or disgusting, and that they may be disgusted by things which we don't have a problem with now.

plodder wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 1:55 pm

Woodchopper wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 1:02 pm

The author is making the old point that there isn't a source for human morality beyond what we think is right or wrong.

Certainly those thoughts are often based upon emotions like disgust. However, disgust itself is fickle and isn't a good guide to what is and isn't moral. Somethings are consistently provoke disgust over space and time, like infanticide. But things that would have disgusted my late grandfather - eg gay sex or Catholic worship - are no longer considered disgusting, and indeed, these days homophobia or religious bigotry are themselves treated with disgust by some.

I think children only feel disgust at a certain stage in their development, suggesting it’s more than just learned behaviour. Babies are cheerfully disgusting all the time. I don’t think it’s necessarily a human trait either: my dog understands disgust, as it only shits outside and would be very distressed if I didn’t let it out for a crap.

Your dog only wants to crap outside because at a young age humans have conditioned it to be that way. Feral dogs like to eat sh.t.

Fishnut wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 1:36 pm

Having read the piece, which wasn't easy given it had a giant "subscribe" banner across the middle of the article for the first few paragraphs, it feels like bestiality is just the clickbait to get people to read it and then doesn't really have anywhere to go. There's definite moral questions to be asked about our relationship with animals but I don't know that the piece really does that, at least not in a way that has engaged me. It seems to be mostly a rather poor discussion of moral relativism based on some very cursory reading of the subject.

I disagree vehemently that Dawkins's position is "implicit" and that he merely "said the quiet part out loud" when he told a woman that not aborting a foetus with Down's Syndrome would be immoral. Pro-choice does not mean advocating eugenics. And while many women will, and do, choose to abort their baby if diagnosed with disabilities with Down's, those who do are not doing so to be moral, and those who don't are not being immoral, they are responding to their circumstances and understanding of their ability (or not) to cope with a disabled child in our profoundly ableist world. What is immoral is we treat disabled people as a burden who are better off never to be born.

I think this the New Yorker is a much more interesting and thorough piece on disgust.

I agree with you about the Dawkins section of that article. I had to read it twice to make sure I hadn't misunderstood.

There's a cultural bonding element to disgust and moral judgement too, a way of reinforcing the In group and Out group. My traditions and practices are moral/decent/sanctioned by god(s) whereas yours are immoral/disgusting/will send you to hell - and by the way this is my justification for invading your country/wiping you out/forcing you to accept my cultural norms, especially if I can come up with some propaganda about the terrible things you do, like eating babies.

You'd think that we would instinctively avoid possible contaminants but how many times have we seen a parent telling a child not to pick something up off the pavement because it's yucky/dirty? No, don't put that in your mouth... It's different if something smells disgusting to us as the revulsion is instinctive. There's a historical cultural correlation between (visibly) dirty and immoral too.

El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 12:10 pm

In terms of the topic of the moral value of f.cking a chicken, I don't disagree with the formulation of the argument per se, but I find it interesting that he focused on f.cking an eviscerated chicken corpse rather than a freshly-killed human corpse. Possibly because that just complicates things too much and he had a word limit.

Or even compared to a freshly killed animal corpse. I find it very hard to have any concern at all about what people might do, in a private way, with what they get from the fresh meat counter vs any other part of the food store. Yet it's only a short distance from there to the freshly killed carcase.

Wasn't it the case that some Scandi country has/had animal brothels and/or might only recently have banned them? I somehow don't feel like using google to check my vague memory of that coming up in the news a few years ago.

IvanV wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 3:23 pm

Wasn't it the case that some Scandi country has/had animal brothels and/or might only recently have banned them? I somehow don't feel like using google to check my vague memory of that coming up in the news a few years ago.

There was a made up story that Denmark had animal brothels. It is correct that Denmark only brought in legislation banning sex with animals in 2015, but it had previously used animal welfare laws to prosecute people who had sex with animals.
https://euvsdisinfo.eu/no-denmark-is-no ... f-animals/

lpm wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 12:56 pm

I suspect it's more that religious leaders really love telling people what to do. Proscriptions come from bossiness first and foremost, with post hoc explanations about uncleanness etc coming later as a fig leaf. Isn't the biblical rules on bestiality just one part of the endless prohibitions in Leviticus? Why waste a chance to ban something you personally find disgusting?

My understanding of Leviticus is a lot of the sexual taboo stuff was underpinned by a coldly-calculated utilitarian logic that any sexual act not directly connected with procreation within the tribe was to be banned on the basis it was a wasted opportunity to expand the tribe* at a time when being outbred by your rivals presented an existential threat hence gays, animals and w.nking were out but by all means force your daughter to marry her rapist.



*most the rest of the taboos were either concerned with preventing tribal members dying by eating stuff the Ancient Israelites couldn't prepare safely or doing other things liable to kill you or preventing tribal identity be diluted by adopting outsider practices, haircuts etc. and mingling with the Other With circumcision you got both.

