A question about a moral dilemma similar to Morgan Luck's gamer's dilemma
Over a decade ago, philosopher Morgan Luck raised the question of the gamer's dilemma:
https://philpapers.org/rec/LUCTGD
Specifically, he wondered why exactly virtual murder was acceptable but virtual pedophilia was not. However, I don't want to talk about the gamer's dilemma here but rather about a similar but somewhat different dilemma. Specifically, I want to focus on a particular comment on a particular blog post:
http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2014/12/should-we-criminalise-robotic-rape-and-robotic-child-sexual-abuse-maybe/
"Nikolas Schaffer says:
December 28, 2014 at 1:27 pm
Haven’t read the paper, just this article, but there seems to be an important question entirely overlooked. At the moment, it is perfectly legal for two or more consenting adult partners to undertake sexual intercourse as an act of simulated rape or simulated child abuse. Why should it be legal for couples (or entire dungeons of consenting adults) to explore such fantasies, but not legal for a lone masturbator, playing with a sex toy? It doesn’t seem to make an awful lot of sense, unless you’re proposing that consenting adult partners should also be forbidden from engaging in role-playing of this kind."
Basically, the moral dilemma goes like this: Why exactly do we tolerate sexual roleplaying between consenting adults that simulates forbidden acts such as rape and pedophilia (rape fantasy roleplaying and pedophilia fantasy roleplaying/ageplay, respectively) but are much less tolerant of other completely harmless virtual representations of these acts such as *cartoon/animated* child porn (NOT the real thing!), child sex dolls, child sex robots, staged scenes/videos of child rape that are done exclusively by consenting adults (for instance, for a movie, with an adult that has an extremely childlike appearance playing the role of the child), cartoon/animated rape scenes, and staged scenes/videos of other rapes that are done exclusively by consenting adults?
You could involve the desensitization argument here--specifically the argument that things such as *cartoon/animated* child porn and child sex dolls/robots could desensitize people, harm their moral character, and make them more likely to commit actual child rape, but one could also invoke the desensitization argument in regards to rape fantasy roleplaying or pedophilia fantasy roleplay/ageplay between consenting adults, especially when this roleplaying is sufficiently realistic to mimic the actual act. Indeed, if one rejects the desensitization argument in the latter context without sufficiently strong evidence, is it really reasonable for such a person to embrace the desensitization argument in the former context without sufficiently strong evidence?
It's also worth noting that societies do sometimes view it as being permissible to criminalize sex acts between consenting adults--for instance, consensual adult incest--if they believe that such sex acts actually serve a sufficiently compelling or at least important state interest--for instance, preserving family stability and harmony or whatever.
Anyway, what do you personally think about this dilemma of mine? Just how exactly would you solve it?
https://philpapers.org/rec/LUCTGD
Specifically, he wondered why exactly virtual murder was acceptable but virtual pedophilia was not. However, I don't want to talk about the gamer's dilemma here but rather about a similar but somewhat different dilemma. Specifically, I want to focus on a particular comment on a particular blog post:
http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2014/12/should-we-criminalise-robotic-rape-and-robotic-child-sexual-abuse-maybe/
"Nikolas Schaffer says:
December 28, 2014 at 1:27 pm
Haven’t read the paper, just this article, but there seems to be an important question entirely overlooked. At the moment, it is perfectly legal for two or more consenting adult partners to undertake sexual intercourse as an act of simulated rape or simulated child abuse. Why should it be legal for couples (or entire dungeons of consenting adults) to explore such fantasies, but not legal for a lone masturbator, playing with a sex toy? It doesn’t seem to make an awful lot of sense, unless you’re proposing that consenting adult partners should also be forbidden from engaging in role-playing of this kind."
Basically, the moral dilemma goes like this: Why exactly do we tolerate sexual roleplaying between consenting adults that simulates forbidden acts such as rape and pedophilia (rape fantasy roleplaying and pedophilia fantasy roleplaying/ageplay, respectively) but are much less tolerant of other completely harmless virtual representations of these acts such as *cartoon/animated* child porn (NOT the real thing!), child sex dolls, child sex robots, staged scenes/videos of child rape that are done exclusively by consenting adults (for instance, for a movie, with an adult that has an extremely childlike appearance playing the role of the child), cartoon/animated rape scenes, and staged scenes/videos of other rapes that are done exclusively by consenting adults?
