pornagraphy VS prostitution

[Ophiolite]

Similarly, overindulgence in chess (Fisher), mathematics (Nash; Erdos), philosophical psychology (Fechner), or sociological research (Max Weber) can make people somewhat damaged, but few seem ready to call these activities 'dangerous addictions' or fret about the need to regulate and control mathematics, sociology, chess to prevent such pathologies. The reason, again, is that we have an irrational fear of sex but not of these other activities.

I'm quite frightened of the Giuoco Piano in chess and go practically catatonic in the presence of a partial differential equation.

[lemur]

In some societies, there is a complete blurring between marriage and prostitution. Thus in Iran, for example, a man can have four permanent wives and any number of temporary wives, with whom he can legally contract to have sexual relations for a month at a time. Iran is an extremely pious society, furious about violations of marriage by adultery, about pornography, about women scantily clad in public, or about frank prostitution, but it seems in effect just to redescribe much prostitution as temporary marriage.

It sounds like the Iranian sexuality you describe works against sexual repression and tries to stimulate at least some level of social responsibility into ephemeral sexual relationships by having month-marriages. If nothing else, you could think of prostitution and pornography as isolating sex from other aspects of human relations. You could call a prostitute, have sex the same afternoon, and never see the person again by sundown. Pornography completely eliminates any personal contact from the exchange as the medium becomes the intermediary instead of the sex worker herself (or himself). At least if you're married to someone for a month, you might have some other forms of companionship that just the proverbial, "wham, bam, thank you ma'am."

[Marat]

If a woman requires a man to perform certain meaningless rituals of courtship for a few weeks, to give her some expensive gifts, to elevate her social status in front of others by his actions, and to take her out to someplace expensive for dinner, and only after these conditions have been fulfilled does she consent to sex, how is that different from prostitution? The man has been required to perform a list of material favors which have in themselves no emotional significance, and which he may find utterly meaningless, and in return for these material favors the woman offers her cooperation with sex. Why does it matter so much whether the list of material favors includes all those rituals and gifts or consists just in a cash transaction?

[lemur]

If a woman requires a man to perform certain meaningless rituals of courtship for a few weeks, to give her some expensive gifts, to elevate her social status in front of others by his actions, and to take her out to someplace expensive for dinner, and only after these conditions have been fulfilled does she consent to sex, how is that different from prostitution? The man has been required to perform a list of material favors which have in themselves no emotional significance, and which he may find utterly meaningless, and in return for these material favors the woman offers her cooperation with sex. Why does it matter so much whether the list of material favors includes all those rituals and gifts or consists just in a cash transaction?

Maybe because she thinks that if he's spending time with her, at least he's interested in her as a person beyond just a mere sex object. I.e. if he just pays for sex directly, she feels no validation for her value except as a sexual performer. If he takes her out and spends time with her, getting to know her, it may turn out that they have more in common than physical attraction. Maybe part of the problem is that women seek validation from men; although some don't and just seem to want to be left alone to go spend time with their girlfriends instead of having to be around their man all the time. I think you're right in general, though, that relationships tend to be prostitution-like except that the exchange becomes more complex than simply money for sex. I don't think there are many people who do things out of love, sex or otherwise, unfortunately. In fact, I think many women have been culturally programmed to view love as a commodity to seek from men and wear like a status symbol. They also learn to fetishize the feeling associated with being "in love" which is really just unrestricted affection, imo. Actual love, i.e. deep concern with someone's well-being and happiness, is practically always overshadowed by self-interest and egoism, imo.

Edited May 25, 2011 by lemur

[Edtharan]

Pragmatically, I agree. The problem arises when you think about the moral message legalization sends out that prostitution is a legitimate service and means for people to attain sexual gratification. Would you prompt an unemployed daughter, sister, mother, or wife to work in prostitution? If not, why would you legalize it?

See this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_emotion

 

What you have proposed is an appeal to emotion as an argument.

 

Sex work has risks involved with it (pregnancy disease, etc), however, there are jobs that have greater risks, but we think it is OK to prompt people to enter those jobs (eg: bomb disposal, military service).

