Why does Kant, who extensively wrote on sexual life in all its diversity, never mention paedophilia? I elaborate a hypothesis on the basis of the work of Foucault and Hacking: paedophilia as a “possibility of personhood” only came into being at the end of the nineteenth century. This “possibility” is linked to the introduction of a “deployment of sexuality” over and against a “deployment of alliance.” It is only at the very moment that sexuality starts being conceived in (...) terms of feelings, fantasies, and capacities that can be different in adults and children that propositions on paedophilia become intelligible. This was not yet the case in Kant’s day. I illustrate the distinction between these two “deployments” further through analysis of the approach of the Hungarian psychoanalyst Sándor Ferenczi. Finally, I state that this debate should not be reduced to epistemology and that Foucault’s “deployments” or Hacking’s “possibilities of personhood” are rooted in the material conditions of our existence. (shrink)

Most people agree that murder is wrong. Yet, within computer games virtual murder scarcely raises an eyebrow. In one respect this is hardly surprising, as no one is actually murdered within a computer game. A virtual murder, some might argue, is no more unethical than taking a pawn in a game of chess. However, if no actual children are abused in acts of virtual paedophilia (life-like simulations of the actual practice), does that mean we should disregard these acts with (...) the same abandon we do virtual murder? In this paper I shall outline several arguments which attempt to permit virtual murder, whilst prohibiting virtual paedophilia. (shrink)

Video games are currently available which permit the virtual murder of children. No such games are presently available which permit virtual paedophilia. Does this disparity reflect a morally justifiable position? Focusing solely on different player motivations, I contrast two version of a fictitious game—one permitting the virtual murder of children, the other virtual paedophilia—in order to establish whether the selective prohibition of one activity over the other can be morally justified based on player motivation alone. I conclude that (...) it cannot, for reasons discussed. (shrink)

This paper explores recent vigilance attending pedophilia in the UK context. It examines governmental and popular responses to the perceived threat posed by child sex offenders, exhibited respectively in provisions for sex offender orders within the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, and in press and public campaigns for the “naming and shaming” of paedophiles. These two responses cohabit in current contexts of concern about childhood as innocence and vulnerability, and are worked out against the figure of the paedophile as a (...) “dangerous individual”; nevertheless, they invoke different visions of political community. Developing Foucault's observation that contemporary political rationalities combine two distinct models of political community, that of the juridically constituted polity and that of the society rendered calculable and organized through normalizing models of risk, the paper argues that both of these models are evident in governmental and popular responses to paedophilia. However, where the former, a technical and administrative response to a problem of social order, aims to achieve public safety through the professional prediction and management of risk, the latter is premised on the elimination of danger,demanding the public outing of paedophiles and their exorcism from the community. While these responses contest whether danger can be turned into risk through professional management, they are mutually enhancing in fostering governmental and popular concern with public and community safety. (shrink)

Morgan Luck raises a potentially troubling problem for gamers who enjoy video games that allow the player to commit acts of virtual murder. The problem simply is that the arguments typically advanced to defend virtual murder in video games would appear to also support video games that allowed gamers to commit acts of virtual paedophilia. Luck’s arguments are persuasive, however, there is one line of argument that he does not consider, which may provide the relevant distinction: as virtual (...) class='Hi'>paedophilia involves the depiction of sexual acts involving children, it is therefore an instance of child pornography. I argue that virtual paedophilia involves the depiction of sexual acts involving children, which amounts to child pornography. I then draw on arguments to show that child pornography is morally objectionable. Finally, depictions of virtual murder are not instances of pornography, and so are not morally objectionable for this reason. So, there is a relevant moral distinction to draw between virtual murder and virtual paedophilia that is able to justify the former but not the latter. (shrink)

