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lesson is that self-reflection is more likely to hurt than to help. However, for those who desire a certain amount of self-reflection, it’s not necessarily something to be avoided. If Michael and George Michael can get it together and learn how to engage in a level of self-reflection that is not all-encompassing, they will have opportunities for happiness that are not available to their less-reflective family members. So, the unexamined life isn’t a huge mistake, but a touch of examination might not be a bad thing.

NOTES

1. Episode 12.

2. Episode 14.

3. Episode 27.

4. Plato, Apology, p. 29e.

5. Plato, Apology, p. 38a.

6. Plato, Apology, p. 28b.

7. The story is probably Plato’s, though he puts it in the mouth of Socrates.

8. Plato, Republic VII, pp. 514-518.

9. Plato, Apology, p. 30c.

10. Episode 26.

11. Episode 1.

12. Episode 5.

13. Episode 45.

14. Episode 36.

15. Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996), p. 18.

16. Ibid., p. 18.

17. Ibid., p. 19.

18. Ibid., p. 20.

19. Ibid., p. 21.

20. Ibid., p. 17.

21. Ibid., p. 113.

Chapter 2

KISSING COUSINS

Incest, Naturalism, and the Yuck Factor

Deborah R. Barnbaum

George Michael thought that Maeby may be his cousin, which may be a problem. Or maybe not. Can moral philosophy help us figure it out all these maybes?

Maeby is George Michael’s first cousin; George Michael is Michael’s son, Lindsay is Maeby’s mother, and Michael and Lindsay are brother and sister. At the end of Season 3, it’s revealed that Lindsay was adopted, which means that Maeby may not be biologically related to George Michael. But then again, she may be, since Maeby’s birth is cloaked in a bit of shadow (at least it is right now, as I’m writing). Maeby’s grandmother, Lucille, referred to Maeby as having been “made in a cup,” which doesn’t eliminate the possibility that Maeby is George Michael’s first cousin (in the naughty biological way). What it does tell us is that George Michael’s and Maeby’s relationship is a bit mysterious. The “high cost, low quality mini-mansion” might not be the only thing to come crashing down if George Michael and Maeby get together.

Throughout Seasons 1 and 2, George Michael believed that Maeby was family—the biological kind—and that he shouldn’t be kissing her, or doing much of anything else with her. George Michael believes hooking up with his first cousin is morally wrong. It’s incest, a big no-no (despite the fact that in previous centuries, cousins married all the time). But what makes incest morally wrong?

As we’ll see, there are a couple of philosophical reasons for thinking that incest is morally wrong, but ultimately both are as flawed as an attempt to make millions selling the Cornballer.

The Argument from Naturalism

One argument against incest is that it is “unnatural.” We’ll call this The Argument from Naturalism. An argument, in the formal sense, has both premises and a conclusion. Premises are just those claims offered as evidence for a conclusion. A conclusion is what we infer from premises. There are two things to look for in an argument. First, we want to know if the conclusion logically follows from the premises (if it does, then the argument is valid). Second, we want to know if the premises are actually true (if the premises of a valid argument are true, we call the argument sound).

Here are some activities that might fall prey to The Argument from Naturalism: incest, riding a Segway, and Buster’s love for “Mother.” The Argument from Naturalism, applied to these three Bluthy things, looks something like this:

In each case, the conclusion follows from the premises. So the argument is valid. But all of you cousin-lovers out there will be happy to know that validity isn’t enough for a good argument. The premises need to be true as well.

The first premise is typically defended by pointing to examples in the world. Most people manage to walk if they need to traverse 20 yards at a