 

Sex work is also a very intimate profession, and there are people who could not handle, or desire that kind of interaction with other people.

 

So, would there be jobs (not just sex work) I would not prompt people to enter. Yes.

 

Take military for instance. We consider killing people morally objectionable, but we find it OK to have professionals that kill people and call them soldiers. As such, I would never prompt someone to enter military service if they didn't already want to join.

 

Also, Mine work is also very dangerous (but not morally objectionable like killing people). But because of the danger, I would not prompt someone to become a miner, unless they wanted to become a miner (or work in that industry).

 

So, yes, there are jobs that I would not prompt someone to enter because of danger, or moral abjection. However, this does not mean I don't think nobody should do those jobs, just that I don't think people should be pushed into doing things they don't want to do.

 

So, just because someone is unemployed would not mean I would push someone into becoming a sex worker, but, just because I would not push someone into becoming a sex worker does not mean I have any objection to people entering that job of their own free will or desire.

 

And, for the record, I have had friends (that is social friends) in the sex industry (it is legal where I live) and I don't have any problem with that. As far as they saw it and I saw it, it was just a job. They enjoyed the work and actually liked the challenge of it (There is quite a bit of skill needed for a good sex worker).

 

Have a watch of these videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/xxxThePeachxxx#p/c/C53D3C06343D8D38/0/89hT7HYRH6Y

[lemur]

Also, Mine work is also very dangerous (but not morally objectionable like killing people). But because of the danger, I would not prompt someone to become a miner, unless they wanted to become a miner (or work in that industry).

I find it strange when people would not want to work in a coal mine, know that people get killed in coal mines, yet they feel perfectly fine with other people doing the job and even have no interest in shifting their own energy consumption to other sources of energy.

 

So, yes, there are jobs that I would not prompt someone to enter because of danger, or moral abjection. However, this does not mean I don't think nobody should do those jobs, just that I don't think people should be pushed into doing things they don't want to do.

The thing about sex as a commodity is that it is a highly desired one. So like any other highly desired commodity, demand creates pressure to produce supply.

 

I don't think it is a manipulative appeal to emotion to point out that sexual desire causes people to suspend judgment where sex is concerned. I just spoke with someone recently, for example, who was totally against abortion and viewed it as murder. So when I asked this person whether people should completely abstain from sex unless they are willing to get pregnant and have a baby, they started citing things like birth control and adoption. If 100% protection against pregnancy was available for free simply by abstaining from sex, you would think that someone who views abortion as murder would choose abstinence over risk, so the fact that they don't suggests that people are willing to sacrifice a lot for sex. So when the sacrifice gets shifted from yourself to someone who's working for you, that becomes even more ethically problematic, imo.

 

 

[Moontanman]

Lemur, I asked you a question a few posts back that you did not answer, it was not rhetorical, what you would do for money? If you have limits, why are those limits more important than other limits? I'll expand on this if you will answer my question.

 

How much money would it take for you to "prostitute" your self?

[lemur]

Lemur, I asked you a question a few posts back that you did not answer, it was not rhetorical, what you would do for money? If you have limits, why are those limits more important than other limits? I'll expand on this if you will answer my question.

 

How much money would it take for you to "prostitute" your self?

Sexually? I would have no way to answer that without knowing the details of the situation. In a sense, every job is a form of prostitution. Only totally voluntary labor would totally liberate you from the spirit of prostituting your labor/talents for money, but since money is handy for many reasons, I prostitute myself to get it. I still try to keep some sense of reasoning and choice about how I use my labor, though, even if I don't always have as much power or choice as I would like to have in work situations. Why are you asking personal questions?

 

 

 

[Moontanman]

Sexually? I would have no way to answer that without knowing the details of the situation. In a sense, every job is a form of prostitution. Only totally voluntary labor would totally liberate you from the spirit of prostituting your labor/talents for money, but since money is handy for many reasons, I prostitute myself to get it. I still try to keep some sense of reasoning and choice about how I use my labor, though, even if I don't always have as much power or choice as I would like to have in work situations. Why are you asking personal questions?

