pedophilia is not immoral
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 1 vote and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
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- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- Two days
- Max argument characters
- 5,000
- Voting period
- One month
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Pedophilia: sexual feelings directed toward children.
Let me show you how it’s done
"The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will. No one is compos sui if he have it not. An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence."
“Your beliefs become your thoughts, Your thoughts become your words, Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny.”
If even thinking about violating children is immoral, then what else is immoral? You are arrested for thinking about committing a crime. You are arrested for thinking about hitting your boss in the face. The resulting censorships on books, news, etc. becomes absolutely unsustainable. Even to denounce a crime, it is difficult to ground the immorality of crime without first, visualizing and thinking ahead about what would occur if you committed the crime. If even thoughts were to be immoral, then con supports the idea of rashly acting out, and failing to think of consequences... We cannot punish mere thought, as it is a solid grounding for which you base your actions on.
Because the imagery of children potentially being violated is already in his mind.
I dare con to make his argument without mentioning what pedophilia's consequences are. I dare con to successfully craft an argument without even considering what pedophilia is.
These emotions are triggered by events that happen in our lives. Physical pain, the loss of a job, feeling that important beliefs are threatened, a traumatic event or losing someone important to you are the types of life events that happen to most people at some point or another in life that can cause painful feelings.
But, that initial experience of emotion that occurs nearly immediately after something happens is more short lived than you might think. An emotion’s life-span is a matter of minutes or even seconds, not hours or days.
So how is it that we can be stuck in painful emotions for long periods of time? Every emotion has a powerful aftereffect. After we experience anger, for example, our attention narrows, typically causing us to overlook aspects of a situation that are fair, just or otherwise not related to feeling anger. Instead, after anger our focus contracts to those parts of our experience that make us angry. We may ruminate about other situations that have made us angry in the past, imagine future situations that will make us angry or get stuck thinking about the current situation, to the exclusion of all else.
The end result is that we continue to feel angry for a long period of time, rather than for the seconds or minutes that it takes to experience an emotion.
So where is the choice?
After we experience an emotion, whether we continue to feel it or whether it passes and we experience other emotions depends on the focus of our attention."
More specifically, pedophiles tend to also have been molested as children. As children, they lacked the ability to control the situation. By sexually assaulting children, pedophiles attempt to re-live the trauma they experienced and they learn how to master it. A complete role reversal gives them the upper hand and prevents them from being victimized. Overall, through the impact of cerebral dysfunction and traumatic development, the sexual urges and desires for children can become ingrained within a person’s nervous system."
The lack of associations between brain activation and behavioral responses in pedophiles further suggest a biased response pattern or dissected implicit valuation processes. [1]
The medicalization of a condition clearly does not preclude its moral evaluation, and the broader category is morally relevant, which is why it stays in currency. [2]
Desires and compulsions are not unalterable facts of nature. This is a profound feature of our lives as moral beings with free will.
The desire is horrific, because it might lead to a horrific action. Would we not also be horrified by a big man with poor self-control who confessed that he had recently started thinking, constantly, about raping women?
“those emotions that are linked to the interests or welfare either of society as a whole or at least of persons other than the judge or agent.”(p. 853)
“empirical researches suggest that guilt, on balance, is the more moral or adaptive emotion. Guilt appears to motivate reparative action, foster other-oriented empathy, and promote constructive strategies for coping with anger.”(p. 351)
The point is, con needs to directly note why the thought is immoral in itself.
He is advocating that we put pedophiles into jails merely due to possibility
Sources: Tied, but very nearly went to PRO.
- CON, your use of Source 6 was a mess.
"Another Proof of Neurobiological Study. This one is a more complex study than the previous one I cited and guess what, with all the data analysis through not only hypothetical statistics but also with MRI involvement, the result is wonderfully obvious."
- The conclusions of academic papers are never "wonderfully obvious".
- "Another Proof of Neurobiological Study" doesn't make any sense as a sentence.
- The study concludes that there is a measurable difference between a healthy control and a pedophile. (Quote, "As hypothesized, healthy controls showed significantly higher ratings of moral reprehensibility regarding all three types of offenses compared to pedophilic non-offenders.") In what way does this support your argument that "pedophilia is hardly any disorder"? I see two possibilities - I strongly suspect the former.
