CHAPTER 3. The Sibling Incest Taboo: Polynesian Cloth and Reproduction

Abstract 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 (avoid sex with childhood coresidents) is different from the content of the incest taboo (avoid sex with siblings)—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.

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Geographic reinforcement of the incest taboo: three case vignettes

American Journal of Psychiatry ◽

10.1176/ajp.138.5.679 ◽

1981 ◽

Vol 138 (5) ◽

pp. 679-680

Keyword(s):

Incest Taboo ◽

Case Vignettes

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What happened to the universality of the incest taboo?

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x00066607 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 273-273

Author(s):

Frank B. Livingstone

Keyword(s):

Incest Taboo

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Phenomenology and the Incest Taboo

Journal of Phenomenological Psychology ◽

10.1163/15691620260622895 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 33 (2) ◽

pp. 203-222

Author(s):

Peter Hadreas

Keyword(s):

Human Behavior ◽

Erotic Love ◽

Incest Taboo ◽

Human Element ◽

Functional Explanations ◽

Parent Child

AbstractIt is argued that traditional functional explanations of the incest taboo do not sufficiently supply causal conditions. It is widely acknowledged that the incest taboo, although universal among human societies, is largely a feature of human behavior. Husserl's investigations of intentionality are introduced to supply the particularly human element by which the taboo may be understood. So as to illumine the contrast between the conflicting intentionalities, a classical Aristotelian contrast between eros and parent/ child philia is drawn. Parent/child philia and eros, although both requisite for the survival of the species, are shown to be crosspurposeful in several ways. Husserl's understanding of 'negation,' as it applies to affective and practical intentionalities, is reconsidered. It is thereby explained how parental/child affection and erotic love, are 'incompossible' and not only conflict, but 'nullify' and 'cancel out' each other, generating the 'taboo'.

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Maimonides’s Rationalization of the Incest Taboo, Its Reception in Thirteenth-Century Kabbalah, and Their Affinity to Aquinas

Harvard Theological Review ◽

10.1017/s0017816021000249 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 114 (3) ◽

pp. 371-392

Author(s):

Leore Sachs-Shmueli

Keyword(s):

Thirteenth Century ◽

Incest Taboo ◽

Common Presentation ◽

The Common ◽

Jewish Philosophy

AbstractThis article discusses Maimonides’s rationale for the incest taboo and traces its reception in Christian and kabbalistic traditions in the thirteenth century. Tracing the reception of Maimonides’s view enables recognition of the resemblance between Maimonides and Aquinas, the ambivalent stance toward Maimonides’s explanation expressed by Nahmanides, and the incorporation of Maimonides’s reasoning in one of the most systematic and enigmatic works of kabbalistic rationalization of the commandments, the Castilian Kabbalist Joseph of Hamadan’s The Book of the Rationales of the Negative Commandments. R. Joseph’s acceptance of Maimonidean principles and his integration of them in the theurgic Kabbalah reveal a conflict in the heart of its system and teach us about an important aspect of the theory of sexuality in Kabbalah. The inquiry offered here examines the inter-relations between divergent medieval religious trends in constructing the role of sexuality. Instead of the common presentation of Kabbalah as diverging from the ascetic positions of Jewish philosophy and Christianity, this analysis will elucidate Kabbalah’s continuity with them.

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