 

 

While the question wasn't personal in the sense I really didn't want to know how much it would take to prostitute your self you gave the only rational answer anyone could give. We all prostitute ourselves in some manner for money or power or what ever we desire. Pornography, or at least being paid to make it is no different than any other form of exchanging work for our own benefit. Few people seem to see there is no real difference between sexual prostitution and any other kind other than what we learn culturally.

 

I think the most threatening thing about prostitution is not that it's immoral or some how "more wrong" than digging a ditch but it's certainly more profitable when you compare the effort involved and I think there in lies the rub for most people. It takes power away from men and our ability to make money "honestly" and allows women to make money easier and faster than the "honest labor" of a man who would take care of them through his "honest" labor. I think this is more threatening to men than women in general but the rub is always that it's too easy to do (I question this) and that only the lazy or immoral would do such a low thing to make money.

 

Of course the idea that sex is "low" is religious in it's origin and only fallen women would do such a thing. While I wouldn't recommend a woman take up sexual prostitution (say because she is so pretty men would pay highly for her favors) as a way to live i wouldn't recommend ditch digging to some guy just because he is large and strong either, but any judgment on the moral standing of either profession is artificial. Almost anything, in our society, that takes power away from men is seen as threatening to the morals of our society. This was much worse in the past when about the only honest job for a woman was as a school teacher and her only other choices was to marry a man who could take care of her or be a whore....

[lemur]

While the question wasn't personal in the sense I really didn't want to know how much it would take to prostitute your self you gave the only rational answer anyone could give. We all prostitute ourselves in some manner for money or power or what ever we desire. Pornography, or at least being paid to make it is no different than any other form of exchanging work for our own benefit. Few people seem to see there is no real difference between sexual prostitution and any other kind other than what we learn culturally.

 

I think the most threatening thing about prostitution is not that it's immoral or some how "more wrong" than digging a ditch but it's certainly more profitable when you compare the effort involved and I think there in lies the rub for most people. It takes power away from men and our ability to make money "honestly" and allows women to make money easier and faster than the "honest labor" of a man who would take care of them through his "honest" labor. I think this is more threatening to men than women in general but the rub is always that it's too easy to do (I question this) and that only the lazy or immoral would do such a low thing to make money.

 

Of course the idea that sex is "low" is religious in it's origin and only fallen women would do such a thing. While I wouldn't recommend a woman take up sexual prostitution (say because she is so pretty men would pay highly for her favors) as a way to live i wouldn't recommend ditch digging to some guy just because he is large and strong either, but any judgment on the moral standing of either profession is artificial. Almost anything, in our society, that takes power away from men is seen as threatening to the morals of our society. This was much worse in the past when about the only honest job for a woman was as a school teacher and her only other choices was to marry a man who could take care of her or be a whore....

Your reasoning makes sense. Have you considered, though, that while doing something like ditch-digging might be a good exercise in discipline, strength-training, endurance, etc. and could give the digger a sense of accomplishment and joy in labor, if the person was subject to doing it all the time for a job, it might lose the allure, become a health-risk, and spoil the work of ditch digging for them outside of work. Sex is something that can be "saved" for situations in which one truly desires it and the pleasure of it being special can add a lot to the enjoyment. I would think prostitution would take much of the joy and magic of sex out of prostitute's experience of sex and turn it into something mechanistic, a set of recipes to follow that produce a given outcome. For this reason, I could see some value in choosing some other job than prostitution and saving sex for purely a voluntary leisure activity.

[Marat]

If someone prepares a banquet for you out of love, then that meal is certainly very much more special, rewarding, and emotionally signficant than just eating at a fast-food restaurant which only serves you meals for cold, hard cash. But just because banquets prepared out of love are so special is no reason to denigrate fast-food meals because they are not as special, or to argue that people should generally starve themselves so that banquets prepared out of love would be even more special. It is difficult to detach ourselves analytically from all the mythic reasoning associated with sexuality so that we can consider it more rationally, and this view that we should voluntarily limit our access to sex to make it more special seems to make sense only if we begin from the arbitrary cultural hypothesis that sex is magical.

