Perhaps because everyone has sex, ilicitly or legitimately.
Many people do steal other people’s food when they are hungry (and their wallets, and their major electrical appliances etc…) but 6.5 billion people aren’t always hungry without being able to get food. 6.5 billion people are usually horny at some point or another.
Personally, I would kill at least 10 to 50 people a day were it not for that uncomfortable possibility of facing 10 to 25 behind bars.
Nobody said that being unfaithful is ok or is always excusable (based on the urge), instead as urodacus explained it depends on the arrangement with your partner.
But if you talk about murder you are involving a 3rd party, usually against their will - which makes it not okay. And I think it’s hard to excuse murder on grounds of biology anyway (where it’s committed by humans).
I didn’t answer the poll because I don’t have any way to know who does and doesn’t cheat; and in the face of incomplete information I’m loathe to generalize about whole groups of people like that. 
I wouldn’t want anyone to make assumptions about whether I might or might not cheat based on what color passport I’m holding.
[quote=“bismarck”]Personally, I would kill at least 10 to 50 people a day were it not for that uncomfortable possibility of facing 10 to 25 behind bars.[/quote]Bismarck -
I could take out that many just between 1545 & 1630 in traffic when I go to pick up the young cowboy. Attribute it to Darwin…I should get an award or something.
If you didn’t want to vote in the pole and you don’t want to generalize on the subject, why did you feel the need to post in this thread at all?
[quote=“TainanCowboy”][quote=“bismarck”]Personally, I would kill at least 10 to 50 people a day were it not for that uncomfortable possibility of facing 10 to 25 behind bars.[/quote]Bismarck -
I could take out that many just between 1545 & 1630 in traffic when I go to pick up the young cowboy. Attribute it to Darwin…I should get an award or something.[/quote]
Yep, and between 18:30 to 19:00 on a Thursday driving through town… :fume:
Consider it a roundabout criticism of the generalizations occurring in the thread if you like. Besides, the OP said [quote]Feel free to discuss, pick apart what I said, or what have you. [/quote]
So I felt free to post ‘what have you’. 
“But if you talk about murder you are involving a 3rd party, usually against their will”
Same with cheating, hon.
[quote=“urodacus”]psalmanazar: missing the point here.
god did not make the commitment part of your marriage, you did. or if you did not, and there is no commitment made or implied, then you’re not cheating.
responsibility for your own actions lies with you. you can’t shift the responsibility onto some other layer of existence (genes) or nonexistence (God)
infidelity in the presence of an existing commitment to be faithful IS cheating. that’s the whole fucking point. (ha, pun intended)
and if you have an ‘arrangement’ with your spouse that sleeping around is OK, then it’s not cheating. but if you don’t, then obeying your animal urge to fuck around (which is present in all of us to some degree) means that you are little better than an animal, and shows the rest of us that you don’t have control of your urges, in that manner that sets us apart from animals. yes, biologically we are all animals, but the human condition is set apart from animals by the remarkable concepts of consciousness, self-awareness, and reason. this is what allows us to scrutinise our own actions, to direct our desires, and to control our feelings, including the long term ramifications of contracts made in the past.
so, if you wish to listen to the raw animal within, rather than be faithful as promised, you are only doing what is natural to animals of all persuasion. but us humans call it cheating. and even though it matters more to some people than to others, its still cheating. whether you feel guilt or shame about it depends on you and your mores and ethics. but its still cheating.[/quote]
So sorry, I think you missed the point.
In orthodoxical* societies, semantics are in part driven by “correct belief”. So, to some degree the semantics which shape our (Western) perceptions are rooted in our beliefs of “correctness”. The linguist Benjamin Whorf suggested that languages (and the semantic implications of one’s lexical choices) provide habits of thought that influence cognition. So, it doesn’t much matter whether you are actively religious or not, your moral perceptions and the language that you use to express them are loaded with the historical and cultural implications of the words you are using. (So, are you riding the horse or is the horse riding you?)
You yourself immediately responded with the most Judeo-Christian of ideas: the covenant-oath and contract-agreement , which you expressed as “an existing commitment” or a “responsibility”. The idea of “pacta sunt servanda” is deeply embedded in Western Culture, as is the notion, of sexual “infidelity” being immoral and “promise-breaking” and therefore “cheating”.
