Standard response to these questions is always the utilization of the act as a form of torture. Consider the following scenario.
A terrorist group has rigged up a device that will kill the entire population of North America slowly and painfully when it detonates. A member of the group has been captured but refuses to tell where the device is located. Due o his religious convictions the only technique that will convince him to talk is if he is anally raped.
Seems to me that in that situation homosexual rape is a good action and one that very few people would hesitate to use.
I don’t think so, didn’t figure on having to define rape but here goes:
Definition of Rape from UN document http://www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/7fba5363523b20cdc12565a800312a4b/3d25270b5fa3ea998025665f0032f220?OpenDocument
24. “Rape” should be understood to be the insertion, under conditions of force, coercion or duress, of any object, including but not limited to a penis, into a victim’s vagina or anus; or the insertion, under conditions of force, coercion or duress, of a penis into the mouth of the victim. Rape is defined in gender-neutral terms, as both men and women are victims of rape. [Ibid., note 4 (stating that"[v]iolent crimes of a homosexual nature are not explicitly mentioned in international humanitarian law… That international humanitarian law, insofar as it provides protection against rape and other sexual assaults, is applicable to men as well as women is beyond any doubt as the international human right not to be discriminated against (in this case on the basis of sex) does not allow derogation."). ]
Oh, I don’t know, I think that one could convince him to talk simply by using a spoon. Pop out his left eye with it, and then explain to him that if he doesn’t start talking his right one’s next. I imagine that quite a few folks would forget their religions convictions under such circumstances and “happily” begin to spill their guts.
I can see your point in that you have weighed the choices and have decided on the “lesser evil”, if you will. Granted the result, saving humanity is a “good thing”.
But, this is merely an argument that ends justify means. While I have no doubt that many people would agree with the action taken. Does this make the actual rape a good thing.
I can see that is also going to have to meet some criteria.
This type of justification implies that we attack Iraq and kill Saddam, because he may kill us.
Except the argument doesn’t hold water. Saddam is an all around bad guy, and even if we don’t kill him, and he doesn’t attack the US, he’s still going to be doing bad things to his own people. Remember, this is a guy who’s killed family members for little more than sport.
and the so-called terrorist who “will kill the entire population of North America slowly and painfully” isn’t a bad guy?
Come on now…sure it holds water, it’s the same argument.
*** note: I’m not in disagreement with the decision to take pre-emptive action in these scenarios. I’ll followup on this thought asap, but for now it’s getting late, I’ll get back w/ this tomorrow, please continue.
I was going to post a scenario similar to Blake’s earlier, but was very uncomfortable with the whole subject.
This is not so much an “end justifies the means” argument as a “lesser of two evils” argument. It doesn’t imply that rape is good, only that it is less evil than having the whole population of North America die.
My scenario was more along the lines of:
A madman or group of madmen take your entire family, plus some other people hostage. They are psychos who get off on the idea of rape. They threaten to kill your entire family if you don’t rape one of the other hostages. Perhaps they kill one or more members of your family to prove they mean business.
In such a case, I believe that rape would be justified, although it would still be morally wrong.
The Saddam analogy doesn’t work because of the uncertainty about what he may or may not do in the future. We generally accept that there are circumstances of self-defense in which killing is justified; I see no reason why rape in self-defense shouldn’t be similarly justified, in spite of the fact that we have to come up with more contorted scenarios to make it plausible. But if I can stop the person firing a gun at me by committing a rape, why should that be any less justified than stopping him by killing him?
I’m not sure I understand how you are defining ‘good’ t-keela.
You seem to be saying that simply creating desirable outcome doesn’t make an action good if it is arguably ‘evil’. Looked at that way I can’t think of anything that is good. Saving a human life isn’t ‘good’ since it will invariably have ‘evil’ consequences. Stopping a building form burning down won’t be good since it will invariably have ‘evil’ consequences and so forth.
Can you name one act that is ‘good’ by your usage of the word? One act that doesn’t contain some inherently undesirable element despite this being overwhelmingly outweighed by the desirable aspect?