 

Moontanman: I agree with almost everything you say above, expect for your statement about prostitution being disapproved of socially because it takes power away from men. Were this the case, then men would be the greatest enemies of prostitution, but in fact we see that it is women who are really most upset about it. I think the reason for this is that prostitution takes power away from women, since it undermines their capacity to create an artificial shortage of heterosexual sex partners so that they become precious -- and thus socially powerful -- just for their monopoly control over relieving that shortage when their special demands (jewels, dating rituals, elaborate courtships, marriage, man playing the required father rule for children, etc.) are met.

[lemur]

Moontanman: I agree with almost everything you say above, expect for your statement about prostitution being disapproved of socially because it takes power away from men. Were this the case, then men would be the greatest enemies of prostitution, but in fact we see that it is women who are really most upset about it. I think the reason for this is that prostitution takes power away from women, since it undermines their capacity to create an artificial shortage of heterosexual sex partners so that they become precious -- and thus socially powerful -- just for their monopoly control over relieving that shortage when their special demands (jewels, dating rituals, elaborate courtships, marriage, man playing the required father rule for children, etc.) are met.

And women are also the ones who are put in the position of aborting pregnancies and don't forget that while ideally women should be able to say no at any point of feeling discomfort or unhappiness during the act, doing so prior to male orgasm completion can be met with frustration and its reverberations.

[Marat]

Up until the mid-1960s having to abort unwanted pregnancies was a real problem for women, but the pill minimized that problem, and the AIDS scare has condomized the problem into an even more diminished threat. You could also just as easily say that an unwanted pregnancy threatens the male with child support payments, especially since he has no vote in the decision to abort.

 

In all initially consensual activities which suddenly become non-consensual there is always a problem of interrupting events proceeding by cooperation and dealing with the consequences. There is a whole branch of contract law regulating remedies for breach of contracts initially voluntarily entered into by both parties, but where one or the other party suddenly suspends performance. Similarly, in other types of purely physical interaction, such as voluntary fights, consent can be withdrawn in ways that are difficult to detect and the law has problems dealing with the exact point of nutation where consent turns to non-consent and so the act goes from legal cooperation to illegal assault. (Cf. the Canadian Supreme Court case of R. v. Jobidon) But I'm not sure that sexual consent presents much more of a problem when it confusingly changes to non-consent and social responses are confronted with the challenge of dealing with this.

 

Generally, if sharing sex were as casual as sharing a meal, all sorts of social tensions and conflicts would be vastly diminished, since where nothing is precious there is nothing to steal. We then have to 'follow the money' and ask who benefits and how from sex being made artificially scarce in a world where there are as many potential cooperators as there are people seeking cooperation -- and thus precious to those who exercise the gate-keeping role over distribution of this now 'commodified' natural activity. Ernest Hemmingway has a good phrase for this in 'The Old Man and the Sea': "The sea is like a woman, giving or withholding great favors."

Edited June 4, 2011 by Marat

[Mr Skeptic]

Your reasoning makes sense. Have you considered, though, that while doing something like ditch-digging might be a good exercise in discipline, strength-training, endurance, etc. and could give the digger a sense of accomplishment and joy in labor, if the person was subject to doing it all the time for a job, it might lose the allure, become a health-risk, and spoil the work of ditch digging for them outside of work. Sex is something that can be "saved" for situations in which one truly desires it and the pleasure of it being special can add a lot to the enjoyment. I would think prostitution would take much of the joy and magic of sex out of prostitute's experience of sex and turn it into something mechanistic, a set of recipes to follow that produce a given outcome. For this reason, I could see some value in choosing some other job than prostitution and saving sex for purely a voluntary leisure activity.

 

Like a professional gourmand, his job takes the joy out of eating because he has to do it for a living.

[Edtharan]

I find it strange when people would not want to work in a coal mine, know that people get killed in coal mines, yet they feel perfectly fine with other people doing the job and even have no interest in shifting their own energy consumption to other sources of energy.

