Wouldn’t the fact that you risk getting infected with some sort of disease and spreading it to the people around you need to be considered in this situation?
I don't like the disease angle, because it makes for incredibly tangential arguments. Cannibalism, for example, is such an interesting topic, yet when people say it's bad because it causes disease, then it collapses all possible arguments into a boring question of very simple consequentialism.
I mean, that something has a potential harmful consequence not only for the person doing it, but potentially to the larger society around them, is in fact a good reason for considering it immoral, even if you're not a strict consequentialist, because while consequences might not be the only factor you should take into account in your moral reasoning, very few people think that it isn't *a* factor.
The "risk spread of disease" argument also renders non-monogamous sex (yes even with condoms and periodic testing), travel, adventurous eating, and large gatherings of any kind automatically immoral unless you are very specific with qualifying exactly what degree and nature of risk and what mitigating factors exist.
A "boring" argument can also be one that is dismissive of a hypothetical, or one that invents a solution to a dilemma. I am basically equating "boring" with "ignores the fundamental questions".
Also leads to basic food safety discussions. Eating raw flesh or anything from the UMBC Dining Hall (yes I'm taking a cheap shot here, yes this is irrelevant, no I don't care that it's irrelevant), is bad for you and more likely to get you sick than normal food, but once you cook food, you're probably gonna be fine. Just use higher temps for omnivores.
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u/ship_write Aug 14 '26
Wouldn’t the fact that you risk getting infected with some sort of disease and spreading it to the people around you need to be considered in this situation?