The Edges Of Child Pornography: What Should Be Legal, What Shouldn't?

[Gurdur]

Explain what you think is so great about moral subjectivism and so horrible about moral relativism.

Naw, done enough interviews for the day. See my agent for other booking times.

 

[Piscivore]

Well, here is my understanding, from a fairly standard dictionary of words:
(American Heritage Dictionary)
sub·jec·tiv·ism
n.
3. Any of various theories holding that the only valid standard of judgment is that of the individual. For example, ethical subjectivism holds that individual conscience is the only appropriate standard for moral judgment.

rel·a·tiv·ism
n. Philosophy
A theory, especially in ethics or aesthetics, that conceptions of truth and moral values are not absolute but are relative to the persons or groups holding them.

Might you take a stab at being as succinct?

ETA: And yours wasn't a dictionary, but an encyclopedia. It's a very time-consuming and unhelpful conflation.
FETA: The article on Moral Relativism alone fails to define it- it does so at least two different ways and one of those is further subdivided.
EFETA: The last article isn't much about either, but about "cognativism vs. non-cognativism", and seems to conclude that there really isn't much difference at all.

 

[dann]

Naw, done enough interviews for the day. See my agent for other booking times.

In the meantime it would be nice to hear others explain how Kevin Lowe manages to get from this:

This article from today's paper made me think of this thread, so I thought I'd link to it for the perspective of a child whose pictures appear in 80% of kiddie porn collections
http://www.thestar.com/article/169555
http://www.thestar.com/article/169557

To this:

I think there are also defensible arguments for saying that criminalising such possession or distribution is a bad idea.

Unless, of course, you happen to agree with me.

 

[Piscivore]

Unless, of course, you happen to agree with me.

I don't.

I doubt I'd agree with them either, but I'd like to hear Kevin's arguments.

 

[Piscivore]

Hit "quote" instead of "edit"

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Another false abstraction: "downloading a picture of a crime"! This is not exactly what is happening in this case. The poor girl is not talking about somebody downloading photos of the Kennedy assassination or films from a surveillance camera of somebody shoplifting.
She is talking about paedophiles downloading fotos of her being sexually abused with the intention of whacking off to these fotos! She is talking about people who get turned on by watching the humiliation that she was exposed to for several years as a helpless child, about people who use that as pornography.
Why do you have this need to abstract from what is actually going on? And why does it upset you so that one disgusting act may not be "morally equivalent" to another one?

Second question first. I'm not "upset", although you seem to be, I'm pointing out that the claim advanced by Masha Allen's statement that they are equivalent is silly. If the statement had not made that silly claim of equivalence I would not have needed to make that fairly obvious response.

First question second. If the reason why child pornography is bad is that those who were sexually abused in the creation of child pornography feel bad if pictures of that abuse are in circulation two things follow. Firstly, that other photos which are in circulation that make people feel bad are also up for criminalisation (unless you are going to indulge in blatant special pleading, which you probably are). Secondly, that child pornography that is not a record of actual sexual abuse is okay, because nobody feels bad because it is in circulation.

And why do you have to make yet another abstraction from what this case is actually about?

Because if we need to engage in emotional rhetoric and special pleading to make our case sound plausible we have a bad case. It's that simple.

"... pictures of other people ..."!!! Are you actually unable to make the distinction or are you just being silly? Are you actually unable to distinguish between kiddie porn and a photo of somebody who did not look his best that day and therefore does not want the photo distributed?
Aren't you even able to see the distortions of the facts you have to make in order to present the case as an example where "criminalising such possession or distribution is a bad idea."? Is there no length you won't go to in your pursuit of presenting the "possession or distribution" of child pornography as something that "there are also defensible (!) arguments for"?

That paragraph is a good example. You hide behind a string of rhetorical questions while assuming all sorts of silly things about my position, and completely fail to make any clear point.

Here's a challenge for you. Explain to us using simple, precise, unemotional statements what your point is. Don't hide behind rhetorical questions, don't wallow in special pleading, don't substitute emotional appeals for evidence. Don't assume you are correct and then ask everyone else to prove otherwise, show that the position you are taking is correct if you can do so.

I think if you try to do that you'll discover the problems with your position on your own, but I would be more than happy to be proved wrong.

 

[Gurdur]

Well, here is my understanding, from a fairly standard dictionary of words:
(American Heritage Dictionary)

Tsk. A general dictionary. Try using the more specialised and more specific one I provided you instead. If it is not yet clear for you, I am saying you confuse terms; therefore, use exact definitions from the specialised source I gave you.

