The cannibalism post is very funny & id love if it went viral so left Twitter got all mad about it—idk it it’s a joke or not—but what I did notice is that, among all the critical replies that take it seriously, not one of them doesn’t also apply to the eating of non human animals

As a side note, studying anthropology & cultural psychology is fun bc you learn that more or less every society has taboos on the following subjects—murder, incest, cannibalism, sexual assault, kinship, sexuality,the sacred—BUT what they define as those things varies considerably

When it comes to what people define as those things, they express deep disgust at their violation, and they come off as an obvious natural fact, but it doesn’t change that, for example, some societies don’t consider it cannibalism or murder if the death was otherwise ‘just’

For example, cousin marriage is considered incest for most people in the world today—altho its still 10-20% of marriages—but marriages between first or second cousins are the most common in history—a great lesson in how fast moral standards change.

There’s also a large debate about anthropology, innateness, etc surrounding these taboos. The universality of the incest taboo is often taken as proof of its innateness, the argument being that in family pairs produce higher rates of genetic issues.

But this,while true, doesn’t account for the massive, wide & specific variation in the taboo across history & culture. Nor does it adequately explain the high prevalence of cousin marriage I mentioned above who still have 50% to twice the rate of issues albeit still only 2% or so

The anthropological account from Levi Strauss is that the incest taboo supports exogamy, and the creation of a society. Godelier in his wide study of cultures, argues, in addition, some kinds of sexual taboos are foundational to stable moral & social relstionsof other kinds.

A piece of evidence that can be used to support either account is the fact that children raised together before puberty, across cultures, & regardless if they’re genetically related or not (adopted, friends, etc), develop a mutual aversion, & don’t if they aren’t.

That this occurs in development & across cultures, suggests the innateness account. That it affects regardless of relation, & is subject to the cultural definitions of incest, supports the anthropological account.

At this point the genetics defenders usually punt to the phenomena of GSA—don’t look it up, lol—where genetically related people, reared apart who don’t know they’re related, are sexually attracted to each other at very high rates, but become disgusted when made aware.

This, they suggest, means that the incest taboo exists bc of the nature of selfish genes—from a selfish genes point of view, children with relatives are ideal—so the taboo exists to prevent that. This is also used to explain the cousin marriage fact, as it balances the two.

Of course, that the above is still inflected deeply by culturals norms in all the cases, that the preferred kind of cousin marriages depends on the patrilineal or matrilineal form, & that taboos apply to one’s ‘house’ regardless of co rearing, in most cultures is also relevant.

All of this suggests it is over determined, that the genetic, biological, innate & evolutionary account explains its commonality, development & disgust reaction. The social, structural & cultural account explains everything else.

Now, for murder, cannibalism, child sacrifice,slavery, sexual assault, & so on, the genetic/selection account would seem more foolproof, except given how many violations there are to this in history, given their incidence. The genetic account is then given to explain the converse

The problem is that the above are definitely not adaptive for ‘the group’ or ‘the species’, & not for an individual or its genes within a family/clan, but that arguments for their individual genetic adaptiveness are given, often absurd & offensive just so stories given.

They are also, therefore, similarly culturally & biologically over determined. Consider one place this applies—pets. Pets of families are coded as (human) members of the family & people feel all the taboos strongest against them.

This is why in cultures where dogs & cats as pets are common, the idea of killing, let alone eating them, provoked immense disgust, while for most people the same isn’t true of pigs. But for people who have pigs as pets, it does elicit this reaction.

That in-group/out-group framings exist, are very powerful, & change, is well known. This ends up meditating these differences. Once defined as in group the taboos apply & moral aversions set it. Define as out group & the opposite occurs.

The definition of in group & outgroup is both situationally & culturally determined. Some, like for already defined kin, or communities, or locales, or identities, are easier to elicit & harder to break. But even these can be broken thru arbitrary contingent redefinitions.

So, for example, a common experience in the study of genocide is that people will consider each other kinsmen & brothers, but then get recoded as foreigners, afterward they deny they’d ever defined them as such, even when its well documented they did as such.

This is why socially pre defined srelations—siblings, ‘family’, kin, community, locale, identity, political group, country, ‘race’—Are easier to code as in group, harder to record as outgroup, BUT it’s still nonetheless possible to do so.

All of this shows how the distinctions between nature/nurture, innate/acquired, culture/biology, psychology/society, development/evolution, genetic/environmental, are totally fraught—there isn’t one case that isn’t always all of the above.

This is more or less the most common admission & position in biology, psychology, the social sciences & to an extent anthropology, today, but it doesn’t stop these categories from unconsciously structuring our analyses, or their use in broader media & political discourse.

Back to the top, nearly every society has some taboos on killing, on food, on sexuality, on kinship, and on animals & nature, but these widely & wildly vary.

Among people & cultures morally averse to eating non human animals, the same taboos & disgust is invoked among them, that for others is evoked by the prospect of human cannibalism (something omnivores should keep in mind when they laugh at vegetarians knee jerk aversion)

Another key point, that i probably should have stated st the beginning, but which I hope would be obvious, is that the cultural/historical variability & posited Biology/innateness has very little to do with what normative arguments we muster against these things

That murder or cannibalism or incest occurs across history & cultures, & is defined differently across them, isn’t a basis for concluding its morality & ethics, either for or against, because we have independent reasons against them, usually.

