A rape is usually very harshly punished, but what is rape with regards to property rights? Its usually a minor physical harm. So why do we punish it so harshly? Because of the huge emotional damage. But why don’t we punish similiarly emotional damage that was not caused by physical harm?
For example one can publically humiliate another individual and cause him an emotional harm almost similar to a rape victim. So why is this small bodily harm so important that it makes the difference between 20 years in jail and nothing? I feel that there is something fishy here but I can’t put my finger on it.
I think that it has to do with self-ownership. It isn’t because of the emotional harm caused to a person that this is punished so severely–but because of the actual violation of the original property right. Since ownership of the self is the origin of all other property rights, transgression of it may (and rightfully so) be held as more evil and anti-social than lets say, breaking another persons’ tv.
I had a conversation with a friend about libertarianism and the idea of the non-aggression principle and he brought up the case of emotional attacks. He seemed to be of the opinion that egregious verbal abuse could be grounds for retaliatory action, and thus laws regarding workplace harassment, for example, may be legitimate.
I don’t entirely buy the argument, but I see the point he was trying to make; namely that some psychological attacks could be as serious as physical attacks, especially if you factor in long-term consequences.
As far as the reason rape is punished to a greater extent than other emotional damage, I would say the feminist movement plays a large role in that. Just as racial “hate crimes” are commonly viewed as a greater crime than a comparable non-racially motivated attack, rape is seen almost as an attack on all women.
Amelia, rape can cause less physical damage than a punch in the face, but for a punch you get a few weeks in jail at most, and for rape you can get 20 years.
Eugene, just to make sure I assume correctly (and I think I do), you are arguing about statist laws here, not libertarian. What about the victim’s voice in this issue?
Rape is not a minor physical harm, we punish rapist harshly because next to murder it is the worst breach of property rights over your own body. It almost sounds like you are comparing being raped to having your garden furniture stolen. A minor physical harm would be getting smacked in the face or being hit with an object that was not serious.
Humiliation publicly is not comparable to emotional problems caused by rape. It depends on how you look at it. What do you mean by public humiliation being like rape? example? I am sure most rape victims would take a bit of public humiliation over being raped. Most rape never even get reported. Would that change if it went in to a free market in police? Probably not.
I read somewhere that English common law punished humiliation (say, by cutting off a man’s hair against his will to humiliate him) extremely harshly. I believe it was David Friedman that noted this. Anyway, the author surmised that the reason the common law may have punished so severely what - in terms of actual property damage - is a relatively minor tort is because of the potential for inflaming feuds or vendettas. I think this can be stated in a slightly different way by saying that the outrage of the victim at having been so humiliated makes him much less amenable to a settlement. His value scale is significantly different than if you had shaved his horse - he’s not willing to risk death in personal battle over the damage done to his horse but he might just be willing to risk death in personal battle to avenge his own sense of dignity.
Raping a woman - in the old days - meant raping someone’s daughter or wife (or a whore, but that would likely have been handled through other channels than a court). This is a grave offense against the father’s or husband’s honor and he is much more likely to go to personal battle to avenge the act than if you had mated your horse with his mare without his consent. So, I think this explains why it was punished severely.
These kinds of questions highlight the shortcomings of a purely propertarian theory of law. Does a man have property in his dignity? If we say yes, then we open Pandora’s Box to all sorts of subjective things in which a person may have property. If we say no, then in propertarian law theory, he can have no recourse to the offense against his dignity. His only recourse is restitution for the hair removed and any time lost during the removal process.
Rape does cause a huge amount of psychological damage and I think this might add to the amount of punishment that people apply to it. I do think psychological damage should be very looked down upon in all situations but not to the extent physical damage is.
That being said, I think there are a few ways to handle the issue of hwo much “physical damage” something can cause:
There are an insane amount of nerve endings in the clitoris and vigina, as well as in the penis, as compared to in the face. I can try to find resources to support this, but I think that given we have sexual organs we’re able to conceive it. If we are talking about actual harm done to the person insofar as sensations go, this is a decent testament to rape being worse than hitting.
We have these extra nerves in the genitalia in order to induce us to procreate which is an extremely strong and necessary urge if a species is to survive, so it violates one of the fundamental rights not only of self-ownership (if we are to conceive of it as something existing only between members of the same species, humans) but also as life as such: the right to reproduce of your own choosing.
Women have evolved to secrete during rape in order to dimish the amount of bodily damage done to them if it happens. Elsewise, women would only secrete when they were turned on, like males do. This does not change the facts of the matter as far as morality goes. This is like saying that people are not molested by repression because they’ve learned to change their time preference/value scales, or whatever, because of interventions upon the freedom of the person. One just happened in a larger time scale than the other.
I think we don’t need to delve into the details of biology because the property aspect of the dispute is only concerned with whether the property in question was used by consent of its owner or not. The upper lip has many more nerve endings than the elbow. Yet I cannot use this as a defense if I pinch your elbow and you sue me… “I only pinched your elbow, it’s not like I pinched your upper lip which has many more nerve endings. So, you shouldn’t be as upset with me since I only pinched your elbow.” It doesn’t matter why you are angry at me, the question at hand is whether I had your consent to enter your personal space or not. It doesn’t matter how many nerve endings are located where. Rape is non-consensual use of another person’s body and the absence of consent is what establishes wrong-doing. The acceptable terms of settlement in a free market in law would be determined by common practice or custom (which is why this system can be called “customary law”), again, not by the number of nerve-endings.