EFETA: The last article isn't much about either, but about "cognativism vs. non-cognativism", and seems to conclude that there really isn't much difference at all.

You obviously didn't read that one well. Try again? Succint enough, I hope. It mentioned specifically subjectivism, in the first lines yet.

You've been given more than enough info to see that:
relativism |= subjectivism
Now work out why that is so.

 

[The Atheist]

For most people who decry moral relativity there is a source for their absolute morality. Most of the time this is some god or another. As you proudly disavow all gods as well, I'm wondering where you get yours.

First off, I'd dispute that many people claim to get their morality from a god. As far as I'm aware, the ten commandments are pretty out of vogue these days. Secondly, moral relativism isn't the problem as much as insistence on it being rigidly applied to all situations.

You're still missing the point that atheism has anything to do with it, which it doesn't. Atheist = lacking belief in god/s. Nothing about morals at all. As I pointed out to Huntster the other day, just because I'm an atheist, I'm still able to be a Satanist. I'd probably have a different moral standard in that case, too.

My morals don't come from anywhere, they just are. Where did matter come from again?

No, they aren't.

See above. Playing rugby has exactly the same to do with morality as atheism; zero.

"s not [let every man do as he will, and be ready to accept the consequences] a morally relativistic position?"

No, looks more like a dollar each way. Looks like an apt description of life in the 21st century in the western world.

"...[W]hich of these [brands of totalitarianism] do you particularly favour over "moral relativism"?"

""Until that unhappy point" [when the fascists ultimately take over, which Hammy can somehow mystically forsee], we are a nation and culture of laws, yes? So how are [discussions of legality and morality] meaningless?"

Unless you manage to achieve complete anarchy or a totalitarian takeover, you're stuck with what we have and all you're doing is bashing your head against the brick wall of the majority. That's pretty meaningless, although I guess that's what internet forums are for - put your views out there, gain the applause of the like-minded, then rail about why nobody cares.

 

[Earthborn]

It mentioned specifically subjectivism, in the first lines yet.

That's obviously untrue. The first mention of subjectivism is in paragraph 1.3, hardly the first lines. And it deals only with a specific kind of subjectivism: cognitive subjectivism.

Here is something a bit more accessible, not so much to read and probably from a more neutral point of view:

[table="head"]+|-

Moral Cognitivism|Moral non-Cognitivism

Moral Absolutism|Moral Relativism

Moral Objectivism|Moral Subjectivism

Moral Naturalism|Moral Non-Naturalism

Moral Universalism|[/table]

 

[dann]

Another false abstraction: "downloading a picture of a crime"! This is not exactly what is happening in this case. The poor girl is not talking about somebody downloading photos of the Kennedy assassination or films from a surveillance camera of somebody shoplifting.
She is talking about paedophiles downloading fotos of her being sexually abused with the intention of whacking off to these fotos! She is talking about people who get turned on by watching the humiliation that she was exposed to for several years as a helpless child, about people who use that as pornography.
Why do you have this need to abstract from what is actually going on? And why does it upset you so that one disgusting act may not be "morally equivalent" to another one?

Second question first. I'm not "upset", although you seem to be, I'm pointing out that the claim advanced by Masha Allen's statement that they are equivalent is silly. If the statement had not made that silly claim of equivalence I would not have needed to make that fairly obvious response.

You did not need to make this response anyway, but you did.

First question second. If the reason why child pornography is bad is that those who were sexually abused in the creation of child pornography feel bad if pictures of that abuse are in circulation two things follow.

Nice trick, but like your false abstractions it is too obvious. The victim of a very disgusting case of sexual abuse of children states that she feels violated when paedophiles download photos of her abuse, which, apparently, happens every time paedophiles exchange child porn on the net. You now turn that into the (only) case against child porn (“Secondly”). And you repeat your false abstraction from your previous post and makes her example simply a question of ‘people feeling bad’ about a photo in circulation. (That you know that some people do indeed feel very bad about this is rather interesting.):

Firstly, that other photos which are in circulation that make people feel bad are also up for criminalisation (unless you are going to indulge in blatant special pleading, which you probably are). Secondly, that child pornography that is not a record of actual sexual abuse is okay, because nobody feels bad because it is in circulation.

You continue:

And why do you have to make yet another abstraction from what this case is actually about?

