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Moral psychology is fun. Lolicon is one of those odd moral black holes for westerners. Jonathan Haidt in his book The Righteous Mind talks about a bunch of simi

Moral psychology is fun. Lolicon is one of those odd moral black holes for westerners. Jonathan Haidt in his book The Righteous Mind talks about a bunch of similar examples of victimless but "immoral" actions that we find wrong and will desperately try to find a victim for when one doesn't exist. Similar examples: incest with 100% guarantee of no conception. Consensual cannibalism (edit for clarity: of someone very well cooked). Eating of a dead dog. Sex with a dead chicken and then its consumption. We find all of those repugnant, immoral, and will try to come up with victims, even when there are none to be found. It's a good example of how morality for humans is much more than just about harm. It's about conformity and cohesion with a set of rules that identify a specific tribe, regardless of harm.

azeirah 8y ago
I understand your point, but I feel like I should point out that consensual cannibalism does have a victim, the cannibal. Humans eating human meat (and likewise, cows eating cow-meat, pigs eating pig-meat) can cause some very very weird and very serious and very rare illnesses. (social?) Animals have not evolved to eat their kind, or perhaps put differently; animals have evolved _not_ to eat their kind.
- BadassFractal 8y ago
  Sure. But let's say it's fully sterilized and fully cooked so you have 100% guarantee of not getting sick from it. Is it still wrong? It's similar to the objection you hear about incest: "Yeah but what if the woman gets pregnant", thus you set the conditions that there is 100% no chance of conception. And actually, our closest relatives, the chimps, have evolved wonderfully to eat their own kind. In fact they find each other delicious during constant raids on the enemy's territory.
  - lucideer 8y ago
    > let's say it's fully sterilized and fully cooked so you have 100% guarantee of not getting sick from it. I'm being a pedant here, and this isn't really relevant to the previous commenters point, but worth noting that one of the known dangers of cannibalism (CJD) is less related to typical sterilisation and not quite as well understood in general, so 100% guarantees are hard to come by.
    - BadassFractal 8y ago
      Yep. It's more of a philosophical experiment than something that is backed by perfect hard science. The point remains that most people (at least outside of the tribes that practice it) would find it completely wrong even when given hypothetical perfect guarantees.
      - amval 8y ago
        I get that it was not your point, but the problem with cannibalism is the transmission of prion proteins. Not really an infectious disease per se. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease)
- tpxl 8y ago
  Cannibalism is very much not unheard of in animals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism
lucideer 8y ago
> Lolicon is one of those odd moral black holes for westerners. Not just for westerners. Despite the author of this post's protestations to the contrary, Lolicon is quite controversial in Japan. While it's certainly more mainstream there than in the west, the idea of it "inciting abuse" is a common argument in Japan, with the fact that criminals on trial happen to be Lolicons often being reported. In this way it has something of a parallel to linking violent video games to violent crime, which western media often does. There may be good arguments against this idea of "inciting abuse", but the author's supposition that there's this stark divide between Japan and the West and that Japanese simply can't comprehend Western perspectives on Lolicon is just nonsense. "Inciting" in general is the usual argument against otherwise "harmless" activities you mention like incest and necrophilia: the idea that the act of performing such will normalise other more harmful acts.
- BadassFractal 8y ago
  Makes sense. I can think of a lot of other, mass-accepted, lower hanging fruit we could blame for reprehensible behavior before we point out finger at art, music, movies, cartoons and video games, but that's a whole other can of worm that's not worth opening.
throwaway37585 8y ago
One could make an argument (and it has been made) that the victim in such situations is the perpetrator themselves. More specifically, that their "sense of virtue" and/or psychological well-being is being corroded by such activities. (Note: I tend to lean toward personal autonomy/liberty in such manners.)
- waterhouse 8y ago
  The list of activities that could be argued to corrode someone's "sense of virtue" or psychological well-being, yet the vast majority of people agree should be legal, is very long. One should run into that objection immediately. You say there are those who make this argument. Do they happen to be the small subset of the population that actually would maintain that it's immoral to do all or most of the following: drink alcohol, stay up until 4 a.m. watching TV, watch horror movies, play violent video games, have a one-night stand, eat an unhealthy diet, spend your free time on games instead of work or study, etc.? I guess I'm jumping to the term "legal". BadassFractal merely said they "find [it] repugnant, immoral, and will try to come up with victims". Do they stop short of saying that their moral opinion should dictate others' behavior?
  - BadassFractal 8y ago
    Agreed. Amusing that people could find lolicon to be corrosive of one's virtues or psyche, but worshipping a corpse nailed to a cross and consuming its blood and flesh on a weekly basis under the penalty of eternal torture is perfectly acceptable. We sure are great at missing the log in our own eye.
    - throwaway37585 8y ago
      > worshipping a corpse nailed to a cross Hmm... I’m not Christian but your comment doesn’t make sense. Jesus on the cross is presumably a symbol of sacrifice and unconditional love. “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends” and all that. I don’t see how altruism and self-sacrificial love of that nature is morally corrosive. The threat of eternal torture, on the other hand, makes more sense.

