An egg on it’s own will never in the future be able to give consent, neither will sperm.
How is that being more consistent?
Sure. A fetus will in time, presumably, mature into a being with can think critically.*
No. Alone, that is, without conception, neither will mature into a being with can think critically.
This.
This. And what Joe said is consistent.
Seems spot on to me.
Lack of consent in no way implies reasoning abilities. Driving implies the ability to steer and shift. Not driving implies neither the ability nor inability to steer and shift. You seem to be under the impression that one needs to choose to withhold consent. That’s simply not true. You may not have sex with me unless I say yes. The reason for me not saying yes, by choice or inability, is not your concern. I have not said yes, and therefore you have no right to sex with me.
Good catch.
Surprisingly, no one has mentioned the reality of psychological and physical trauma.
I did as to why its immoral.
Until children have the ability to think critically, they are just like animals or any other non-critical thinking object, as such, they are considered property.
In law, one must have standing to bring a case against another. How is a baby to bring a case against his parent? If the baby cannot, then by what right does anyone else have a right to bring a case against the parent?
Regardless of whether or not one thinks children have rights that supersede the rights of the parents, I think everyone agrees that at some point in a child’s life, the child reaches a point where he can make decisions. No one knows the exact point in each person’s life that this occurs. It would have to be dealt with by the market. Current U.S. law says 18. I think children gain the ability to think critically at a far younger age. I have heard that dogs have the mentality of a 3 year old human. So I would guess sometime after 3 but before 18.
The parents produced the child.
but jack, your keyboard did not consent to you typing on it…
consent is a teleological notion, not a causal one. you need to apply it and its absence only to ‘persons’ that are conceptualised teleologically. i.e. by reference to their thoughts and willed actions (as opposed to chemical and electrical reactions)
When you say that
you are thinking of the me in a teleogical frame. if i heard that statement voiced by an electronic synthesizer, 'you may not have sex with me unless I say yes"; although i may wonder about the ‘person’ who programmed the machine, about their thoughts and actions, i do not think in terms of the machine asserting anything about what i may do to it…it does not think, it does not act, and consent and non-consent are therefore meaningless in the context. so the point is to determine where the line is between ‘biological machines’ that are ‘persons’ and ‘biological machines’ that are ‘not persons’ . i.e. worms and human adults
If we are not greedy reductionists, perhaps we acknowledge that there is some degree of ‘complexity of machine’ which is to be honoured by qualifying it as ‘reasoning’ and which is best (instrumentally) conceptualised and understood by adopting a teleological stance towards it.
I personally set the bar fairly low, in terms of ‘due complexity’ , it is not a divide between cleverer adults and stupider adults, or 5 year olds and 25 year olds, but it seems to me to lie somewhere between conception and early infancy. it is largely a question of science. I also think that perhaps it will be later acknowledged that some animal species are of sufficient reasoning capacity as to merit acknowledgement as sovereign (but then they would be judged as moral beings) i.e. the higher-apes etc. but its a case of the jury being out as far as im concerned. not enough data.
Continuum problems plague us everywhere it seems.
I am not sure why you are nitpicking this. It may not be completely consistent, but it is more consistent than the alternative. Why should having sex with a baby/toddler be illegal? And if having sex with a baby is illegal, who gets to bring a case to court for the baby in a stateless society and why? By why, I mean by what right?
So it would seem. I agree though that children become rational very quickly, despite their parents lack of understanding.
Dude… its wrong because of the terrible consequences it has for the toddler and all of us that have to deal with this individual later in life.
^^ This is where an abolutist or “objective” conception of the NAP can lead. Far from being “objective,” so-called objective ethical theories seem more like logical stilts for people to justify outlandish (and thoroughly subjective) ideas.
Why is it subjective? Because each person gets to define what they mean by “aggression,” or gets to decide who has rights in what situations. Except that the person’s subjective view has an extra dose of apparent validity because it’s supposedly objective in the same way an objective fact is.
In response, objective ethicists endlessly expound more and more detailed theories to prevent outrageous possibilities like the one quoted, even though many do admit at some point that the law is really going to be decided on the market. If that were true, though, the fervor for deciding the fine points of these theories seems unwarranted. Why argue the fine points of homesteading, etc. day-in-day-out, if these are merely suggestions for future PDA entrepreneurs (or whatever shape jurisprudence and law enforcement happens to take on)?
Why is it the fervor for deciding the fine points of libertarian law deemed warranted? Because utilitarianism/consequentialism is “bad.”
Well, anti-utilitarianism/anti-consequentialism made sense in the context of a (territorial monopolist) state, but does it really make sense outside that context? Or does it merely linger as a remnant because the idea of fully eliminating the State is so new?
Under a state I wouldn’t want to allow for utilitarian (by which I mean “greatest good for the greatest number of people”) calculus, because the State could use it to license any atrocity (think Holocaust). Even pure consequentialism (without the notion of “greatest good for greatest number”) could be turned against the people because of the presumption that the State knows best, or because it has a monopoly over the media or the “experts.” However, these problems are part and parcel with the State and not a result of subjectivism and consequentialism per se. I don’t think they automatically carry over to social structures that have no territorial monopolies.
In other words, perhaps those who criticize consequentialism and subjectivism are really criticizing Statism, or those notions specifically within the Statist context, and then refusing to re-evaluate these assumptions when considering other contexts. I thought most libertarians before recently used to be something like minarchists, and minarchy is still a statist context for purposes of deciding whether to promote consequentialism and subjectivism. Even a “night watch” state can arguably more easily wriggle its way out of its confines if allowed such notions to determine what are acceptable actions to take. I can see for instance under a Constitution (one that primarily limits state power) why we would want the Constitution to operate as if it were the “objective,” indisputable truth. We would want no consequentialist justifications for abridging it (think PATRIOT Act, etc.), nor any subjective interpretations of it (think Commerce Clause).
Perhaps the disgust with consequentialism and subjectivism in the Statist context was so strong, and libertarians had such a tradition of arguing against these [proximate causes of evil] full stop without referring specifically to these notions in the context of a State (because the State was a given!), that the idea carried over.
Ditching the assumption of territorial monopolist States is such a huge paradigm shift that it wouldn’t be surprising if there were some tendency to forget to re-evaluate every last concept under the new paradigm, especially those with strong traditional backing and emotional attachment (not to mention the semantic “inertia” of old words not quite suited to new contexts).
I don’t think that is a very good reason. Don’t let Statists read that, they will think of all sorts of things
Spidey, If I own the child how can she take that ownership away from me simply by having a critical thinking epiphany?
If I own her what justification does she have to just leave? she cannot just arbitrarily leave because she feels ready to. I own her. In effect she was born into slavery unto me.
It would depend on the child. If the child can bring a case to court, yes. At that point, the child can probably bring a case to court.
Will you people please move into reality.