A paedophile is a person with a sexual attraction to children; some paedophiles commit child sex abuse offences. For such acts, they hold moral and legal responsibility, which presupposes that paedophiles are moral agents who can distinguish right from wrong and are capable of self-control. Like any other moral agents, paedophiles have moral duties. Some moral duties are universal, e.g., the duty not to steal. Whether there are any specific moral duties related to paedophilia is the topic of this (...) paper. I argue that the moral duty not to commit child sex abuse is universal, and the duty to reduce the individual risk of child sex abuse is specific to paedophiles. I further argue that any society has a moral duty to help paedophiles reduce the risk. Both duties provide grounds for moral judgement. Paedophiles should be judged not for their sexual interest but for their efforts to avoid child sex abuse. If a paedophile has an opportunity to reduce the risk of child sex abuse, he is obliged to do so. Unfortunately, societies rarely provide such opportunities and hence fail in their moral duty to paedophiles and children. (shrink)

In this paper we consider whether Christopher Bartel has resolved the gamer’s dilemma. The gamer’s dilemma highlights a discrepancy in our moral judgements about the permissibility of performing certain actions in computer games. Many gamers have the intuition that virtual murder is permissible in computer games, whereas virtual paedophilia is not. Yet finding a relevant moral distinction to ground such intuitions can be difficult. Bartel suggests a relevant moral distinction may turn on the notion that virtual paedophilia harms (...) women in a way that virtual murder does not. We argue that this distinction is only in a position to provide a partial solution to the dilemma. (shrink)

The gamer’s dilemma, initially proposed by Luck (Ethics and Information Technology 11(1):31–36, 2009) posits a moral comparison between in-game acts of murder and in-game acts of paedophilia within single-player videogames. Despite each activity lacking the obvious harms of their real-world equivalents, common intuitions suggest an important difference between them. Some responses to the dilemma suggest that intuitive responses to the two cases are based on important differences between the acts themselves or their social meaning. Others challenge the fundamental assumptions (...) of the dilemma. In this paper, we identify and explore key imaginative and emotional differences in how certain types of in-game violence are experienced by players, consider how these differences factor into the moral lives of players, and use these insights to resolve the dilemma. The view we develop is that the key moral emotion in offensive video gameplay is self-repugnance. This is not repugnance of the act one directs a game character to perform in the game, nor repugnance of the character one plays. It is repugnance of oneself in playing the game. If self-repugnance is a fitting emotional response to playing a videogame, then this is prima facie grounds for thinking it is wrong to play the videogame. Our approach to the gamer’s dilemma is to distinguish the fittingness conditions of self-repugnance from the fittingness conditions of other moral emotions as they pertain to playing videogames. We argue that because of the virtual character of the actions performed in video games, self-repugnance is a fitting response to particular kinds of offensive gameplay. On the other hand, in-game murder is not invariably a fitting ground for self-repugnance. We argue that this difference is grounded in imaginative responses to the harm of death and the harms of profound suffering. Our task is to explain and justify this difference in fittingness conditions and use this to resolve the gamer’s dilemma. (shrink)

The morality of virtual representations and the enactment of prohibited activities within single-player gamespace continues to be debated and, to date, a consensus is not forthcoming. Various moral arguments have been presented to support the moral prohibition of virtual enactments, but their applicability to gamespace is questioned. In this paper, I adopt a meta-ethical approach to moral utterances about virtual representations, and ask what it means when one declares that a virtual interaction ‘is morally wrong’. In response, I present constructive (...) ecumenical expressivism to explain what moral utterances should be taken to mean, argue that they mean the same when referring to virtual and non-virtual interactions and, given, explain why consensus with regard to virtual murder, rape and paedophilia is not forthcoming even though such consensus is readily found with regard to their non-virtual equivalents. (shrink)

Ethics and Sex presents a systematic study of the nature and moral significance of human sexuality and of the major issues in sexual morality. The book is divided into two main parts. Part One gives a critical analysis of the key conceptions of human sexuality. Part Two discusses the most important issues in sexual morality: monogamy; adultery; prostitution; homosexuality; paedophilia; sexual harassment and rape. In this controversial and accessible book, the author demonstrates that many of the prohibitions that make (...) up conventional sexual morality cannot withstand critical scrutiny. (shrink)

