There is nothing wrong with incestuous relationships

Thanks Pro. Social Acceptance Let me see if I can pull this argument back on track. Because in either case Pro's argument regarding Japanese pornography is a non-sequitur to the resolution. Pornography serves only a limited purpose, which is principally for entertainment. There are many things that also fall in this specific category of entertainment which we would strongly regard as socially unacceptable (such as besiality, paedophilia, as well as molestation/rape). Moreover the broader take on entertainment (such as the filming industry), also encompasses virtually every socially unacceptable act we can imagine, sadomasichism, murder, torture, etc. Therefore, from my previous arguments, and the above reasoning, it is clear that what people want to watch, or be entertained by, is not in alignment with what is perceived as socially acceptable. It simply does not support Pro's argument that there is nothing wrong with incest. Nor do I see how it could be made to show as much. For this argument to work Pro needs to show how the social demand for incestual porn equates to it being a socially acceptable act. I could make the exact opposite argument, in that such material may well be of interest precisely because it is currently seen as socially taboo, with a similar level of support (I.e. Very little). I am not sure if Pro's attack on my typo of incest (c.f. 'Nicest') was made as a joke or a serious point, but in either case are irrelevant and out of place in this debate. Even if his argument that the fact that cousin relationships are now being seen are socially acceptable depicts a trend are true, it doesn't get him to what the resolution states 'There is nothing wrong with incest'. It doesn't matter what the influences for such statutes originally were, he would have to demonstrate that all forms of incest (as perceived today) should be seen in the same light as cousin relationships in order to make progress on his resolution. As it stands, incest is not seen as socially acceptable in the vast majority of societies, and this if public perception were supposed to be the measure of what is right or wrong, then this simple fact is enough to negate the resolution. Incest is wrong because society generally perceives it as wrong (as subjective and weak this argument might be). II. Child Abuse: My argument against incest from the perspective of child abuse is not as Pro depicts. I will quickly grant that child abuse can occur within any relationship, but my argument was that by having incest as a socially and legally acceptable action, it would 'mask' acts of genuine child abuse, from which over 90% occur by someone that the child knew [1] Therefore, by having incest as unacceptable, the scope for 'getting away with' these actions, and by promoting a mentality that automatically taboos such actions from the mind sets of parents/uncles/aunties guys, would indirectly protect vulnerable child populations. Pro seems to be pushing an efilism reducio argument (if more incest then less children, if less children then less child abuse), however for this to work he needs to be able to address the coupled factors. Which is the moral acceptability of a reduced population size (from having less children), since society as it stands today generally values human life (and thus forms a counter-counter argument). III. Family unit: Pro's only response to this argument seems to be that if we I accept my line of reasoning then we ought to be preventing the examples he listed. Well first one needs to apply Hitchen's razor to these claims, since they were unsupported, and do not consider the balance of other issues that may be involved with these. The second point is.... so what? It may well be true that we ought to prevent some of those actions listed. It has no bearing on this debate if they do, and might make for another interesting topic, it's akin to stating you should be allowed to murder because otherwise if we weren't allowed to murder we wouldn't also be allowed to rape pillage and steal. The argument is just besides the point. IV. Conclusion Pro's reasons for supporting the resolution I have shown to be either non-sequiturs, or weak for reasons as described. There are a number of things that are indeed wrong with incest, for which most responses have been branches of an appeal to the consequences, where the concequences don't even appear severe enough to be compelling. Therefore I pass this debate back to Pro for the last round! V. References 1. http://www.nspcc.org.uk...