Actually I don't feel strange about it. I believe that people are intelligent enough to make their own judgements about their own actions. It is part of what being an adult is all about. I don't seek to control anyone, so I don't have a problem if people want to risk their lives for some reason (fun, profit, etc).

 

Actually fun is a good example: Take extreme sports like bungee jumping, or even BASE jumping. Do you fell "strange" that although you might not want to do these things, other people do? Would you seek to stop them?

 

I don't because Thorpe people are adults and they accept the risk of the activity for the sense of exhilaration they get.

 

Now, as far as I am concerned, if an adult is willing to take on the risks of an activity (for whatever reason), they are entitled to. So many people talk about freedoms, but this is actually what freedom means. You have to accept that people are willing to take risks that you might not take yourself. They should have that freedom if you want the freedom NOT to have to undertake an activity that you feel is too risky.

 

It is a two way street. If you want the freedom, you have to give that freedom to others, even if it makes you feel uncomfortable.

 

Thus, if you want to have the freedom to have sex for your own reasons, then you have to allow other people to have sex for their own, even if this means they are willing to have sex for money.

 

But look at this again. As I have said, it is about freedoms. Forcing someone (either through violence, threat of violence, coercion, etc) is robbing people of the freedom to choose. This is why I am against illegal prostitution as it encourages these situations, but why I am for legal prostitution as it gives people the freedom to choose.

 

As a sound bite sentence: If I want the freedom to say "No" to sex for whatever reason I want, then I have to be willing for other people to say "Yes" for whatever reason they want.

 

The thing about sex as a commodity is that it is a highly desired one. So like any other highly desired commodity, demand creates pressure to produce supply.

But you are forgetting the rules of supply and demand: If demand is high and supply low, then the price will increase.

 

Sure, there might be a high demand, but this means the sex workers will be paid well. I have no problem with that.

 

If sex work becomes a high paid job, then more people will become attracted to it, thus increasing the supply.

 

Any risk assessment is actually a risk/reward assessment. So if the reward is good enough, more people will be willing to take the risk. Take extreme sports again:

 

The reward for these highly risky activities (far more risky than legal sex work) has no economic benefit, but just the endorphin reward (much like a drug hit reward actually). People who don't like the endorphin reward (or don't get as strong a reward) don't end up doing extreme sports because their risk/reward assessment does not come out in favour of it.

 

If you were to increase the endorphin reward from those activities, then more of the non-extreme sports people will take it up.

 

What I am saying is that if I am willing to let people take any risk at all of their own free choice, then I can't just say: No prostitution because it is risky.

 

If people want to risk themselves for money, that is their choice and they should have the freedom to choose to do so if I want the freedom to choose not to do it.

 

I don't think it is a manipulative appeal to emotion to point out that sexual desire causes people to suspend judgment where sex is concerned.

The suspension of judgement is because of the appeal to emotion. So what I am saying is that we should actually look at what is happening.

 

 

The fact remains that legal sex workers are better off than illegal sex workers.

 

If you use the appeal to emotion that you have been using, the result is that we should agree that legal sex work is wrong and make all sex work illegal. But this means that people (the sex workers) are worse off.

 

So your appeal to emotion is actually an argument for turning people into slaves. Making them have sex against their will because someone can force them to do it because of their situation (desperate for money, drug addiction, violence, etc).

 

This is why appeals to emotion must be avoided. It is because if we rely on them then we can make decision that lead us to make really bad decisions (like ending up advocating sex slavery).

 

I just spoke with someone recently, for example, who was totally against abortion and viewed it as murder. So when I asked this person whether people should completely abstain from sex unless they are willing to get pregnant and have a baby, they started citing things like birth control and adoption.

You do understand that "Birth Control" is not just abortion right. This means that someone can be against abortion, but still be for things like condoms, the pill, etc.

 

Abstinence is still a form of birth control, so all those people that campaign against birth control in favour of abstinence are just hypocrites. As they are trying to campaign against the thing they are campaigning for. What they really should be campaigning for/against are specific forms of birth control.

