It's like hearing that a vicious murderous mob boss had his leg shot off. Yes, the person who took his leg ought to be sent to jail, but we might not have much sympathy for the mob boss since his terrible actions led directly to those consequences.
I know this kind of statement is viewed with distrust. And I see why this is so. But I think some moral discussion might be good (rather than just the bland 'lets not judge')
First, I am not saying that I think all marriages need to be monogamical or 'till death'. Both ideas are probably bad on average (i.e.: make the world a darker place as well, cause needless suffering). I, for one, think that promissing monogamy is a bad idea.
But to break the promice of monogamy is, indeed, bad. First, it is inherently unfair: One partner (Pa) might be resisting temptations, to the benefit of the other (Pb). Pb gets benefits from increased marriage security, increase sexual availability from Pa, increased emotional availability... But does not offer the same.
I mean, it would be clear that withdrawing all the money from a joint savings account is bad, right? That is the same thing... One side is doing a lot of effort to keep a mutual benefit working...
To cheat is a form of exploitation.
>But I think some moral discussion might be good
Let's discuss how we can keep from inflicting our own personal morals on those who do not share our moral philosophies; lest someone show up here and one-up us all with an even better morality than the one we already have.
The interesting question, is, of course, which are private matters and which are matters of injustice that 'society' should intervene to fix.
THE WHOLE QUESTION is whether or not cheating is 'a private matter' or 'an injustice that ...'. Just stating that it is 'private' does not seem to be an answer to the question. If I understood you correctly, your argument it 'is is private, leave it alone, else someone else will mess with other private issues'. Why do you think it belongs to the 'private' rather than 'injustice' category?
> one-up us all with an even better morality than the one we already have.
For me, that would be very nice indeed! Convincing moral arguments are very rare!
I think we can agree that in society there are many different moral systems. Now I will use the words "good" and "bad" with the stipulation that these words have no inherent meaning, but instead only have the meaning that we apply to them from within our own personal moral system. You can compare another moral system to your own, and decide that it is "better" or "worse" but you cannot make an objective determination. Now, you can decide that your morality where adultery should be prohibited/prevented/punished is better for your purposes than mine where adultery is none of the government's business, but that is just your personal preference. The problem is that this may never end and there is always another fellow who is more moral than you or I or both of us, and whose morality tells him that shoes are immoral or that red-haired people are witches or something like that; and this fellow wants the government to segregate the witches for the protection of the good moral folks, and also prevent everyone from wearing shoes, even firemen. So, we have to compromise on our morality and find a set of common rules upon which most of us can agree and which will protect people from serious harm even if it allows for some behavior that makes some of us uncomfortable.
Why do you think that two other peoples' marriage is some concern to you, or to society at large? And please, no references to vague concepts that we have no real definition of such as 'making the world a darker place'
>For me, that would be very nice indeed! Convincing moral arguments are very rare!
That's because morals are very personal, arbitrary, and often irrational.
No, I am not harmed when two people (Pa and Pb) are married, and Pa cheats on Pb. The reason I'd oppose AM is because it normalizes and helps the harmful behaviour of Pa towards Pb. I am quite sure that there is some marginal contribution of AM to the number of cheatings and broken marriages. I think we can objectively say that AM contributes to needless suffering. Do you agree?
Let's also discuss how human behavioral biology predicts that if you are in favor of polygamy you are highly likely to be an arrogant, aggressive, sexist bully (like males of tournament species are) who makes society worse for everyone else.
>Let's also discuss how human behavioral biology predicts that if you are in favor of polygamy you are highly likely to be an arrogant, aggressive, sexist bully (like males of tournament species are) who makes society worse for everyone else.
Okay, can we talk about how to best implement a eugenics program to help us solve this problem too? Or perhaps compulsory psychiatric medication? Compulsory hormone therapy?
I think the majority of people agree that polygamy is verboten, not that I really care in principle, at least as far as the law goes. What poly-amorous folks do with each other is none of my business.
Monogamous humans should be able to function in their own societies, with their own laws and a culture adapted to the non-trivial differences in social behavior monogamy entails without having to put up with the predatory behavior of polygamous humans and the cultural propaganda to glorify it. It's been shown that for monogamy as a trait to continue to exist it needs to be the dominant behavior in a group of animals. Others are free to revel in the "joys" of dog-eat-dog polygamous primate societies as long as they engage in this with others who consent.
Also noone exists in a vacuum. One's actions affect others (directly or indirectly) particularly when they live in the same society. Having people with deeply conflicting standards of behavior coexist in a futile attempt at a one-size-fits-all society that inherently favors one group over the other is not going to work.
Wow! United Saudi Arabia (USA)!
Its the opposite of criminalizing polygyny, which is also common in the US, but that's a different issue.
Free speech! (Until I hear something I don't like!)
Equal rights! (Except for people that are not like me!)
But hey, good luck drawing lines where you choose.
The ads speak for themselves: https://www.google.com/search?q=ashlymadison+ads
PS Those ads are awful.
I think the simpler explanation (and likely more accurate one) is that in most cases, each AM user has at least one partner which is being harmed by the user's actions and use of the site.
