Do you find the comatose to differ from the brain dead and by how much?
If you had to compare euthanasia vs suicide, outside of the obvious shift in responsibility, how do they differ? — Shamshir

There is a huge difference between being in a coma and being brain dead. "Brain dead" means that the brain does not, can not, and will not function again. Both higher brain and brain stem functions have ceased. Once ceased they do not resume. A dead brain is kaput. Coma and vegetative states apply to brains that are still working (even if not very well) and are not always permanent. People often recover consciousness after being in coma, and sometimes after being in vegetative states, even after a long duration. People in persistent vegetative states [PVS] are not brain dead. Some people who have recovered from PVS report that they were aware, but could not execute any communication.

An effort to test whether PVS subjects could be aware was conducted. fMRI scans on normal subjects had shown that certain kinds of thoughts were detectable; for instance, if the subject was asked to imagine they were playing tennis, a certain pattern of brain activity occurred. When PVS patients were examined in the same way, some, at least, showed exactly the same pattern. They were aware of the test and being told to imagine playing tennis. From these questions yes/no questions were asked of the patient, with 'yes' being imagining tennis, 'no' being thinking of something else.

From this research it was determined that at least some PVS patients are aware.

Suicide and euthanasia are quite different. Turning over the responsibility for one's voluntary death to an agent requires a diagnosis, planning, and various legal rigmarole, as I understand it. On the spur of the moment euthanasia is not legally possible (yet).

Suicide can occur very much on the spur of the moment, or on the spike of despair. If one has a loaded gun handy, it takes just a minute to pick it up, aim, and fire, then sic transit gloria. That's why guns are so often the means of suicide. Pills take time to accumulate and are not all that reliable. Hanging works quite well, but it requires preparation. Gas, carbon monoxide, bridges, high roofs, water, bleeding, alcohol poisoning, plastic bag on one's head... diverse methods.

Psychopathy or sociopathy isn't an all or nothing condition. There are some people who are "slightly psychopathic". If they are also quite intelligent, they might very well rise to the top of the heap because they are willing to do what it takes to get ahead (but stay within the bounds of polite society). A slightly psychopathic business executive will probably find success because he won't feel a great deal of suffering if he has to lay off 500 people on Christmas Eve.

As for "breeding psychopaths", it isn't entirely clear how we get psychopaths or sociopaths. One theory is that "pathic" personalities have a critical defect in their brain--specifically, a solid neural connection between the limbic system (emotional center) and the prefrontal cortex (thinking center). This connection is what enables almost all individuals to incorporate guilt into their personality. We learn guilt by failing to please our parents when we are children and being punished. ("Not only did you eat all the cookies, but you broke the cookie jar too! Shame on you. You're going to get a spanking right now!" her mother yelled.) The child feels like the parents love has been withdrawn, and the fear of love being withdrawn is what we call "guilt". "Guilt is the gift that keeps on giving." Internalized guilt is what keeps us on the straight and narrow, and out of the court house, out of jail, out of trouble.

Psychopaths can't feel fear and guilt. The neurons that make it possible just aren't there. So, they grow up rule-less. They are often also rootless, and don't form close relationships (they can't). Some psychologists are trying to develop therapy to help psychopaths behave (and feel) more normally.

Is all this true? I estimate the what I have written has about a 63% chance o being true.

This is a timely topic, because diseases like Alzheimers and other forms of terminal dementia are increasing with an aging population, and will continue to increase unless we find an effective treatment. So far no luck on that front. A lot of people die from other causes, and reach a point where the benefit of further treatment gives no return, not merely diminished returns.

Rather than resorting to killing Alzheimer (or other terminal) patients, we can provide hospice care under the same terms that (religious hospices, for instance) provide care to the dying cancer patient, the dying infection patient, the dying... whatever patient: No curative measures will be taken in hospice; comfort care is the core. Patients are fed, given drink, kept clean and warm, and supported as long as they can participate (are conscious). When they can no longer swallow, no further food or water is given. Pain relief is continued (injection). They continue to be kept warm and clean. Usually death follows within a week or two. This is "the old fashioned way of dying". No heroics, no crash team, no beeping monitors, no drips, no drugs, no respirators, no cardiac assistance.

Euthanasia is homicide either way. — Shamshir

Euthanasia (eu + thanatos = good or easy death) is a nice euphemism, (an auspicious word) ORWELL ALERT: Be suspicious when politicians use a lot of Latinate words...

What euthanasia is about, to put it in blunt Anglo-Saxon language, is killing the sick and/or old.

I'm not in the pro-life camp where every body must be kept "alive". In my book, the brain dead are dead, whether their heart is beating or not. There are real hopeless cases which no medical intervention can mend, but can assist (palliative care). But actively killing patients is not a policy we should allow (or worse, actively pursue).

