I'd like to link two papers from same author detailing the same thing in different lengths on the concern we may feel for someone who does something in a 'unreal' way that presents no harm.
Short Version: Morality in Computer Games: A Phenomenological ApproachIn order to do this, we will leave the high-tech world of computer games behind us for a moment, to consider a more traditional example of neutralized action: the theatre. Everything that happens on stage, happens in the ‘as-if’-modification. The actor is never really acting, i.e. not realizing actual practical intentions, but rather depicts actions. In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the actor playing the part of Marcus Brutus is, of course, not actually murdering the actor playing Caesar; the murder is only depicted. There is a clear distinction here between the actor as an actual person (depicting Marcus Brutus) and his image-world-I (Marcus Brutus). When one does not know that one is looking at a play, the revelation of this distinction can come as a relief. In the British comedy series Blackadder III, situated in the late eighteenth century, the Prince Regent – who is said to have ‘a peanut for a brain’ – attends Shakespeare’s Caesar. The moment Brutus stands behind Caesar with a knife, he shouts: “Look behind you, mister Caesar!”, and after Brutus has murdered Caesar the prince calls in the guards to arrest the actor playing Brutus. When, however, he is told by his butler that it was just a play, and that the actor playing Caesar is standing upright on the stage awaiting applause, he is utterly relieved. The relief the prince feels is, however, different from the relief one would feel when an actual attempt to murder someone has been made but failed. In the context of the theatre namely, the murder itself it still there, but it appears in a different light, in a new modus of presentation: the ‘as-if’-modification.
This example seems to support the idea that ‘actions-as-if’, like in-game actions, can never be labelled ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. Although something ethically condemnable seems to happen on the stage, our discomfort fades away to make place for relief once we are aware of the fact that is ‘only’ a play. We should, however, dwell a little longer on the example of the theatre, for we have left a possibility unexplored: a movement not from discomfort to relief, but the other way around, from relief to uneasiness. The exploration of this other possibility might help us understand why we are so uncomfortable with excessive violence or sexual perversity in computer games.
In an essay on pictures, Robert Sokolowksi argues that an actor needs an audience to act (Sokolowski 1992: 17). He gives the example of an actor playing Richard III without an audience. A possible effect of this could be that the actor starts loosing himself in the role. No longer does he merely depict Richard III, he rather starts to act and feel like him. According to Sokolowski, the actor now imagines to be Richard III, and imagining is a far more serious activity than depicting. Whereas in depiction the emphasis is on difference (I am depicting someone else), in imagination it is on identity (I coincide with the person I depict). The example of Shakespeare’s Caesar started with a feeling of relative uneasiness (‘Someone is being murdered!’) and ended with relief (‘It was only a play’). Here it is the other way around: what seems to be ‘just acting’ starts to swallow the actor. Whereas she is normally in a position best described as ‘disengaged’ - she does not coincide with what and whom she is depicting -, this disengagement seems totally lost here. The actor is no longer depicting Richard III, but rather coincides with him. This strikes us as worrying and we might interfere to re-establish the distinction between the image-world-I and the actual person. Doing so, we aim to re-neutralize the de-neutralized situation.
This leads us into a further problem with regard to ethics in virtual environments. Immersion in these environments makes the question concerning the identity of the moral agent, and thereby the one concerning responsbility, highly problematic: whose intentions are we talking about? At first sight, it seems very clear who is the subject corresponding to the 'as-if'-intentions: me. Things are, however, slightly more complicated. Immersed in a virtual image-world, we do not merely leave the actual world behind us, we also leave our actual ego. Husserl makes a helpful distinction between the 'actual I' on the one hand and 'the image-world-I' [Bildweltich] on the other.17 In Call of Duty 5, for example, I experience the downfall of Berlin through the eyes of Dimitri, who is my image-world-I. When playing the game I become Dimitri in a way. I respond, for example, to artificial teammates shouting "Dimitri, get over here!" by moving towards them. Whereas the actual I (me) is sitting in front of the screen in 2010 with his hands on the keyboard, the image-world-I (Dimitri) is in Berlin in 1945, with his hands on a rifle. Although one always identifies to a certain degree with the image-world-I, the actual I and the image-world-I are still separated by an abyss that makes it very hard to say who is accountable for possible virtual 'wrong-doing'.