_Ethics and Sex_ presents a systematic study of the nature and moral significance of human sexuality and of the major issues in sexual morality. The book is divided into two main parts. Part One gives a critical analysis of the key conceptions of human sexuality. Part Two discusses the most important issues in sexual morality: monogamy; adultery; prostitution; homosexuality; paedophilia; sexual harassment and rape. In this controversial and accessible book, the author demonstrates that many of the prohibitions that make (...) up conventional sexual morality cannot withstand critical scrutiny. (shrink)

The paper aims to show how the Tv series True Detective (season 1, 2014 – created and written by Nic Pizzolatto) aids us understanding the status of power whether in its political, judicial or religious form. The conjunction of sex and death is depicted through acts of paedophilia, rape, and murder of women and children. The study aims to elucidate the logic which is inherent to those acts of violence and which founds the reproduction of social domination mechanisms.

Under what conditions does 'sensation' become 'sensational'? In the early nineteenth century murder was a staple of the sensationalizing popular press and gruesome descriptions were deployed to make a direct impact on the sensations of the reader. By the end of the century, public concern with the thrills, spills, and shocks of modern life was increasingly articulated in the language of sensation. Media sensationalism contributed to this process and magnified its impact, just as sensation was, in turn, taken up by (...) literature, art and film. In the contemporary world the dramatization of these experiences in an era of media panics over terrorism and paedophilia has taken an overtly melodramatic form, in which battles of good and evil play out across the landscapes of our lives. Sensational Subjects develops an innovative, interdisciplinary approach to exploring these themes, their impact and their implications for understanding the modern world. A companion volume, Sympathetic Sentiments: Affect, Emotion and Spectacle in the Modern World is published simultaneously by Bloomsbury. (shrink)

Departing from the sociological dual process model that divides thoughts into automatic and unconscious, or deliberate and conscious occurrences, this book draws on empirical cases to demonstrate the existence of 'automatic deliberation'. Through research into the ways in which people address difficult subjects, such as death and dying, paedophilia, and career decision-making, the author sheds light on a mode of thinking which is both habitual and effortful, displaying a combination of habituated understandings and conscious deliberation. Advancing a blended view (...) of cognition by which individuals draw on schemas and frames to think through complex topics, this volume will appeal to sociologists and psychologists with interests in cognition and the ways in which we make decisions. (shrink)

A slippery slope argument is an argument to this twofold effect. First, that if a policy or practice P is permitted, then we lack the dialectical resources to demonstrate that a similar policy or practice P* is not permissible. Since P* is indeed not permissible, we should not endorse policy or practice P. At the heart of such arguments is the idea of dialectical impotence, the inability to stop the acceptance of apparently small deviations from a heretofore secure policy or (...) practice from leading to apparently large and unacceptable deviations. Using examples of analogical arguments and sorites arguments I examine this phenomenon in the context of collapsing taboos. (shrink)

Constantin Merezhkowsky is celebrated today for his theory of symbiogenesis, postulated in the early decades of the twentieth century, particularly that chloroplasts were symbiotic cyanophytes (cyanobacteria). While biologists point singularly to what they see as his heroic achievement, its neglect and subsequent rediscovery, we introduce a broader and much more complex perspective on his science, his troubled life and career. We present a view of Merezhkowsky as zoologist, anthropologist, botanist, philosopher, and novelist. We explain the genesis of his theory of (...) the origin of chloroplasts and of nucleus and cytoplasm as symbionts, as well as his depiction of the geo-chemical context of the origins and early evolution of life on earth. We also disclose his sordid social and political activities, his eugenics and racist writings, his paedophilia, and his metaphysics. Finally, we describe the context of his elaborate suicide in 1921. (shrink)

