is thinking about children sexually wrong?

[mist]

Originally Posted by Qdeathstar

yeah. so we are having a conversation about rather it is ok or not to see a 3 year old being brutally raped ... or even worse IMO, actually thinking about doing the act.

Good conversation... How the **** can you people pretend at all to have higher moral grounds than Americans. I dont believe it.

because we can debate what is moral and what isn't, whereas you automatically assume that something that disagrees with your morals should not be talked about, and therefore bypass a chance to develop a better understanding of them.

or possibly because while we're talking about thinking about it, churches in america are being bankrupted 'cus people who the vicars raped when they were kids are suing them in such numbers. now there's a fine example of a moral compass.

anyway, in an effort to be mildly constructive, how is it worse to think about a 3 year old being brutally raped than to watch it happen? in the prior case, no 3 year olds are hurt in any way. in the latter one has been.

-mist

[mist]

Originally Posted by Boogster

I disagree.
There may be no thought 'crimes', but morality is different to the legal system. Legally, of course, you cannot be prosecuted for wanting to kill someone. However, a 'crime' implies some action fulfilled, but surely to be in the wrong (in the moral sense), you need not have actually committed the crime? To have wanted to commit the crime cannot be morally justified - if a perfect being existed it would never consider doing wrong.

i thought your argument made sense, although i don't agree with it. i'd suggest that having perfectly pure thoughts does not make you a perfect person. in order to prove perfection i'd have thought you'd have to have 'bad' thoughts, and not act on them - proving that you can resist temptation.

that asside, at what age DO you think it's ok to look at someone sexually? 18? 16? what's the real difference between 16 and 15? or 14?

i guess this comes down to your definition of morals. personally, i'd have said morality is thinking something, knowing it's wrong and not doing it, rather than somehow managing never to think about it.

-mist

[Sarina_Joy]

Originally Posted by Qdeathstar

yeah. so we are having a conversation about rather it is ok or not to see a 3 year old being brutally raped ... or even worse IMO, actually thinking about doing the act.

Good conversation... How the **** can you people pretend at all to have higher moral grounds than Americans. I dont believe it.

The fact is there is not set list of things which are ok and things which are not - it just so happens that the majority of people tend to agree on a lot of issues. But each person has their own individual morals - their own ideas of what is right and what is wrong, what is acceptable and what is not. Without discussing these ideas and rationalising them how can we possibly justify them? How can which people pretend to have the higher moral ground? Europeans?

I don't pretend to have 'the higher moral ground' than anyone. The phrase is meaningless to me. But I do not have any respect for people who cannot back up their own opinions in a rational manner without just slipping into reactionary rant or bashing my head with whichever religious text they happen to have in their hand. People have the ability to think for themselves. They should use it.

[Event_Horizon]

While I agree with most people on here that there should be no thought crimes, thoughts in themselves can be dangerous. Thinking about a child sexually could lead to getting involved in child porn, and then for some people actually trying to have sex with a child, which is illegal. So I would say that while it is not directly wrong, thinking about having sex with a child is probably the starting point for most child rapists on this planet...dangerous ground.

Also just out of curiosity, how young of a child are we talking about here? Like a 15 year old or like a 9 year old?

[Event_Horizon]

Originally Posted by Sarina_Joy

The fact is there is not set list of things which are ok and things which are not - it just so happens that the majority of people tend to agree on a lot of issues. But each person has their own individual morals - their own ideas of what is right and what is wrong, what is acceptable and what is not. Without discussing these ideas and rationalising them how can we possibly justify them? How can which people pretend to have the higher moral ground? Europeans?

I don't pretend to have 'the higher moral ground' than anyone. The phrase is meaningless to me. But I do not have any respect for people who cannot back up their own opinions in a rational manner without just slipping into reactionary rant or bashing my head with whichever religious text they happen to have in their hand. People have the ability to think for themselves. They should use it.

This may be very true, but the idea that there is not a set rule of morals is not valid for most religions, hence most religious people. It is then this contradiction that I believe is where the most disagreement over social issues and laws come up.

[Sarina_Joy]

Originally Posted by Event_Horizon

This may be very true, but the idea that there is not a set rule of morals is not valid for most religions, hence most religious people. It is then this contradiction that I believe is where the most disagreement over social issues and laws come up.

You are exactly right. Most religions do have an exact set of moral rules by which followers of that religion are supposed to live. And so of course the moral viewpoint of followers are that religion are often wholly based on these rules. While I am not religious myself I try to respect other peoples beliefs but I do struggle to do so with people who when asked why they believe a certain thing is correct can only reply 'that book told me so'.

