MORALITY, SEXUALITY, INCEST AND GENETIC MAKEUP TOO

Just some interesting reading. Click the link and read on.... Or you can take a day off from reading and wait for my next blog entry.

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Does morality have a biological basis? An empirical test of the factors governing moral sentiments relating to incest by D Lieberman, J Tooby and L Cosmides.

Are our moral attitudes shaped by culture alone, or does our evolved psychology help generate them? Due to the deleterious effects of inbreeding, many non-human animals have mechanisms that enable individuals to identify their close genetic relatives and avoid having sex with them. Results reported here support the evolutionary psychological claims that the human mind has mechanisms designed to (1) identify potential siblings in the social environment, and (2) inhibit sexual desire toward them—an outcome that also shapes moral judgments relating to sibling incest. Non-conscious mechanisms assess kinship based on how long two individuals co-resided from infancy through adolescence. The longer individuals lived with opposite sex siblings during childhood, the greater their moral opposition to third-party incest as adults. These results undermine (1) the claim that moral sentiments are solely a reflection of ambient cultural norms and, (2) Freud’s claim that moral opposition to incest originates in incestuous desires toward parents.

Read the full text at this link.
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“Democracy will not be salvaged by men who talk fluently, debate forcefully, and quote aptly.” —Lancelot Hogben [What!? The pen is not mightier than the sword. Well? Is it?]