azeirah 8y ago

I understand your point, but I feel like I should point out that consensual cannibalism does have a victim, the cannibal. Humans eating human meat (and likewise, cows eating cow-meat, pigs eating pig-meat) can cause some very very weird and very serious and very rare illnesses. (social?) Animals have not evolved to eat their kind, or perhaps put differently; animals have evolved _not_ to eat their kind.

BadassFractal 8y ago
Sure. But let's say it's fully sterilized and fully cooked so you have 100% guarantee of not getting sick from it. Is it still wrong? It's similar to the objection you hear about incest: "Yeah but what if the woman gets pregnant", thus you set the conditions that there is 100% no chance of conception. And actually, our closest relatives, the chimps, have evolved wonderfully to eat their own kind. In fact they find each other delicious during constant raids on the enemy's territory.
- lucideer 8y ago
  > let's say it's fully sterilized and fully cooked so you have 100% guarantee of not getting sick from it. I'm being a pedant here, and this isn't really relevant to the previous commenters point, but worth noting that one of the known dangers of cannibalism (CJD) is less related to typical sterilisation and not quite as well understood in general, so 100% guarantees are hard to come by.
  - BadassFractal 8y ago
    Yep. It's more of a philosophical experiment than something that is backed by perfect hard science. The point remains that most people (at least outside of the tribes that practice it) would find it completely wrong even when given hypothetical perfect guarantees.
    - amval 8y ago
      I get that it was not your point, but the problem with cannibalism is the transmission of prion proteins. Not really an infectious disease per se. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease)
tpxl 8y ago
Cannibalism is very much not unheard of in animals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism

lucideer 8y ago

> Lolicon is one of those odd moral black holes for westerners. Not just for westerners. Despite the author of this post's protestations to the contrary, Lolicon is quite controversial in Japan. While it's certainly more mainstream there than in the west, the idea of it "inciting abuse" is a common argument in Japan, with the fact that criminals on trial happen to be Lolicons often being reported. In this way it has something of a parallel to linking violent video games to violent crime, which western media often does. There may be good arguments against this idea of "inciting abuse", but the author's supposition that there's this stark divide between Japan and the West and that Japanese simply can't comprehend Western perspectives on Lolicon is just nonsense. "Inciting" in general is the usual argument against otherwise "harmless" activities you mention like incest and necrophilia: the idea that the act of performing such will normalise other more harmful acts.

BadassFractal 8y ago
Makes sense. I can think of a lot of other, mass-accepted, lower hanging fruit we could blame for reprehensible behavior before we point out finger at art, music, movies, cartoons and video games, but that's a whole other can of worm that's not worth opening.

throwaway37585 8y ago

One could make an argument (and it has been made) that the victim in such situations is the perpetrator themselves. More specifically, that their "sense of virtue" and/or psychological well-being is being corroded by such activities. (Note: I tend to lean toward personal autonomy/liberty in such manners.)

waterhouse 8y ago
The list of activities that could be argued to corrode someone's "sense of virtue" or psychological well-being, yet the vast majority of people agree should be legal, is very long. One should run into that objection immediately. You say there are those who make this argument. Do they happen to be the small subset of the population that actually would maintain that it's immoral to do all or most of the following: drink alcohol, stay up until 4 a.m. watching TV, watch horror movies, play violent video games, have a one-night stand, eat an unhealthy diet, spend your free time on games instead of work or study, etc.? I guess I'm jumping to the term "legal". BadassFractal merely said they "find [it] repugnant, immoral, and will try to come up with victims". Do they stop short of saying that their moral opinion should dictate others' behavior?
- BadassFractal 8y ago
  Agreed. Amusing that people could find lolicon to be corrosive of one's virtues or psyche, but worshipping a corpse nailed to a cross and consuming its blood and flesh on a weekly basis under the penalty of eternal torture is perfectly acceptable. We sure are great at missing the log in our own eye.
  - throwaway37585 8y ago
    > worshipping a corpse nailed to a cross Hmm... I’m not Christian but your comment doesn’t make sense. Jesus on the cross is presumably a symbol of sacrifice and unconditional love. “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends” and all that. I don’t see how altruism and self-sacrificial love of that nature is morally corrosive. The threat of eternal torture, on the other hand, makes more sense.