Virtual worlds and stage plays have a lot in common: they are artificial environments crowded with image-world-I's, acting out 'as-if'-intentions that remain without real consequences. An actor is never really acting, i.e. never realizing actual practical intentions; he or she rather depicts the intentions and actions of the fictional character he or she is impersonating. The difference between the actor as an actual person and the character he or she depicts (his or her image-world-I) is mostly very clear. Consider an actor playing Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius Caeser: whereas the actor as an actual person stands in a theatre in Brussels somewhere in the twenty-first century, his image-world-I (Brutus) is in Rome somewhere in the first century. There are, in other words, obvious distinctions between the actors as actual persons and the fictional characters they portray. These distinctions also exist at the level of feelings and intentions. As an actual person, the actor can greatly enjoy playing the villain Brutus and actually intend to portray this character as convincingly as possible. He does not, however, entertain any feelings of hatred towards 'Caesar' and has no intention of murdering anyone. This dubious intention to murder someone is being entertained, rather, by his image-world-I, Marcus Brutus.
In general, nobody considers it a problem when actors set out to portray murders in a play, since it is clear that, as actual persons, they do not intend to murder anyone; no one will be harmed by their 'actions'. The actor playing Brutus is not really murdering Caeser and the actor playing Caeser is not relly a victim in need of medial treatment or a funeral. What the public sees when attending Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, is not a murder but rather a 'murder'. When one does not know that one is looking at a play, however the revelation of this distinction between murder and 'murder' can come as a relief. In the British comedy series Blackadder III, situated in the late eighteenth century, the Prince Regent - who is said to have 'a peanut for a brain' - attends a performance of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. The moment Brutus comes up behind Caesar with a knife, he shouts: "Look behind you mister Caesar!", and after Brutus has murdered Caesar the Prince calls in the guards to arrest the actor playing Brutus. When he is told by his butler that it was just a play, that the actor playing Caesar is standing upright on the stage waiting applause, he is utterly relieved. The relief of the Prince feels is, however, quite different from the relief one would feel when an actual attempt to murder someone had been made but failed. In this context of the theatre, the murder is still there, but it appears in a different light, in a new mode of presentation: the 'as-if'-modification. Whereas the Prince first thought that something terrible and utterly condemnable was happening right in front of his eyes, he now suspends his ethical judgement in order to enjoy the play from an aesthetic point of view, applauding the actors playing their parts so well as to make him believe someone actually had the intention to murder a fellow human being and succeeded in this plan. First, the prince was worried and not comfortable with what he saw, but now relieved is able to enjoy the show.
Another example of an experience of discomfort succeeded by a moment of relief involves rape, or rather 'rape'. Suppose I enter a room where a man is lying on top of a woman trying to rip off her clothes, while the woman is struggling and screaming for help. The man appears to be completely outraged, cursing at the top of his voice while pulling down his trousers. Of course, the behaviour of the man strikes me as ethically wrong and might want to interfere in order to save a woman from being raped.18 Just in time, however, I notice that the three of us are not the only people in the room: someone else is there, shouting directions at the woman and the man: 'Give me a little bit more anger' and 'Can you struggle a little harder?'. By now it has occurred to me that I am not witnessing a rape, but a 'rape', i.e. a re-enactment of rape. Whereas I first felt inclined to condemn the actions of the man lying on top of a the woman, I now suspend all ethical judgements in order to enjoy the scene. Again, my experience started with a feeling of discomfort only to end in relief: it was all just a play. And where I would probably feel most uncomfortable being around a man who is raping someone, I am not at all discomforted being around the actor who depicts an outraged rapist, because I presume that this actor is completely different from the image-world-I he is depicting in the play. I even admire the actor for portraying a despicable person so convincingly, When depicting a 'rape', the actor entertains mental states that differ from the ones entertained by the rapist who is performing a rape - the actor is not really sexually aroused and has no intention to humiliate a real person - but he can still make it seem as if he is enraged and this is something we admire in the actor.
These examples of 'murder' and 'rape' seem to support the idea that action-as-if, like virtual actions and theatrical actions, can never be labelled right or wrong. Although something ethically condenmable seems to happen on stage - 'someone is being murdered/raped!' - our discomfort fades away to make place for relief once we are aware that it was 'only a play'. We should, however, dwell a little longer on the example of the theatre, for I have left a possibility unexplored: a movement not from discomfort to relief, but the other way around: from relief to discomfort. The exploration of this other possibility might help us understand why we are so uncomfortable with the excessive violence or sexual perversity in virtual environments.