The fact is that each religion has its own set of rules. There is probably a lot of crossover and likewise a lot of non religious people share similar moral values to a lot of religious people. What I meant was there is no such list which is set in stone - no ultimate set of morals. Every religion and every sect of every religion may believe that their set of rules for morality is the'right' one. Until 'God' appears before the whole world and points to a particular religion or a particular text and says 'these guys have it right' then they can go on thinking that but it will have no effect on me - and I do still expect people to justify their opinions with more than a book and an invisible man/woman/animal/something.

[Phang]

I'll agree with most of what's been said here: virtual child porn is unsavoury but should be legal, people who act on paedophilic urges should be dealt with using the full force of law, so on and so forth.

Looking at images is a grey area. Paying for child porn is bankrolling it, supporting it, and should be criminal and highly so. Not paying..that's tricky, because it still encourages production of more materials. But until this can be concretely proven, it should be legal i guess.

[mist]

Originally Posted by Phang

Not paying..that's tricky, because it still encourages production of more materials. But until this can be concretely proven, it should be legal i guess.

guess this brings up, should knowingly profiting from an illegal act in itself be illegal?

-mist

[Phang]

Originally Posted by mist

guess this brings up, should knowingly profiting from an illegal act in itself be illegal?

-mist

yes. important edit: assuming that all laws are just

[Dead_Meat]

I've beaten, killed and buried Catherine Zeta Jones so many times in my dreams and fantasies, that I could go to Wal-Mart and buy the exact tools, materials, furniture and accessories I need for the perfect patio, I could do it in my sleep.










*Boom Tish*

[Radical Edward]

Originally Posted by Dead_Meat

I've beaten, killed and buried Catherine Zeta Jones so many times in my dreams and fantasies, that I could go to Wal-Mart and buy the exact tools, materials, furniture and accessories I need for the perfect patio, I could do it in my sleep.

are you the one that keeps sending love letters to Michael Douglas?

[Dead_Meat]

I refuse to answer that question on the grounds it could incriminate me*


























* of being a fag.

[Marilyn Manson]

A better question would have been 'is thinking about old people sexually wrong?'.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Radical Edward

I don't think your analogy is really a good one. The production of child porn imiges requires a crime to be commited in order to produce them.

Nusselt raised a good point. The videos floating around the web of people being beheaded and such require a crime to have been comitted for their production. But do we prosecute people who download them? Would we want to?

I think ultimately the only reason people want child porn to be banned is the belief that it increases the production of said material (and ergo the abuse of children). This is fair enough (although facts are sketchy in this area) but I don't really like the "consequentialist" approach to making things illegal. Guns should not be illegal despite the fact they may lead to an increase in murders. And so on.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Boogster

I disagree.
There may be no thought 'crimes', but morality is different to the legal system.

Agreed 100%, but I still don't believe that thinking about an "evil" act should be classified as evil itself. For one, an individual may not have full control of what thoughts come into their head.

In short, I think there are three criteria here :
1. Whether an act is illegal or legal
2. Whether an act is moral or immoral
3. Whether an act is good (desirable) or not.

Making child porn is illegal (and should remain so). Distributing child porn I'd say was possibly immoral. But thinking about children in a sexual manner I'd say was not desirable (#3) but I don't think you can classify it as immoral.

Also, I don't think you can equate "thinking about something" and "wanting to do it". They're different things. I remember a couple of months ago I was up against a couple of deadlines and I did consider what it would be like to kill my manager and thus avoid the deadline. But I don't think I could realistically say I "wanted" to do it, the thought was no way near that developed.

[mist]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Guns should not be illegal despite the fact they may lead to an increase in murders. And so on.

this is a tricky one, more difficult than the origonal topic imo.

at what point does it become acceptable to impinge on a individual's rights in order to further the 'common good'? I can see an argument for keeping guns at a gun club, in a secure and controled environment, for example. however i feel that allowing someone to walk down the street with an assault rifle would cause fear and/or stress in others to the point where it stops being a personal liberty and becomes a shared problem.

i guess in short, i don't really care what you do on your own, or with other consenting adults, but when it adversely affects someone else then the situation needs look at.

-mist

[Dead_Meat]

Originally Posted by Marilyn Manson

A better question would have been 'is thinking about old people sexually wrong?'.

Depends if they look bad in your chosen attire, which in your case, I assume would be some sort of ancient teacher sort, the kind you find in public boarding schools, who give lessons on the classics and other useless old guff, who wear tweed suits, with leather patches on the elbows and a rather moth-eaten old cardigan.

There, got your sexual juices worked up yet?

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Nusselt raised a good point. The videos floating around the web of people being beheaded and such require a crime to have been comitted for their production. But do we prosecute people who download them? Would we want to?

If there were sufficient demand for those videos such that people were being beheaded for the sole purpose of meeting that demand, then yeah it might make sense to go after those who are distributing/purchasing them.

I think ultimately the only reason people want child porn to be banned is the belief that it increases the production of said material (and ergo the abuse of children). This is fair enough (although facts are sketchy in this area) but I don't really like the "consequentialist" approach to making things illegal. Guns should not be illegal despite the fact they may lead to an increase in murders. And so on.

Guns also serve good/moral/legal purposes however (hunting for food, self-defense) in ways that child porn doesn't.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Tactitus

Guns also serve good/moral/legal purposes however (hunting for food, self-defense) in ways that child porn doesn't.

So are you saying that it would be OK to ban guns if the only purpose they served was purely for enjoyment purposes (e.g. people who simply enjoyed collecting them or looking at them or similar)?

[Qdeathstar]

It doesnt matter whether or not thinking about children is wrong in the eyes of the law. There is a difference. There are many things that are "right" in the eye of the law, but im sure many people here would not agree that that makes them "right" Therefore, just because something is acceptable in the "eye" of the law, ie, Thinking about child porn, and in this case only because it is difficult to prove that someone was thinking of it, it can, and in this case is, still morally wrong.

You didnt ask, in your quesiton whether or not it was governmentally wrong, but if it was wrong period. And it obviously is from a moral standpoint, defining morals with regards to culteral relativism, meaning that what the over all culture says, is what is right and wrong; moral and immoral.

And, for those who say, QD, political rant over here, i dont care any more, my man won, my party won, and now i can relax a bit

[mist]

Originally Posted by Qdeathstar

You didnt ask, in your quesiton whether or not it was governmentally wrong, but if it was wrong period. And it obviously is from a moral standpoint, defining morals with regards to culteral relativism, meaning that what the over all culture says, is what is right and wrong; moral and immoral.

while i agree that morals are defined within a cultural context, your morals are still your own rather than society's in general. Culture may have a moral standpoint, but this doesn't mean that an individual's has to identical to that.

likewise, a culture's morals are based upon those of its citizens. therefore without examining our own morality we cannot hope to develop any form of moral advancement, individually or as a society.

overall, your justification not only sucks, it doesn't exist. why do you, personally, believe it's wrong?
-mist

[Boogster]

To define morality as subject to individual choice or as culturally circumscribed is a flawed assumption, in my opinion.
It cannot possibly be moral (ie. right) for one person to do something, and immoral for another to do the same. The distinction between right and wrong must always be clear. Morality must be universal, or the whole system is undermined.
In any case, if it were open to individual definition, pragmatically speaking, morality would be unworkable.

[Radical Edward]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Nusselt raised a good point. The videos floating around the web of people being beheaded and such require a crime to have been comitted for their production. But do we prosecute people who download them? Would we want to?

yes, I had been thinking about this too. The difference I see is that the beheadings and so on are not produced with the intent of entertainment, but propaganda. Child porn would be more closely associated with snuff and squish (animal snuff) movies* which are basically produced with "entertainment" in mind. I know the argument is somewhat weak, and I am on the verge of changing my mind about it I suppose, but I would feel more comfortable if I were presented with a more related example than the beheading videos.

I think ultimately the only reason people want child porn to be banned is the belief that it increases the production of said material (and ergo the abuse of children). This is fair enough (although facts are sketchy in this area) but I don't really like the "consequentialist" approach to making things illegal. Guns should not be illegal despite the fact they may lead to an increase in murders. And so on.

that sounds like a bit of a slippery slope argument to be honest. Guns, as much as I dislike them, do indeed have other, non offensive uses. They can be used for sport, defence, hunting and so on. sport and hunting never require someone to be harmed against their will, though they do, as you have noted, have darker uses. Banning something because it can be used for something else is a rather weak argument, and if that had been cast back in time, man would never even have had the wheel or fire. I don't really feel this applies to Child Porn in any way, which as has been pointed out, requires someone to be harmed. I feel your earlier argument is stronger than this "consequentialist approach" argument. of course, I may have overlooked something, and am willing to consider it.


*(apparently snuff movies are nothing more than an urban legend, but the point is still essentially the same)

[mist]

Originally Posted by Boogster

To define morality as subject to individual choice or as culturally circumscribed is a flawed assumption, in my opinion.
It cannot possibly be moral (ie. right) for one person to do something, and immoral for another to do the same. The distinction between right and wrong must always be clear. Morality must be universal, or the whole system is undermined.
In any case, if it were open to individual definition, pragmatically speaking, morality would be unworkable.

totally not true.

if you talk to a fundamentalist christian, generally considered by themselves at least to be fairly moral people, then men sleeping together is wrong, totally immoral and infact the work of the devil. however, i'd like to think that i have at least some morals and i've got no problems with the idea, infact, i believe that banning gay marriage is immoral.

in the above example, both of us have a moral standpoint, they are diametrically opposed, totally irreconcilable, yet both totally moral.

however, you are correct that it can not be right for one person to do something, but wrong for another to do it in one person's view. this is an important qualitifaction that you seem to have missed out. again in the above example, i'd be happy for two random people to do it, said christian type would probably be equally unhappy with both.

as morality is, on an individual, sociological, national and international level up to the entity concerned, your last point is possibly the most incorrect. having different moral views can and does work quite well as long as people respect each other's views. for example, i could hold a converastion with the aforementioned christian quite happily, and as long as we respected each others views i wouldn't foresee any problems. likewise with social groups on a small and large scale.

Where moral conflicts escalate in to real conflicts is when people don't respect each other's moral values, i was going to use the recent problems in holland as example, but i'd imagine someone can think of better.

-mist

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

So are you saying that it would be OK to ban guns if the only purpose they served was purely for enjoyment purposes (e.g. people who simply enjoyed collecting them or looking at them or similar)?

I'm not in favor of banning anything, except in cases where the risk to society in general is far greater if it's not banned. With respect to guns in particular, if their only purpose were entertainment then certainly it would be easier to make such a case.

[Radical Edward]

Originally Posted by Tactitus

I'm not in favor of banning anything, except in cases where the risk to society in general is far greater if it's not banned. With respect to guns in particular, if their only purpose were entertainment then certainly it would be easier to make such a case.

I think care should be taken when using guns as a counterpoint, since with guns, there are other alternatives, such as careful licencing and control. This negates the need for outright banning. A similar argument can be made for civilian radio, which can be used for harm i.e. interfering with emergency service and aircraft signals, but licencing and control of the radio frequencies allows civilian transmissions to be made under certain circumstances, and hence negating the need for an outright ban.

I don't think the same controls and so on can be applied to child porn.

[madi]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

The production should be banned, no question, as I've already indicated. But I'm not sure there's any benefit to prosecuting people who simply to look at it.

demand and supply
tut

---


thoughts or fantasy?

some of the stuff that runs though my head when in the shower with it switched to pulse i would never actually do (though i have to say at no point has anything ever involved children)

thinking about and wanting to molest children but managing to keep yourself from doing it means you have the same mental illness as the people that do but have a little more moral fibre and will power
you will also quite likely to give in to your urges should you come under high levels of stress or get progressivly more sick in the brain or suffer an emotional upset

[IncubusGod]

To be honest how could you ever police someones head? Your thoughts are you own until they affect other people.
I do think that thinking about a child (pre-pubescent kid) in a sexual way is disgusting however the thoughts in someones head are their own problem. If they are disturbed by it and seek help then so be it. If they don't then what the hell can we do about it?

The issue of activly looking at child porn is different though. For that, children will have had to be abused. Once you are looking at that for gratification you become part of the abuse as you become the demand for such pictures.
Just like if you go and buy heroin. You are supporting a chain that involves murders and other serious crimes. Could you be held responsible for actually producing the heroin or any murders that took place in the course of the shipment? Of course not, but for your part in the chain you should be punished. They wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t created the demand (now this is just an example, it brings up responsibility of governments for making it illegal,peoples right to do whatever they want with their bodies but since child abuse involves harming others lets not get into the drugs side too much).

The same with child porn. It requires a child or children to be abused, raped, beaten and f*cked with in a way no human being deserves to be.
Such acts are abhorrent and should be punished to the full extend of the law. But they are produced for a purpose. To get other pedos off. This means that if you purchase or download the pictures for your own gratification then you are the reason they exist.
So I do think looking at it does mean that children will be abused and that people should be punished to try and stamp it out. I’m not saying they are directly responsible for the problem but they are suppporting it.

If the porn was simulated (VR) then that changes things. It means that no child was abused and no-one was hurt. It means you are not supporting these actions and hence shouldn’t be punishable. Again it is just an extension of the thoughts in your head, which are ultimatly your own problem (unless it affects someone else).
Personally the rational of what I believe about peoples rights to thoughts of their own and their own responsibility means that I have to accept some things that I consider sickening. It is quite clear the differences this highlights between morality and peoples rights and liberty. Clearly quite a few people here would not even agree that thinking about it should be allowed. Impinged moral standards (usually religious) means that rational thought has to be sidestepped. This shows how morality and the “I’m right, you’re wrong” attitude of such views have screwed the world up.

[Nodrog]

It's worrying how few people seem able to disentangle the concepts of 'wrong' and 'punishment'. Acknowledging that something is wrong is unrelated to claiming that "something should be done about it", whatever that is meant to imply.

Regarding the original question, a lot depends on how you are defining 'thinking'. Does having a "hurr hurr I wonder what its penis looks like" thought pop into your head when you see a baby class as 'thinking sexually about a child', or are you talking about deliberately lying down and masturbating over your neighbour's 3 year old daughter? The 2 scenarios are very different.

[IncubusGod]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

It's worrying how few people seem able to disentangle the concepts of 'wrong' and 'punishment'.

Most people would equate the concept of something being wrong as an act that would be so damaging that is requires action.

That's why we've used the qualifier 'morally' wrong when talking about more ideological concepts and refer to wrongdoing in the real world (as in my post about actual abuse) with regards to punishment and so on.

If you would care to englighten us as to your viewpoint a little more then we could all stop trying to extrapolate what you mean from a reactionary sentance and possibly miss what Im sure is a fabulous point

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Boogster

To define morality as subject to individual choice or as culturally circumscribed is a flawed assumption, in my opinion.
It cannot possibly be moral (ie. right) for one person to do something, and immoral for another to do the same. The distinction between right and wrong must always be clear. Morality must be universal, or the whole system is undermined.
In any case, if it were open to individual definition, pragmatically speaking, morality would be unworkable.

I'm of the opinion that morality only exists when you're interacting with other individuals, ergo the only actions which are subject to moral considerations are those that, in themselves, interact with others. If I may be so bold as to interject on dante's behalf it is not that action x is moral from one person's perspective and immoral from another's, it lies outside the realm of morality (ie it is amoral).

As for the question at hand I've never really formulated an opinion on it. I'd probably lean towards the idea that says there is nothing wrong with the existence of child pornograpy per se as it does not necessitate further abuses being committed. Would me watching child pornography lead to more children being abused, or in other words does that action, in itself, lead to 'undesirable consequences'. I don't think so.

[IncubusGod]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

As for the question at hand I've never really formulated an opinion on it. I'd probably lean towards the idea that says there is nothing wrong with the existence of child pornograpy per se as it does not necessitate further abuses being committed. Would me watching child pornography lead to more children being abused, or in other words does that action, in itself, lead to 'undesirable consequences'. I don't think so.

Well as with all porn that instance of child porn would bore you after a while so you would have to find new porn to illict the same excitement.
What happens when people have gone through the same porn all the time? They'll always be someone who will make more, especially for profit. Now I'm not saying everyone would go out and rape a child, film it and distrubte it but it will happen in some cases.

So then the existance of child porn in itself is self propigating. It would always lead to a desire for more and newer examples meaning children would have to be abused.

[Nodrog]

Originally Posted by Boogster

To define morality as subject to individual choice or as culturally circumscribed is a flawed assumption, in my opinion.
It cannot possibly be moral (ie. right) for one person to do something, and immoral for another to do the same. The distinction between right and wrong must always be clear. Morality must be universal, or the whole system is undermined.
In any case, if it were open to individual definition, pragmatically speaking, morality would be unworkable.

People can disagree over what standards to use when judging actions, but once a standard is in place, judgements regarding morality are always objective. A good analogy would be films. If two people disagree on what constitutes a 'good' film, then any debate between them regarding the quality of Film X is likely to be ultimately fruitless. But if both of them agree that a film is to be judged solely on the quality of acting (for example), then they can have a meaningful conversation about the merits of a particular film, and come to an objective conclusion. If person A claims that a film is good whereas person B claims it isnt, then they dont have to stand around arguing indefinitely; they can watch the film, find out the quality of the acting, and then it will be obvious who is right - there are empirical facts that can be appealed to in order to determine the correct answer (I'm assuming that quality of acting can be objectively measured - you get the idea).

The same applies for morality. Different people use different standards for evaluating actions, and what is (objectively) good when measured by one standard may be (objectively) bad when measured by another. Utilitarianism for instance states that an action is 'good' if it causes a net increase in happyness within a community, hence it is theoretically possible to determine whether any particular action is morally correct according to this standard simply by 'measuring' the happyness before and after (easier said than done obviously). Christianity on the other hand states that an action is morally correct iff an appropriate page can be produced in a set of books which claims that God likes it. Again, this makes it possible to objectively determine whether an action is moral or immoral by Christian standards - if 2 people disagree then they can go dig out a copy of the Bible and find out who is right (although in practice there may be differences in interpretation etc).

The question of 'whether it is wrong to have sexual thoughts about children' can be settled by similar means. Does it reduce the overall happyness of the community? Then it is objectively wrong by utilitarian standards. Does the Bible prohibit it? Then it is objectively wrong to the Christian. And so on.

