Just a quick thought on consent from our class today.
When we were talking about the cat, consent was basically defined as whether the cat was receiving pleasure and did not try and stop us from continuing. But from rape cases we know that this isn't sufficient to define consent. Someone can not stop us and obtain pleasure from our actions but still not be consenting. That's why we say that animals can't consent. They cannot express themselves in a clear way that we can be sure of their consent. What we perceive as consent maybe something else entirely, like fear. And they may not fully understand our actions. This is also why we can look at the case of animal consent similarly to that of children are those with a severe cognitive impairment.
I also had a problem with how consent was defined in class. (WARNING: This gets dark and seriously, seriously upsetting... At least for me, anyways.) Building off what you said, there have been multiple stories of people receiving pleasure and even having an orgasm while being raped. It makes these people question whether it was right or wrong for that to happen to them and leaves them with serious, serious psychological wars waging inside their head (as I'm sure you can imagine). Now, it remains OBVIOUS to us that what happened to them was wrong, and it's obscenely obvious that there was NO CONSENT. The psychological destruction that is left behind onto them stops them from seeing it, but it WAS WRONG, and there was NO CONSENT.
ReplyDeleteI also feel there was a lack of recognition of understanding for being a critical part of the ability to give consent. It was hovered around when talking about animals and children, but clear and complete understanding must exist to give consent. Otherwise someone can be told they're going to be launching a modeling career and must therefore fly to another country, give consent to take the flight, and technically be counted as giving consent to the flight that actually leads them to being sold into sex slavery.
This is also something I was wondering in class. You guys have some great points.
ReplyDeleteIt got me thinking, when I pet my cat, is it wrong? Because my cat can't give consent? Or is it morally irrelevant because non-sentient creatures are not moral agents and have no moral rights? But then what defines sentience? Is it black and white with a hard boundary or is it a spectrum? If it's a gradual spectrum, how do we make rules with that? And what about marginal cases like babies and people in comas?
To me, any set of rules will fall short of meeting all practical applications. Indeed, different cultures may have different beliefs on ages after which one can give consent. But of course general rules must be made, for pragmatic reasons.
In a theoretical sense, it is my opinion that all these can be solved by virtue ethics as opposed to deontological or consequential means. In theory, it is simply easier and more intuitive. I say this, because I think when we think of moral issues and choices, we instinctively attribute character traits to them. We instinctively base our evaluations on the intentions of the acting agent. It's more natural to say "I don't like it because only a bad person would do that" than to say "I don't like it because it violated x, y, and z rules." I think this is also evolutionary, as our species understood which behaviors benefited survival long before we codified them into general rules.
However, it is very difficult, in reality, to run a civilization on laws that say "you should be a kind person," "you should be a considerate person," etc. In a perfect world, but probably not this one. Still, in spirit, it would seem obvious that me petting my cat would not be problematic, as even though he can't give "consent," my intentions were purely benevolent. Where as if I were to do the same action, but for a purely exploitative or selfish reason, we would instinctively classify that as of a different caliber entirely. That is where the theory and reality diverge, because in our society, rape is rape, regardless of the intentions, because of practical rules on consent. But since, I think, our justice system is based on a combination of all the ethical schools, there is, in fact, real considerations for intent (manslaughter vs murder, for example). Our instinctive reactions to ethical and unethical behavior as manifested in these ways lead me to believe that morality stems from deference to a set of idealized character traits and that rules of conduct stem out of that, rather than the other way around.
Yes, I am glad you brought this up. This was also something that left me thinking for quite a while after class and that was a bit confusing on defining consent. Like you said, how do we know whether what seems to us to be our cat consenting because it is not running away or trying to scratch or bite us is actually fear. If it is actually fear, then it seems the cat is actually not giving consent and we are violating it's bodily rights by petting it. Similarily with rape cases, victims are often asked questions of why they didn't do anything to stop it. But as you just point out, it is for fear. If someone does not respect another's right to their own body, would they respect another's right to life? In the case of unconscious victims who cannot physically do anything to stop the rapist, viewing the definition for consent as not stopping the person from doing it or receiving pleasure is very problematic.
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