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Lumifer comments on Rational approach to finding life partners - Less Wrong Discussion

1 Post author: c_edwards 16 August 2015 05:07PM

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Comment author: gjm 08 September 2015 10:15:25AM 0 points [-]

I'm not Mirzhan_Irkegulov, but my reaction to the two is very similar: both are correct, and in general no one has an obligation to have sex with anyone else and no one has an obligation to employ anyone else.

I'll guess that you're thinking about anti-discrimination laws, according to which in some circumstances an employer can get into trouble for not employing someone. But those are quite special circumstances that very rarely apply to sex (it might apply to prostitution, and I can kinda see a case for forbidding prostitutes to refuse clients on the basis of race etc., but also prostitution can be really dangerous and it's therefore probably better to say that prostitutes should have absolute discretion to refuse clients).

(The other obvious kind of case in which such obligations might exist is where a relationship is already in existence. You might reasonably be aggrieved if your spouse suddenly starts refusing to have sex, or if your employer fires you. But I don't think either side of this comparison is what anyone in the thread had in mind.)

Anyway. Apparently you consider that there should be harmony between one's answers to those questions. I'm pretty sure you don't think that employers should ever be obliged to employ particular employees. Do you think that women commonly have a duty to provide sex to men? In contexts other than existing long-term sexual relationships?

Comment author: Lumifer 08 September 2015 05:05:50PM 1 point [-]

I'm not Mirzhan_Irkegulov, but my reaction to the two is very similar: both are correct, and in general no one has an obligation to have sex with anyone else and no one has an obligation to employ anyone else

I'm not VoiceOfRa, but I'd like to throw a little twist into this comparison. Let's change from "no woman owes sex" : "no boss owes a job" to "a women has the right to withdraw consent to sex at any time" : "a boss has the right to fire anyone at any time". Still very similar?

Comment author: gjm 08 September 2015 08:20:47PM *  1 point [-]

As I said in my third paragraph, I think that particular question is some way removed from the points originally at issue in this discussion. But to both of those my reaction is "well, kinda". In more detail (reluctantly because I think it's a big digression):

  • If two people are in a longstanding sexual relationship and one suddenly withdraws consent, clearly something has gone badly wrong. The same is true if one has been working for the other for some time and suddenly gets fired.
  • Having sex when you really, really don't want to is much worse than missing out on sex when you want it. Having no job is much worse than having one employee who isn't performing well. This is an important respect in which the analogy breaks down.
  • People should be able to fire employees and to refuse consent to sex.
  • They have a moral obligation to do so in as reasonable a fashion as they can.
  • In some cases that may still mean doing it suddenly (e.g., you find that your partner is violent and dangerous; you find that your employee has been embezzling; you contract a medical condition that makes sex agonizingly painful; your company loses a contract and suddenly has no money).
  • Because losing all of your income is generally a big disaster, much worse than having to pay one employee's salary, it is reasonable to require employers not to leave their employees completely screwed if they get fired unless it's because of the employee's serious misconduct.
  • Because being forced to have sex on one occasion is so much worse than being denied sex on one occasion, it is reasonable to say that if one partner says no then the other is obliged not to force sex on them. (But because being denied sex on all occasions is bad, it is also reasonable to say that if one partner is consistently refusing consent then the other is entitled to look elsewhere, even if their relationship is notionally monogamous.)

I don't see any inconsistency in the above; my positions on the two questions aren't identical, for reasons tightly bound up with the ways in which the two questions themselves aren't identical.

Comment author: Lumifer 08 September 2015 08:30:27PM 0 points [-]

I don't see any inconsistency in the above

I'm not attacking your position :-) It's just that I expect that my reformulation will bring a different set of responses from some people than the original one.

Comment author: Good_Burning_Plastic 09 September 2015 12:29:46PM *  0 points [-]

"a boss has the right to fire anyone at any time"

In the US that's already the case and even the people who don't think that wives should be allowed to refuse sex from husbands seem to see nothing wrong with that. Well, except when someone is fired is for saying something factually correct but offensive.

Comment author: OrphanWilde 09 September 2015 01:50:08PM 2 points [-]

In the US that's already the case

No it isn't. You can fire unprotected classes of people, for unprotected reasons.

Comment author: Lumifer 09 September 2015 04:48:04PM 0 points [-]

In the US that's already the case

As OrphanWilde already pointed out, no, it's not. Even other than protected classes of people and protected reasons, trade union jobs and many public sector jobs are not employment at-will.

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