Philosophy Now Forum

Hi Tillingborn,

Thanks for your reply!

artisticsolution wrote:Getting back to the point Now ...tell me...

IF THIS...

Kuz: "The child resulting from this viking rape-and-pillage session will be healthy in all due respects. Nature says this is A-O-Kay."

THEN.....

AS: Why are their no more Vikings? If nature says that is A-O-Kay...then where the fuck are these viking bastards?

T:Scandinavia if you mean bastards in the pejorative sense, all over Europe if you mean it literally, particularly the western coastal fringes. Normandy in France for instance is named after the Normans, the northern men, that colonised it.
Because the main purpose of the raids was financial gain, the first place the Vikings would raid were the Churches and monasteries. Since it was unusual for anyone but monks to be literate, the Viking raids are a rare case of history being written by the losers. The stories are possibly exaggerated and there is no reason to think that the techniques were worse than any other invading force past or present.

AS: Thanks for this but I was trying to be humorous/sarcastic. The "viking bastard" remark was intended to ape the silly sentiments of Kuz when he implied that rape and run is nature's way of populating the earth with healthy children. I was trying to show him in other words how silly he sounds while also making my point that he is not being honest in his thinking...which I find ironic considering the title of this thread.


T:As far as I can work out Kuznetzova is attempting to justify rape on the grounds that nature doesn't mind. The idea that we can explain all of human behaviour in terms of genetics is absurd. When doing so allows disturbing people to reach such conclusions, it is dangerous.

AS: Well said and I agree. Your words make sense and are proof of what I am saying about intelligence winning out over barbarianism. It's this type of thinking that will ensure our survival (if anything can.)

artisticsolution wrote:Hi Tillingborn,
T:As far as I can work out Kuznetzova is attempting to justify rape on the grounds that nature doesn't mind.

AS: Well said and I agree.

'K' has been trying to justify several different forms of deviant sexual behavior on several forums, this is just another attempt to express his preversion in intellictual sounding language. He would be better ignored than engaged.

thedoc wrote:

artisticsolution wrote:Hi Tillingborn,
T:As far as I can work out Kuznetzova is attempting to justify rape on the grounds that nature doesn't mind.

AS: Well said and I agree.

'K' has been trying to justify several different forms of deviant sexual behavior on several forums, this is just another attempt to express his preversion in intellictual sounding language. He would be better ignored than engaged.

Hi Doc,

Well that IS a horse of a different color...why doesn't he just be honest about it? He should stop trying to justify it and just find a chick who digs a rape fantasy. It's been my observation, though, that people who feel so much guilt about sex , deviant or not, can never be happy when they find their counterpoint in another. They end up hating the other person for allowing them to fornicate freely to their heart's content. lol Too much trouble if you ask me....big waste of time...huge...and all for naught.

Kuznetzova wrote:

tillingborn wrote:What do you recommend we do about it?

We must be vigilant when searching for justifications of our actions towards each other.

Blaming our actions on nature or biology provides no justification (that I can see), since nature itself appears to be indifferent to suffering and violence. Nature does not care an iota if someone is raped. As long as the genetic material is in the right place, it is good-for-go.

As philosophers we can ask, from where do our justifications arise?
What is the origin of our justifications for behaviors and action?

Simple, they arise from the golden rule:

Wikipedia:
"As a concept, the Golden Rule has a history that long predates the term "Golden Rule", or "Golden law", as it was called from the 1670s. As a concept of "the ethic of reciprocity," it has its roots in a wide range of world cultures, and is a standard way that different cultures use to resolve conflicts. It has a long history, and a great number of prominent religious figures and philosophers have restated its reciprocal, "two-way" nature in various ways (not limited to the above forms).

Rushworth Kidder discusses the early contributions of Confucius (551–479 BCE) (See a version in Confucianism below). Kidder notes that this concept's framework appears prominently in many religions, including "Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, and the rest of the world's major religions". According to Greg M. Epstein, " 'do unto others' ... is a concept that essentially no religion misses entirely." Simon Blackburn also states that the Golden Rule can be "found in some form in almost every ethical tradition". In his commentary to the Torah verse (Hebrew: "ואהבת לרעך כמוך" ca.1300 BCE):

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your kinsfolk. Love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.
—Leviticus 19:18, the "Great Commandment"

As Plaut points out, this is the earliest written version of the Golden Rule in the Bible in a positive form. All versions and forms of the proverbial Golden Rule have one aspect in common: they all demand that people treat others in a manner in which they themselves would like to be treated."

It's that simple, how would you like to be treated, i.e. cloths ripped off, thrown to the ground, and your rectum assaulted again and again without any lube, possibly causing it to tear and bleed, (eventually producing anal fissures and prolapse {hemorrhoids}), while your feces is impacted?