 

If 100% protection against pregnancy was available for free simply by abstaining from sex, you would think that someone who views abortion as murder would choose abstinence over risk, so the fact that they don't suggests that people are willing to sacrifice a lot for sex. So when the sacrifice gets shifted from yourself to someone who's working for you, that becomes even more ethically problematic, imo.

When a married couple chooses to have sex, there is risk. It is a risk reward assessment. If you are willing for these people to willingly have sex despite the risks, then why do you object to someone else being allowed to make that same assessment? Is it just because they would come to a different conclusion to you, that they asses the rewards and the risks different to you?

 

I'll bring up extreme sports again. If you don't do extreme sports, are you OK with people being allowed to make the same assessment, asses the risks and rewards different from you and come to a different conclusion? If not, then does this mean that you believe that everyone in the world should only make the same choices you do?

 

If you don't, then you have to acknowledge that people can asses the risks and rewards associated with sex and come to a different conclusion to you. You might not be willing to have sex for money because you think it is too risky. But, if you are willing to let other people make their own assessments and judgements, then you have to allow them to choose to have sex for money because they see the reward as greater then the risk.

 

It seems to be that you want to control people because you they want to make a choice that you would not make.

 

Pregnancy is just one risk factor with sex (or it could be the reward - see people can have different opinions on what is risk or reward). There are STIs and such as well. Condoms, and medications are getting good enough that the risk factors associated with these (including pregnancy), while not being eliminated, are greatly reduced.

 

Yes, sex is rewarding in and of itself, and sex for money also has the monetary reward. Also legal sex workers that choose to be sex workers don't only do it for the money either. They also have the challenge to perform as good as they can. It can be a reward just to be able to perform really well and give the client pleasure. Also, some sex workers actually get a reward from giving others pleasure.

 

So, along with the many risk factors there are also many reward factors too. Each person assess these factors (both risk and reward) differently and so come to different conclusions. Just because you are no willing to make a sacrifice for something does not mean that someone else is not willing. Just because you think something is too risky or the reward is not good enough does not mean that someone else would not think otherwise.

[lemur]

Now, as far as I am concerned, if an adult is willing to take on the risks of an activity (for whatever reason), they are entitled to. So many people talk about freedoms, but this is actually what freedom means. You have to accept that people are willing to take risks that you might not take yourself. They should have that freedom if you want the freedom NOT to have to undertake an activity that you feel is too risky.

 

It is a two way street. If you want the freedom, you have to give that freedom to others, even if it makes you feel uncomfortable.

I think people misunderstand the historical context in which freedom and democracy were embraced as an alternative to authoritarian rule. The basic logic was that intelligent free people can govern themselves on the basis of reasonable judgment. This is an ideal. The question is what to do when free people do not base their self-governance on reasonable judgment. Now, you can argue that what constitutes "reasonable judgment" is totally subjective and arbitrary, but you can also allow people to defend their reasons against others that are concerned with abuses of freedom causing detriment, whether it's people harming others or themselves. Again, you can claim that people have the right to harm themselves, but you can also ask what could be influencing a person that would lead them to choose to harm themselves. An obvious example would be someone who is subjecting themselves to violent physical abuse to gain respect of peers. Obviously such a person should be stopped from damaging themselves for this purpose if possible. So if you can recognize that there are some instances when people abuse their freedom to harm themselves and others, then it just becomes a question of determining which situations merit what level of intervention. Freedom is the ultimate ideal goal but in order to achieve it, obstacles to freedom must be removed. Addictions, authoritarianism, irrational fears, etc. are all examples of things that impede the human ability to freely self-govern according to reasonable judgment. A person who chooses to engage in prostitution to garner sufficient cash to buy a drug fix, for example, is not engaged in free self-governance on the basis of reasonable judgment. A person who chooses to experiment with prostitution in a controlled way might be, but the question becomes whether isolated experiments can be so easily contained or if they always end up being a "gateway" to further experimentation and ultimately addiction. Really, more research should be done into these kinds of activities because it would be truly interesting to discover that there are individuals who practice prostitution, drug-use, etc. without any detriment to their free will. In my observation, though, however there are so many people whose free will is lacking just because of legal addictions like consumerism and peer-approval-seeking/submission. It would be nice, though, if there was more cultural knowledge about how to achieve free reasonable self-governance for more people because I think life would be better for everyone if there weren't so many people desperately submitting to all sorts of freedom-sacrifices in service of authoritarian culture(s) of social validation.