La transcription, la traduction et l’étude du libelle d’un petit procès daté de 1435 extrait d’un registre judiciaire (liber maleficiorum) de Bologne permet de comparer les abus sexuels perpétrés par des hommes à l’encontre des filles et des garçons. Pour exprimer une agression sexuelle sur une petite fille, on emploie les mêmes mots que ceux qui servent à désigner le viol d’une femme. Pour décrire la violence commise sur un garçon, on use du vocabulaire de la sodomie. Ce constat permet (...) de montrer qu’à la fin du Moyen Âge, c’est bien la pénétration qui crée l’acte sexuel et que ce que les textes désignent par “vice sodomite” peut souvent avoir le sens moderne de “pédophilie” vis-à-vis des garçons. (shrink)

Progress in our knowledge of the brain’s functioning has led to two related trends. The first consists in a medicalisation of some behaviours that, till now, were considered as pertaining to ethics. The second, in an opposite manner, consists in attributing several conditions, generally considered as pathological or immoral, to human normal diversity, whence the introduction of a new concept: neurodiversity. Thus, for some authors, autism and hyperactivity would not be diseases, psychopathy and paedophilia would not be vices or (...) crimes, but manifestations of human neurodiversity. The topic of neurodiversity is exemplified in the debate about cochlear implants. Some deaf persons refuse implants for their children because they want their children to remain deaf in order to be better integrated in the deaf culture and community. The language of cultural diversity here replaces the language of disability. Some degree of human neurodiversity cannot be denied, but it necessarily encounters limits, and it is important to determine where they are. It also has an impact on our conception of the human condition. (shrink)

On manipulating the meaning of words: the strategy of distorting the meaning of concepts in order to redirect people’s attitudes has been put in practice by ideologists and politicians for years. the paper focuses on the refections of selected thinkers and men of letters on this phenomenon. intellectual contributions of isaiah Berlin, Friedrich a. Hayek, leszek Kołakowski and charles l. stevenson on the one hand, and the considerations of george orwell, aldous Huxley, ayn Rand, sławomir mrożek and małgorzata musierowicz on (...) the other hand are analysed. some recent incarnations of the tactics of perverting the meaning of words in recent political discourse in poland are critically examined. special attention is given to the manipulating the meaning of “paedophilia” in the context of the nationwide discussion on child sexual abuse in the catholic church. it is concluded that the dishonourable practice of verbal misrepresentation used under communism is at work again, this time in even more sophisticated form. (shrink)

Wendy Laura Belcher has done her cultural work by queering Mother Walatta Petros's life in this one of a kind book. The struggles of Mother Walatta Petros and her nuns and their heirs' reluctance to enunciate same sex desire is brought out well in this book and its review in Prabuddha Bharata which has not missed an issue from 1896 to date. The book under review establishes Mother Walatta Petros as an African proto-feminist. This is a very well researched book. (...) The genre of the gädl too is very well brought out by Belcher and Kleiner. Medievalists offline and online really do not as yet think African indigenous works as worthy of their consideration. Belcher overcame many roadblocks to write something actually worth reading. Because of constraint of space, the book could not be reviewed more expansively. While the book is one of its kind in its domain; it is still an act of colonial interference within Ethiopian realpolitiks of religions. I have mentioned in the review that African Roman Catholic Cardinals like Cardinal Sarah insist on washing his Church's dirty linen in private. Now, the question is, would say, Wendy Laura Belcher and Kleiner have the guts and their publisher too, to write about paedophilia in the various American Churches? Is it not convenient to impute lesbianism to Mother Walatta Petros and shy away from writing about female desire say, within the global Loreto Convents? This reviewer presumes from this book that all convents are dens of female desire: some can be enunciated by white folks; some cannot. The question is: why queer Ethiopian spirituality when Mother Walatta Petros is no longer alive to defend herself? (shrink)