People will suffer? Sorry, but yes. Lots of people in this world have suffered, are suffering, and will suffer in the future. We can and ought to relieve suffering. We can and ought to allow people to opt for a limitation on life-preserving procedures, when a) they are in sound mind and b) the patients condition fits their stated preferences and c) a short period of time lies between the patients declaration and the crisis.

What patients can reasonably opt for in the event of severe damage are things like, "do not intubate"; do not force feed; do not sustain with IV water, and such.

But "limitation of life-sustaining procedures" (barring force feeding, intubation and respirator use, resuscitation, etc.) are a far cry from a doctor, judge, nurse, or anyone else deciding to get the patient "out of their and our misery.

Assisted suicide (like a doctor writing an Rx for enough sedative to cause death if taken all at once) isn't euthanasia, either.

Question: Is this some sort of game?
Answer: The game is getting someone to agree with your non-sensical point.

Yes, of course. Forced sex is rape and is several magnitudes worse than forcing someone to play tennis with you.

Why? Because forced sex involves assault and battery, possible injury in the attempt, penetration (or the attempt) of another person's body, a possible pregnancy (which some jurisdictions will force the woman to endure), a denial of the victim's autonomy and dignity, and so on.

Sex can be a non-unique behavior and still be irrelevant to tennis-playing behavior. There are a million non-unique behaviors that can be sorted into ten thousand categories. Some non-unique behaviors will be completely unrelated (celebrating Mass and playing Monopoly) and some will be more closely related (like fixing a flat tire on a car and changing the car's oil and filter).

Hey, Bartricks: We're all smart people here. Of course I understand the distinction and moral significance of voluntary sex vs forced sex.

You are the one that introduced the silly comparison between sex and tennis. I did not.

Thus you are committed to the morally silly view that there's no ethical difference between forcing someone to play tennis with you and forcing sex on someone, other things being equal. — Bartricks

Don't be tiresome.

All of these are excellent questions for philosophers, and everyone else. I would submit that we should stop beating ourselves up. We are following pathways our species evolved to behave and not behave. There are some very unappetizing prospects waiting down the road, if not around the corner.

The key to the global log jam is found in two human features:

The first is that those who control economic decision-making are those who have benefit most from the fossil fuel industry (which took off during the Industrial Revolution). The Koch brothers come to mind, but there are a few million energy and manufacturing stockholders whose fabulous wealth is vested in the status quo.

The second key is the limit on our evolved capacity to feel the urgency of distant (and complex) events. We can know that rising levels of CO2, methane, and other gases are a real threat to our future. We are less successful at feeling the urgency of the not-immediate threat.

The U.S. and the UK were able to mobilize tremendous research and production capacity in WWII because the threat was both existential and immediate. It was not necessary to imagine a fascist axis capable of destroying us. (Even so, it required simultaneous attacks on Hawaii and Philippines (then US territories) to get past US isolationism. The climate crisis is less certain, and for lots of people, a bit too distant. It is "less certain" because we don't know exactly when and how it will unfold for us.

When I say "we" I mean billions of people. The individuals who make up the big "we" one by one can not make long-range policy. The powerful million people who are in a position to make long term policy have interests in the status quo, and like the rest of us, don't "feel" long-term threats.

I put my faith in "Mother Nature" who has ways of resolving difficult problems for species. We probably won't like her solutions, and some among our esteemed selves will be subject to her judgements.

You did not, could not, or would not read what I wrote.

2. Bitter Crank is opposed to forcing people to play tennis or to have sex. — Bitter Crank

Many people are naive about information. They do not have the experience to assay information for accuracy and reliability that they come across in the newspaper, television, internet, or down at the pub. I'm pretty good at it, if I do say so myself, but I'm in my 70s and have a couple of degrees and have spent decades engaged in (mostly personal, some professional) study.

In 1983 I was naive about AIDS. There were all sorts of facts and concepts I either had wrong or did not have at all. I could say "retrovirus" but I really didn't know what the "retro" part meant. When I first started to do AIDS prevention work, I had to bring myself up to speed. It took a couple of years to acquire, absorb, and integrate the unfamiliar information I needed.

I met a college student the other day working as a check-out at a local grocery store who explained he didn't know how credit cards worked (a customer was having difficulties with her card). He went on to explain that he didn't know how checking or banks worked either. Very naive about financial information. Sad, but quite curable.

From my experience, Wikipedia (and a lot of stuff on the Internet) is good, solid information -- BUT one MUST bring at least moderate skill in recognizing garbage. A lot of people don't have that skill. No matter where they get their information from, the naive will have difficulty judging quality.

Placing your penis in their lap and you have a crime. — Coben

A guy's penis may not be quite long enough to place in somebody else's lap. If they cut it off first and then put it in this person's lap, is it still a crime?

Most people really do consider sexual betrayal worse — Bartricks

I bet there are a few people who would rather have had Bernie Madoff et al betray them sexually than lose their entire wealth and security.

You inserted a condition into your syllogism which I had explicitly rejected.