[Marat]

But once society sets itself up as having the right to assess whose exercise of free will is sufficiently rational or reasonable, or sufficiently based on good judgment, to be permitted, there is then no longer any freedom. In 18th century Massachusetts, for example, people were fined if they didn't go to church on Sunday, since it was assumed to be unreasonable not to pause and take sensible care of your soul on the Sabbath. In 1950, the Hope Commission in Ontario, Canada, determined that the Christian religion should be taught in all public schools as a mandatory subject since it was the best foundation for citizens to learn democratic values (like anti-Semitism, I suppose). It is characteristic of deep value commitments that they attach themselves to presumptions about what is objective, and since objectivity informs what we regard as sensible, if we enforce good sense in people's choices then people will be free only to do what the majority wants, since everything else would be defined as 'unreasonable.'

[Edtharan]

So if you can recognize that there are some instances when people abuse their freedom to harm themselves and others, then it just becomes a question of determining which situations merit what level of intervention.

What this is, is a strawman argument. You are trying to show that I meant that if any freedom is allowed, then all freedoms are allowed, then using that you show there is a contradiction.

 

Well, I never advocated total freedoms, but the freedoms self determination.

 

Because what you are presenting is not my argument, but your own made up version of mine, this makes your argument a strawman.

 

So, as I have said that I would allow people the freedom to risk their lives, say in extreme sports. This does not automatically give anyone the freedom to risk someone else's life in their own pursuit of extreme sports.

 

I think people misunderstand the historical context in which freedom and democracy were embraced as an alternative to authoritarian rule. The basic logic was that intelligent free people can govern themselves on the basis of reasonable judgment. This is an ideal. The question is what to do when free people do not base their self-governance on reasonable judgment.

I never claimed reasonable judgement. In fact, I thought I made it clear that judgement is very much a relative thing, that everyone judges things differently (one of my posts was mainly about this).

 

Actually if we do take into account the historical contexts involved in this, you can see that "reasonable" varies greatly from time to time and region to region. So either there is no such thing as "reasonable", everyone else got it wrong, or we shouldn't use "reasonable" as a defining trait.

 

Basically, if you undertake an action that harms others, then this is the restriction you must place on it. Remember, this is about freedoms, and harming another against their will, is to remove their freedoms. So giving people the freedom to harm others, is not actually giving freedom at all, but taking it away.

 

But this is now starting to get off topic, and more about philosophy than ethics too. So if you want to continue the discussions about freedoms and what it actually means you should start a topic in the philosophy section. And I will be happy to discuss it there.

 

So back to the topic:

 

The fact remains, that when prostitution is made legal, the sex workers have better working conditions, are more healthy, there is less organised crime, they are free to leave when they want, and are generally better off.

 

This means that anyone who claims that legalising prostitution is harmful is either ignorant of the facts, or wishes harm to these people (often as punishment for what they see as immoral actions).

 

Now that you know these facts, which side do you comes down on?

[Marat]

While that is a good statement of John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle -- that nothing should be made illegal unless it can actually be shown to harm some other person -- no society actually has the courage to be so liberal as to adopt it. For if they did, what could they say about things like bestiality using large animals in heat, so even the animal is not harmed, or incest where birth control was used, say where conflicts with other family members could be avoided (e.g., the father is dead so the son and mother have a torrid affair). Things like these seem horrid, and no civilized society would permit them, but the exercise of freedom in such examples certainly does not demonstrably harm anyone, and criminalizing these acts arguably creates unnecessary harm for those who want to do these things.

