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Is it immoral to have sex in public places? If so, what are the rational and empirical reasons?
Most people believe it’s immoral to have sex in public places. Have ethicists come up with any good arguments for avoiding the charge of immorality? It seems as if it's a universal philosophical notion, which doesn't seem common.
Some philosophers have practiced sex in public places. Diogenes the Cynic engaged in public sex, though only with himself.
His point was to confront his fellow Athenians with the truth of their animal nature. Most of us, however, prefer a life of self-consciousness and feel some pride in the fact that we are not merely dogs, from which the word Cynic derives.
I suspect rational consciousness, which is always self-consciousness is the reason this taboo is so nearly universal. There have always been exhibitionists, voyeurs, middle-class "swingers," romantics, and radicals who promote such "liberation" from social constraints.
But as far as I know, modern philosophy have not devoted much time to this particular problem. Possibly Zizek has something to say about it; since he has something to say about everything. If sex in public can be shown to be moral in a deontic sense, then the State should certainly make it mandatory.
It’s about why morality evolved. Shame evolved to avoid being vulnerable, for instance while defecating. Disgust evolved to avoid hazards from infection. Humans hijacked these to serve cultural ends, and then have applied reasoning and develop cultural practices which moderate shame & disgust where it’s not relevant to harms, and to provide legal and other backing where these instincts aren't enough, or to enforce consequences to violating the prescriptions which usually have had an evolutionary basis (but cultural variation is dramatic, showing how sophisticated a route to varied social practice it has been).
Only two species are known to have sex so overwhelmingly in private. In our case, it seems to be linked to human’s complex cooperative behaviour, & monogamy (crèche rearing young is known to result in more mirror neurons, & monogamy has allowed more resources for long infancy) https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2020/08/12/why-do-humans-mate-in-private-instinct-or-morality
Those who think human is only an animal having intelligence, can take this as rather amoral.
By moral, if it implies something good for the coming generation also, this is never moral. On the contrary, since this does something bad to the coming generation this is immoral.
If we are higher order animal we should be able to control our animal instincts. Otherwise we had better think that evolution is still taking place in the minute level.
If one observes he/she can understand that the level of 'humanliness' (humanity) differs from person to person. If one's developed 'intelligence' says that humanity is moving towards divinity, having sex in public place is immoral. There is a great possibility of popping up of some other latent emotions if this is allowed. This must be the religious, rational and empirical reason behind the aversion towards this type of behavior.
You may verify whether this is fully religious or not:
