Philosophy of Sex(2)

 #4(p. 19) Does the marital status, age, sex or gender, species, or race or ethnicity of one's sexual partner make a difference to the morality of sexual acts carried out with that partner? Why or why not? What other features of potential partners might be added to this list? Their physical attractiveness? Income? Aspects of their biography?

In evaluating the morality of any act, a tempting starting point is that golden rule which is most simply stated as the premise of medical ethics: Do no harm. Indeed, if all one dealt with were objects, things and creatures without self-awareness and so what we consider volition, such a premise might suffice; damage is, after all, something universally recognized as at least unpleasant, if not outright reprehensible when imposed on a sensitive creature.

Humans, though, at least in dealings with our peers, take exception to this rule. We place the greatest emphasis, not on a choice of pain or comfort, but on the choice itself. We find it horrible to think that we should be subjected to anything, good or bad, without our consent. Consent, then, respect for the independent will and thus recognition as agent rather than object, is our highest priority in determining how we wish to be treated, and by extension how people should treat each other generally.

Consent is variably influenced by the characteristics listed: social phenomena like race/ethnicity, gender, and marital status will be treated as having no bearing on a person's will, and thus ability to consent. Being social characteristics, qualities which only exist relative to others, they don't exist as qualities in the paradigm case of a solitary person being acted on or affected by the faceless challenges of life; to say that their ability to be willing participants in such trials, to agree with justice or object to its absence, comes into being with the existence of other people does not follow. Physical attractiveness, then, must be similarly considered irrelevant to one's ability to consent.

There are two qualities which determine the degree to which one is able to agree, or not, to endure their particular circumstances: power(the availability of options) and knowledge(the awareness of one's options). Personal characteristics which are related to the possession of one or both of these will then be characteristics which influence one's ability to consent; someone lacking either the power to refuse or the knowledge that they may do so can be reasonably described as lacking some ability to consent. Age, under this definition, is very definitely a factor in the morality of sexual activity with one's partner, since both knowledge and power are relatively lacking for the young. Further, any aspect of one's biography which impaired them in either such respect would likewise complicate their ability to refuse a sexual advance, making such an act an acting-on rather than an acting-with; objectification, in other words.

Income is a tricky consideration. An abundance of personal possessions may well increase one's sense of power and thus resilience to the influence of others, but on the other hand it only proves to be a factor in consent when there is a significant disparity in the income of the participants. Considered this way, though, the concept of social power arises, and so admits the several qualities excluded above as independently non-existent to be in fact important; though being poor in itself has no bearing on a person's will, there are situations in which refusing a particular sexual advance while being poor may be more difficult. Does this difficulty influence one's ability to choose, or just the choice itself? Are the factors which would make a choice difficult the same as those which would take it away?

Philosophy of Sex(1)

#2(p. 19) How can one go about deciding whether sexual acts have been performed with consent or have been coerced? Does the presence of coercion always mean that the act was not performed with consent; does the absence of coercion always mean that the act was done consensually? Do we often legitimately coerce or put pressure on people to do things they prefer not to do?

To determine the role of coercion in human sexual relationships, as well as in any other sort of relationship, it will serve to first briefly delineate the terms involved. “Coercion” is held here to be any application of pressure or influence by one party on another toward some particular end. “Consent” is meant as the mutual willingness or agreement by agents to participate in some end; as no consent is necessary for independent acts, it is held to be a relational term, describing only interpersonal activities.

These terms, to be sure, require some explanation of their own; coercion is, after all, often meant to describe the overriding of another's unwillingness to engage in an act by force, whether physical, emotional, economic, etc. Such a definition is problematic, however, because it presupposes the existence of a static will on the part of its object; one must assume that there is a particular thing person A wants, that they cannot ever want anything contrary to this, and then characterize any activity by person B which results in person A not pursuing their one desire as coercive. It is by dismissing this idea of a static will, or unchanging mind, that one is left only with the application of influence by person B on A as an adequate example of a coercive act. Consent, similarly, may be uselessly complicated by the suggestion that a paradoxically free and unchanging will is present for all involved parties. There is a distinction, after all, between what one chooses and what one wants; while some debate is appropriate to determining which drive properly constitutes one's “will”, except in the case of children at least, one is unlikely to find in practice that the term applies to both.

In this context, coercion and consent lose any mutual exclusivity; unless one or more parties involved lack the status of being willful agents, in fact, coercion of some sort becomes necessary for there to be any relational act to be consented to. To explain this, let us trace the progression of such a scenario: two strangers of independent will and no previous experience with or influence on one another exist such that they may interact; neither is subject to any influence other than their own will and, potentially, that of the other. What happens?

If any interaction is to occur then, as the term is defined here, some coercion must take place: an influence of or by one party on the other must occur for interaction, by definition, to be the case; to interact, one must act upon another, and vice versa. This influence may be unintentional, to be sure, as in the case of person A being independently attracted to some external quality of person B; such would be a case of the influence of B on A, as opposed to an influence by B on A such as active manipulation or seduction. In either event, however, an overriding of A's existing will by B can be said to occur, since that will is changed from its original state as a consequence of B. To speak to the legitimacy of this changing seems fruitless, since A might just as easily respond to unintentional qualities in B which he or she did not wish to respond to as to intentional ones which he or she did; whether it was a desire or a decision which prompted A to interact with B, it is conceivable that it would not be both at once. To say that the intention of B in this instance determines the legitimacy of their coercion seems speculative, since intention cannot be externally determined by A.

Menorah

I used to think there were no simple truths because, to be honest, I couldn't think of any; any idea taken in isolation grows in complexity as it interacts with other ideas and attempts to find common ground with them.  Compulsively seeking new ideas, or new perspectives on old ones, as I do, my experience of truth has always been one of boundless wonder(i.e, constant speculation), leaving me open to harder truths but prohibiting easier ones.

In recent months, however, I've come around more and more to a perspective on rational beings as active participants in their realities, not just passive experiensors. Because if our dealings with the world do have any sort of affect on it, and those dealings are in any way influenced by our interpretation of the same, then by association how we see the world has at least some bearing on just what that world turns out to be.

What is it, then, that makes my interpretation of the world as indefinitely complex more valid or consistent with the rest of my life's experience than relatively simplistic perspectives on the same: ideas of universal justice or logic, for example?  If believing that everything makes sense can make it true, does disbelieving it  actually render the world chaotic by mere appreciation?

Stacked

Problems are systematic, yes, but also hierarchical.  Imagine monora stacked upon menorah stacked upon menorah, infinte regress downward, the stems of each feeding the bases of those above, each stem part of a group with a common base, etc.  There is no hope if you attempt a truly systematic approach to extinguishing  a particular flame, because it's being as a result is the consequence of not just its own base, but all those feeding it, on back to a mythical God Base that feeds them all and is not fed by anything in its turn.  This is impractical for beings of finite discrete memory such as we.  A systematic approach to problem solving is more efficient, yes, but only if you know when to stop tackling problems by looking for underlying causes and just put a plug on the problem itself.  This is, however, a rather difficult thing to know.