I feel this Old Testament notion of sexual “infidelity” is at best, a naïve way of looking at human behavior considering the world we have been living in for the last century. It is a patriarchal and oppressive idea that is a vestigial paradigm of an age we no longer live in. Sorry to say, but the notion of “cheating” was probably the creation of men who were worried about their social position and perhaps, to some degree, the legitimacy of their offspring. In another way, the “(sexual) commitment made or implied” seems to have more to do with the sexual exclusivity of one’s spouse as a kind of “property” than it has to do with mutual respect and understanding.
Anyway, good luck with your ideas there. Hope that works out for you.
*As opposed to orthopraxical societies.
[quote=“SuchAFob”]“But if you talk about murder you are involving a 3rd party, usually against their will”
Same with cheating, hon.[/quote]
I meant that you are harming the 3rd party. In case of cheating it’s consensual, and neither you or the 3rd party is harmed.
[quote=“Rascal”][quote=“SuchAFob”]“But if you talk about murder you are involving a 3rd party, usually against their will”
Same with cheating, hon.[/quote]
I meant that you are harming the 3rd party. In case of cheating it’s consensual, and neither you or the 3rd party is harmed.[/quote]
If we are in a relationship I have agreed to risk my health with the diseases that you might be carrying. Not the diseases that the people you have decided to fuck behind my back might be. So yes, the 3rd party (the unknowing SO) is being harmed in that his/her health is being put at risk.
[quote=“psalmanazar”]
So sorry, I think you missed the point.
In orthodoxical* societies, semantics are in part driven by “correct belief”. So, to some degree the semantics which shape our (Western) perceptions are rooted in our beliefs of “correctness”. The linguist Benjamin Whorf suggested that languages (and the semantic implications of one’s lexical choices) provide habits of thought that influence cognition. So, it doesn’t much matter whether you are actively religious or not, your moral perceptions and the language that you use to express them are loaded with the historical and cultural implications of the words you are using. (So, are you riding the horse or is the horse riding you?)
You yourself immediately responded with the most Judeo-Christian of ideas: the covenant-oath and contract-agreement , which you expressed as “an existing commitment” or a “responsibility”. The idea of “pacta sunt servanda” is deeply embedded in Western Culture, as is the notion, of sexual “infidelity” being immoral and “promise-breaking” and therefore “cheating”.
I feel this Old Testament notion of sexual “infidelity” is at best, a naïve way of looking at human behavior considering the world we have been living in for the last century. It is a patriarchal and oppressive idea that is a vestigial paradigm of an age we no longer live in. Sorry to say, but the notion of “cheating” was probably the creation of men who were worried about their social position and perhaps, to some degree, the legitimacy of their offspring. In another way, the “(sexual) commitment made or implied” seems to have more to do with the sexual exclusivity of one’s spouse as a kind of “property” than it has to do with mutual respect and understanding.
*As opposed to orthopraxical societies.[/quote]
wow. a thoughtful reply for a change. am i worthy of such deliberation? i am glad i too had the good fortune to attend philosophy classes at uni.
i am actually aware of the semantic niceties you elaborate on, and am impressed with your skilful marshaling of such concepts and terms as orthopraxy/orthodoxy but the fact remains that as we are pretty much living in a language born of our history (basically Judeo-Christian but also with significant greek and babylonian influences), we are also living in a society with expectations born of that cultural history too. and for most people, the ramifications of such are inescapable. for most people, use of the word ‘spouse’ does seem to me to tacitly require an acceptance of the commonly accepted implications of that word.
i did leave room for those who consciously made the kind of arrangement that avoided the traditional ideas of fidelity bound up in the concept of ‘spouse’. and it is presumptious, and disingenious of you, to suggest that i am doing this from a patriarchial point of view: does not the female half of a marriage have and deserve the same rights and expectations vis-a-vis fidelity and the sole partner raising of children (surely still the main function of marriage)? there are many animals that have the same kind of arrangement of monogamy (monoandry and monogyny) with extensive underlying philandry (both polyandry and polygyny) and in all cases there are benefits to the gene pool of both arrangements co-existing. the situation is the same for humans: otherwise the urge would not be there. but cheating on your spouse is still called cheating IN TODAY’S SOCIETY AND LANGUAGE.