What these cultural & biological & other accounts do, is show why these taboos affect us so intensely, why disgust is linked to morality, and why we are so bad at applying our moral categories symmetrically, consistently, & non hypocritically.

That all the arguments that are used against cannibalism also apply to non human animals—but only one evokes moral disgust for most in the culture, highlights how the taboos operate in our society, as well as our implicit assumptions about the worth & kinship of humans vs animals

Because of the highly emotionally laden nature of this topic & people’s tendency to lack of charity, I suspect this thread will be wildly misquoted & will provoke anger in people—but ultimately the lesson is ‘learning about variations in moral disgust helps clarify our own’

discussing the cultural, historical, psychological & biological basis & variation of morality often provokes anger in a lot of people—they feel something innate & important is being challenged by it being shown to be culturally/historically contingent and/or potentially innate

This ultimately stems from the very features of morality itself, which wouldn’t work very well if we didn’t have immense disgust reactions to them.

That said, my main metric for actions is harm & suffering—harm & suffering are bad, and we should avoid causing them, & stop them where we can—i Also think some procedural & deontological rules are valid, but above those I’m basically a utilitarian.

But I’m also something of a cultural, historical, & moral relativist, inasmuch as I do not think we can take universality or agreement or coercion for granted, & all moral & ethical discussions work to translate across these boundaries.

The superficial strawmen positions are the liberal universalist moralist interventionist, on the one hand, who sees the obviousness of their morality as given, & supports the right to condemn, & take action against those that violate it.

The other superficial extreme is the radical cultural relativist, who says anything is alright as long as it is defined as such in that different culture—usually marshaled to defend things like hierarchy or FGM, or w/e, but rarely to defend cannibalism or something lol

Eschewing both these positions, I believe we have the right to pronounce moral, ethical, aesthetic & political actions across history & culture, IF we can build a viable dialectical conceptual, social, & genealogical bridge framework across translation.

I, however,as an anti-retributivist, and an anti-moralist (Which is different than being against morality or ethics as such),do not think that said cross bridge translations even if they allow me judgment & even condemnation,license intervention, punishment, revenge or domination

I, however, do think that people being made aware of the situational, cultural, social & historical basis & variation in their beliefs & the potential, non rational, biopsychosocial basis for their moral disgust, is very important, as it fosters empathy, reflection & symmetry.

All in all, I wish more people would either apply their stated concepts more reflectively, reflexively, symmetrically, consistently & patiently, or, at the very least, acknowledge the violation of the above & proffer a valid reason for it.

This is why I find axiomatic retributivists much less annoying than those who claim to be leftists or progressives or even liberals, who dress up their retribution in anything but—rehab, deterrence, incapacitation, victims rights etc—Even where these reasons break down.

My experience arguing & discussing with people on the above issues, and also on prison/penal/carceral/retribution abolition, & restorative justice, has shown how fervently people will resist disproof of key arguments (deterrence etc) while equally fervently denying retributivism

Axiomatic retributivists—those based in a specific theological interpretation of Jewish, Christian Or Muslim law (mostly Protestants lol), or right wingers like novelist James Ellroy or philosophers like Hegel & Bradley—don’t have this problem

They’ll flip the argument on its head, and will say—we don’t care if it fails to deter, incapacitate or rehabilitate crime or vice, we don’t care even if it *increases* it, we think retribution, revenge & punishment are good & just for their own sake and/or the sake of X

Now, I have arguments as to why I think this shouldn’t be their axiom, and why I think these are wrong—from consequential, social, rational, deontological, procedural & virtue reasons—but if they don’t share these premises, I can’t really convince them.

Therefore, with the axiomatic retributivist, I think they are wrong—indeed, probably some secular version of ‘evil’—but absent agreeing on or changing their framework, They are consistent, symmetric, reflexive, reflective & potetially patient.

Which is to say, we have a fundamental, substantive disagreement, which can’t be adjudicated by reference to the inconsistent, asymmetric, nonreflective, nonreflexive, hidden & unmotivated nature of their beliefs.

In some ways, for all her patent nonsense, this is the genius of Ayn Rand—rather than offer people a justification of capitalism from consequences, utility, religion, most forms of deontology, & most forms of virtue, she claims to have done so axiomatically.

Now, her axioms don’t hold together and her conclusions don’t follow from her axioms, and she surely worked backward to her premises from her support of capitalism, but the efficacy of her writing & pseudophilosophy is that it switches capitalists from defense to offense.

Rather than show people how capitalism is inconsistent with their beliefs & general morality, it forces people to try to change their *minds*, which, given that it will likely fail, convinces the believer of the ‘rationality’ & obviousness of their beliefs.

Inasmuch as we value changing people’s minds—which, for this case, I don’t particularly care to do so—this requires we have to see the world from their point of view, reason like they do, do the work of empathy & translation & inhabit their framework.

For people with dishonest, unthought (or overly thought) & bad faith frameworks, this is very difficult, tiresome, & often ineffective. For those with good faith, well thought, honest frameworks, chances are we change each other minds somewhat