ThrustVectoring comments on The more privileged lover - Less Wrong

-16 [deleted] 04 March 2013 04:20PM

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Comment author: ThrustVectoring 05 March 2013 06:07:46PM 3 points [-]

However, this is the kind of thing that's hard to justify on utilitarian grounds.

Is it just me, or is non-consensual sex obviously a bad thing? And by bad, I mean orders of magnitude worse than how good consensual sex is. It would take an awful lot of happy sex to make up for non-consensual sex, and I support social policies that prevent non-consensual sex more than whatever the ratio is of happy sex that is of equivalent utility (you can't just support preventing non-consensual sex, because "nobody has sex ever" prevents non-consensual sex).

what would you make of a Namboothiri's complaint that a Dalit got within 96 feet of him without his consent and thus caused him to become ritually polluted?

Banning Dalits from going within 96 feet of Namboothiris has much more harm done to Dalits than Namboothiris' feelings of ritual pollution. This isn't the case with non-consensual sex. Furthermore, the feelings of ritual pollution can be avoided without Dalit cooperation, by the simple expediency of having Namboothiri-only isolated communities.

Comment author: prase 05 March 2013 09:23:28PM *  1 point [-]

Is it just me, or is non-consensual sex obviously a bad thing?

"Obviously bad" isn't a utilitarian justification.

Banning Dalits from going within 96 feet of Namboothiris has much more harm done to Dalits than Namboothiris' feelings of ritual pollution. This isn't the case with non-consensual sex.

To play the Devil's advocate:

  1. I expect you seriously underestimate the strength of Namboothiris' feelings. To us it seems like pure religious madness, moreover we feel outrage at the extreme inequality existing because of ancient caste prejudices, so we tend to sympathise with the Untouchables and regard the traditional Brahmin rights as unjust. But it doesn't seem that way from the Brahmin perspective.
  2. Some of the unpleasantness connected with non-consensual sex is probably status related - being raped makes one lose a lot of status and we tend to avoid status loss. I wonder how much less serious problem would rape become in a society where the negative status effects were removed. We find it acceptable to solve the caste problem by rebuilding the society and changing the people's values - even when many people are objecting; why not attempt the same approach to rape?

(Disclaimer: I think that caste society is unjust and I don't actually wish to change our society to be more rape-tolerant. But I am no utilitarian. This comment is a warning against creating fake utilitarian explanations of moral judgements made on non-utilitarian grounds.)

Comment author: [deleted] 06 March 2013 01:06:59PM 0 points [-]

Some of the unpleasantness connected with non-consensual sex is probably status related - being raped makes one lose a lot of status and we tend to avoid status loss.

I think that's also culture-related: there might have been cultures where in certain cases being raped is less of a status hit than consenting to sex with the same person, in which case someone might falsely claim to have been raped to avoid the status hit.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 07 March 2013 01:24:05AM 1 point [-]

there might have been cultures where in certain cases being raped is less of a status hit than consenting to sex with the same person, in which case someone might falsely claim to have been raped to avoid the status hit.

In many cultures including at least tradition Judeo-Christian ones adultery is a major sin and a betrayal of one's husband but being raped is not the victims fault so she can't really be blamed.

Yes, this did cause some adulterers to claim to have been raped, heck fake rape allegations happen to this day.

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