1. Sex and tennis should be mutually consensual.

2. Bitter Crank is opposed to forcing people to play tennis or to have sex.

3. Therefore, Bitter Crank is right.

Have you considered just how much coercion would be required to FORCE someone to play tennis with them--especially if they didn't know how?

You say, for instance, that what is responsible for the widespread intuitions that sex is ethically special is 'convention'. But it could be the other way around - it could be that we have the conventions we do because sex seems special. — Bartricks

Is your statement not an example of what you said in your previous sentence... "you are dogmatically assuming"?

As for convention on the one hand and the alleged natural specialness of sex on the other, how would we at this late date in our development, parse one from the other? I am not a sexologist, so I do not gather evidence about sexual behavior from large numbers of subjects, and then examine the results. What I have to go on is what I have learned from others (reading, conversation, lectures...) and what I have experienced. The same is probably true for you. But even If we were both sexologists with the Kinsey Institute and the University of Indiana at our disposal, we still would never have a sexually naive de novo population to examine. All we would have is millions of people who have a variety of views about sex to which they are probably dogmatically committed.

Look, I'm not in favor of forced sex, forced tennis, forced labor, or forced anything else. I do, as it happens, have strong preferences for HOW we deal with sexuality. Good sex is a piece of personal fulfillment and I think that people have a right to both fulfillment and good sex (voluntary, mutual, unforced, uncoerced, and safe to the extent that it is possible in this unsatisfactory world.

@Baden

Excuse me. Is this a threat? — god must be atheist

Of course it is not a threat. It is a jokey riposte to your quip "what the heck is all this belly-aching about ethics?" Electronically transmitted communications are regularly misinterpreted that wouldn't be if they were delivered in person, because facial expression, body language, intonation, etc. are missing.

Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to be reacquainted with the fact of how easily the electronic word can be misperceived.

This is a piece of the Minnesota Statutes on speed limits.

169.14 SPEED LIMITS, ZONES; RADAR.
Subdivision 1.Duty to drive with due care. No person shall drive a vehicle on a highway at a speed greater than is reasonable and prudent under the conditions. Every driver is responsible for becoming and remaining aware of the actual and potential hazards then existing on the highway and must use due care in operating a vehicle. In every event speed shall be so restricted as may be necessary to avoid colliding with any person, vehicle or other conveyance on or entering the highway in compliance with legal requirements and the duty of all persons to use due care.
Subd. 1a.License revocation for extreme speed. The driver's license of a person who violates any speed limit established in this section, by driving in excess of 100 miles per hour, is revoked for six months under section 171.17, or for a longer minimum period of time applicable under section 169A.53, 169A.54, or 171.174.
§Subd. 2.Speed limits. (a) Where no special hazard exists the following speeds shall be lawful, but any speeds in excess of such limits shall be prima facie evidence that the speed is not reasonable or prudent and that it is unlawful; except that the speed limit within any municipality shall be a maximum limit and any speed in excess thereof shall be unlawful:
(1) 30 miles per hour in an urban district;
(2) 65 miles per hour on noninterstate expressways, as defined in section 160.02, subdivision 18b, and noninterstate freeways, as defined in section 160.02, subdivision 19;
(3) 55 miles per hour in locations other than those specified in this section;
(4) 70 miles per hour on interstate highways outside the limits of any urbanized area with a population of greater than 50,000 as defined by order of the commissioner of transportation;
(5) 65 miles per hour on interstate highways inside the limits of any urbanized area with a population of greater than 50,000 as defined by order of the commissioner of transportation;
(6) ten miles per hour in alleys;
(7) 25 miles per hour in residential roadways if adopted by the road authority having jurisdiction over the residential roadway; and
(8) 35 miles per hour in a rural residential district if adopted by the road authority having jurisdiction over the rural residential district.
(b) A speed limit adopted under paragraph (a), clause (7), is not effective unless the road authority has erected signs designating the speed limit and indicating the beginning and end of the residential roadway on which the speed limit applies.
(c) A speed limit adopted under paragraph (a), clause (8), is not effective unless the road authority has erected signs designating the speed limit and indicating the beginning and end of the rural residential district for the roadway on which the speed limit applies.
(d) Notwithstanding section 609.0331 or 609.101 or other law to the contrary, a person who violates a speed limit established in this subdivision, or a speed limit designated on an appropriate sign under subdivision 4, 5, 5b, 5c, or 5e, by driving 20 miles per hour or more in excess of the applicable speed limit, is assessed an additional surcharge equal to the amount of the fine imposed for the speed violation, but not less than $25.
Subd. 2a.Increased speed limit when passing. Notwithstanding subdivision 2, the speed limit is increased by ten miles per hour over the posted speed limit when the driver:
(1) is on a two-lane highway having one lane for each direction of travel;
(2) is on a highway with a posted speed limit that is equal to or higher than 55 miles per hour;
(3) is overtaking and passing another vehicle proceeding in the same direction of travel; and
(4) meets the requirements in section 169.18.
Subd. 3.Reduced speed required. (a) The driver of any vehicle shall, consistent with the requirements, drive at an appropriate reduced speed when approaching or passing an authorized emergency vehicle stopped with emergency lights flashing on any street or highway, when approaching and crossing an intersection or railway grade crossing, when approaching and going around a curve, when approaching a hill crest, when traveling upon any narrow or winding roadway, and when special hazards exist with respect to pedestrians or other traffic or by reason of weather or highway conditions.
(b) A person who fails to reduce speed appropriately when approaching or passing an authorized emergency vehicle stopped with emergency lights flashing on a street or highway shall be assessed an additional surcharge equal to the amount of the fine imposed for the speed violation, but not less than $25.