In practice things are complicated by the fact most people don't have anything close to explicitly defined moral standards like the two mentioned above - they are normally taught from childhood that actions X, Y and Z are 'bad' whereas actions P, Q and R are 'good', even when the members of these sets have little in common. Therefore they will in later life have a fairly 'fuzzy' idea of morality, and will tend to evaluate newly encountered actions simply by comparing them to the actions they already 'know' are right and wrong. If an action seems to have a lot in common with something which they were taught as a child was wrong, then this action will be classed wrong too. It's kind of like how people use the word 'art' - they generally dont have a clearly defined definition of what the word 'art' actually means - they simply have a set of objects to which they would apply the word 'art', and another set of objects to which they wouldnt. When asked for their opinion on whether a new object classifies as art, they will check to see if it has more in common with the objects they already think are 'art', or whether it is more like the 'not art' objects. They will then classify it accordingly, by putting it with the objects to which it is most similar. It's all pretty irrational and not much more sophisticated than the basic pattern recognition which you could probably program an advanced pocket calculator to carry out, but then there's people for you.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by IncubusGod

Well as with all porn that instance of child porn would bore you after a while so you would have to find new porn to illict the same excitement.

I don't really get bored with good porn actually.

What happens when people have gone through the same porn all the time? They'll always be someone who will make more, especially for profit. Now I'm not saying everyone would go out and rape a child, film it and distrubte it but it will happen in some cases.

The point is that there has to be a link. As in a) I watch child porn b) xyz occurs c) more child porn is made. I don't think having xyz as a 5.6% probability of occurring (obviously I made that number up but it's significantly less than 50% anyways) should mean that a) should be illegal (or is immoral if you prefer).

So then the existance of child porn in itself is self propigating. It would always lead to a desire for more and newer examples meaning children would have to be abused.

If we filmed about a quarter of a million children getting abused there'd never be a demand for new child pornography as you quite literally would be unable to watch it all in a single lifetime. (This is what I call my "oh my god how can you be so heartless" approach which is always great for being controversial if you're stuck in some god-awful lecture about moral relativism. On occasions I really do miss my old course )

[Radical Edward]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

If we filmed about a quarter of a million children getting abused there'd never be a demand for new child pornography as you quite literally would be unable to watch it all in a single lifetime. (This is what I call my "oh my god how can you be so heartless" approach which is always great for being controversial if you're stuck in some god-awful lecture about moral relativism. On occasions I really do miss my old course )

perhaps, but some of the porn is produced to order i.e.

<filthy_paedo_1>hey, I have a kid roped up in my basement, what shall I do?
<filthy_paedo_2>[unmentionable]
<filthy_paedo_1>right, just did it, here are the pics.

there are probably far more than quarter of a million child porn inages already out there, and still more is being produced.

[Nodrog]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

The point is that there has to be a link. As in a) I watch child porn b) xyz occurs c) more child porn is made. I don't think having xyz as a 5.6% probability of occurring (obviously I made that number up but it's significantly less than 50% anyways) should mean that a) should be illegal (or is immoral if you prefer).

If you're paying for it then I assume you're contributing to its funding, and giving the producers money probably raises the chances of them making more by over 5.6%. Plus you're ruling out 'innovations' within pornography, as well as clever marketing/market-creation and so on. For instance a few years ago you might have thought that there was enough pornography on the internet to keep the whole world masturbating for 47 years, but then the introduction of something like bangbus sparked an internest in a new type of film that previously hadnt been produced en masse.

[JonnyBGood]

Frankly I think that if someone has a kid tied up in their basement they already intend, and have partook in, a bit of wrongdoing and don't exactly need some filthy unwashed internet weirdo (and let's face it one of us is probably a paedo and it isn't me you ****ing scum) to request some pictures.

[Dante Hicks]

Outside the third world I wonder how much child porn is produced for economic reasons anyway. You ocassionally hear about "paedophile rings" in the newspapers where a group of people swap videos and stuff of molesting their own children, but those people are primarily child molestors and only pornographers as a side track.

Things are probably different in Cambodia / parts of Eastern Europe or similar however. If there is child abuse happening for economic reasons then it'd be simple to only ban the sale or purchasing of such material. Right now (afaik) it doesn't matter whether you downloaded your kiddy porn for free from Freenet or whether you pay money for it. If we're banning such things for purely supply/demand reasons then why ban material that people have obtained for free?

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

If you're paying for it then I assume you're contributing to its funding, and giving the producers money probably raises the chances of them making more by over 5.6%. Plus you're ruling out 'innovations' within pornography, as well as clever marketing/market-creation and so on. For instance a few years ago you might have thought that there was enough pornography on the internet to keep the whole world masturbating for 47 years, but then the introduction of something like bangbus sparked an internest in a new type of film that previously hadnt been produced en masse.

Maybe we should aim to combat the business side of things then. Is there any precedent for making something legal but illegal to distribute it for profit? You'd probably be able to get around that by labelling yourself as a charity (which would be amusing enough on it's own for me to support it, the charity for more child abuse!)