Again, the theatre can provide us with good examples. Suppose the actor playing the rapist in a play is a friend of mine. I greatly enjoy his very convincing impersonation of the fictional character performing the rape. Afterwards I go backstage to congratulate him with this remarkable achievement. My friend, however, confesses something that does not strike me as comforting at all. He says that he was able to portray the rapist so well, because during rehearsal he found out that enacting a rape really got him aroused. Even though my friend has not harmed anyone when enacting a rape, and does not have any intentions to rape actual people in the future, it is very unlikely that I will be able to watch him perform further rape scenes while admiring his qualities as an actor. Why not? probably because he and his immoral image-world-I (the rapist_ have become to close. My friend is not only vividly depicts the actions and feelings of a rapist, he also entertains mental states similar to a sex offender: actual sexual arousal (maybe even accompanied by the bodily states that are an expression of this, like an erection). The strict distinction between actual I and the 'immoral' image-world-I he depicts - a distinction we assumed to be present - has been blurred. It is the collapse of this clear distinction between the actual person and the fictional character with immoral intentions that is responsible for the uneasiness I feel when watching my friend portraying a rape.19 What started without any discomfort )'my friend is portraying someone with different feelings and desires') ended in uneasiness ('my friend is actually aroused by something that would be condemned as wrong in the actual world').
It uses the example of someone performing rape in a play and about the blurred line between the character one plays and one's real self.
That when this line is blurred, the immorality of the fantasy/unreal performance becomes concerning as we begin to lose sight of the character and begin to see it seep over into the person. If someone enjoys having sex with a child like doll, because sex with children is within itself considered immoral on points of their inability to give valid consent and harm that results from it to a child's sexual development and own sense of well being. Much like the play actor recreating rape and expressing enjoyment out of it. We come to judge the character of someone who would enjoy the fantasy of something immoral if it was done in a real way.
The question is then on the relationship between someone doing something that is pretend and how it may or may not cross over into the real.
Another interesting work to read in the realm of objectification is
Rae Langton's Sexual Solipsism.
Where she speaks of those who treat a thing as a person and those who treat a person as a thing and the possible relation between the two.
Whilst it doesn't seem problematic to treat a thing as a person in the same way that it's not morally problematic in itself to recreate rape in a play (as it's no 'real' and no real harm is done). There might be a concern of the relationship possibly fostered between someone who treats things as if they were people blurring it with their treatment of people more akin to things.
That in treating an object as a person, it may not be an elevation of the thing to a respectful and moral treatment of a person but in fact come to lower people to that of the object. In the case of a child like sex doll, the point would follow that sex with a real child is impermissible, so by making permissible the unreal sex with the child like doll. One may enhance the fantasy which may translate into the disregard for the real child as a person who can't consent. That treating of things as people in facts leads to the treating of people as things. Because what is the purpose of making it child like if not to, in some degree, recreate the realness of a child? It's not a mistake in that they are unable to recognize that someone is a person or not, but more that their attitude on how to treat people may be damaged.
And as such, that considered in isolation, it's hard to criticize the act of having sex with a child like doll. But why we should restrict ourselves to considering what harms exist in that act isn't apparent. Because the real concern is what impact promoting this has in regards to the real act of molestation.
The counter is inevitability that it doesn't lead to this kind of morally problematic form of objectification of people and that there is no relation between treating things as people and treating people as things.
Does such an act distort someone's character or help to bring out those undesirable qualities?
I don't think it's an insignificant matter, in that in sex a lot of physical responses are evoked, pleasurable ones that then become associated with behaviours that are of moral significance.
