OCCOM BILL wrote:It is true that you cannot know which pages, or pics on those pages leave a straight money trail to the actual producers. But that's exactly the point; until you've already clicked and potentially paid; you don't know. It is enough to know that some do... and that has been amply demonstrated per your own admission.
But this only establishes a risk of bad consequences. It only establishes that when somebody views child porn he
risks doing something wrong, but in perhaps many cases he won't actually be doing anything wrong, because he won't actually be causing anybody to profit from their abuse of children.
Quote:One can fire a gun into a crowded stadium and not know what the effect will be too. Sometimes he will hit someone; sometimes he won't. Same principle applies here because the clicking pervert can't know until after he's fired his shot.
I don't like your choice of example here. Clicking a link to a child porn site is not as risky as firing a gun at a huge crowd of people. Even if the risk of bad consequences is equally great, the consequence of shooting somebody is obviously much worse than the consequence of making a small contribution (not by itself enough to encourage anybody to abuse children) to a financial reward which may or may be sufficient to encourage a child abuser to abuse one or more children.
Quote:Middle man argument is a nonstarter if you think about it. It matters little how many middle men profit in between or peripherally; the finacial incentive remains. If I'm a coffee producer; it doesn't matter how many people profit between my fields and the end user. My incentive to produce coffee isn't contingent upon a direct sale.
But is child porn like that? Do child abusers actually sell their images to the middle-men?
[qupte]
Quote:It sounds like viewing free child porn might be wrong, but only to the extent that dropping a small piece of litter is wrong.
This is not a fair comparison. No amount of litter provides sufficient incentive to hurt a child.[/quote]
Maybe a better comparison would be with buying a product from a company which uses child labour. Enough purchased products will provide a sufficient incentive to force large numbers of children to work for long hours in harsh conditions at low pay (arguably as bad as one child being abused, especially if the abuse doesn't involve actual rape, as is often the case).
This makes it bad to buy products from such companies. But it doesn't follow that we should imprison people for doing so. That would be insane.
Quote:It is certainly a matter of opinion as far as which punishment fits the crime.
Rubbish. It's a matter of moral jugment. If you thought moral judgment was a matter of opinion, you wouldn't be arguing with my moral judgments.
Quote:Quote:With that in mind, I'd be interested to see you answer this: Do you think that a number of years in prison is an appropriate sentence to give to somebody who has made small financial contributions to the supposed child porn market, by viewing free images in a forum or similar website?
Yes, actually, I do. The end goal is to reduce the frequency that children are heinously abused. He who's actions encourage the abuse of children should be deterred from doing so.
So shall we start banging up everyone who shops at Primark (a popular British department store which uses child labour)? Shall we round up most of the women in my country and put them in prison for a number of years?
We have to protect the rights of all humans. It is our right not to be imprisoned for a relatively harmless crime just to deter other would-be committers of that crime. There are other ways of protecting the right of children not to be abused.
Quote:Though you are potential consumer of this material; you still have the ability to weigh your risk/reward ratios and I can only assume your decisions will/would reflect this. If the punishment were a swift execution, indeed, you would have to want to see those pictures pretty bad now wouldn't you?
Again, should we execute everyone who shops at Primark? Is that really the best way to protect children from labour?! Is execution of non-child-abusers really the most appropriate way to protect children from abuse? Isn't execution kind of worse than abuse (certianly some forms of abuse... it's obviously morally worse to kill a defenceless man than it is to fondle a defenceless child).
Quote:The measure of effect of viewing for free cannot be pinpointed. But this doesn't change the Macro-results. More viewers= more incentive to harm children.
More carbon emissions = more global warming. That doesn't mean that everyone who drives a car to work should be treated as if she is solely responsible for melting the icecaps.
Quote:Quote:This consequence needs to be weighed up against the (admittedly small) positive consequences for the viewer of the porn. I'm sure I won't persuade anyone else to acknowledge the benefit that the viewer receives by watching the porn. But as a consequentialist, I must take this into account.
What say you? How many pervert's happy ending's while viewing child porn does it take to equate to sufficient "positive consequences" for the rape of a single innocent child to be a fair bargain? 10? 100? 1000? How many?
It's a difficult question, but I think there might be an answer. Especially if, as I suspect, it is difficult to lead a happy life without some level of sexual fulfillment over and above just masturbating to your own thoughts. If depriving paedophiles of child porn deprives them of the ability to lead a fulfilling life (as RHD argued), then the benefits of child porn to a large number of paedophiles might outweigh the abuse of one child.
Especially (as I keep saying) if the abuse is relatively mild. Remember that child abuse can be inappropriate touching, not necessarily physically painful or scary sexual behaviour.
I guess what I am alluding to is what others here have described as 'taking one for the team'. If the team is 1,000 strong, and the benefit they receive is the ability to lead fulfilling lives (as opposed to sexually frustrated, depressing lives), then maybe the fondling of one child is worth it.
But before people get angry,
I am only raising this as a possibility. I don't know how all these consequences add up. Probably access to child porn isn't as important to paedophiles as I am speculating. But I don't think it's safe to assume that viewing child porn is definitely wrong. I now concede that there is a reasonable chance that it is. But that is all I concede.