The golden rule was the first law, that I'm aware of, that levels the playing field, such that everyone can expect promise of equality, regardless of physicalities, as there's always someone bigger and stronger, if not a group working together as one. And who can't understand the receiving end of such treatment?

Simple solution, dating back to at least 1300 BCE.

artisticsolution wrote: Hi Doc,

Well that IS a horse of a different color...why doesn't he just be honest about it? He should stop trying to justify it and just find a chick who digs a rape fantasy. It's been my observation, though, that people who feel so much guilt about sex , deviant or not, can never be happy when they find their counterpoint in another. They end up hating the other person for allowing them to fornicate freely to their heart's content. lol Too much trouble if you ask me....big waste of time...huge...and all for naught.

Well to be honest I have been avoiding engaging 'K' in any kind of dialogue, usually when I see his name on a post my reaction is "Oh shit, what kind of nonsense is he peddling now" and I skip over, it unless another poster makes an interesting reply, and then I may look at what he has written, I'm usually not disapointed. The big problem is that he is not restricted to the rape scenario, but his main agenda is younger girls and possibly boys as well. He has expressed a preference for very young girls claiming that some are mature enough to make a rational decision to have sex with older men, and his arguments have been countered by more rational thinkers that the very young do not have the experience to make such a decision. He has totally polluted another forum with posts and nude photos of young girls, and that has attracted other posters and possibly several socks of his and others. As I said I usually ignore his posts unless someone replies with something interesting, his is a lot of fake intellictualism. There was a post that because of these photos the other forum was being shut down but I haven't been looking there much lately.

Thanks artisticsolution for the kind words (and humour). Thanks thedoc for the advice and thanks Speresofbalance for trying to introduce some philosophy. I think this thread is tainted, but I would add that Kant's categorical imperative is in essence the same thing.
Anyway; over and out on this one.

tillingborn wrote:As far as I can work out Kuznetzova is attempting to justify rape on the grounds that nature doesn't mind.

I said exactly the opposite of this.

I said very clearly that pointing at the mechanics of biology cannot be used as a justification for action. There are other examples. Biology and nature have endowed humans with the capacity and desire to murder each other. Does this mean we should, therefore, murder each other? The answer is no.

Nature and biology have created a situation where rape can lead to a pregnancy. Does this mean we should rape? The answer is no.



(It is then the job of the philosophers to describe the non-biological origin of our ethics and morality .. et cetera )

artisticsolution wrote: You are just trying to glorify a bunch of idiots....the vikings were too stupid to survive...and so are modern day barbarians. Stupidity is it's own worst enemy.

P.S. Amod...why isn't this thread in the gender section...or do you only move women issues to that respectful place? Sexism anyone?

I believe that all of humanity should aspire to all the sympathetic ideals. It is unfortunate that "raw biology" is not harmonious with these ideals.

There's nothing glorious about rape and war. That was the point I was making. That even in our modern times, the process of evolution by natural selection has still not endowed men with "stopping mechanisms". These Stopping mechanisms would be something that disallows a man to complete a sex act on someone who is a stranger and who is unconscious. A number of different stimuli would be required for a male human to become aroused. These requisite stimuli would be things like, knowing the person personally, the partner must be conscious, she must be into it, and so on. There is nothing in chemistry or physics that would disallow the requirement of these "Safer" stimuli. For whatever reason, natural selection took the low road, and all the healthy men posting in this thread are very much physically capable of raping an unconscious stranger.

In the battles of African nations, rape is used as a method of war. There is no need that these soldiers be specially trained to commit rape in villages. Training would be having them overcome their innate need for "safety and mutuality" in order to become aroused. Unfortunately, these innate needs do not exist! The biophysical circuitry of male humans has no such requirements. I will quote a headline in The Economist magazine as demonstration of this fact.

Rape is horrifyingly widespread in conflicts all around the world

http://www.economist.com/node/17900482

So turning to the circuitry of biology in no way forms the basis of our moral and ethical repugnance of rape. Our repugnance with the crime must originate from some other source unrelated to biology. Perhaps it originates from our sense of fairness, or from our altruism.

I believe we should aspire to all these sympathetic ideals as people. It is unfortunate that "raw biology" is not harmonious with these ideals.

Kuznetzova wrote:If we have evolved in such a way that is congruent with nature, then nature apparently condones, (nay, it promotes) rape. ...

One, you ignore that we are not 'congruent' with 'nature' we are 'nature'. Two, in 'nature' the majority of the higher mammals don't 'rape' and sex is initiated only when the physical signs for fertile reproduction from the female are displayed.

Arising_uk wrote: the majority of the higher mammals don't 'rape' and sex is initiated only when the physical signs for fertile reproduction from the female are displayed.

I agree with the fact of this statement.

