Non-consensual sex doesn’t have to be prohibited by fiat, it falls out of the principle of well constructed moral systems. E.G it almost always causes more unhappiness than happiness, so utilitarianism doesn’t like it in almost all cases.
There are cases when non-consensual sex would turn out to be justified, but I think they would be rare and hard to argue even in those cases. Incest is way better as a clear case to use in standard arguments.
There are cases when non-consensual sex would turn out to be justified, but I think they would be rare and hard to argue even in those cases
Some examples: the girl is under the age of consent, but looks older and lies to the boy; or the girl is drunk but says okay … the “wrongness” (if any) of cases like that does not fall out of straightforward consequentialism, but out of the need for a Schelling Fence somewhere, and ideally a simple one.
I think Jabberslythe was referring to “non-consensual” as in actually non-consensual, not in the sense of “the legal jurisdiction doesn’t recognize the legal validity of the person’s consent, because of drunkenness/age”
the girl is under the age of consent, but looks older and lies to the boy
This seems chiefly non-consensual for the boy, and it’s certainly not justified to put him at risk of prosecution!
The next case sounds bad to me, perhaps because the issue would never arise with adults if when the drug(s) wore off she recalled saying it and would still have said ‘yes’. (Or I may be reading it with the knowledge that the law does not, practically speaking, forbid sex with someone who’s had a few drinks.) But I technically agree that we’d need more information.
Living in some even less convenient world, I think I might consciously apply compartmentalization/hypocrisy upon hearing that someone did that—agreeing that they didn’t commit anything too bad either ethically or legally… then I’d still do something to harm the rapist emotionally, socially or materially, accepting that my aggression is merely an outlet for a moral emotion and not the demand of a consistent principle.
It’s not a direct answer, but this thelastpsychiatrist discussion of a similar question “f you could rape a girl, but then give her this magic drug that left her with no memory of the rape, would you do it?” is interesting.
I don’t know if many male readers will fail to think of the reversal before he suggests it. But he has a point that we teach girls, but not boys, that rape could happen to them. (I don’t know if we teach boys that they might be rapists, but we sure don’t teach girls that.) This may explain some empathy failures. Rape of men is around one third as common as rape of women, but the tropes treat rape of men as something that happens to other people, such as prison inmates or comedic characters.
I think you provide a sufficiently inconvinient possible world to challenge but this seems to be almost the default and fairly neutral world in which to test the theory. The worlds that almost instantly to mind in response to the implicit challenge (“hard to argue in even those cases”) naturally took the inconvenience to the extremes.
Non-consensual sex doesn’t have to be prohibited by fiat, it falls out of the principle of well constructed moral systems. E.G it almost always causes more unhappiness than happiness, so utilitarianism doesn’t like it in almost all cases.
There are cases when non-consensual sex would turn out to be justified, but I think they would be rare and hard to argue even in those cases. Incest is way better as a clear case to use in standard arguments.
Some examples: the girl is under the age of consent, but looks older and lies to the boy; or the girl is drunk but says okay … the “wrongness” (if any) of cases like that does not fall out of straightforward consequentialism, but out of the need for a Schelling Fence somewhere, and ideally a simple one.
I think Jabberslythe was referring to “non-consensual” as in actually non-consensual, not in the sense of “the legal jurisdiction doesn’t recognize the legal validity of the person’s consent, because of drunkenness/age”
This seems chiefly non-consensual for the boy, and it’s certainly not justified to put him at risk of prosecution!
The next case sounds bad to me, perhaps because the issue would never arise with adults if when the drug(s) wore off she recalled saying it and would still have said ‘yes’. (Or I may be reading it with the knowledge that the law does not, practically speaking, forbid sex with someone who’s had a few drinks.) But I technically agree that we’d need more information.
Google “9 of 10 people enjoy *”.
:)
Least convenient possible world:
Is it wrong to rape someone unconscious if pregnancy and STDs aren’t an issue?
Living in some even less convenient world, I think I might consciously apply compartmentalization/hypocrisy upon hearing that someone did that—agreeing that they didn’t commit anything too bad either ethically or legally… then I’d still do something to harm the rapist emotionally, socially or materially, accepting that my aggression is merely an outlet for a moral emotion and not the demand of a consistent principle.
Personally I think the problem is with the quasi-utiliterianism that tends to be the default moral theory around here.
It’s not a direct answer, but this thelastpsychiatrist discussion of a similar question “f you could rape a girl, but then give her this magic drug that left her with no memory of the rape, would you do it?” is interesting.
I don’t know if many male readers will fail to think of the reversal before he suggests it. But he has a point that we teach girls, but not boys, that rape could happen to them. (I don’t know if we teach boys that they might be rapists, but we sure don’t teach girls that.) This may explain some empathy failures. Rape of men is around one third as common as rape of women, but the tropes treat rape of men as something that happens to other people, such as prison inmates or comedic characters.
I think you provide a sufficiently inconvinient possible world to challenge but this seems to be almost the default and fairly neutral world in which to test the theory. The worlds that almost instantly to mind in response to the implicit challenge (“hard to argue in even those cases”) naturally took the inconvenience to the extremes.
(I agree with what seems to be your key message.)