Is it wrong to view child pornography?

edgarblythe wrote:

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If there is demand, there is always a source. It has nothing at all to do with money.

So as long as I really really want something, somebody is definitely going to give it to me for free?

Come on. Don't play stupid.

If they produce this stuff and distribute it for nothing, and they unquestionably do, and you watch it, you are feeding the industry. How is that not a good argument, when it is the fact of the matter?

I also would not allow most of what we call statutory rape, but I am willing the throw the kids under the bus if it will help the adults gain sexual freedom.

agrote wrote

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So as long as a paedophile really does just view the images for his own pleasure, I still don't see what harm is caused.

You don't seem to grasp that when you indulge in your own pleasures
by looking at child pornography, there was a child harmed to produce these
pictures/videos.

Regardless if these pictures/videos are free or not to pedophiles, the fact
remains that a child is violated.

Society does not care if you should be allowed to indulge and relieve your sexual urges when looking at child pornography. What you want to indulge in freely is against the law, and rightfully so. None of us gives a crap if you're sexual desires towards children need to be fulfilled or not - you are not allowed to have sexual feelings towards children other than in your very own fantasy.

There is absolutely nothing that could justify child pornography, nothing!

If you are a pedophile, you only can rely on your fantasy, and that's
where it all has to stay. The minute you act on your fantasy, either downloading pictures or videos, you are in violation of child pornography
laws and you are just as guilty as the one who made the picture/video in the first place.

hawkeye10 wrote:

I have not read all of this thread.....

I believe that societies position is that it is ethically wrong to get pleasure from child porn, and so it is wrong to help a person get pleasure from child porn. This is why it is illegal to get adult but childish looking individuals to play children in porn. As has been pointed out the argument that viewing child porn promotes child victimization and thus it is illegal to view child porn is full of holes. There have been cases where child porn animation has also been seen as illegal porn, and such nonsense is not explained by the widely accepted but factually incorrect explanation of why viewing kiddie porn is illegal.

This is my definite final word.
Agrote brings up that argument, but abandons it, because his focus is on the real item.

I don't look at child pornography, and I acknowledge that children are harmed to produce

edgarblythe wrote:

hawkeye10 wrote:

I have not read all of this thread.....

I believe that societies position is that it is ethically wrong to get pleasure from child porn, and so it is wrong to help a person get pleasure from child porn. This is why it is illegal to get adult but childish looking individuals to play children in porn. As has been pointed out the argument that viewing child porn promotes child victimization and thus it is illegal to view child porn is full of holes. There have been cases where child porn animation has also been seen as illegal porn, and such nonsense is not explained by the widely accepted but factually incorrect explanation of why viewing kiddie porn is illegal.

This is my definite final word.
Agrote brings up that argument, but abandons it, because his focus is on the real item.

I haven't abandoned the argument that the production of child pornographic drawings should not be criminalised. I stand by that claim, but it hasn't been challenged quite as passionately as my stronger claim, so I haven't had the need to discuss it much.

It's cause you didn't post before I edited. Thank ye.

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I don't look at child pornography, and I acknowledge that children are harmed to produce

Really? How is a child hurt by posing for a photo with few or no clothes on? Kids are naturally sexual, many young kids are difficult to keep in clothes until the adults bash into their heads that being naked is bad. Having photos of naked kids on your computer will get you a lifetime of registration as a sexual offender though.

agrote wrote:

Yes, some good points. I suspect that it is the social aspect of sharing child porn that might encourage more to be produced.

And you should also recognize that your question about viewing porn creates an isolation from this aspect that does not exist in real life.

The children have a right not to be seen in those circumstances. Merely viewing it is an infringement on their privacy rights.

In any case, it doesn't matter because there is no such thing as "free" and your example merely disconsidered the various incentives that viewership provide in the form of fellowship and attention.

Trying to isolate those effects from your question are illogical unless you can illustrate how that isolation could be ensured outside of your hypothetical.

hawkeye10 wrote:

Quote:

I don't look at child pornography, and I acknowledge that children are harmed to produce

Really? How is a child hurt by posing for a photo with few or no clothes on? Kids are naturally sexual, many young kids are difficult to keep in clothes until the adults bash into their heads that being naked is bad. Having photos of naked kids on your computer will get you a lifetime of registration as a sexual offender though.

You are seeking to change the nature of the argument, equating child sex abuse to possibly innocent photos. Not close, even.

agrote wrote:

Viewing free child porn doesn't seem to be any more harmful than drinking a cup of tea or flushing tha lavatory.

On what basis do you make that conclusion?

Whether a perpetrator receives any financial gain from his misdeeds is, from an ethical perspective, largely irrelevant. The fact that money changed hands just means that the activity might be more widespread or harder to eradicate, but it doesn't have much relevance to the act's inherent morality.

It's true that, from a purely consequentialist perspective, an inutile action may be more inutile if it is more widespread, but that's different from saying that the action is more wrong if it is more widespread. The solitary child pornographer who takes photos of children for his own pleasure and who doesn't share those photos with anyone else is still engaging in a wrongful action. If he sells those photos or gives them away, that would only bear on his culpability for distributing those photos -- it wouldn't bear on his culpability for taking the photos in the first place. Furthermore, if the act of viewing child porn is wrong, the fact that porn was purchased or obtained for free is completely irrelevant to the wrongness of that action.

Now, agrote, it would seem that you are arguing that merely viewing child porn isn't wrong. That's a strange position for a consequentialist to take, since a consequentialist (like, e.g., Mill) would argue that we must take into account all of an action's consequences. Viewing porn is the functional equivalent of consuming a product (indeed, as an image, that is the only way one can "consume" porn). The consumption of a product that is produced by unethical means, however, is unquestionably inutile, since it rewards the producer (even the producer who gives away the product for free) and encourages further production.

That's rather like saying that it is ethically better to receive stolen goods as a gift than to pay for them.

If the state has an interest in deterring a behavior, then it also has an interest in deterring others from rewarding and encouraging that behavior. A consequentialist would easily agree with that.

agrote wrote:

In fact, I go as far as claiming that it is perfectly fine to download child porn for free, and should not be a crime. At the very least, it should not be punished with lengthy prison sentences.

Now you're talking about the law. I thought you wanted to keep this strictly on an ethical level.

But if not; if the children are ignorant to the fact that images of them are being viewd by paedophiles, then this may be acceptable.

In viewing the images, they do not contribute to their distribution or their continued availability.

I can't say I agree with your other arguments, but it seems the right to privacy may be more important than I had realised.

Quote:

I don't look at child pornography, and I acknowledge that children are harmed to produce

Really? How is a child hurt by posing for a photo with few or no clothes on? Kids are naturally sexual, many young kids are difficult to keep in clothes until the adults bash into their heads that being naked is bad. Having photos of naked kids on your computer will get you a lifetime of registration as a sexual offender though.

You were given reason earlier in another post, but ignored it. When I said that the porn will be supplied with or without money as an absolute, it was the truth of a segment of suppliers as pointed out earlier. Not universal, but enough to keep the free users in endless images.

In the focus of this thread, your demand for access to real child porn trumps anything about drawings.

agrote wrote:

But if not; if the children are ignorant to the fact that images of them are being viewd by paedophiles, then this may be acceptable.

By this logic is it also ok to steal if the theft is not noticed and the victims unaware of the theft?

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In viewing the images, they do not contribute to their distribution or their continued availability.

Actually, there is a strong legal argument to the effect that in a peer to peer scenario (one of the most common ways such porn is shared) distribution only occurs when the viewer downloads the material. Otherwise it's just "made available" on their shared drive. The act of downloading it itself completes the "distribution".