This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Nope. In fact, I pointed out here that the author seems to think that it is not trivial and is, in fact, important. My other topic areas are to illustrate the idea that people very casually slide along this scale depending upon topic area and the point they're trying to make.
I think you might be a bit confused. Wertheimer did not write the linked NYT article. Wertheimer wrote the linked philosophy of ethics book.
Precisely. The force of this sort of reasoning seems to vary considerably depending on which problem domain we are dealing with. That was the point of my OP.
Note that this is not any sort of theoretical argument about a child's ability to consent. So we're right back to my last comment. Can we insert, immediately before this sentence, that you are disavowing a consent-only sexual ethic, which would then enable this sentence to possibly have some normative force in the remainder of the argument? If not, like I said, you got some 'splainin' to do.
Again, you're ignoring half of what I said here to make it sound like that's the only standard I'm using in both cases.
The argument isn't that the author is saying children can consent to transition, and therefore they should be able to consent to sex.
The argument is that consent isn't a meaningful framework for the question of transition, the author is using a different metric related to the 'sliding doors' metaphor and the intuition that parents and society aren't going to make a better choice than the child would anyways.
The author is not applying consent-only ethics to transition, which doesn't preclude them from applying it to sex and saying children can't consent to sex.
The 'it's extremely harmful to children' part has nothing to do with consent ethics, it's explaining why the 'sliding doors' metaphor doesn't apply to pedophilia the way it applies to transition (in the author's formulation).
I'm not saying that the author is applying a consent-only ethic to transition. I don't know where they stand on that. But how these concepts work in related areas can be relevant. Regardless, you still say:
You're so so close. Since the 'extremely harmful to children' part has nothing to do with consent ethics, as you say, then if a person espouses a consent-only sexual ethic, then the whole bit is just irrelevant for the question of pedophilia! We'd have to delete that part of the sentence. It can't tell us anything about pedophilia or an ethical difference between pedophilia/transition, because it simply tells us nothing about the ethics of pedophilia. I think what you'd have to construct is an argument along the lines of, "I don't espouse a consent-only sexual ethic, so harm is why pedophilia is bad. And then, [argument about transition that coheres with the rest of the project, which could perhaps be what you're calling 'sliding doors']." But we have to lay out explicitly what concepts hold where and why.
... right, this whole 'tennis' thing you've got going is entirely irrelevant to the question of pedophilia, that's my point.
I think maybe this will be clearer:
Sex, including pedophilia, is governed by consent-only ethics. Children can't consent, and adults rightly protect them from sex. The parent (or society) is a better-informed proxy who can correctly make that decision on their behalf.
But with transition, society and the parent are not better-informed and cannot reliably make a better decision than the child.
Thus, consent-based ethics are incoherent for this question, since they don't lead to any change in recommended course of action. That's why we fall back to other ethical values for this question, such as self-determination.
The point here is that, as I understand you, you're saying that the implication from the transition argument is that children can make decisions for themselves, therefore children are capable of consent, therefore they should be able to consent to sex.
What I'm saying is that this line of logic does not follow. Children can make decisions for themselves, but they can't consent, not in the way we mean when we talk about sexual consent.
Someone who is held at gunpoint by a rapist still makes a decision about whether to allow rape to happen or to fight back and probably die. The decision to allow it to happen is not consent, even though a decision was made; 'decision' and 'consent' are not synonyms, in this case.
But despite not being able to give meaningful consent, children still get to make all kinds of decisions for themselves every day. There are only a few cases where we regularly invoke meaningful consent to override them, those cases are the exception rather than the rule. Sex is one of them, most major medical procedures are another, and the author is arguing that transition shouldn't be in that category.
This is stated without argument. I cannot believe you made it this far after having actually read my OP and not realized how this is something that must be explained.
What is your theory? You need to explain why this is, conceptually.
Correct. This is the freedom prong in Westen's parlance. He gives a conceptual explanation of why this is the case. That conceptual reasoning does not explain why "children can't consent". You need to explain a different one.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link