[Moontanman]

While that is a good statement of John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle -- that nothing should be made illegal unless it can actually be shown to harm some other person -- no society actually has the courage to be so liberal as to adopt it. For if they did, what could they say about things like bestiality using large animals in heat, so even the animal is not harmed, or incest where birth control was used, say where conflicts with other family members could be avoided (e.g., the father is dead so the son and mother have a torrid affair). Things like these seem horrid, and no civilized society would permit them, but the exercise of freedom in such examples certainly does not demonstrably harm anyone, and criminalizing these acts arguably creates unnecessary harm for those who want to do these things.

 

 

Marat, I think you should define civilized society before you make that claim, much if not all of what you say is not allowed by civilized society has indeed been allowed by various societies in the past.... not to mention things that seem even worse by todays standards...

Edited June 9, 2011 by Moontanman

[Marat]

I agree. By 'civilized society' in the post above I just meant 'all of the developed societies in the world today.' I would accept that almost everything, no matter how offensive in any particular culture at any particular time, has been legal, approved of, or even required elsewhere. Thus to have been a mature male in Papua New Guinea a while ago who had not yet killed someone from a neighboring tribe would have been a personal failing.

 

But still, my general point remains, which is that all or nearly all societies seem to want to forbid things with the power of the criminal law even though what is forbidden is physically harmless, but simply violates some disembodied social norm or value. Given this, we can't give Mill's Harm principle -- that society should only forbid acts which are harmful to others -- as much strength as we would like, since people won't approve it without exceptions for incest, bestiality, Wayne Newton imitations, etc.

[Moontanman]

Wayne Newton imitations!!!! Now you've crossed the line Marat!

[Edtharan]

While that is a good statement of John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle -- that nothing should be made illegal unless it can actually be shown to harm some other person -- no society actually has the courage to be so liberal as to adopt it. For if they did, what could they say about things like bestiality using large animals in heat, so even the animal is not harmed, or incest where birth control was used, say where conflicts with other family members could be avoided (e.g., the father is dead so the son and mother have a torrid affair). Things like these seem horrid, and no civilized society would permit them, but the exercise of freedom in such examples certainly does not demonstrably harm anyone, and criminalizing these acts arguably creates unnecessary harm for those who want to do these things.

Actually I am not saying that, and thus this is another strawman. Actually it is the exact same form of argument that is if "one thing is allowed then all should be allowed" that you made in your last reply to me.

 

I am sort of arguing the opposite, that something should be shown to be harmless (or less harmful) for it be be acceptable.

 

Unlike Mill's principal, where everything is allowed unless proved harmful, I am saying that the default position should be illegal unless harm to others can be shown not to exist (or be less than not allowing the behaviour).

[Marat]

I think the inverse Mill principle would lead to a society which is too oppressive, since very few things can be proven to be absolutely not harmful. Even water has an LD50, but we would not want to make that illegal along with cocaine. As soon as I decide to drive I measurably increase every other driver's risk of death, but my driving in a non-negligent way or my driving without actually causing any damage is not a tort, though it might cost other people money by fractionally increasing their insurance rates. A problem on point arose in the Canadian Supreme Court case of R. v. Butler (1992), where it was admitted that the scientific evidence was unclear that pornography actually caused any social harm, so rather than concluding from that that pornography should be permitted, the court decided that it could be prohibited, since the legislature's arational hysteria was due a margin of deference.

 

We would need some metric to determine how objectively real or how extensive the damage would have to be before it would be forbidden if we used an inverse Mill principle, and since this would always be a contested political judgment of arbitrary line-drawing, the law might lack a sure grounding in principles more widely accepted than political judgment.

[Edtharan]

I think the inverse Mill principle would lead to a society which is too oppressive, since very few things can be proven to be absolutely not harmful.

 

Strawman again.

 

If you read my post I actually used the words "Less harmful". In other words you don't have to prove that it is "absolutely not harmful", just that it is less harmful, or (within accepted levels of harm - like people are willing to accept that level of risk - which is the point I have been making all along).