Years ago, during my “watching debates between atheists vs. religious people every day” phase, I remember one video (embedded below) made me very angry. It was a debate between Lawrence Krauss vs Hamza Tzortzis.
At 1:09:20, Hamza Tzortzis asks Krauss why incest is immoral, and Krauss does not give a proper answer. I was angry because back then I too wasn’t able to give a better answer than Krauss.
The basic point that both sides would agree on is that it is immoral to have a baby when a couple is in an incestuous relationship, obviously because the potential baby will probably have genetic disorders. It is very immoral or evil to cause such suffering to that baby. So they MUST use contraception.
Krauss said that “It’s not clear to me that it is wrong.” I also felt that it is not clear back then because, in this case, there is no suffering involved if 1) The relationship is consensual and 2) They are using contraception to avoid any baby with genetic disorders.
Incest is disgusting. Thats why the audience was booing at Krauss. But just because something is disgusting doesn’t mean it is immoral. Eating your own shit is disgusting, but it is not immoral, and you definitely have the right to eat your own shit.
Eating your own shit is disgusting, but it is not immoral, and you definitely have the right to eat your own shit. Consensual incest is similar.
If I see 2 people having an incestuous relationship, I would not like to become friends with them, similar to how I would not like to become friends with someone who daily eats their own shit.
Hamza Tzortzis took Krauss’s inability to properly answer his question as a nice chance to start talking nonsense. Hamza says that atheists cannot have an objective morality. This is a very foolish statement. Within Normative Ethics category of PhilPapers, Deontological Moral Theories are nearly as popular as Consequentialism theories (2,111 vs 2,877 papers as of now). In Deontological Moral Theories, the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules and principles rather than based on the consequences of the action. In such as theory, “Incest is wrong” can be added as a basic tenet. Kantian ethics is the most popular theory among Deontological Moral Theories. Hamza believes in the much inferior Divine Command Theory, which is arguably one of the worst moral theories in existence. I will write a blog post later about whether morality is objective, but that question has nothing to do with the existence of God.
Also, he is deluded if he thinks his morals from Islam are objective. Does he think all Muslims give the same answer when they see the trolley problem? Obviously there is nothing in the Quran or Hadiths etc, that says any rule that can be applied in the context of the trolley problem. So, Muslims have to give a subjective answer based on their intuition for this question. As long as there is a moral rule mentioned in Islamic holy texts that can unambiguously be applied to a problem, then that problem has an objective answer within Islam.
Also, Hamza was trying to say that if someone says morality can be subjective, then that person can not criticize his religion. This is, again, stupid because most people who think morality can be subjective do not think that everything is subjective. For example, they don’t think “killing people randomly for fun” can be right. They only think that in some cases (not all cases), the answer is subjective, like in the case of the trolley problem.
Also, he thinks Islam says incest is wrong. But he probably doesn’t know that incest (in the form of first-cousin marriage) is highly common among Muslims in the Middle East compared to atheists in the West or elsewhere.
Cousin marriage in the Middle East
Also, Muhammad himself was in an incestuous relationship with his first cousin Zaynab bint Jahsh. If that is not already not bad enough, she is also the divorced wife of Zayd ibn Harithah, an ex-slave whom Muhammad had adopted as his son.
Criticism_of_Muhammad#Zaynab_bint_Jahsh
From the above Wikipedia page, “After this verse was announced, Muhammad proceeded to reject the existing Arabic norms on the prohibition to marry the wives of adopted sons, which was considered extremely wrong and incestuous among Arabs.” So, Muhammad literally changed the legality of adoption within Islam just so he could marry a woman who was the wife of his adopted son and also a first cousin to Muhammad. How is this not incest?
Also, incest is not even unique to the religion of Islam among religions. Hindus in south India still practice incestuous marriages in the form of first-cousin marriages.
Christianity is no better. Abraham (the first prophet of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) married his half-sister Sarah. There are many others in the bible who are portrayed as wise or good but have incestuous relationships.
I think incest will be much less common in an atheist society compared to a religious society. Even people who are moderately religious (like Western Christians) have much less probability of doing incest compared to highly religious people (in the Middle East and India).