According to Westermarck’s widely accepted explanation of the incest taboo, cultural prohibitions on sibling sex are rooted in an evolved biological disposition to feel sexual aversion toward our childhood coresidents. Bernard Williams posed the “representation problem” for Westermarck’s theory: the content of the hypothesized instinct is different from the content of the incest taboo —thus the former cannot be causally responsible for the latter. Arthur Wolf posed the related “moralization problem”: the instinct concerns personal behavior whereas the prohibition concerns everyone. (...) This paper reviews possible ways of defending Westermarck’s theory from the representation and moralization problems, and concludes that the theory is untenable. A recent study purports to support Westermarck’s account by showing that unrelated children raised in the same peer groups on kibbutzim feel sexual aversion toward each other and morally oppose third-party intra-peer-group sex, but this study has been misinterpreted. I argue that the representation and moralization problems are general problems that could potentially undermine many popular evolutionary explanations of social/moral norms. The cultural evolution of morality is not tightly constrained by our biological endowment in the way some philosophers and evolutionary psychologists believe. (shrink)

The Maccabean Lecture by the most outspoken prestigious opponent of the Wolfenden reform proposal. Answered by Stuart Hampshire, A.J. Ayer, et al.--Jim Kepner.

In this article I challenge two common arguments against incest: the genetics argument (that incest is immoral because it might lead to the conception of a genetically deformed child), and the family argument (that incest is immoral because it undermines the family, the emotional center for the individual). These arguments, I contend, commit us to condemning not only incest, but also a wide range ofbehaviors that we currently permit. I thus present the reader with a dilemma: on pain of inconsistency, (...) we must either accept certain forms of incest in order to maintain these other moral judgments, or reject these judgments in order to maintain our condemnation ofincest. The reader is free to decide which alternative is preferable, but I suggest that the former is a much less radical shift in our moral system as a whole. (shrink)

Reproduction of the original: The Task of Social Hygiene by Havelock Ellis.

Winner of British Sociological Association Philip Abrams Memorial Prize 1993. Examines the taboo of incest from historical and sociological perspectives. Raises important questions on the criminalization of incest.

Recent years have seen the reemergence of libertarian thought as a significant force, both in the academy and in political life. As libertarian ideas have gained in prominence, so has the need for a standard reference work. Accordingly, this project has been initiated to serve as a useful introduction to and compendium of libertarian scholarship via a series of brief articles on the historical, sociological, and economic aspects of libertarianism within the broader context. As a continuation of the older tradition (...) of classical liberalism, libertarian thinking draws on a rich body of thought and scholarship. Contemporary libertarian scholars are continuing that tradition by making substantial contributions to such fields as philosophy, jurisprudence, economics, evolutionary psychology, political theory, and history. Notably, a number of economists who profess classical liberal or libertarian views have received the Nobel Prize in recent years, such as Vernon Smith. Robert Nozick's book Anarchy, State, & Utopia sparked a tremendous debate among philosophers and has influenced moral and political theory. Evolutionary psychology has emerged as a new forum for the study of human nature, and much of that work has been pioneered by libertarian-leaning thinkers. Ronald Coase, Richard Posner, Richard Epstein, and others have revitalized the study of jurisprudence by focusing attention on incentives and on such grown institutions as property and common-law rules. Libertarians also have been active in political life, especially since the collapse of the communist states, which focused attention on problems of the formation and evolution of rights and legal institutions. The works of libertarian thinkers such as F. A. Hayek, Ayn Rand, and Milton Friedman are now available in dozens of languages, much as the works of Marx and Lenin were decades ago. Within the entries contained in this encyclopedia, readers will find overviews of all this and more. (shrink)