The ethics of pedophilia;
Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics ;
9(1), 111-124
Pedophilia is bad. But how bad is it? And in what ways, and for what reasons, is it bad? This is a thorny issue, and sadly, one seldom discussed by ethicists. I argue in this article that pedophilia is bad only because, and only to the extent that, it causes harm to children, and that pedophilia itself, as well as pedophilic expressions and practices that do not cause harm to children, are morally all right. I further argue that the aim of our social and legal treatment of pedophilia should be to minimize harm to children, and that current practices are often counterproductive in this respect.
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Pedophilia is bad. But how bad is it? And in what ways, and for what reasons, is it bad? This is a thorny issue, and sadly, one seldom discussed by ethicists. I argue in this article that pedophilia is bad only because, and only to the extent that, it causes harm to children, and that pedophilia itself, as well as pedophilic expressions and practices that do not cause harm to children, are morally all right. I further argue that the aim of our social and legal treatment of pedophilia should be to minimize harm to children, and that current practices are often counterproductive in this respect.
Human Rights and the Denial of Sexual Freedom
René Guyon had the following text privately printed in Bangkok in the form of a rather flimsy brochure. He then sent it to all European and American sexologists whose addresses he knew. [...] As a public service, we are here providing the full text of our own copy. - Ipce.
[...] Human dignity is no more affected by sexual acts than it is by individual preferences in food or in recreation. It is an infantile stratagem of the puritans to pretend that there is any "indignity" in living Sexually outside the range of their childish and inexperienced conceptions. [...]
Modern men and women proclaim and loudly repeat that they no longer wish to be slaves. Yet the anti-sexual mores and laws have established for them a servitude from which they suffer at all ages of their lives. They are the slaves of the prohibitory laws that govern them. [...]
The Sexual Freedom which I have proposed is that which rests firmly upon the reciprocal consent of the parties involved in the sexual act or any of its varieties. [...]
;
René Guyon had the following text privately printed in Bangkok in the form of a rather flimsy brochure. He then sent it to all European and American sexologists whose addresses he knew. [...] As a public service, we are here providing the full text of our own copy. - Ipce.
[...] Human dignity is no more affected by sexual acts than it is by individual preferences in food or in recreation. It is an infantile stratagem of the puritans to pretend that there is any "indignity" in living Sexually outside the range of their childish and inexperienced conceptions. [...]
Modern men and women proclaim and loudly repeat that they no longer wish to be slaves. Yet the anti-sexual mores and laws have established for them a servitude from which they suffer at all ages of their lives. They are the slaves of the prohibitory laws that govern them. [...]
The Sexual Freedom which I have proposed is that which rests firmly upon the reciprocal consent of the parties involved in the sexual act or any of its varieties. [...]