1. That CON has misinterpreted the source entirely.
2. That CON has not adequately explained why the source backs up their argument - especially not adequately enough to use the phrase "wonderfully obvious."
Spelling and Grammar: Tie.
No serious errors.
Conduct: Tie.
No serious issues.
Argument: Vote cast for CON!
PRO had to show that pedophilia was a mental illness, and mental illnesses are not inherently 'immoral'. Immoral was defined by CON without contention in R1, as "conflicting with generally or traditionally held moral principles". So, with a little bit of reading between the lines, PRO had to show that:
"Pedophilia doesn't conflict with generally or traditionally held moral principles.", or:
"Sexual feelings directed toward children do not conflict with generally or traditionally held moral principles."
It is this voter's position that PRO did most definitely not prove this statement. Further RFD below in comments - specifically comment #10.
PRO P1: Pedophilia = illness, illness isn't inherently immoral.
This is PRO's strongest point. CON does an okay job of dismantling it in R2 - stating that "...pedophilia is hardly any disorder...", and that but this is weakened by PRO's interpretation of their sixth source, "Neural correlates of moral judgment in pedophilia". (See Sources segment.) CON does not pick up on this in their final round, and the point is dropped in slight favour of CON - who uses their seventh source to drive home the concept that "The medicalization of a condition clearly does not preclude its moral evaluation...".
PRO P2: Pedophilia = thought, can't arrest people based on intent alone.
This point was somewhat poorly done - in PRO's first round, they approach upon the idea of an Orwellian future - being arrested for 'thoughtcrime'. CON slams this argument quite well in their R2 - questioning the relevance of illegality in a debate regarding morality - and PRO doesn't discuss the point at all in R2. Strongly in favour of CON.
[CON put a great deal of effort into proving that emotions or feelings can be immoral, and thus I've surmised their argument into a single point for brevity.]
CON P1: Emotions and feelings aren't exempt from questions of morality, and therefore pedophilia is immoral.
PRO's response to this is insufficient.
1. "con's study focuses on affirming what most people think is immoral" - per definition of "immoral", "...generally or traditionally held moral principles.", immorality is based on "what most people think is immoral".
2. "Clearly, ADHD can't be immoral if the problem is the solution..." - not clear what the rebuttal here actually is, and the "(If you get what I mean)" isn't especially strong rhetoric.
3. "So pedophiles have much less choice than the average person, which con is arguing about." This is the strongest rebuttal to CON's point, and it's sort of touched on in R3, "The point is, con needs to directly note why the thought is immoral in itself.", but ultimately it's on PRO to prove that pedophilia ISN'T immoral, and this simply isn't done.
Overall:
- The tie between pedophilia and other medical disorders was tenuous. Homosexuality was considered a disorder once upon a time, and it is statement of fact that it was considered to be immoral at that time too - at even into the modern age in some parts of the world.
- The 'thoughtcrime' angle was a serious error on the part of PRO.
- The concept that a thought alone is above moral consideration was the main point of contention - but given the definition of immoral as "conflicting with generally or traditionally held moral principles", it's hard to see how PRO could have gained ground here.
Misc. Notes:
- Was an uphill battle for PRO, and with respect to the topic at hand they managed pretty well.
- To both sides - read your sources, please. PRO, the MentalHealth.net site had a section specifically about Sexual Disorders that would have made for a better source. CON, I'm pretty sure you misinterpreted Source 6, and there are some claims in your argument that directly contradict Source 2.
- Best of luck to both of you with the other voters!
Thanks.
Nice job! I particularly enjoyed the William James reference.
Or at least that's my intuition.
Danger can exist without choice. Immorality cannot.
Then weapons are not dangerous, because you have every reason to not use it.
I actually think pro can easily win here given the definition he provided for the debate.
Per his definition, "pedophilia" is only a feeling. Feelings aren't immoral by themselves, they're completely uncontrollable.
In this case, pedophilia is so gruesomely immoral because the action is so harmful. The feeling isn't - of course it could become immoral if you don't get proper treatment for it.
If I am not literally arriving on a plane like 15 hours later, I would accept this one and possibly win because Con has much more stuff to work with, common common sense.
With the moral state of the current culture, I'm not so sure...
Yeah, I don't think you have a large margin to win this one.