what the heck is all this belly-aching about ethics? — god must be atheist

If you don't start behaving yourself, you'll find out what the belly-aching is about.

There must be something wrong with the Internet tonight, considering the way you read what I wrote.

a maximum speed of 55, 65, or 75 mph (depending on the state) on state and federal highways (and less, if so posted) is not a suggestion, it is the actual law. On the Interstate, when you cross a border, one will quite often see big white signs saying "STATE LAW: MN Law forbids the use of hand held phones while driving".

A law is a law, numbered, titled, and printed in black and white. What is complicated is the legal system. It isn't the law that seeks to find the truth; that task is up to the courts. The courts are governed by a set of laws directing that courts operate in a certain way. The Legislatures write the law, and and the civilian government enforce the law.

Does every player in court know ahead of time, how the judges and the jury will decide? If the answer is no, then nobody knows the law. — god must be atheist

Only in a rigged system would everyone know ahead of time what the judges and jury will decide. Now, there have been rigged courts (all over the world) but courts are not as a rule rigged.

Real Estate Law, or probate law, or tax law, and so on may be extremely complicated which is why there are people called lawyers who take classes in tax law, probate law, real estate law, tort law, and so on, so they can tell clients what is legal and what is not. Like, a smart lawyer will tell you that mass murder is illegal. So is counterfeiting, robbing banks, burning houses down, or stealing high-end steak from the meat market. Lawyers are smart that way.

Common Law forms a significant part of US law, as I understand anyway, and while there are vast stretches of arid, dust-drifting drabness in the law like real estate law or tax law, the commonest parts of common law are knowable: citizens are responsible for their actions; citizens have rights; government officials are not above the law; the state cannot take your property without fair compensation--stuff like that.

People are supposed to know that if the sign says, speed limit 55 mph, then that is what it means, not 60 or 70 mph.

Is god a just god? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Here's what Thomas Jefferson had to say about it:

“Indeed I tremble for my country when reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever..."

Maybe we should hope not.

What CCTV (that's odd--Closed Caption TV?) does is assist in the identification and apprehension of scofflaws, major criminals, and evil doers. It doesn't prevent people from violating the law, it doesn't make people more moral. It makes some more clever in their deviousness, and many resentful toward the state that they can never casually whip out a spray can and apply vulgar, disrespectful, and inconsiderate comments to Trump and Johnson re-election posters.

People will start wearing special cosmetics that disrupt facial recognition software (note Hong Kong demonstrator methods). Some bizarre people look like they are already wearing it! Our computer monitors (not the screens, but the AI that never sleep) will be hacked to defeat ID by AI, at least sometimes.

I'll grant you, Total Information Systems will be very difficult to escape. Once every credit card purchase, transit pass card, facial recognition system, RFID chips in everything (including you), and universal CCTV coverage is linked together and correlated, you won't be able to fart without it registering on the web of control. Add to that neighborhood spies who report that you are serepticiousy feeding squirrels (it might be against the law one of these days) and then we will become automatons. Until that great and glorious day we rise up, smash the cameras, blow up the server farms, melt-down every AI device, and take axes to the officials who oversee the system...

Are Soldiers, of whom fuel the scope of war, responsible for immoral actions that occur without the central guidance of the law? — SethRy

The upshot of what follows is that soldiers are not significant moral agents in wars.

Who, in fact, determines and fuels the scope of war--soldiers or others?

I define "soldiers" as the grades of military who actually engage in the messy business of fighting. Above the soldiers are layers of "command" who issue orders, but are not themselves fighting. Behind the soldiers are all sorts of "support" operations that are absolutely essential to large-scale war.

Above the military command stands the civilian government (in most countries) who regulates and pays for the prosecution of war.

It seems to me that soldiers are least responsible, but most intimately involved. Command is most responsible, and least intimately involved. Support is more intimately involved in the supply chain the closer to the front one is.

The only thing a solder can do to stake out his own moral ground is conscientiously object to war, and refuse to serve. Once one agrees to be a soldier, a great deal of personal executive agency is lost. Obey or else. A few disobedient soldiers will be shot to make the point. Civilians have many more choices, but in the case of total war, their options too are constrained.