A
summary of a point in the anti-porn/objectification context. Replace women's subordination with eroticizes the molestation of children.
vii) Pornography eroticizes the mechanisms, norms, myths, and trappings of gender inequality. Its fusing of pleasure with subordination has two components: (a) it does so in terms of its representational content by depicting women deriving sexual pleasure from a range of inegalitarian relations and situations, from being the passive objects of conquest to scenarios of humiliation, degradation, and sexual abuse; (b) inegalitarian pornography presents these representations of subordination in a manner aimed to sexually arouse.15
The argument concludes that, by harnessing representations of women’s subordination to a ubiquitous and weighty pleasure, pornography is especially effective at getting its audience to internalize its inegalitarian views. This argument trades on a conviction dating back to Aristotle that still has currency in the philosophy of art today, namely, that understanding and appreciating representations often requires an imaginative engagement that can have lasting effects on one’s character.16 Many representations enlist from their audience emotional responses that are ethically relevant. In so doing, they activate our moral powers and enlarge our ethical understanding by training our emotions to respond to the right objects with the proper intensity. Such representations not only affect the audience during actual engagement with the representation but may also have lasting effects on one’s character by shaping the moral emotions. A similar conviction appears to underlie modern-day sex therapy, where pornographic representations are prescribed in order to mold patients’ sexual inclinations and thereby treat various sexual dysfunctions. If representations can in this way improve one’s character, then we should also expect them to be capable of deforming it by “perverting the sentiments of the heart,” as Hume puts it.17 Antiporn feminists hold that pornography perverts the emotional life of its audience by soliciting very strong positive feelings for situations characterized by gender inequality and in so doing plays a role in sustaining and reproducing a system of pervasive injustice.
Also, there are things such as intrusive thoughts which we all experience and anxiety in response to such thoughts is actually the terrible part of OCD. They have intrusive thoughts and concerned about acting on them perform their rituals in some comforting sense that it helps avoid it. But there's a difference between having thought of killing yourself and more seriously contemplating it. So again, there are distinctions, it's not that all thoughts are bad within themselves, but they can become concerning to the extent that they may actualize in real behaviour if they are immoral in intent and implications of intended behaviour.
anasawad wrote:@mikema63
Don't you think having such "sex dolls" available could help in
1- Expending the suppressed sexual energies and desires of pedophiles instead of having them reach a point where they take it out on actual children.
2- Identifying who has this disorder and thus facilitating a treatment. Or atleast ,if the individual refuses one or showed violent tendencies, being able to take preventive measures to stop any possible child rape or molestation.
3- And finally, allowing a closer look at the topic not from a moral standpoint but from an analytical stand point based on collected data to be had. And thus figuring out the roots of the problem.
?
1. I think it must be questioned what relationship there is between someone's libido and their tendency to commit an act of sexual violence. Because it is commonly assumed in say male rape of women that it's based in an uncontrollable male desire. But one likely knows many who are horny fuckers who don't then go on to commit unethical and or illegal sexual acts. And so the sentiment of decreasing the risk of sexual violence by satisfying their libidos in this form needs to be questioned some.
2. This is another issue that has found discussion in the case of Germany.
7,000 sought help or treatment for pedophilia in GermanyWhich would have the ethics for psychologists in which any sense of them expressing an intention to likely harm themselves or someone else justifies them breaking confidentially to obstruct that harm through police and such. To which we have to ask questions about how one can treat such attraction, which requires some evidence to the nature of the attraction. Like is the attraction to children perhaps partially based in the power one has over the child? To which might emphasize why the child specifically and not say a woman or man? Like why does it take that particular form if it's about arousal in power over them? But if it's characterized by as much, then there might be questions to how effectively one can challenge/reform such a mentality.
And there may even be a question of whether there is a real distinction between those who have an attraction to children but out of morality/ethics/law don't wish to molest a child compared to those who have. Because the recidivism rate for pedophilia last I heard wasn't too good, to which the idea of reform is pessimistic. But there might be those that aren't so inclined, in which case though, they wouldn't need therapy. So I guess there is possibly some thought middle ground of those who don't wish to but for some reason are struggling somehow. But I wonder what the struggle is? In that it seems to follow into the earlier point of an uncontrollable sexual desire that they have to fight. But I don't think at my horniest I'm about to go sexually assault someone because moral standards I hold for myself necessarily restrain me.
3. Such matters can't be isolated from morality, they're necessarily implicated in as much. But I get the sentiment in which instead of moralizing the matter, the idea would be harm reduction. But I'm not sure that this is say comparable to drug use, which has its history of being perceived for moral weakness and that stigma is a large part of the problem to people getting past it.
The middle ground for harm reduction is then perceived things like therapy in Germany and the dolls in the article. But of course the question is whether these things really do help to reduce the likelihood of harm to real children.
https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/For%20Ethical%20Politics.pdf#page90
-For Ethical Politics
- By Unthinking Majority
- By Fasces
- By paeng