But I think for you to attain sophistication with this subject you would have to abandon the idea that because the animals do it, we should too. The entire ARCHITECTURE of that thinking must be abandoned, and I have made a thread about why (right on this forum). You, or someone in this thread is going to have to go deeper than this superficial reliance on justification of human action by pointing at animal behavior. It may have slipped your mind that this is an APPLIED ETHICS forum.

Let's continue to extend your line of thinking and you will start to see holes in the reasoning. The majority of higher mammals do not engage in recreational sex. Therefore, (according to an application of your logic) recreational sex is un-natural. Do we then conclude that recreational sex is wrong?

Hi Kuznetzova

Kuznetzova wrote:You, or someone in this thread is going to have to go deeper than this superficial reliance on justification of human action by pointing at animal behavior.

Can you point me to an example of someone on this forum using the behaviour of animals to justify our own?

Kuznetzova wrote:Let's continue to extend your line of thinking and you will start to see holes in the reasoning.

Given that human beings clearly do rape ArisingUK's line of thinking is not of the sort you believe; yours is thus a straw man argument and makes your suggestion that it is us that lack sophistication laughable.

Kuznetzova wrote: These Stopping mechanisms would be something that disallows a man to complete a sex act on someone who is a stranger and who is unconscious.

What about sexually immature?

Kuznetzova wrote:So turning to the circuitry of biology in no way forms the basis of our moral and ethical repugnance of rape.

No indeed, who is?

uwot wrote:Can you point me to an example of someone on this forum using the behaviour of animals to justify our own?

I do not get the feeling that I am interacting with literate , educated people here. Instead, I feel like the regulars on this forum would prefer the format of Jerry Springer, over the format of applied ethics. They prefer explosive, combative, aggressive political posturing over clarity-of-mind and objective discussion. Let me remind all of you that you are posting on a philosophy forum in an applied ethics section.

In any case, the point of this thread is to get the males here to admit to themselves, and to each other, that they are perfectly capable of raping a stranger, who is unconscious even. And then once that stage is passed, we can act as philosophers to first recoil from the terror of this realization, and then, perhaps, discuss the origin of the ethics underlying our recoil.

But if the men here refuse to even be honest about the facts of the situation, any further discussion is a moot point. Stage 1 is being honest about the nature of men's sexuality. We must be mature enough, objective enough, and honest enough to get through Stage 1 before we can fruitfully engage a philosophy of ethics.

Wake up and look at your computer screen. You are in a philosophy forum. This is applied ethics.

uwot wrote:Can you point me to an example of someone on this forum using the behaviour of animals to justify our own?

Kuznetzova wrote:I do not get the feeling that I am interacting with literate , educated people here. Instead, I feel like the regulars on this forum would prefer the format of Jerry Springer, over the format of applied ethics. They prefer explosive, combative, aggressive political posturing over clarity-of-mind and objective discussion. Let me remind all of you that you are posting on a philosophy forum in an applied ethics section.

So the answer to my question is no, you cannot find an example of anybody using the behaviour of animals to justify human behaviour.

Kuznetzova wrote:In any case, the point of this thread is to get the males here to admit to themselves, and to each other, that they are perfectly capable of raping a stranger, who is unconscious even.

The males here, I am quite certain, are perfectly aware that physically they are capable of raping an unconscious stranger.

Kuznetzova wrote:And then once that stage is passed, we can act as philosophers to first recoil from the terror of this realization,

There is no need.The fact that physically a man could rape an unconscious stranger should cause no more consternation than the fact that physically he could hammer a six inch nail into his temple, chop off his penis with a blunt axe, disembowel himself and choke himself with his own faeces. There are a great many things men are physically capable of doing, but need lose no sleep over, because they wouldn't do it in a thousand lifetimes.

Kuznetzova wrote:and then, perhaps, discuss the origin of the ethics underlying our recoil.

SpheresOfBalance made a series of philosophical points regarding the origin of our ethics which you have so far failed to discuss.

Kuznetzova wrote:But if the men here refuse to even be honest about the facts of the situation, any further discussion is a moot point. Stage 1 is being honest about the nature of men's sexuality. We must be mature enough, objective enough, and honest enough to get through Stage 1 before we can fruitfully engage a philosophy of ethics.

Tillingborn made the point that no one is denying the 'facts of the situation'.

Kuznetzova wrote:Wake up and look at your computer screen. You are in a philosophy forum. This is applied ethics.

This is hypocritical, people have made philosophical points and you have ignored them. As you say, this is applied ethics, we understand that men are physically capable of all sorts of things, what is your point?

Other animals can't rape because rape is a premeditated act. We can't assume to make moral judgements on other animals when our main interest in them is dominated by our desire to control them for our own over indulgent purposes