John MacAffee (yes that one) wrote:Enough of the "Whale f.cking is non-consensual" b.llsh.t. A Humpback Whale weighs 70,000 pounds, is fifty feet long, can dive more than a quarter mile and can crush ships with a single swipe of its tail. If a human manages to f.ck one, you damn well better believe it's consensual

https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/stat ... 12?lang=en

(For context - kinda - https://decrypt.co/74396/alas-john-mcaf ... ly-knew-ye)

Woodchopper wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 1:57 pm

plodder wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 1:55 pm

I think children only feel disgust at a certain stage in their development, suggesting it’s more than just learned behaviour. Babies are cheerfully disgusting all the time. I don’t think it’s necessarily a human trait either: my dog understands disgust, as it only shits outside and would be very distressed if I didn’t let it out for a crap.

Your dog only wants to crap outside because at a young age humans have conditioned it to be that way. Feral dogs like to eat sh.t.

Here you go, IABMCTT

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4821989/

I think it's pretty obvious that if there's two ways to do something, one of which involves mistreating or killing an animal and the other doesn't, the other one is more morally correct. I don't see why lunch should be any different. But the ethical problems of the livestock industry are from what happens while the animals are alive, the crowded rearing conditions and slaughter processes etc., not what happens to the corpse.

I think the obviousness of this is why so many people get triggered by the mere presence of a vegetarian or vegan in their company.

Shagging an animal engenders disgust because of how people think about sex - it should be between consenting adult humans, yes, but people also find it disgusting when unattractive people have sex. A dead chicken is just an extreme version of Matt Hancock in that regard.

I suppose there's also an argument around food waste - it's immoral to shag a chicken if you don't eat it afterwards. But seeing as, for most people (at least in wealthier societies), eating meat is mainly a recreational activity rather than a nutritional necessity, I don't see why eating it for fun is any better than shagging it for fun. Just make sure you enjoy yourself. And of course if people were really opposed to food waste they'd also object to the diversion of huge quantities of human-edible food to livestock in the first place.

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 30, 2021 7:20 am

I think it's pretty obvious that if there's two ways to do something, one of which involves mistreating or killing an animal and the other doesn't, the other one is more morally correct. I don't see why lunch should be any different. But the ethical problems of the livestock industry are from what happens while the animals are alive, the crowded rearing conditions and slaughter processes etc., not what happens to the corpse.

I think the obviousness of this is why so many people get triggered by the mere presence of a vegetarian or vegan in their company.

I suppose there's also an argument around food waste - it's immoral to shag a chicken if you don't eat it afterwards. But seeing as, for most people (at least in wealthier societies), eating meat is mainly a recreational activity rather than a nutritional necessity, I don't see why eating it for fun is any better than shagging it for fun. Just make sure you enjoy yourself. And of course if people were really opposed to food waste they'd also object to the diversion of huge quantities of human-edible food to livestock in the first place.

These are consequentialist arguments. But most people don't base their morals on consequentialism, or at least not consequentialism alone. To take the example in the OP of someone shagging a chicken carcass, the revulsion people feel has nothing to do with animal welfare (as the chicken is already dead). That example is clearly a case of deontological morals - ie that an action is wrong regardless of the consequences of the action. Which is what you're arguing here:

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 30, 2021 7:20 am

Shagging an animal engenders disgust because of how people think about sex - it should be between consenting adult humans, yes, but people also find it disgusting when unattractive people have sex. A dead chicken is just an extreme version of Matt Hancock in that regard.

Though I disagree with your Hancock example.

almost all species don’t f.ck other species. disgust is considered to be (at its root) innate in humans - see my link above. Our tolerance to disgust has a learned component but the sensation itself is not. It may be possible to train out feelings of disgust but these are extreme circumstances (ie training abbatoir workers etc)

plodder wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 10:47 pm

Woodchopper wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 1:57 pm

plodder wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 1:55 pm

I think children only feel disgust at a certain stage in their development, suggesting it’s more than just learned behaviour. Babies are cheerfully disgusting all the time. I don’t think it’s necessarily a human trait either: my dog understands disgust, as it only shits outside and would be very distressed if I didn’t let it out for a crap.

Your dog only wants to crap outside because at a young age humans have conditioned it to be that way. Feral dogs like to eat sh.t.

Here you go, IABMCTT

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4821989/

Does that actually show its innate though? Children learn from adults from a very early age.

plodder wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 30, 2021 8:04 am

almost all species don’t f.ck other species. disgust is considered to be (at its root) innate in humans - see my link above. Our tolerance to disgust has a learned component but the sensation itself is not. It may be possible to train out feelings of disgust but these are extreme circumstances (ie training abbatoir workers etc)

You have clearly never experienced a dog humping your leg.

plodder wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 30, 2021 8:04 am

almost all species don’t f.ck other species. disgust is considered to be (at its root) innate in humans - see my link above. Our tolerance to disgust has a learned component but the sensation itself is not. It may be possible to train out feelings of disgust but these are extreme circumstances (ie training abbatoir workers etc)

That's because other species have sex only at certain times when females are fertile in order to reproduce. Humans - and bonobos - are the exception of recreational sex. In our case this partly derives from the fact that ovulation is concealed. So in this instance comparing us with other animals isn't valid.

There's a Playboy article on the best food to have sex with, which doesn't include meat (I didn't want to delve too far into Google on this one). I suspect this would raise eyebrows and cause a certain amount of disgust but a much lower level than meat-based sex. The lesson here is that some men will stick it in anything.

https://www.playboy.com/read/best-food-for-sex

There are links to women using cucumbers but I didn't want to go there as they were mostly p.rn sites.