Being accepting and tolerant of different types of relationships and desires is a separate issue. The site was created for, and is marketed towards, people who want to cheat (in the traditional, harmful sense) on their current partners.
Secondly, still, you continue to make value judgments based on your own personal ethics and assume they're universal truths. Whether there is harm (as you say) truly is debatable. Ending a marriage is breaking your contract, doing something your spouse doesn't like is "harmful". Which ones are ok? Maybe this cheating for many people ends up being a one time thing that the person needed to do to either realize they want to end the marriage or realize they want to change something. Or some other outcome. Regardless, it isn't your or anyone else's job to decide, so please keep your moralizing to yourself.
I am not applying any overly austere morals here. I think you would be hard-pressed to successfully argue that an affair in the traditional sense is not an immoral act. If you promise to be "faithful" to someone, and you break that promise and try to hide it, it is immoral based on most people's morals and understanding.
Sure, you might disagree with popular morals, that's fine. However, a relationship involves two people, and both should be valued equally. If one person thinks it is fine to break their promise and cheat in secret, so they do it despite knowing how the other person feels...they are putting themselves first. They are not treating both they and their partner as equals. That is the issue. It has nothing to do with some sort of ideological anti-affair "beliefs." It is simple respect.
I guess it is even technically "fine" to think you deserve more liberty than others, or that you think others' feelings don't matter as much as your desires (I'm not saying you do, I'm speaking generally). If that is the case, just own up to it and people can choose how to react accordingly. If you find partners that align with your views, great, everyone is on the same page, but if not, people deserve the truth. Everything else is up in the air, but they deserve to know. Keeping it from them is like robbing them of the choice to deal with it or leave.
I guess promising to (not) do `X` and not keeping your word makes you untrustworthy but what is the literal harm on someone other than the self-referential belief that breaking promises is bad? To illustrate, let's assume that `X` is something like "I promise to not eat zucchini without you ever again". How is "cheating" by secretly gorging once on zucchini with some friends harmful to the person you give it to, other than their self-induced idea that it is bad?
Basically, it is irrelevant if they "should" or "shouldn't" be harmed, most of them will feel harm once the affair inevitably comes to light. I don't really agree with it, but even if it is irrational to feel harmed over an affair, and even if it is based on self-referential beliefs, people still feel the feelings, and those feelings hurt.
If the cheater knew those feelings would probably happen, and they already promised they would not engage in the behavior, and then they do it anyway...in secret...that is obviously wrong by most people's standards. There are a lot of important "if"s in there. Notice that I did not say that having multiple partners is harmful, or that leaving a partner is wrong, or that it is "always wrong" for someone in a relationship to go off with someone else for awhile. I did not say any of that.
However, when the relationship is a committed relationship, in the most common, Western, traditional sense, it is wrong to have an affair, especially a secret one. If you disagree with that kind of relationship and commitment, that is totally fine, but don't promise that to someone, and if you change your mind be up front about it.
Free Speech! (has nothing to do with government censorship or banning of speech of any kind)
Equal rights! (has nothing to do with people being granted rights equally by the government, or those rights being applied unevenly)
Is someone here promoting censorship or banning of a type of speech?
Is someone of Class B being persecuted for a crime Class A would not be persecuted for?
If the answer to both questions is no, then we are not discussing free speech or equal rights.
Having a lack of sympathy for someone who committed a crime (in this case a contract violation) is neither anti-free speech nor anti-equal rights.
Do you think it would be better for us to feel more empathy for contract breakers than for those whose marriages have been adversely affected?
Typical.
Privacy! (until people I disagree with have their privacy taken).
The Free Speech/Equal Rights remarks weren't about this case. The GP's comment was alluding to them and comparing them to Privacy, which was what was being discussed. Your remarks about Free Speech and Equal Rights are pointless and immaterial.
> Having a lack of sympathy for someone who committed a crime (in this case a contract violation)
Just curious, what crime did they commit in signing up for AM? What proof do you have that they did sign up? What proof do you have that the released data will be accurate? What contract did they violate by signing up for AM?
I'm curious to know what proof you have besides assumptions to make a bold statement that anyone mentioned in the released data is immediately guilty of something.
> Do you think it would be better for us to feel more empathy for contract breakers than for those whose marriages have been adversely affected?
Do you think it would be better for us to find people guilty until proven innocent, or innocent until proven guilty?
What limitations do you think should be put on the exchange of information (words, thoughts, concepts, pictures, videos, executable, etc.). For almost everyone I've ever asked, the answer was never 'none'. They may start there, but soon after I started listing more concrete examples I find one that makes them take back that 'none'.
Do you honestly believe that you are so good at guarding information that you have nothing to fear from it's free propagation? And that this is not only true for you, but for everyone?
We should spend more effort removing the potential harm that unwanted information disclosure can cause, rather than running around plugging leaks and jailing whistleblowers.
Would murder legislation prevent you from killing someone if you really wanted to? No? Then I guess there's no point in making murder illegal.
Legislation makes it clear what is sanctioned. It doesn't prevent crime. It defines crime.
>[...] unwanted information disclosure [...]
Legislation is how you say what information disclosure is unwanted. Without it, there is no basis for handling information disclosure at all.