What makes this wrong?

[Drummer Guy]

When it comes to moral philosophy, I tend to hold my own when having discussions with theists.  However, a theist friend of mine has recently stumped me with this.

A child, who has no friends or family, is in an accident and goes into a coma.  There is a pedophile who is going to pay for the continued life support of the child's body for his own selfish interest.  I'm not going to spell out what that means, it makes me uncomfortable to even type it...

The question is, what makes this wrong?  The child can't be hurt or be aware of being hurt, no family or friends are hurt, and there is no cost to society (at least not that I can see).

He was specifically asking me, under contractarianism, what makes this wrong, but I'm willing to look for an answer in any form of secular morality.

It's tough because if "wrong" is related to well-being, helping, and not harming, I find it hard to say that it's wrong.  Maybe it's not wrong, but I'm not satisfied with that conclusion.

Thanks

[Aroura33]

If the child is still alive and capable of coming out of the coma, it's wrong because if/when he does wake out of the coma, he is capable of being hurt retroactively if he finds out what was done to him.

If he's brain dead but on life support, then it's closer to necrophilia.

It might still be argued that committing an act that most of society sees as morally reprehensible is harmful to the person committing it.  That is, it might be harmful for the pedophile, suffering guilt and being outcast or even imprisoned if he is caught.

When an axe cuts down the tree, it's fairly obvious that the tree is hurt.  What is less obvious is the slow dulling of the axe, but it is still happening.

[stromboli]

The motive for the act.

[drunkenshoe]

I instantly think its wrong and you are not satisfied with the conclusion that it is not wrong, when you find it hard to say it is wrong because we are primates and we protect or young from each other and also protect each other.

Why the example is designed with a child? As almost in all thought exercises related to some form of morality, there is a factor that is put there to elicit emotional response at first sight and then force some 'objectivity' from the emotional resistance which in contrast, easier to do contrary to the belief. Child is the factor what makes you not satisfied with the conclusion and also what forces you to be 'objective' about the legitimate content of lack of consent. Despite of.

Would it change anything if it wasn't a child, but an adult. It wouldn't. But we are more desensitized to adult rape. This is not a philosophical issue. It's targeting emotional response and then uses it as a spring board.

[Mike Cl]

What makes this wrong?  Everything.  First of all, it is against the law for an adult to have sex with a child.  It doesn't matter what the circumstances.  We don't know the true medical condition of this child, so who is to say the child would not be aware on some level.  And the perp is harmed in allowing him to break a law and it harms society for it to allow one of it's taboo's to be broken.  It would harm those who attended the child with life support.  This is not difficult for me to figure out.

[Munch]

What makes it wrong is that a man is raping a child, end of. I dunno how someone can have any questionable moral basis of saying 'well he won't come out of the coma so it can't hurt him', thats a fucked up as saying you dug up someones corpse to fuck that, infact its worse because the kid is still alive, and the pedophile is having unconsensual sex with a child.

Doctors and nurses would be hurt by this. And a child would not simply have nobody, he would have foster parents or carers who would be responsible for him.

[aitm]

Scenario one: you are the child
Scenario two: you are the pedophile

Challenge:
Present both positive and negative positions to both scenarios.

Well….go ahead.

[Draconic Aiur]

child: fuk no, well maybe im pleasuring someone
Ped: fuk yes, id ruining societys reputation

[trdsf]

Let's pare it down to its barest essentials by eliminating all the squicky bits: even if the comatose person were an adult, it's still easy to call this wrong without having to split hairs.

There's no consent.

Game over right there, without any regard to who's doing what to who for whatever reason.

[Hydra009]

When it comes to moral philosophy, I tend to hold my own when having discussions with theists.  However, a theist friend of mine has recently stumped me with this.

When I think of all things that stump me (quantum mechanics, Vanilla Ice's career, magnetism, etc) the morality of rape isn't one of them.  So yeah, another tally in the wrong column.

[drunkenshoe]

Yes, every kind of rape is very wrong. Period. That's not the main point here as I see it though.

I think the reason your theist friend asked you to answer to this one under a specific undertsanding of morality for a reason. You are not required to come up with a certain answer, however  basic moral theory of contractarianism is sceptical; by modern interpretation in refusal of divine will. Because while the scenario can go on without noone knowing what is happening to the child -including the child- however, god is all knowing and the situation is immoral from the begining in his eyes.