IF you are looking for first causes, look to the Oval Office, the Congress, the Kremlin office of the Premier, the Central Committee, the Parliament, the Palace of the Maximum Leader, or whatever constitutes the civilian government of society. Even a modest war requires the diversion of large shares of civilian wealth for the conduct of a war. The United States has spent 6 trillion dollars for Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Pakistan. Other countries have, at various times, spent equally vast sums to pursue war.

How does "the central guidance of the law" cease to apply in times of war?

The civilian government will pass whatever laws are required to prosecute a war in the desired style. Limited War or Total War, the cost has to be raised from civilians -- there isn't any other source. Will it be necessary to kill women, men, and children? Legality can be arranged, no problem.

Furthermore, are soldiers different people in different places? — SethRy

Yes and no, which applies to all of us. We assume different roles (maybe personas) in different contexts, yet we remain the same person. The soldiers personally shooting Jews into mass graves in Ukraine in 1942-43 were later upstanding citizens, husbands, and fathers--bearing scars, no doubt, but more or less normal.

the citizens are expected to follow the law, but they are not expected to know the law. — god must be atheist

I thought "ignorance of the law is no excuse" was the general idea. No?

Not that anyone cares, but I'll be 30 next month. — Jimmy

Jimmy, you have no idea how little anyone cares.

Jimmy, now that you have made it to 30, it's time for you to learn an unpleasant fact of life: If you leave yourself open to cruel, sarcastic thrusts, one of the many wicked people lurking about will take the opportunity to throw some acid-comment your way. Like, don't begin a sentence with "Maybe I'm stupid, but I don't understand... whatever." Someone will chime in with, "No doubt about it!"

Or "Sorry I'm late!" invites, "We're not."

In a meeting a pastor confessed, "I just don't know much about music." The choir directer rejoined her confession with, "That certainly seems to be true." See what I mean? Demons everywhere just waiting to shove pitchforks into your tender self-assurance.

One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you, don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice, when she's ten feet tall
And if you go chasing rabbits, and you know you're going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah-smoking caterpillar has given you the call
And call Alice, when she was just small

When the men on the chessboard get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom, and your mind is moving low
Go ask Alice, I think she'll know

When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead
And the white knight is talking backwards
And the red queen's off with her head
Remember what the dormouse said
Feed your head, feed your head

White Rabbit by Grace Slick who, by the way, is is 80 years old, alive, and well (at least as of 2019)

I find references to the Matrix like it mattered to be extremely irritating. Stop it or you will be unplugged and will never be whelmed again!

Aside from that, a warm friendly welcome to The Philosophy Forum.

And once more you are committing the genetic fallacy by providing a possible history of the intuitions. — Bartricks

Not quite sure what this means. But history has a great deal to do with the reasoning behind sex being viewed as a special ethical case. What was going on in the 16th, 17th, or 18th century doesn't govern our thinking directly, but indirectly it has some influence.

That people today are supposed to cover their mouths when they yawn is a 17th/18th century behavior based on what the folks on the hill in those days thought proper. I'm not, and maybe you are not either, a descendant of the folks on the hill--the cultural elite of past centuries. But from generation to generation people are taught what their parents knew. It's not genetic, it's pedagogical.

By insisting that it is irrational to view sex as ethically special you are assuming that reason does not represent it to be. Yet as my examples show, reason clearly does represent it to be ethically special. — Bartricks

Au contraire. By reason people represent sex to be special--or not. How else would we have an opinion on the ethical specialness of sex? But reason doesn't exist in a vacuum. We reason in the context of our culture, of course, and our culture contains elements of various age. Like the business about yawning.

You asked what was so special about sexual relations. I said I didn't think it was special, except by convention. Where ethics comes into play is when it concerns progeny. Most people feel obligated to support their children, but certainly not everyone. I consider abandoning progeny to be quite unethical. Convenient, yes -- ethical, no.

Unwilled sexual relations is also an ethical issue, not so much because it is sex, but because people generally don't like being forced to do things. You would like to eat your favorite meal. You wouldn't enjoy being force-fed the same food.

If you don't like my reply, please be more specific about what you think is wrong with it.

So I think most of you are missing the point, which is that sex appears to be morally special in and of itself. So sex is a bit like pain in this respect. Many acts that are wrong are wrong precisely because they cause someone some pain. (Not all, obviously, and not all acts that cause someone pain are wrong, but many are wrong and wrong precisely because they cause a person pain). Many acts are wrong precisely because they involve sex. — Bartricks

Sex is not special. It's one of several essential biological functions: eating, breathing, drinking, voiding urine and feces, clearing one's nose, coughing, farting, sneezing, salivating, tearing, sleeping, moving about, and so on. Over time our biological functions have been hedged about with social restrictions, mostly top-down.

