Quote:
Originally Posted by Cowboy89
Everyone should watch "the lost boys" documentary on CBC and think about if that started to become more prevelent in society what would be the macro result. It's all about control. Sometimes a society must reaffirm why we do things the way we do things and resist the urge to get into moral equivilency arguements on all issues that automatically devolve into
"everyone do what you feel like as long as everyone involved gives consent." The ultimate problem is that in morman sects and Islamic polygamous relationships I'd find it really hard for the women who have been indoctirnated in these faiths (That incidently are about iscolation, domination and control) could even possibly give 'informed' consent. Consent yes, but you can't tell me a 15 year old girl who has been iscolated from common society that is forced into an arranged marriage in which she has to share her 60 year old husband with 5 other wives isn't in a lot of ways pschycologically forced into it.
This isn't an opportunity for "What might be right for some, might be wrong for others, the world marches to the beat of different drum" reasoning.
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I think that's a great point. The thing is, as was pointed out earlier, the specific problem here is exploitation, which takes the form of polygamy in this case. Which is altogether different from "polygamy as an abstract principle." As an abstract principle, it's possible to imagine a polygamous relationship between consenting adults, and in that case they wouldn't be harming anybody by doing what they do. Cases like Bountiful don't really meet that standard--they use polygamy as a way of granting the sanction of religion to the exploitation of children and young women. I do think the point made by octothorp stands, though--what's wrong about this isn't polygamy itself as an abstract principle, however bound up it may be in all of these problems.
But you're absolutely right that in cases like this where the real-world consequences are quite grave, you can't fall back on moral relativism as the answer.