The very reason how the scenario is designed is to force the basic normative quality of the consent and harm relation to an empty point. It's not a thought exercise, it's an emotional attack to force a sceptic who generally wouldn't be intimidated to go all the way. Because sceptic people are often able to view taboos stripped from their traditional baggage, furthermore sometimes they are driven to fight against them with a reflex on theoretical grounds, doesn't matter how functional the taboo in practical life. While you think you are torn between two sides of an argument, you are actually fighting against the emotional abuse of the scenario; your own moral response.

This is not a philosophical issue. It's not even an issue. It would be an issue, if morality had a supernatural source. Because that's the other side of the 'exercise' coin. It doesn't have a supernatural source. Roughly, being 'moral' is what we pick up while growing up, what we experience and how we interpret all that; how we decide to act. Actually, it is mostly 'monkey see, monkey do' eventhough we like to think we are employing our precious smarts while acting. I'm an ape. My evolution dictates, I need to protect other apes as much as I can do. Otherwise, I am conflicted, distressed. It's simple as this. 

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contractarianism/#4

Contractarians are skeptical of the possibility of grounding morality or political authority in either divine will or some perfectionist ideal of the nature of humanity.

The moral theory of contractarianism claims that moral norms derive their normative force from the idea of contract or mutual agreement.

-Why should there be consent? Because any relations without consent or mutual agreement creates harm and therefore it's immoral.

-So lack of consent is immoral as long as the harm is recognisable by the recipient or the society. (BS 1) Then it is not immoral under some specific circumstances. (BS 2)

There is also another disturbing side to all this and that is the scenario reflects how some people percieve rape. Rape is expected to be violent and its harm visible, approved by society. If there isn't any of this, it is almost percieved as some ordinary act or even a sexual one.

[trdsf]

Penny's comments led me to the second thing I find wrong with this: I would be inclined to say to the person who asked, "What kind of a sick fuck are you to a) think of something like this in the first place, and b) assume that I would have trouble saying it's wrong?"  This is less a philosophical question than it is an attempted gotcha.

This question also assumes that morals are absolute, and we know this isn't the case: what's held to be moral at one point in history may be held to be immoral later on (unless your querent thinks that slavery should not have been abolished).  In any case, the ancient Greeks would be looking at us saying, "The hell?  How are you supposed to raise and teach the next generation of citizens that way?"  Given that they invented democracy, the scientific method, geometry, logic, theater and rhetoric, while we modern humans have invented capitalism, communism, nuclear weaponry, talk radio and Pop Idol, it gives one pause to think.

The extended childhood is a very recent invention, socially; 'marriageable age' prior to the last century was generally around 14, even if marriages that young weren't common.  The age of 18 being considered the onset of adulthood is essentially a 20th century invention -- a hundred years ago, your typical 18 year old was probably already working (if he hadn't been drafted).  Two hundred years ago, he'd've been working for a couple to several years already.

[SGOS]

It's against the law, and for reasons that should be obvious.  Man created the law of consent, because God's laws are inadequate and often barbaric.

[drunkenshoe]

I don't think anybody is sick. This is an exchange about an imaginary situation between two people who are aware it is illegal.

One is an atheist, the other is a theist. From the typical theist perception, god covers all bases, human can't. It's possible that humans wouldn't know if something of the sort happened, but not for god. It comes down to the main fantasy bullshit of 'morality comes from god' in the widest sense and where two oposite points of view arrive with the material at hand.

Atheist has the tendency to carry this to the most 'objectively' available degree and tries to produce a 'correct' solution even if it would result in conflict. Theist has one objective; god sees all. The question and the answers are aside, whatever the answer would be, the perpetrator can escape from human detection, but never from god. With all that, if the circumstances of the situation also provides conflict in description of such main concepts defined in some argument of morality, then what comes out?

This is the problem of these thought exercises in any form of moral philosophy is that they create an illusion as if they could hold a mirror to real life, because they are directly related to every kind of human behaviour and anything that comes with it. But in human reality nothing works that way. There are countless things affecting outcomes of situations people live through. Oh and consent cannot be played down that way.

The sceanrio is designed to provoke and force a side for the reasons I wrote above in my opinion. Find a loop hole between consent and harm by pushing emotional and rational extremities. Which doesn't work. Or only works with god as in big picture.

[Munch]

Let's pare it down to its barest essentials by eliminating all the squicky bits: even if the comatose person were an adult, it's still easy to call this wrong without having to split hairs.

There's no consent.

Game over right there, without any regard to who's doing what to who for whatever reason.

I feel like I had to make this bolded and expanded, just because it sums up the pure fuckary of the one who asked the question in the first place. He is asking flat out 'whats wrong with fucking someone without consent?"