[mist]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Outside the third world I wonder how much child porn is produced for economic reasons anyway.

profit doesn't have to be soley economic. for example, users of bittorrent swapping files do not make a monetary profit, however in order to get what you want you also have to upload some of what someone else wants.

if people gained nothing by putting child porn on the internet, i don't think they'd do it. this tends to suggest to me that it being there gets people something, be it more porn, 'social' status, whatever. this in turn tends to suggest that others looking at it, be it paid for or not, tends to encourage the production of more. obviously, this hasn't been proven, to my knowledge at least, but it seems reasonable enough and given the lack of actual facts is the best i have to go on.

-mist

[Marilyn Manson]

I suggest we adopt a resolution stating that this topic has been done to death, is fundamentally not all that interesting anyway, and that we stop debating it now and in the future.

[Qdeathstar]

while i agree that morals are defined within a cultural context, your morals are still your own rather than society's in general. Culture may have a moral standpoint, but this doesn't mean that an individual's has to identical to that.

likewise, a culture's morals are based upon those of its citizens. therefore without examining our own morality we cannot hope to develop any form of moral advancement, individually or as a society.

overall, your justification not only sucks, it doesn't exist. why do you, personally, believe it's wrong?

your morals are still your own rather than society's in general.

I dont think that most people think that "thinking" about children sexually, is OK, or acceptable. I think that most people will find that "wrong" despite what ever the punishment of the act may be.

Your "specific" culture in which you 'may' live and speak and talk to pedophiles may think that it is OK to to think about it, just as much as a society of theives and murdures may think it is OK to think, plan and desire to kill, and rob people.

It is very difficult for me to see how someone thinking about having sex with children would think about it, but not desire and plan for it one day. There are several things such as bombings, and murder, and other violent acts, where planning is all you need to be convicted of the act. Raping a child is a violent act, and therefore i dont see why there should be a "seperate set of laws" that pertain to whether or not a person should be accountable for doing it, or rather it is wrong to begin with.

Its pretty clear that you can "think wrongly" People think wrongly all the time.

Culture may have a moral standpoint, but this doesn't mean that an individual's has to identical to that.

I didnt say it had to. I said that the majority of people think that thinking about childrent sexually is wrong. And whether or not the believe its self is illogical, or unfounded, its not that important, because morality is very fluid. Morality can be used to decide what is right or wrong, and in this case it is the most obvious discriminate for what is right or wrong.

Following all that then, and accepting what you have accepted, that right and wrong is decided by society, and not by ones "personal" views on a subject, and knowing that society feals that it is wrong to think about children sexually (take a poll, im 100% certain on this) then it is wrong, regardless of how you feal about it.

therefore without examining our own morality we cannot hope to develop any form of moral advancement

you cant accept Culteral relativism, as you said you did, and still believe that there is a objective moral advancement. Thats because Moral advancement requires an objective set of "what is right, good, and enlightened," and that is contradictory with the culteral relativist's point of view that what is right and wrong is based about the society that decided the issue. In that view, there is no objective set of rules, therefore there cant be any objective means of measuring "advancement".

[why do you, personally, believe it's wrong?

Because it is morally wrong. I have morals which on the whole, match closely with societies morals.

[mist]

Originally Posted by Qdeathstar

I didnt say it had to. I said that the majority of people think that thinking about childrent sexually is wrong. And whether or not the believe its self is illogical, or unfounded, its not that important, because morality is very fluid. Morality can be used to decide what is right or wrong, and in this case it is the most obvious discriminate for what is right or wrong.

Following all that then, and accepting what you have accepted, that right and wrong is decided by society, and not by ones "personal" views on a subject, and knowing that society feals that it is wrong to think about children sexually (take a poll, im 100% certain on this) then it is wrong, regardless of how you feal about it.

i have very little time for arbetary beliefs, so whether it's well founded or not is quite important, to me at least.

who said i'd accepted that right and wrong is decided by society?

i agree that society probably does agree that it's wrong, however what i want to know is WHY. does society actually have a good reason, or is it one of those 'it must be wrong, because it seems wrong' things?

thus far, people have done a fairly good job of justifying why it's not immoral. i'm not quite convinced by the arguments to legalise looking at child porn, but they're at least coherant. the best argument i've seen for thinking about kids being immoral is along the lines of "well, it's got to be doesn't it... i mean, that's sick, man..." which isn't exactly convincing.

why do you as a reasoning individual believe it's wrong? do you have a reason beyond someone having told you what to think?
-mist

[Ninja_spammer]

QDS, fighting for freedom , defined by himself and enforced by the thought police.

Thinking about a child sexually != conspiracy to commit child abuse.

I am unsure if such a crime even exists.