As Richard Lyman Bushman observed in his book (I mentioned it above) The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities, 18th century "taste makers" (various people who helped people achieve the level of gentility they desired) considered the body an embarrassing "shell" that one should not expose or infringe upon. They disapproved of open mouths. Quality people were not to laugh out loud, yawn, walk around with their mouth open (no mouth-breathers allowed), and so on, because the open mouth was considered 'disgusting' and low class. Sharing a spoon was strongly disapproved of, NOT BECCAUSE OF ANY FEARS OF DISEASE, but because if one person's mouth had touched a spoon, it was "ritually contaminated", so somebody else would not want to touch it.

All this is perfectly irrational, and our attitudes about sex and sexuality are of like kind. We are not supposed to behave like animals (so they say). So over time, (centuries, not years) sexuality has been overlaid with multiple layers of ethical and behavioral restrictions.

I've been reading a book about "how gentility became a thing in colonial America and during the 19th century". Interesting book. But anyway, the author asks the question, "Why were royal courts so extremely regulated and formal in their behavior?

The author points out that extremely ambitious and highly acquisitive people flocked to court and surrounded the king--they were the courtiers. Without extremely severe regulation, life at court would have quickly turned into a vicious and deadly brawl. All those ambitious and acquisitive people had to be kept under control. Hence all the rules of proper behavior.

Sex is quite powerful. People get quite charged up over sexual offense, sexual desire, sexual performance, sexual deprivation, sexual competition, sex this, sex that, and sex and so on. The lid has to be kept on, or we would be doing a lot more squabbling and taking pot shots at each other.

Sex is fenced off with all sorts of barbed wire boundaries to keep everyone behaving tolerably in group settings.

What happens when the lid comes off? In some situations, heaven sets in. A gay bath house operates (or operated when there were lots of bath houses around) on rather loose terms--something not too far from anything goes as long as there was no serious objection from those involved. Sex in the bushes also operates with a minimum number of rules.

Why don't straight men engage in that sort of sex play? Because straight women won't let them. Wives and partners expect their men to be responsible and not engage in extra-marital sex, let alone engage in flagrantly promiscuous anonymous sex with god knows whom. Women tend to be guardians of the hearth. Vesta was the goddess of the Roman hearth. The Vestal Virgins kept the sacred fires of Rome. Your suburban housewife is a small-time goddess of her own hearth. Her job is to keep the home fires burning, and to keep the guy near the fire.

Men tend not to look at home quite the same way. There aren't any male god hearth watchers that I know of. Men, far from being vestal virgins, are more like festive fuckers -- happy to have as much sex as possible.

Fresco, dear, lots of us are atheists, but recognize that "religion" is 100% real, even though the gods are not. Of the 7+billion people on earth, at least 6+billion think about religion in more or less positive terms (their own, usually). "My religion is good and true; your religion is a pile of crap." Atheists take that approach, too, quite often.

Religion is a critical cultural activity, and has been for quite a long time--far longer than atheism. Longer than philosophy. Longer than agriculture.

Do you have any further questions?

the contents of your mind come to your attention by reason alone — Mww

I am not sure that "reason" is the right word here. The contents of your mind include the capacity to look at and reflect on the contents of your mind. Maybe "probing" (reasonable or not) is the key. Freud thought that dreams were the royal road into the unconscious mind. Dreams are a road -- these days more like the decertified route 66 than the Queen's Highway. Introspection, rumination, free-association, combing one's memories about specific things, unbidden memories, unbidden thoughts (unbidden by the conscious mind, anyway; who knows what devious purposes some neuronal cluster had in sending that excruciating memory from 7th grade to the Big Screen, just now...).

In a very narrow sense, we all experience the "locked in" syndrome. There is just so much we can't access and express, even to ourselves, much less to all or any others.

This thread is a very good example of me trying to communicate my mental life to others. — T Clark

Which is, of course, what we are all trying to do. Can we do it?

One of the great limitation in sharing our minds, mental life, inner being... with others is the enormous volume of content that amounts to even brief experiences. For a good deal of experience we have no words. There are odors, for instance that we find attractive, disgusting, appetizing, and so forth which we would be very hard-pressed to describe beyond saying "Mint smells like mint". How does one describe the odor of a ripe pear? Or a spoiled tomato? Or a quite dead squirrel? Or rain on a warm concrete road? Or the sensation of swallowing a spoonful of haddock chowder? The feel of a very dry, cold wind? A twitching muscle? The sensation of suddenly remembering something important you forgot?

Then there is the connectedness of memories. When I see ground cherries at the farmers market (never see them anywhere else) I remember seeing ground cherries growing in our neighbor's garden; that memory is at least 60+ years old. There is the memory of offering ground cherries to people who have never seen them before, and being puzzled at their suspicions -- you'd think I was offering them a mushroom that was quite possibly poisonous. (Ground cherries belong in the nightshade family of potatoes, tomatoes, tobacco, eggplant (aubergines) and peppers. The leaves of these plants are poisonous.).