I’d say it has to do with an obvious intrusion upon the self, which by self-ownership is the basis of all other property, and sex being a way in which one expresses themselves. It’s not simply a physical violation of one’s body, but a violation of someone having control over the way in which they express themselves sexually. It is robbery of one’s agency over who, how, and why they decide to have sex.
For instance, consensual sex can be expressed mutually, “we had sex,” or “A had sex with B,” and it’s an act involving two consenting parties. Rape on the other hand is always a one-sided paradigm, “A raped B” or the passive, “B was raped by A.” Rape takes any mutual relationship out of the picture.
This is not analogous to recreational fighting versus assault in as much as sex is a much more universal, if anything is, activity that almost every living organism engages in at some point.
I am in 100% agreement with you as to why it should be considered an unjust act. I was trying to give possible examples as to why it may be punished more harshly than other physically aggressive acts, given Eugene’s question of the “punched in the face” thing.
Hold it right there! According to what objective standard exactly are you referring to when reaching this conclusion?
Are you counting damaged cells or perhaps the number of atoms in the vinicity of the preceived injured area? Since when does such objective physical quantification have anything to do with human subjective values? Rape is a violation of property in which its severity is entirely subjective. The preceived damage is entirely subjective as all values are. Most people consider such violation to be very very severe.
You are all telling me that the amount of physical damage is unimportant but only the perception of individuals and society as to what is wrong and by which extent. So please tell me as private individuals, why do you think rape is so horrendous while emotional sadism of other types such as intentiononal public humiliation is not?
I’m pretty sure you’ll arrive to the conclusion that the difference is not that obvious. Some sorts of emotional sadism can have even more serious and more long lasting emotional damage than rape. If so, then why most of us would have no problem, as hypothetical arbitrators in a free society, to allow the victim to punish the rapist severely for rape, but we would not allow it for victims of other types of emotional sadism? To me it seems completely arbitrary.
The two main crimes involved in a rape are assault and kidnapping - there may be more but these are the most obvious to me. In order to control a woman during a rape, the man must hold her down and beat her. In addition, the woman is being held against her will during the rape (and often before and after). Being punched in the face does not compare to being assaulted and kidnapped.
Of course, there is always the case of a woman who is drugged and then raped. In that case she is drugged and kidnapped and then assaulted. The degree of the assault may not be as severe as during a typical rape, but it exists (the penetration). And of course, she was drugged and kidnapped!
Psychological harm need to enter into the equation to see the difference between a sucker punch and rape.
“You are all telling me that the amount of physical damage is unimportant but only the perception of individuals and society as to what is wrong and by which extent. So please tell me as private individuals, why do you think rape is so horrendous while emotional sadism of other types such as intentiononal public humiliation is not?”
My argument is not at all that public humiliation causes less emotional damage than rape. I don’t think anyone here is claiming anything like that too whole-heartedly. Rape is not public in most cases, and that is exactly where my argument is coming from. Rape is a violation of any notion of private space in the sense of anything being wholly yours to use as you wish. If we’re coming from a self-ownership standpoint then rape is an intrusion upon the very basis of any ownership and empowerment at all.
You are all telling me that the amount of physical damage is unimportant but only the perception of individuals and society as to what is wrong and by which extent. So please tell me as private individuals, why do you think rape is so horrendous while emotional sadism of other types such as intentiononal public humiliation is not?
That’s the whole point of intersubjective sciences - perception that can be spoken of in a comprehensible manner. That is why we use praxeology.
Also perhaps (?) you could use by a definition that rape > than public humilation if you looked at them as empty set unimpliemented legal terms. This would be like saying murder > than assult.
Also there is no question that can even be asked as to “why is rape treated as such”, it’s just accepted custom of things. There is no question or answer, things will change or not as people see fit. And frankly, I find it a bit dubious to really start to draw politcal lines starting at trying to minimize rape, honestly wtf? Why not start with bombing Iranians or something a little more pressing on peoples minds rather than questioning rape laws.
Harshly? Personally, I don’t think rape is punished harsh enough, especially in comparison to victimless crimes such as those caught with drugs or drunk driving. If someone rapes, there is something seriously wrong with that person. There are people who view it as a minor thing, even the rapists themselves, and those people must have some serious psychological problems. You can’t really compare what rape is to something like getting punched in the face (that comparison itself left me rather dumbfounded).
I assume you are guy, and most likely a guy who’s never actually read anything about rape before. If you want a good comparison, imagine yourself held down against your will and become sexually assualted, to become penetrated, used, abused, and left there, only for someone elses sick enjoyment, while you become dehumanized in the process.
Hell, to test this, look up a few movies with rape scenes, and possibly find them on YouTube. The ones that are pretty realistic, and sit there and try to think, “Getting punched in the face is worse than this.”