You could involve the desensitization argument here--specifically the argument that things such as *cartoon/animated* child porn and child sex dolls/robots could desensitize people, harm their moral character, and make them more likely to commit actual child rape, but one could also invoke the desensitization argument in regards to rape fantasy roleplaying or pedophilia fantasy roleplay/ageplay between consenting adults, especially when this roleplaying is sufficiently realistic to mimic the actual act. Indeed, if one rejects the desensitization argument in the latter context without sufficiently strong evidence, is it really reasonable for such a person to embrace the desensitization argument in the former context without sufficiently strong evidence?
It's also worth noting that societies do sometimes view it as being permissible to criminalize sex acts between consenting adults--for instance, consensual adult incest--if they believe that such sex acts actually serve a sufficiently compelling or at least important state interest--for instance, preserving family stability and harmony or whatever.
Anyway, what do you personally think about this dilemma of mine? Just how exactly would you solve it?
Comments (11)
My theory is that the 'fake porn' or 'doll' case summons to mind (fairly or not) a person without an actual lover who is therefore perceived as more likely to cross over from fantasy to abuse. I imagine that even couples who engage in such taboo-violating role-play are secretive about it. Also, with couples' role-play, it's far less obvious where the line is. The bodies are adult. The verbal aspect could hardly be more offensive than Lolita.
As for couples who engage in such taboo-violating being secretive about this, maybe--possibly. But they're still not going to get arrested or even fired if someone else actually finds out about this, are they?
As for the bodies being adult, Yes, but please keep in mind that there could be cases of adults having childlike appearances; for instance, an 18-year-old looking like they're 12 (though this would probably be easier if one is female). Or adult people who have a cherubic appearance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherub
Really, if an adult is short, has no or very small breasts, has little or no body hair and facial hair, and has youthful, androgynous features, then they could simulate some or even many of the elements of children that pedophiles find attractive. For instance, adults with a cherubic appearance, as I mentioned above.
As for the verbal aspect, I'm not sure that you could actually guarantee that. If two consenting adults will engage in a sexual roleplaying fantasy that simulates child *abuse* in particular, for instance, then the language would probably be astronomically harsher than in Lolita. It could also involve things such as simulated gagging and simulated choking and whatnot. Really quite gruesome stuff.
(No, I am NOT speaking from personal experience here, thankfully!)
Like I said, fair or not. Even adult-looking sex-dolls are somewhat taboo. I imagine that most users don't advertise their use of such dolls. Even legal/ordinary porn is an iffy thing to bring up. That said, I do think Shaffer makes some good points. It's not a hill I'd want to die on, tho.
For my money, the notion of virtual murder is not as cut-and-dried as it needs to be for the dilemma to be meaningfully problematic - all dilemmas are problems with no obvious or easy answers. What I'm especially concerned about is how the use of the word "murder" in virtual murder immediately gives one the impression that virtual "murder" is wrong, it has to be wrong for if not there's no dilemma. However, virtual murder, as happens in shooter video games, is invariably morally ambiguous i.e. though missions/levels in shooter games involve killing people, the story arc is such that the player, the protagonist doing the killing, is the "good" guy. In other words, though "murder", the better word would be "killing", takes place in shooter video games, the player is given mixed signals as to the moral nature of the killings - is it good? is it bad? both? - and thus people are willing to assume the roles of virtual characters that have to kill and commit other apparently illegal acts but for the greater good or something like that.
Pedophilia, on the other hand, isn't amenable to such (moral) manipulation - it's hard if not impossible to give a positive spin to it. People will reject virtual pedophilia for this reason.
To make the long story short, there's no dilemma. Morgan Luck assumes that virtual murder and virtual pedophilia are both equally bad and that if gamers have no issues with virtual "murder", they should have no problem being virtual pedophiles. Not so!
In such a scenario, you'd be committing pedophilia since God would essentially put a figurative gun to your head, thus making this virtual pedophilia morally ambiguous.
All I can say is that my intuition tells me not to accept Morgan Luck's argument that if virtual murder is not a problem (it isn't), virtual pedophilia should be a non-issue. It makes sense of course by virtue of the argument from parturition (sorry I'm bad at coining phrases) which is that if the head of the baby fits the birth canal, the rest of the body will too [if the worst offense - (virtual) murder- is permitted, so is a lesser offense - (virtual ) pedophilia]. The argument would work too if, in terms of gravity of the offense, (virtual) murder = (virtual) pedophilia. I dunno!
None whatsoever! Sorry to disappoint you.