Morality

[Rhyfelwyr]

I do not see a situation where paedophilia is 'right', Reasons come from abuse of authority, abuse of trust, abuse of responsibility.. there is a long list and even if your example said they 'enjoyed it', there are factors in my mind and opinion which still make it 'wrong'.

It could be argued there are different levels of 'wrongness'. As some actions are more 'wrong' than others. With what you argue, you could suspect what happened to the person wasn't as wrong as a different situation, but the situation is never 'right' in absolute terms.

You can accuse me of having 'different shades of grey' in a situation, that is a point I will agree to, as I do not think the world is black&white.

But what are those factors that still make it wrong when victims like Dawkins have said they suffered from none of the ills you have already listed? I say that the act and the desire are in themselves reprehensible, can you tell me why you find them to be so?

For me, shades of grey don't come into it. Strictly speaking, the Christian position would be that, as Jesus said, if you commit murder in your heart, you are no better than a murderer. Likewise, if you lust after women in your heart, you are no better than an adulterer. The fact that some people might not carry through such desires, or carry them through to limited degrees, doesn't make the desires or the limited actions themselves any less immoral.

But you seem reluctant to call a thought itself immoral, and are maintaining the position that actions are only moral/immoral depending on how they relate to the happiness of others. Give me a concrete answer from your moral framework on just how this teacher was immoral to abuse Dawkins as he did. Things like abuse of authority or abuse of trust indicate Dawkins was in some way wronged, yet he himself maintains that he was not.

So when you say lust, lets assume there was a mature looking 14 year old at an angle, so the viewer didn't know better and thought "She looks good" - is he wrong?
Upon further inspection and information, he finds out or the angle changed and sees she is younger than he first though, and go "Oops" - is he wrong?
Upon said further inspection, their thought was "Damn, perhaps in a few years when she is an adult" - is he wrong?
Upon said further inspection, their thought was "Cruds, she does look good" - is he wrong ?

I could continue this for a while, but this is a demonstration how it isn't simply black and white. The person in question committed the 'sin' as you described based on a misconception, but the different responses show the intention and perhaps reasoning about it.

I would say that what matters in this scenario isn't so much the difference between the different 'shades' of the sin, but rather if any immoral intention was there in the first place.

I will use an extreme hypothetical example so as to avoid any confusion here... let's say there is a girl who is 16 (let's just be cautious when discussing this sort of thing), but she has an extremely rare medical condition that means she in fact looks and behaves like a fully mature, 40 year old woman. She has the physical looks, dress style, and mannerisms of a 40 year old woman - in every way she would appear as a 40 year old woman. Now, if a man was to see her on the street, and, having no awareness of who she was or her medical condition, was to look at her lustfully, then I would not accuse that man of having paedophillic thoughts.

On the other hand, if that man knew of her condition, or had any reason to believe she may be younger than she really was, then I would accuse that man of having paedophillic thoughts.

Intention is central to morality.

For me, I draw the line where it results in perverse actions.

So, to be clear on this: would you say that it is not immoral for a man to knowingly lust after, say a 16-year old (lets go with 16 as I said earlier), even when he was fully aware of her age, so long as he did not act upon it at all? Without going into the details on any different shades of morality, I would like you to answer simply yes/no as to whether you think it would be immoral at all.

I know that I would without a doubt call such thoughts totally immoral. But I would like a simple yes/no answer from you on this. Is it immoral at all?

There is also the question where you can think something is aesthetically pleasing but do not have any lustful desires, like I think my dog is adorably cute and there is definitely nothing untowards thought or acted upon, or that you might have a niece who looks pretty and you have nothing wrong/immoral thought in any way.

Of course, we are talking about inappropriate/wrong thoughts here. You can recognize beauty without any sexual element. For an obvious example, the beauty of a mountainous landscape, or whatever.

I will save my response because I am interested in your thoughts on what I said, but I have one question. You mentioned the wife as a moral agent, but you seem to be neglecting the druggist.

Do you think it was right of him to deny treatment even when offered suitable compensation?

I thought it went without saying that the chemist was the real bad guy in the scenario. Of course, he should have given the medicine to the husband. He may or may not rightfully demand some payment according to his own economic situation, but he should ensure that ultimately the dying woman gets the medicine, even if the husband was not able to offer anything for it at all.

As for my thoughts on your answer, well I disagree because of the reasons I stated in my own. Either the wife desires another's harm purely for her own gain, with the husband complicit in this; or else the husband presumes such a desire on his wife's behalf, and acts on behalf of this presumed selfish and immoral desire. The wife, the husband, and the chemist are all immoral in the former situation; only the husband and the chemist in the latter.

The whole scenario is basically designed to get people to bend their morals in the face of hardship and an unjust world. Christians are called to be perfect - to respond to hate with love, to respond to selfishness with selflessness - not to use the hate and selfishness of others to justify our own descent into theft and deceit. This is the only morally defensible position.