Something as simple as a husked tomato has a lot of baggage. How much more baggage does the topic of God have. Or thoughts about your wife and children? Or... 250,000 other topics.

Then there are all sorts of ambiguous thoughts. I officially do not believe in God, but there is nothing else that I do not believe in that is so much in my thoughts. Some of our brave convictions do not hold up well on close (self) examination and we are probably loath to expose these convictions to the unfriendly examination of others.

Some of our actions are just too embarrassing to talk about, and I wasn't even thinking about sexual misadventures.

So, to make a long story short, we may over-estimate just how much of our selves we can or will actually reveal.

Would a flower help? Here, have a flower: :flower:

I stole it from a grave. — S

Well done.

Premature withdrawal is not an option. You can't leave. Your participation will endure, like it or not, so you might as well stay and be active. To distressing? Try Xanax.

Maybe "Who could imagine that they would freak out somewhere on The Philosophy Forum" (instead of somewhere in Kansas).

Up with Zappa.

@T Clark

Self-knowledge is real knowledge, though it is knowledge that only the subject person can possess in detail, and introspection is the essential process of gaining it.

A question: How much of our self-knowledge can a benign interrogator (not the water-boarding type) gain through long-term discussion (such as that with a psychoanalyst)? Can one unpack somebody else's mind, with their cooperation? (Not now. if there is no willingness to share.).

I've engaged in intense self-examination / reflection during the last third of my life (so, starting about 23 years ago). I've written many pages of the results (now lost on dead hard-drives, which is probably just as well). One of the shortcomings of self-examination is that one must be both advocate and adversary: "Is that really what happened 60 years ago?" "How sure can you be that the memory of your first love in college is accurate, now?" "What happened in years where there are no clear memories, compared to the year before when there are more memories?" (Second grade is kind of a blank. Did bad things happen in that room?)

There is a paradox in "the unexamined life is not worth living" and that is that most of us can not do mature self-examination until much of our life has been lived. At 25 or 45 I did a lot of ruminating, but it wasn't very informative. Of course I may have been an unusually uninsightful schmuck when I was a young man. (There is some evidence that I was.).

My soundest advice is this: Never engage in introspection while riding a bike in downtown traffic.

slave-dealing — tim wood

Slave dealing was not a problem for the Jewish authorities until some point which I can't identify, just now. Slavery was during some OT periods was quite common.

what do I think of religions that push fear and hatred? I think they're ignorant and stupid. — tim wood

Your phrasing has come out of my mouth on a number of occasions, but I am not sure the problem is ignorance and stupidity. The targets for hate are many and varied, and most of us are capable of hating people who, to our minds, are really loathsome, but who, to themselves, are perfectly lovable and decent folk.

One of the big problems of Christians & Moslems is the idea that people who violate the holiness code are spectacularly evil. Therefore, Jews, homosexuals, apostates, heretics, adulterous women, and so on have been the objects of focused hatred and violence. But to repeat, "homophobia" doesn't fit these situations.

People don't hate Jews because they fear they are Jews. The self-righteous religious haters usually do not think they are deep down, homosexuals. Or apostates, heretics, adulterous women, and more. Hatred has other sources than what drives the properly diagnosed homophobe (which is the fear he is queer). People who hate blacks usually have some picture of the uppity Negro who is violating the proper order of things: he or she is not being submissive. NO, he and she are out there integrating the schools, the pool, the shopping center, and the neighborhood; marching, yelling, getting the federal government involved, and... and... there goes our way of life!!!

People sometimes hate the people over whom they have absolute power. It's not a phobia, it's a more complicated reaction.

Anyone here able to cite those parts of the Bible... — tim wood

Everyone who can use Google can do it.

I encountered this biblical material back in 1978, particularly in the book, Is the Homosexual my Neighbor? by Letha Dawson Scanzoni and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott. Since then many books have been published on the topic.

Leviticus

"You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." Chapter 18 verse 22[2]
"If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them." Chapter 20 verse 13[3]

Genesis

Sodom and Gomorrah have been used historically and in modern discourse as metaphors for homosexuality, and are the origin of the English words, sodomite, a pejorative term for male homosexuals, and sodomy, which is used in a legal context to describe sexual crimes against nature, namely anal or oral sex (particularly homosexual) and bestiality.

Judges 19 has a very unhappy tale similar to the one in Sodom and Gomorrah.

The relationship between David and Johnathan has been interpreted as homosexual (and as not homosexual)

1 Samuel 18:1:

And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. (KJV)

Another relevant passage is 2 Samuel 1:26, where David says:

I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women. (KJV)

Book of Ruth

The relationship between Ruth and Naomi has been interpreted as a lesbian relationship (and as not a lesbian relationship)

Paul Romans 1:26-27

For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.[25]

arsenokoitai gets mentioned in the Corinthian quote, and is a good example of why all this is difficult. We don't have numerous dictionaries, many volumes of secular writing, and so forth to interpret the New Testament. We have what we have and it is often a struggle for scholars to determine what, exactly people meant.

