What you don't know doesn't harm you, right?

Great Debates
1

I’m not sure about this one so I’ll take the affirmative positiion, but I’m ready to change my mind in a heartbeat. I’m starting this thread because I’d like to hear some interesting thoughts, especially on the other side.

So, let’s say I have some surgery where I have general anesthesia. While I’m out cold the surgeon fondles my genitals. I wake up with absolutely no recollection. To complicate things let’s say the anesthesiologist turns the surgeon in and I get a phone call from the DA and get dragged into the case. I’d say the surgeon never hurt me, it was the other people who hurt me.

Help me understand the opposing point of view.

2

So as long as you don’t have any first hand knowledge about it, it’s ok to hurt you? Good to know.

3

No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that I believe they haven’t hurt me, but I’d like to hear the opposing point of view. If you believe I have been hurt in the above example ( or choose your own examples, of course ) please explain.

4

Are you assuming in your example that the surgeon’s fondling is a one time event and there’s no need to prevent others from being fondled?

5

Damn surgeon better *not *be fondling my genitals unless I’m awake!

6

I guess it would depend on how you felt about the surgeon fondling you while you were unconcious and helpless. If you thought this was bad, then you would feel hurt. If you were ok with it, for whatever reason, then you wouldn’t feel hurt. The actions of the other people involved may add or subject from the hurt, but it doesn’t change the fact the surgeon hurt you (or not).

I would regard someone sexually assaulting me as a hurt. I would definitely want to know about, and would take action against the doctor, for no other reason than to stop him from doing it to others. I would find it odd to hear someone say that they didn’t care that the doctor abused his position of trust to sexually assault them while they were helpless.

7

How about an example of a spouse cheating on you? You have no idea that it’s going on and your spouse never intends to tell you. Your good friend finds out about it and tells you.
So did your spouse hurt you or did your friend hurt you?
I don’t think you’d find many people siding with your spouse and saying your friend is to blame.

8

Actually, I have had this thought too.

I once saw a movie where a woman went to an gyn. He was a creepster and a half, and what happened was, when she went to him, at one point he removed his glove and performed the exam with his bare hand.

Well, when she went home she somehow (I forgot all the details) figured it out or put all the details together and ended up feeling violated. And so she launched a court case against him.

This made me stop and think. Really think.

[ul]
[li]If she had never realized it, would it still be a violation?[/li][li]Come to think of it, was it a violation in the first place? Yes, he put his bare fingers into her. She was expecting him to put his gloved fingers in her. How much of a difference was there, really?[/li][li]Of course intent makes a difference. An exam for the sake of an exam is one thing, but an exam for the sake of being able to finger some pretty one is a different thing.[/li][li]Still, was she hurt? There was emotional harm, sure…but fairly slight.[/li][li]Would it bother me? Well…yes. Enough to launch a court case against him? I’m not sure. Enough to tell all my friends and never to go back again, yes. I mean, he still did the exam, thoroughly, and did everything he needed to do - he was basically copping a feel in a vulnerable position from a stance of authority.[/li][/ul]

Back and forth I went on it. The woman in the movie (I think) did a fairly credible job. She even felt guilty at times. When she launched the court case a whole bunch of other women came forward and said he’d done similar things to them.

He lost his business, his reputation, and his livelihood. Fair enough, he shouldn’t have been practicing anyway. But when he ate a bullet all the questions arose once again in my head.

It still comes to me sometimes…if she had never known, was she hurt? Not ethically, morally, or legally, just straight out was there any damage if she never knew? Perhaps it’s black & white to some but not so much to me.

9

So if you have a disease that could be treated and don’t know about it, it doesn’t hurt you?

10

I don’t want to sound argumentative here, but I think the example is much different. If I have a disease that can be treated early, then I want to know early. Usually it’s a lot easier to catch these things ASAP. The hurt is the added pain and expense of later treatment and suffering.

11

This is a good example. I thought of using it in the OP. As you present it the answer is obvious.

But, how about if we change it a little bit. Let’s say Martha has real bad insecurities about how she looks and if her husband, George, even looks at another woman, she goes ballistic. They’ve fought about it and George has learned to deal with it and they have a pretty good marriage. Now, if George goes to a strip club, Martha will go super-ballistic, maybe even get a divorce. So when George goes to Las Vegas for business he doesn’t tell her that one night he went to a strip club with some of the guys. And one of the guys tells his girlfriend, who tells Martha…

12

Is your peace of mind worth more than the truth?

I listened to part of a story on NPR yesterday about a man who was convicted 20 years ago or so of raping and murdering a woman. The only physical evidence was some hair samples–and DNA has subsequently proved that the hair in question was not his.

The victim’s family has done everything in their power to prevent this man from getting a new trial or getting the DNA testing done.

Why? Because his conviction gave them closure and peace of mind. I believe that they did originally find the evidence against him compelling and believed him to be guilty. It’s just that part of the reason they fought so hard for so long to keep him from having the testing done was because they don’t want to hear that the actual guilty party is still out there somewhere. Having someone convicted gave them closure, and they don’t want that undone.

And I’m sympathetic to that. But on the other hand, as a member of society, the idea of keeping innocent men in prison, and denying them appeals or DNA testing, or even applying the death penalty to them, just so that the families of victims have peace of mind is problematic.

At some level, sometimes what you don’t know doesn’t harm YOU, but we as society need to be concerned about what message it sends for the future. The Ostrich technique is not a good approach to life’s sticky issues.

13

Wait. Stop. Let’s simplify this even more.

Say martha is ugly. George never tells her that he finds her ugly, but he does. George doesn’t do anything about it, just finds her butt-ugly, but continues to stay with her.

Is this hurting Martha?

In some cases you can measure the hurt. Some cases it’s more vague.

What if George has the affair. No one ever finds out. George catches no diseases. The affair has a nil efect on the marriage, i.e., it takes up as much time as perhaps another hobby, and he still does everything he can for the marriage.

Who is hurt.

14

It’s different in some ways (the harm is obvious) and similar in others (your peace of mind is damaged and you don’t know if you will ultimately benefit). That’s the point. I think that example shows “what you don’t know doesn’t harm you” isn’t always the case and that’s all I was going for. In an emotional or medical situation, knowing what could harm you gives you options to deal with it.

To respond to your new example, George obviously thinks what he’s doing is no big deal, but I’d say Martha is entitled to know she’s dealing with a liar and a guy who is willing to jeopardize their marriage just to go to a strip club.

15

In the OP’s example of the fondling surgeon, no actual physical harm may have occurred, but there has still been a breach of trust - this could easily be argued to be ‘harm’ from several different angles, I think, even if you never learn of the incident.

16

There was a related discussion back in January, that started with upskirting.

In that case, it was “Are you a victim if someone takes pictures up your skirt, and you don’t know about it?” I’ve got to stick with my answer from that one.

So while you might have no recollection of being fondled, the ability to say no was taken from you. Not only did you not give consent, you weren’t even given the option.

17

We had pretty much the same discussion in a thread where the OP was “if a chef spits in your food and he has no comminucable diseases, and you don’t notice, have you been harmed?”