Because if we need to engage in emotional rhetoric and special pleading to make our case sound plausible we have a bad case. It's that simple.

You abstract from a case of sexual abuse of a child being photographed and the photos used as child pornography (The previous fourteen words are an abstraction from a particular case. However, they are not a false abstraction like yours!) and turn it into a question of people who simply don’t like photos of themselves being circulated on the internet. This abstraction is not necessary to remove the danger of engaging ”in emotional rhetoric and special pleading”. You, however, appear to find it necessary to do so – apparently because you have to abstract from sexual abuse of children and child porn in order to defend them!

"... pictures of other people ..."!!! Are you actually unable to make the distinction or are you just being silly? Are you actually unable to distinguish between kiddie porn and a photo of somebody who did not look his best that day and therefore does not want the photo distributed?
Aren't you even able to see the distortions of the facts you have to make in order to present the case as an example where "criminalising such possession or distribution is a bad idea."? Is there no length you won't go to in your pursuit of presenting the "possession or distribution" of child pornography as something that "there are also defensible (!) arguments for"?

That paragraph is a good example. You hide behind a string of rhetorical questions while assuming all sorts of silly things about my position, and completely fail to make any clear point.

Here's a challenge for you. Explain to us using simple, precise, unemotional statements what your point is. Don't hide behind rhetorical questions, don't wallow in special pleading, don't substitute emotional appeals for evidence. Don't assume you are correct and then ask everyone else to prove otherwise, show that the position you are taking is correct if you can do so.

I think if you try to do that you'll discover the problems with your position on your own, but I would be more than happy to be proved wrong .

I don’t hide behind rhetorical questions, Kevin, and I don’t wallow in special pleading, but I can see why it may seem so to somebody who hides behind false abstractions from what this is all about: sexual abuse of children and child pornography.
And you aren’t happy to be proved wrong, Kevin.

 

[Gurdur]

That's obviously untrue. The first mention of subjectivism is in

You are correct. My apologies to Piscivore; I confused two different references, only one of which I gave.

. And it deals only with a specific kind of subjectivism: cognitive subjectivism.

Moral subjectivism leads directly from cognitive subjectivism; the recognition that all such standards and morals are individually and/or intrasubjectively perceived and created, and that therefore moral statements cannot have truth values.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

You did not need to make this response anyway, but you did.

Since you have not disagreed with my response, I assume you agree with me that the equivalence claimed is silly.

Nice trick, but like your false abstractions it is too obvious. The victim of a very disgusting case of sexual abuse of children states that she feels violated when paedophiles download photos of her abuse, which, apparently, happens every time paedophiles exchange child porn on the net. You now turn that into the (only) case against child porn (“Secondly”).

You are having problems correctly parsing if/then statements. If the moral problem with child pornography is that the subjects feel bad if pictures of them are being distributed, then certain things logically follow. If that's not the problem, or not a sufficient problem in and of itself to merit action, then they don't follow.

And you repeat your false abstraction from your previous post and makes her example simply a question of ‘people feeling bad’ about a photo in circulation. (That you know that some people do indeed feel very bad about this is rather interesting.):

I'm disappointed but not really surprised that you find it interesting that I actually read the links people provide.

You continue:
You abstract from a case of sexual abuse of a child being photographed and the photos used as child pornography (The previous fourteen words are an abstraction from a particular case. However, they are not a false abstraction like yours!) and turn it into a question of people who simply don’t like photos of themselves being circulated on the internet. This abstraction is not necessary to remove the danger of engaging ”in emotional rhetoric and special pleading”. You, however, appear to find it necessary to do so – apparently because you have to abstract from sexual abuse of children and child porn in order to defend them!

That made no sense. Please try again.

I don’t hide behind rhetorical questions, Kevin, and I don’t wallow in special pleading, but I can see why it may seem so to somebody who hides behind false abstractions from what this is all about: sexual abuse of children and child pornography.
And you aren’t happy to be proved wrong, Kevin.

You do exactly that, Dann. Couching large chunks of your arguments in the form of rhetorical questions is a means to avoid stating you actual claims and assumptions.

Your insistence on constantly getting overexited is also a means to avoid ever having to make a rational argument, but it doesn't fly here. We can have perfectly rational discussions of 9/11, Nazi death camps, malaria and all sorts of other things at least as unpleasant as the sexual abuse of children here, so why the special pleading in this case? I think it's because you know you don't have anything to say that doesn't look silly when stated plainly.