It seems to me quite likely that the ancient Jewish authorities did not like homosexuals. Their competitors in the land of Israel, the heathens, pagans, and uncircumcised Philistines practiced male prostitution in some temples. Why? Fertility. Don't ask me -- I don't know whether the temple prostitutes were gay or not, and nobody else does either.

In one passage (can't remember) the Bible says that the wages of a dog may not be offered in the temple. Dogs got paid? No, "dog" was a term for a male temple prostitute.

Did homosexuality exist in ancient Israel? As far as I know, it did. BUT the given form male homosexuality would have taken would depende on the options available and what was tolerated. We really don't know much about it.

anyone here care to venture a definition of what homophobia is? — tim wood

In the context in which it was used, it means someone who has a fear of their own homophobia. It was theorized that men who could not accept their sexual attraction to other men would react to it with fear, loathing, and sometimes, violence directed at a suspected or known homosexual. Many gay men have experienced this reaction to actual or suspected homosexuals before they openly accepted their own sexual attraction to men. This was true for me at one period of time, also.

This kind of phobia and self-hatred is dispelled by self-acceptance.

The homophobia model has since been applied to hatreds for which the mechanism of 'homophobia" doesn't exist in any way, shape, manner, or form. So, heterosexual people are accused of being homophobic because they intensely dislike homophobia, not because they recognize any same sex longing in themselves.

Better to call hate hate, then adopt a term for an anxiety reaction for plain old hatred.

Xenophobia doesn't exist because people secretly fear that they are foreigners or something strange. Some people just fear and hate strangers or foreigners or anything that is strange or foreign. We seem to be primed for this, and in some communities xenophobia is encouraged and strengthened by group behavior.

Arachnophobes do not suspect they are really spiders. Spiders simply scare them to an inordinate degree.

Get the picture?

Good observation. Thanks.

In modern days, religions should keep their Jesus off of our penises. They have no business in the bedrooms of the nation. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Christians could make some progress in that direction by recognizing that Jesus had a penis himself, and probably employed it in activities besides urination. He was an embodied being, after all, with all the urges contained therein. Many Christians have difficulty with embodiment -- including their own. Some seem to want to be above the physical, somehow being etherial disembodied beings.

Yes, there are many flavors of Christianity, everything from Mormons to Old Calendar Bulgarian Orthodox; and a lot of members -- 2.4 billion, give or take a dozen. Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism comprise billions more. Characterizing these religions as one thing or another is risky, because there is going to be variation on each facet of faith and religious behavior. You know that, of course.

That said, I have had quite a bit of experience with Christian anti-gay attitudes and policies, both pro- and con. The Methodist Church in which I was raised is coming apart right now over the issue; my siblings are in the anti-gay camp. On the other hand, there are Methodist congregations that are gay-affirming. One of the strong drivers behind my effort to pursue atheism was the impossibility of affirming my gay sexual being within Christian Theology. Catholics, Anglicans, and others are also having difficulty finding an accommodation for gay people and women who want an equal share of participation and power in the Church.

Some churches are misogynist too. Methodism has done better on this score, electing women bishops before many denominations accepted women as pastors. One of my sisters belongs to a Baptist church that is remarkably antediluvian in its attitudes toward women in the church.

Most Christians can be faulted on their failures to even remotely approximate the performance that Jesus Christ established as the standard (I was naked and you clothed me, I was hungry and you fed me...) and believers in every other religion similarly fail to meet whatever mark is expected of them. That's just normal human behavior.

Billions of automobile drivers fail to faithfully follow the rules of the road, for instance, even though it raises their personal risks substantially.

The primary task of civilization is to corral our inconvenient primate urges as well as we can so that the better angels of our Homo sapiens nature can come to the fore. It's a messy business everywhere for everybody.

And even when everybody agrees that there is a boundary, and the boundary is extremely visible (river, big fence) people can't / won't agree on what it means. Does it mean, "Stay on your side until a guard or customs agent says, "Welcome to the -----"? Does it mean that the boundary is irrelevant? "Borders? We don't need no stinking borders!" Does it mean that people who insist on the border not being crossed willy nilly are racist sexist xenophobic white supremacist nazi scum? (to some...)

These borders are well marked but it doesn't make all that much difference:



And thanks for going back to wherever you came from.

I agree with you, I think we're going to have a very wretched time of it. Perhaps the economic system will freeze up again and not be thawed out. Almost certainly, heat waves, famine, drought, (and ironically heavy rains and floods), will destabilize many societies. Governments may not be able to hold their nations together amid the eco-disasters, or the Econ-disasters.

All this is quite different than the demise of the Roman or other empires. The climate isn't a government service of even the most determined nanny sate. If seasonable weather fails, then we starve sooner or later.