also, do you believe that a contract such as is made at a marriage, (for that is still what occurs in most Western marriages) is free to be broken with impunity? if so i don’t really want to enter into any contract with you, be it for something as personally involving as marriage or as mundane as for supply of turkeys and lemons. and i am an atheist, so the god-implications don’t matter to me one hoot. it is still unethical to me to break a contract, be it a judeo-christian construct or not (and i don’t for one second believe that JCs have a monopoly on the oath-covenant idea). besides, what is wrong with the idea anyway? it has had a good long run, and hasn’t yet been thrown away as it seems to be working fairly well to regulate society. what kind of society do you want in its place: a rule of law as exemplified by the chinese? a theocracy as exemplified by the taleban?
added in edit: i specifically and wholeheartedly disagree with your neo-feminist point of view that a marriage contract is ipso facto a patriarchial instrument, and one that implies any degree of ‘possession’. i happen to believe that it is a mutual understanding and arrangement, perhaps provoked by irrational neuronal biochemical changes, and certainly built within the constraints of existing societal habits, but definitely a two-way street. and to then imply that my wife (definitely not a product of judeo-christian ethics) is also bound by the same constraints as i am, despite being born, raised, schooled, etc in this culture, is silly and plain uninsightful. her culture may be different, but it has very similar notions of obligations and in fact, were she not bound by the same feelings of contempt for infidelity as i am, i don’t think we would have got married.
The 3rd party I was referring to is the person you are cheating with, not your SO. Whatever happens to the SO is IMO irrelevant as there is no comparative (?) person in the murder scenario; my statement was just focusing on the 3rd party and if there is a biological urge involved (in the case of murdering and cheating).
Thus I tried to point out that murder does certain harm and there is no “biology-excuse” for it, while cheating does not harm the 3rd party (assume the cheater is healthy) and is indeed be driven by a biological urge.
However personally I see it as an explanation at best, not as an excuse or justification - in particular if you have vowed to be faithful.
Sorry if it wasn’t / isn’t clear, dunno how to say it in a better way.
there is a ‘biology-excuse’ for murder, it’s the removal of competition for available members of the opposite sex, and of competing genes from the gene pool. of course, that only works if you get to them before they have children.
there is also a ‘biology-excuse’ for cheating. it ensures there are more copies of your genes around. many estimates are that 5-10% (range 1.2-30, clusters around 5%) of children are raised by a non-biological parent, often without their knowledge. the postman always knocks twice…
of course, society is a system that removes (supposedly) the biology-excuses from the list of considerations we are allowed to make. and contraception reduces the chances of your genes getting past the latex barrier anyway: crossing the first hurdle, so to speak.
I don’t think that humans have such a drive or urge (which is what the “biology excuse” was referring to).
they do. it has just been sublimated into aggression for territory, water, ‘beliefs’, etc. we now call it war, and it has its roots in the same naked aggression seen in bands of neighbouring apes, or wolves, or ants., etc., with the same purpose.
defending the territory of your group is a surefire method of saving your genes, as you are related to all the members of your tribe/pack/family, and thus they share your genes. conversely, outsiders are less related to your genes than you are. sort of a biological excuse for racism and xenophobia.
there are surprisingly similar motivations underlying altruism and kindness.
look at google for pointers.
I think the logic that the 3rd party is the other man/woman is flawed. The two who are consenting are the cheater and the other wo/man. Thus the SO who is not consenting to the involvement of another party is the one with the indirect involvement and indirect consequences, the third party to the situation.
I think the logic that the 3rd party is the other man/woman is flawed. The two who are consenting are the cheater and the other wo/man. Thus the SO who is not consenting to the involvement of another party is the one with the indirect involvement and indirect consequences, the third party to the situation.
This sounds like a well thought out plan. Have you executed this plan yet. Or have you been a victim of this plan… 
This sounds like a well thought out plan. Have you executed this plan yet. Or have you been a victim of this plan… [/quote]
Neither. I’m just pretty sure that this is the exact reason for it being placed where it is with such a big sign.