 

[Gurdur]

Since you have not disagreed with my response, I assume you agree with me ....

Such an assumption is illogical. Tell me which part of the "Affirmation of the consequent" fallacy do you fail to grasp? Or non sequitur?

silly

Your favourite word, huh? I suppose because of your lack of any better arguments.
___________

Dann, do us a favour and don't give this preacher any more air-time; derail instead.

 

[dann]

I think that you are right, Gurdur. When he cannot defend child abuse or child pornography as such, he tries to defend it as something else, i.e. the false abstractions. And when this is pointed out to him, he moves on to the strawman argument.
Let's derail!

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Such an assumption is illogical. Tell me which part of the "Affirmation of the consequent" fallacy do you fail to grasp? Or non sequitur?

I said "I assume", not "it follows as a matter of formal logic".

Your favourite word, huh? I suppose because of your lack of any better arguments.

If my arguments are no good then someone with your demonstrated grasp of formal logical terms should have no trouble demonstrating it.

If you don't, I'm going to assume you can't, using the same reasoning I applied to Dann.

Dann, do us a favour and don't give this preacher any more air-time; derail instead.

I wish you and Dann the best of luck with this approach.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I think that you are right, Gurdur. When he cannot defend child abuse or child pornography as such, he tries to defend it as something else, i.e. the false abstractions. And when this is pointed out to him, he moves on to the strawman argument.
Let's derail!

It seems to me you are slinging some mud and running for the exit.

 

[Gurdur]

I think that you are right, Gurdur. When he cannot defend child abuse or child pornography as such, he tries to defend it as something else, i.e. the false abstractions. And when this is pointed out to him, he moves on to the strawman argument.

I would say it's kind of obvious. That and that he uses the word "silly" so much that I feel like doing a comparative count sometimes, but lack the OCD to do so.

Let's derail!

Met any good nannies lately? Did Proudhon diddle any? Sound Of Music? Or how about Anna And The King Of Siam? Or how about Mary Poppins?

Once you get right down to it, obviously Marx was not alone in pursuing nannies all over the place, instead it looks like a major cultural tradition.

 

[Piscivore]

Tsk. A general dictionary. Try using the more specialised and more specific one I provided you instead.

Tsk. You provided an encyclopedia. A resource that does not define, but explores in depth. If you have a specialised dictionary to share, you failed to mention it.

If it is not yet clear for you, I am saying you confuse terms; therefore, use exact definitions from the specialised source I gave you.

From your encyclopedia article:
"moral relativism, the view that moral truth or justification is relative to a culture or society."
This seems pretty close to my "general dictionary", isn't it?

But, unfortunately, "In general, the term ‘relativism’ refers to many different ideas."

There is also:
"in moral philosophy ‘relativism’ is usually taken to suggest an empirical, a metaethical, or a normative position. The empirical position is usually:

Descriptive Moral Relativism (DMR). As a matter of empirical fact, there are deep and widespread moral disagreements across different societies, and these disagreements are much more significant than whatever agreements there may be."

It goes on, setting up another definition that seems to mirror our "general" defenition:

"Metaethical Moral Relativism (MMR). The truth or falsity of moral judgments, or their justification, is not absolute or universal, but is relative to the traditions, convictions, or practices of a group of persons."

However: "It is important to note several distinctions that may be made in formulating different metaethical relativist positions."

"First, it is sometimes said that the truth or justification of moral judgments may be relative to an individual person as well as a group of persons."

"Second, that to which truth or justification is relative may be the persons making the moral judgments or the persons about whom the judgments are made."

"Finally, MMR may be offered as the best explanation of what people already believe, or it may be put forward as a position people ought to accept regardless of what they now believe."

Which of these did you have in mind?

In any case:
"Metaethical moral relativist positions are typically contrasted with moral objectivism. Let us say that moral objectivism maintains that moral judgments are ordinarily true or false in an absolute or universal sense, that some of them are true, and that people sometimes are justified in accepting true moral judgments (and rejecting false ones) on the basis of evidence available to any reasonable and well-informed person."

This is clearly the way that I used the term, and the term itself was chosen (twice) by Hammy, not me. I don't see that I've suffered any confusion.

As for your "definitions" of Subjectivism, your first link does not address "Subjectivism in General", as advertised, but "Epistemological Problems of Perception". Tsk.