[Boogster]

Originally Posted by mist

totally not true.

if you talk to a fundamentalist christian, generally considered by themselves at least to be fairly moral people, then men sleeping together is wrong, totally immoral and infact the work of the devil. however, i'd like to think that i have at least some morals and i've got no problems with the idea, infact, i believe that banning gay marriage is immoral.

in the above example, both of us have a moral standpoint, they are diametrically opposed, totally irreconcilable, yet both totally moral.

however, you are correct that it can not be right for one person to do something, but wrong for another to do it in one person's view. this is an important qualitifaction that you seem to have missed out. again in the above example, i'd be happy for two random people to do it, said christian type would probably be equally unhappy with both.

as morality is, on an individual, sociological, national and international level up to the entity concerned, your last point is possibly the most incorrect. having different moral views can and does work quite well as long as people respect each other's views. for example, i could hold a converastion with the aforementioned christian quite happily, and as long as we respected each others views i wouldn't foresee any problems. likewise with social groups on a small and large scale.

Where moral conflicts escalate in to real conflicts is when people don't respect each other's moral values, i was going to use the recent problems in holland as example, but i'd imagine someone can think of better.

-mist

People's opinions may differ, but I would argue that merely substantiates my assertion. Morality cannot be split according to opinion.
If there is such a thing - ideally speaking - as moral perfection, ie. being devoid of moral imperfection, this necessarily means that there must be a basic distinction between right and wrong. In fact, morality itself demands this. Morality is essentially a system of rules, not ideals - in the sense that one is not moral when merely trying to be; in the words of C.S Lewis, 'you might just as well expect to be congratulated because whenever you do a sum, you try to get it quite right'.
Moreover, I would define morality as not just concerned with the the harmony of individuals and relationships, not just a social contract, but intrinsically bound with the general purpose of life as a whole. The fact is, whatever you believe, the possiblity of an afterlife cannot be disproved - and this adds a whole new dimension to morality.

[Boogster]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

I'm of the opinion that morality only exists when you're interacting with other individuals, ergo the only actions which are subject to moral considerations are those that, in themselves, interact with others. If I may be so bold as to interject on dante's behalf it is not that action x is moral from one person's perspective and immoral from another's, it lies outside the realm of morality (ie it is amoral).

I don't want to seem dogmatic, but I disagree, again.
Surely there is such a thing as the morality of the individual? Relationships are, after all, formed between individuals. There's no use in defining a system that regulates behaviour between individuals if they themselves are not subject to any such regulation. No relationship would ever work.

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Is there any precedent for making something legal but illegal to distribute it for profit?

Well, human organs. You can donate a kidney to someone who needs a transplant, but you can't sell it to them (at least in the US).

[Boogster]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

People can disagree over what standards to use when judging actions, but once a standard is in place, judgements regarding morality are always objective. A good analogy would be films. If two people disagree on what constitutes a 'good' film, then any debate between them regarding the quality of Film X is likely to be ultimately fruitless. But if both of them agree that a film is to be judged solely on the quality of acting (for example), then they can have a meaningful conversation about the merits of a particular film, and come to an objective conclusion. If person A claims that a film is good whereas person B claims it isnt, then they dont have to stand around arguing indefinitely; they can watch the film, find out the quality of the acting, and then it will be obvious who is right - there are empirical facts that can be appealed to in order to determine the correct answer (I'm assuming that quality of acting can be objectively measured - you get the idea).

The same applies for morality. Different people use different standards for evaluating actions, and what is (objectively) good when measured by one standard may be (objectively) bad when measured by another. Utilitarianism for instance states that an action is 'good' if it causes a net increase in happyness within a community, hence it is theoretically possible to determine whether any particular action is morally correct according to this standard simply by 'measuring' the happyness before and after (easier said than done obviously). Christianity on the other hand states that an action is morally correct iff an appropriate page can be produced in a set of books which claims that God likes it. Again, this makes it possible to objectively determine whether an action is moral or immoral by Christian standards - if 2 people disagree then they can go dig out a copy of the Bible and find out who is right (although in practice there may be differences in interpretation etc).

This, of course, is true. But I am arguing that there must (or should) be only one standard to judge morality by. If there were two, then both standards would be invalidated. For example, if you were playing football and there were two referees (or two rulebooks) - one who ruled that a goal would be scored if the ball missed the goal, and another who ruled that to score, the ball would have to cross the goal line - the game would be totally unplayable.

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by Boogster

Surely there is such a thing as the morality of the individual? Relationships are, after all, formed between individuals. There's no use in defining a system that regulates behaviour between individuals if they themselves are not subject to any such regulation. No relationship would ever work.

What moral issues arise between me and myself?

[mist]

Originally Posted by Tactitus

What moral issues arise between me and myself?

i always find this arrises when i see something new and shiny :P

that's probably just me tho

-mist