One correction to my scenario – I meant to say that if you don’t commit the rape, all of the hostages, including yourself, would be killed. This makes it a clear case of self-defense, and doesn’t involve sacrificing someone (the rape victim) who might otherwise have escaped injury.
Except Spoiler, in the case that you posit, it really couldn’t be considered rape, at least not in the traditional sense. While both you and your “victim” would no doubt be traumatized by the event, no doubt both parties, the “rapist” and the “victim” would be doing more roleplaying than anything else. I wouldn’t enjoy sex with my mother, but if it meant sparing her life and the life of other family members, then I’d conceivably do it, providing I had concrete evidence that their lives would be spared, and not simply slaughtered afterwards.
Assuming we do survive, I wouldn’t be charged with rape, however, my captors could expect to find themselves charged with a sex crime, in addition to kidnapping and whatever else the authorities felt fit to charge them with.
SpoilerVirgin, I’d like to put the same question to you. How are you using the term ‘good’? Can you name one act that is ‘good’ by your usage? It seem to me that no act at all can be considered ‘good’ since they all seem to simply be less evil than not commiting them. For example curing a person’s cancer would normally be considered ‘good’ to me, and yet it has the ‘evil’ aspects of depriving palliative nurses of wages and so forth. Sure the act is overwhelmingly less evil than letting the person die painfully, but it still only the lesser of two evils. By that reaosning it seem that cuirng terminal cancer isn’t ‘good’, only that it is less evil than depriving a nurse of 6 months income.
So much nibbling around the perimeter about definitions…
The answer is NO. There are NO circumstances where homosexual (or hetero, for that matter) rape is a hood thing. The only possible readon it would be “good” is the “commit one crime to avoid a worse one” scenario, which you have taken off the table.
It appears that some are able to justify rape. If absurd scenarios are not a fallacious argument, Then ANYTHING can be justified.
What if the victim were three years old? What if the ends were only a million people?
Yojimbo this is a side from a thread I linked to in the OP.
Are there any absolutes? In that thread the general consensus seems to be NO, nothing is absolute w/ formal logic as proof. I wanted to see how a person who believes this would ACTUALLY attempt to justify an absolutely wrong action. (ie: child- molestation, rape, etc.)
I could justify selling tickets to the rape of a child if it saved the lives of some other people…hmmm
I have to define terms apparently now to clearly explain the difference between right and wrong. Be back soon!
Actually, you are the one who’s determining whether an act is good or bad based on the consequences it has. So I would say that looking at it your way, saving a life isn’t good (because it has evil consequences), whereas looking at it t-keela’s way (the act in itself), it is good.
Well, I suppose it’s just like any other form of rape. If you want to get a little action and the bitch just won’t put out…well what else are you supposed to do?
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What?
“>>>>Actually, you are the one who’s determining whether an act is good or bad based on the consequences it has.”
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. What other standard can there be for the determination of good and evil aside from the say-so of a supernatural entity?
However that doesn’t answer my question. T keela, Spoilervirgin et al seem to be saying that simply creating desirable outcome doesn’t make an action good if it is arguably ‘evil’. Looked at that way I can’t think of anything that is good. Saving a human life isn’t ‘good’ since it will invariably have ‘evil’ consequences. Stopping a building form burning down won’t be good since it will invariably have ‘evil’ consequences and so forth.
Can anyone think of any action that is good using that reasoning. Ie any action that has no ‘evil’ consequences at all?
If not then we can surely turn the reasoning around and say that no action is evil either.
Where did that come from? No one is justifying anything. You asked for a scenario where rape would be a good act, it was provided.
I would till like you to name for me one act that is good if we apply your reasoning that any act with any negative consequences is not good, merely the lesser of two evils.
Similarly I would like you to name me any act that is not evil if we apply the same reasoning that anya ct with any positive consequences in not evil, merely the lesser of two goods.
An old friend of mine worked for several years as a prison guard. He also took a lot of college criminology courses. He told me that rapists, in general, lack the domination skills necessary to survive in prison. Thus the rapist typically becomes a rape victim in prison. My friend saw this a nearly perfect justice.
I can see his point, but I don’t think it would produce an ex-con any less likely to rape again once he gets out.