Oh, wait, there is a mention of Subjectivism there:
"In considering this second issue, it will be useful to begin by assuming, subject to later reconsideration, that either the sense-datum theory or the adverbial theory is correct: that what we are immediately aware of in sensory experience is never an external material object, but is either a sense-datum or else the content of a state of sensing or being appeared to. It will be useful to have a brief label for this disjunctive position, and I will refer to it here as perceptual subjectivism."

That doesn't really seem to be a definition germane to morality, does it?

You obviously didn't read that one well. Try again?

I didn't read it carefully, I scanned it. That's why I used the word "seems".

Succint enough, I hope.

No.
suc·cinct
1. Characterized by clear, precise expression in few words; concise and terse: a succinct reply; a succinct style.

It mentioned specifically subjectivism, in the first lines yet.

"Non-cognitivism is a variety of irrealism about ethics with a number of influential variants. Non-cognitivists agree with error theorists that there are no moral properties or moral facts. But rather than thinking that this makes moral statements false, noncognitivists claim that moral statements are not in the business of predicating properties or making statements which could be true or false in any substantial sense. Roughly put, noncognitivists think that moral statements have no truth conditions. Furthermore, according to non-cognitivists, when people utter moral sentences they are not typically expressing states of mind which are beliefs or which are cognitive in the way that beliefs are. Rather they are expressing non-cognitive attitudes more similar to desires, approval or disapproval.

Cognitivism is the denial of non-cognitivism. Thus it holds that moral statements do express beliefs and that they are apt for truth and falsity. But cognativism need not be a species of realism since a cognitivist can be an error theorist and think all moral statements false. Still, moral realists are cognitivists insofar as they think moral statements are apt for truth and falsity and that many of them are in fact true."

Oops, no, it didn't.

We do find it later:
"Various versions of cognitivist subjectivism equate moral properties such as rightness with the property of being approved of by some person or group. To be right is to be approved of by the speaker, or the speaker and her friends, or the members of the speaker's society, or everybody."

This does not seem to be that different from that of "relativism", in general.

The point is made that "cognitivist subjectivism" is not the only flavour of cognativism, which seems to indicate that the whole "cognativism/non-cognativism" debate is only tangentially related to subjectivism, which distinction is further supported by "This variety of subjectivism agrees with one of the positive non-cognitivist theses (that moral utterances conventionally express non-cognitive attitudes), but it does not agree with either of the essential negative non-cognitivist claims (that the judgements don't express beliefs and/or that they are not truth-apt)."

So it appears that this article is another not really intended to explicate a definition of "moral subjectivity". Indeed, it seems to be that the focus of the article is more linguistics than ethics.

So please, do tell me, in your own words, what you think my confusion is.

 

[Gurdur]

Tsk. You provided an encyclopedia. A resource that does not define, but explores in depth.

False dichotomy, and false.

"moral relativism, the view that moral truth or justification is relative to a culture or society."

Hee hee, you cherry-picked there; you didn't give the rest of it. You really need to to do it properly.

This seems pretty close to my "general dictionary", isn't it?

Nope, still the conflation between subjectivism and relativism

This is clearly the way that I used the term, and the term itself was chosen (twice) by Hammy, not me. I don't see that I've suffered any confusion.

Hammegk clearly means something else than you do; therein lies the confusion.

As for your "definitions" of Subjectivism, your first link does not address "Subjectivism in General", as advertised, but "Epistemological Problems of Perception". Tsk.

Tsk. Read it. Subjectism is the recognition of epistemological problems owing to individual perception.

That doesn't really seem to be a definition germane to morality, does it?

Wrong. The recognition of the epistemological problems leads directly to recognising moral statements have no truth values.

Yet this does not make all moral statements of equal worth, since "worth" is a value judgment itself; relativism is properly used for the self-defeating stance that all morals are of equal worth.

See?
Subjectivism = recognition that moral statements have no truth values and eventually result from individual perception and cognition.
Relativism = the self-defeating stance that all morals are of equal worth.

I didn't read it carefully, I scanned it.

Bad idea.
____________

But what do you have to say about nannies? Subjectively, of course.

 

[Earthborn]

You are correct. My apologies to Piscivore; I confused two different references, only one of which I gave.

So where is the other one?

Moral subjectivism leads directly from cognitive subjectivism; the recognition that all such standards and morals are individually and/or intrasubjectively perceived and created, and that therefore moral statements cannot have truth values.

Which to me sounds surprisingly close to a relativist position, so it would really help if you could explain why you consider relativism as such a horrible thing.