It may be even more surprising to you that I don’t think inability to give consent is a strong argument for why adult-child sex is unethical. However, to be clear, I think that adult-child sex is extremely unethical.
My personal pet peeve in this discussion is that nobody is defining precisely what “adult” and “child” mean.
Teenagers these days are getting thrown in jail (and given lifetime “sex offender” labels) for having consensual sex on the wrong side of arbitrary age lines that vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
So, my empathy on this subject is much more solidly with them, and that’s the ethics I’m personally concerned with in this discussion. We may not be able to prevent all the harm that takes place from manipulation and abuse, but I’d like to see some improvement for the innocents who get caught in the crossfire.
agreed. A consequentialist, however, would not necessarily buy this—weighing the harm to innocents on the border versus harm to children nowhere near the border might well favor keeping things as they are. Not that I buy that justification.
My personal pet peeve in this discussion is that nobody is defining precisely what “adult” and “child” mean.
Teenagers these days are getting thrown in jail (and given lifetime “sex offender” labels) for having consensual sex on the wrong side of arbitrary age lines that vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
So, my empathy on this subject is much more solidly with them, and that’s the ethics I’m personally concerned with in this discussion. We may not be able to prevent all the harm that takes place from manipulation and abuse, but I’d like to see some improvement for the innocents who get caught in the crossfire.
agreed. A consequentialist, however, would not necessarily buy this—weighing the harm to innocents on the border versus harm to children nowhere near the border might well favor keeping things as they are. Not that I buy that justification.