himynameisPwn

Let me put it this way, why is being sexualy unethical wrong? Is that the question your asking?

Answer me this: why is being unethical wrong?

Thats why being sexually unethical is wrong.

Amen-Moses

Originally posted by himynameisPwn:
Exploitation is always wrong. I don't understand whats so hard to grasp? Baseball is always baseball. Can baseball ever not be baseball? No.

Except when it is softball or rounders.

If you call it exploitation, it is wrong period. If it wasn't wrong it wouldn't be exploitation. Im surprised you guys have a problem with this concept.

So if one bunch of people call it exploitation and another buch call it free enterprise who is right and why?

Is it wrong to marry off 9 year old girls to old men? Is it "sexual exploitation"? If so how come it was culturally acceptable in England for hundreds of years? Who suddenly decided it was wrong and why?

Or to put it another way how come the rules of rounders can be changed to produce baseball and then the rules of baseball can be changed over the years into the modern version of the game and yet you can make the daft claim that "Baseball is always baseball".

It is like claiming "Ethics is aways ethics", it doesn't tell us anything about WHY overarm bowling (sorry pitching) is not allowed.

Amen-Moses

Amen-Moses

Nope the question is "why is sexual expoitation unethical", you are just trying to short cut the discussion by defining exploitation as unethical.

I know that discussions like this are difficult because we are dealing with emotive issues and when you assume something is objective then trying to rationalise why you feel that way is difficult.

The most honest response (which came up earlier in this or the other thread) is to say "it's wrong becasue I say so", this is in reality the source of all our ethics.

In a pure democracy when enough people agree on the wrongness of a particular act then it becomes law, in a pure monarchy the wrongness of acts are dictated by a single person, in a theocracy the wrongness of acts is decided by an imaginary being (normally communicated to us real people by an intermediary like a prophet).

Most of us live somewhere in the middle of all that mess, where originally human dictates (from a monarch) are mixed with dictates from prophets and community dictates.

Assume for a moment that I am an alien with no concept of individual rights (or assume I am Satan if you prefer ), now how would you go about explaining to me why exploitation is immoral?

Amen-Moses

himynameisPwn

Rounders isn't baseball. Baseball is baseball. While they may be similar, they aren't equal. Same for softball.

If two people define the same act different ways, then they aren't asking the same question. On a situation by situation basis, something can be wrong or right, but if someone defines something as sexual exploitation they think its wrong. There is nothing objectively wrong because wrong and right are concepts relative to whats culurally acceptable.

So, if someone thinks it is free enterprise, while it may be, in order to protect the overhwelming majority of children, one must stop child porn altogether. Again, I never said anything is objectively wrong, because nothing can ever be objectively wrong unless you define it as wrong.

The Other Michael

Perhaps it might do the discussion some good to try and develop a mutually acceptable definition of exploitation, then decide when/if that definition might apply to children's sexuality.

I think it is very easy for most of us to forget that the first step in a discussion should really be definition of terms, so that we are all talking about the same thing.

cheers,
Michael

Amos

Your kind of democracy is really a tyranny in which the popular opinion of the people is the tyrant. The "imaginary being" you refer to here is the actual real being called man who has insight into the human nature of man wherein you think you are real. In a theocracy the mediator is the actual being called man (your "prophet") and for him the imaginary being is the ego identity wherein you think you have real existence. Do you see how they are opposite to each other?<strong> My best answer here is that it is precisely because you think that you are real and have existence in your ego identity that you are indeed an alien with no concept of individual rights (thank you for that). You confuse individual rights with human rights and fail to realize that man as the animal man is a solitary individual and therefore is not a social animal to whom human rights are given. Man is to whom individual rights are given for the protection against the ambitious nature of humans who's liberties are declared in the charter of freedom--which really only declares war within the human society and hence the need for individual rights.

It is only because you think that you are real in your human existence that you desire to reinforce this existence (if you really knew who you are there is no need to prove yourself), and, to reinforce this illusory existence humans have become social animals to achieve this.

So now it can be said that human rights are provided to stabilize the chaos in scoiety because it is obvious that if humans do not really know who they are they cannot be expected to know what they are doing. In effort to allow humans to be ambitious so they can reinforce their ego identity a moral code is needed to protect the innocent and potential victims from the never ending appetite of human pride and glory while they are at war with each other (for every winner there must at least be one loser).

Exploitation is when your gain is not at the cost of my fame (ego) but is at the cost of my personal intergity as a solitary individual.

[ September 08, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

Amen-Moses

Now I've got a migraine!

Cheers Amos,
Amen-Moses

Amos

Nothing personal here Amen-Moses but I just could not resist agreeing that you were an alien.

Have one on me for the migraine.

echidna

Are you seriously advocating cultural relativism ? (ie. those people think X is OK & who am I to say they are wrong ?)

By the reasoning of cultural relativism, slavery is OK, human sacrifice is OK, hell you’re hard-pressed to find anything which isn’t OK.

Cultural relativism isn’t immoral, it’s maybe the closest thing to amoral which you can find. Try again.

echidna

I’ll continue to avoid even using the word “exploitation”, since ultimately it just mean “use”, except it is loaded in a very negative sense, making it completely misleading IMO.

I hope I can assume that we agree that child pornography is not a psychologically healthy occupation. Your contention is that if pictures can be used without hurting anyone, then it’s OK.

No, not OK IMO. It sanctions and offers acceptance to a way of thinking which is (I hope we agree) is dangerously unhealthy. The use of children for adult sexual titillation is dangerously wrong & something which must be given zero tolerance. Organisations like NAMBLA already stretch morality and freedom rights to justify their immoral actions, and accepting your scenario only increases their strength, giving that type of thinking tacit approval, while in reality they are an organization which needs to be eradicated.

The slippery slope exists. Once you have given tacit approval for child pictures to be take for sexual titillation, how do you regulate these from becoming increasing pornographic ? (which I again trust we agree is wrong)

Ultimately if the psychologically unhealthy billionaire wishes to buy livelihood for the village for the price of partial acceptance of a dangerously unhealthy mindset, then I reject his transaction & submit that there are some such immoral transactions which cannot be sanctioned.

I use the same reasoning to say why he can’t buy a slave from the village as well.

The moral responsibility is not on the village chief who is genuinely faced with a moral dilemma, it is entirely on the billionaire who has the simple power to ease the suffering of the village in an entirely moral way. To choose to do it in an immoral way is a straightforward immoral action, and fortunately one for which a person is increasingly likely to be imprisoned for.

Taking photos of kids on beaches ? Sure, I have them myself, but it should be entirely clear to the individual whether they find the picture sexually titillating or not. I trust you are aware of the difference.

So when adult men begin exchanging these pictures anonymously, well surely you don’t need an explanation of why there’s a problem with this, and why it needs to be stamped on …