To be a pedophile, according to the World Health Organization, is to have a sexual preference for children, boys or girls or both, usually of prepubertal or early pubertal age. 1 Pedophilia is widespread-approximately two percent of the adult population is primarily sexually attracted to children-and worldwide, approximately one in five girls, and one in 2 twelve boys, are victims of sexual abuse. 3 Most researchers working on pedophilia are psychologists, psychiatrists, and criminologists. How might ethicists contribute to the discussion? In this paper we ask, and seek to answer, three distinctively ethical questions about pedophilia: (1) Is it immoral to be a pedophile? (2) Is it immoral for pedophiles to seek out sexual contact with children? (3) Is it immoral for pedophiles to satisfy their sexual preferences by using computer generated graphics, sex dolls, and/or sex robots that mimic children? We hope to show, through our discussion of these questions, that an ethical investigation of pedophilia can help advance our understanding of how pedophilia should be understood, assessed, and handled. Is it immoral to be a pedophile? Notice that according to the World Health Organization's definition above, to be a pedophile is not the same as pursuing sexual contact with children. To be a pedophile is to have a sexual preference for children, but to have a preference is not the same as acting on that 10th Revision (ICD-10) , Section F65.4. 2 Wesley Stephenson, "How many men are paedophiles?", BBC News Magazine , July 30 2014, www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28526106. Studies indicate, however, that around 5% of men, or slightly less than that, are to some extent sexually attracted to children. See John Briere and Marsha Runtz, "University Males' Sexual Interest in Children: Predicting Potential Indices of 'Pedophilia' in a Non-Forensic Sample."
In this article, I argue we have collective duties to people who suffer from kidney failure and these duties are best fulfilled through a government‐monopsony market in kidneys. A government‐monopsony market is a model where the government is the sole buyer, and kidneys are distributed according to need, not ability to pay. The framework of collective duties enables us to respond to several of the most pressing ethical and practical objections to kidney markets, including Cécile Fabre's objection that it is unjust to be paid to do one's duty, Simon Rippon's objections that it is harmful to be pressured to sell a kidney and that a market is unfair, Richard Titmuss's crowding out objection, and Ronald Dworkin's objection that body parts should not be among the goods we owe each other.
When widespread use of sex‐selective abortion and sex selection through assisted reproduction lead to severe harms to third parties and perpetuate discrimination, should these practices be banned? In this paper I focus on India and show why a common argument for a ban on sex selection fails even in these circumstances. I set aside a common objection to the argument, namely that women have a right to procreative autonomy that trumps the state's interest in protecting other parties from harm, and argue against the ban on consequentialist grounds. I perform a pairwise comparative analysis of sex selection and its plausible alternatives and argue that that the ban fails to improve the state of affairs relative to a scenario without a ban. The ban makes the situation worse, especially for mothers and their daughters. India should therefore repeal its ban on sex selection.
What, if anything, is wrong with having sex with a robot? For the sake of this chapter, we will assume that sexbots are ‘mere’ machines that are reliably identifiable as such, despite their human-like appearance and behaviour. Under these stipulations, sexbots themselves can no more be harmed, morally speaking, than your dishwasher. However, there may still be something wrong about the production, distribution, and use of such sexbots. In this chapter, we examine whether sex with robots is intrinsically or instrumentally wrong and critically assess different regulatory responses. They defend a harm reduction approach to sexbot regulation, analogous to the approach that has been considered in other areas, concerning, for example, drugs and sex work.
Stipendiat i filosofi, Institutt for filosofi, idé-og kunsthistorie og klassiske språk, Universitetet i Oslo. Sterri arbeider med spørsmål om hvilken rolle markedet bør spille i livet vårt.
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