Re: agrote
agrote wrote:Robert Gentel wrote:Quote:Most importantly of all, nobody can be blamed for the way they have been nurtured, and therefore nobody can be blamed for being a paedophile (or a hebephile).
I'm not talking about blame but responsibility. Surely you can see that responsibility still exists for the individual regardless of what blame is ascribed.
No, I disagree. Responsibility is what justifies the ascription of blame or praise.
Responsibility can exist without blame or praise. You may relate the two, which is fair but don't substitute "blame" when I say "responsibility" because while there is a societal relationship they are not the same words.
So when I say you hold a degree of responsibility for your sexuality, it is not an equitable statement to say you should be "blamed" for it.
Quote:If you can be rightly blamed or braised for something, you're responsible for it. If you can't, you're not.
You are wrong agrote, watch:
You are responsible for this dog. Does that mean you can be blamed for it? I know where you are getting this restrictive definition from: your philosophy classes. But you either heard or remember it wrong or was taught it wrong.
In philosophy there are a number of different kinds of "responsibility". You are restricting your use of the term to one:
moral responsibility.
Other forms of responsibility in philosophy do not so explicitly relate to accountability. In thought and free will issues
casual responsibility is often central to the debate.
In any case, I'm not going to spend too much time fighting with you over the definition of the word "responsibility" with you. It means a lot more than you limit it to here.
Quote:When I say that paedophiles can't be blamed for paedophiles, you can take me to be saying that paedophiles aren ot responsible for their sexuality (and nor is anybody else responsible for theirs).
Then you also purport to have ruled on the nature/nurture debate squarely in favor of nature because by rulling out a
casual responsibility you deny any and all choice in the matter.
It's clearly not a mere choice, but I don't think you can establish that there is no
casual responsibility.
Quote:
What do you mean "stoking fantasies"? Do you mean masturbating every now and then, and turning your head when you see somebody attractive? Does this make one's sexual dispositions harder to control?
I don't think it would in all cases but there certainly have been some who claimed they have. Ted Bundy claimed, in his final interview, that his use of pornography to sate his fantasy ceased to be effective and while he initially was able to satisfy his compulsions though fantasy he eventually tired of it and had to move to reality.
Now that particular example is good to illustrate a bit of the complexity of this matter. For example, I don't accept a lot of Ted Bundy and James Dobson's generalizations and Ted may well have had a poor understanding of himself. But this is what he had to say about it:
Quote:Once you become addicted to it, and I look at this as a kind of addiction, you look for more potent, more explicit, more graphic kinds of material. Like an addiction, you keep craving something which is harder and gives you a greater sense of excitement, until you reach the point where the pornography only goes so far - that jumping off point where you begin to think maybe actually doing it will give you that which is just beyond reading about it and looking at it.
It doesn't require a great stretch to see how the excessive fantasy could dull the moral senses and eventually cause more sensation seeking through reality. I don't assert that it is always so but claim that it can often contribute in certain individuals (I think in individuals who have a greater sensory need this would be more prevalent).
Quote:
I don't know whether pornography nurtures one's sexual dispositions, but fantasy probably doesn't. I don't think anybody can help fantasising.
Whether one can help it or not, doesn't have any bearing on whether or not it nurtures it. But event that claim is a bit suspect. You can't possibly believe you have
no control over fantasy. I don't assert that you have
total control. Just some control.
Quote:If it doesn't happen in front of a computer it will happen in your sleep. Sexuality causes sexual fantasy, not the other way around.
I'm not saying you can control it entirely. But picture this scenario. Ted Bundy claims his addition to hard core pornography was eventually not enough to sate his fantasy. At some point it did not do enough for him and he needed reality.
Do you think that he may have put off that moment if he had controlled his use of fantasy? If he had fought harder against his addiction?
It's not entirely implausible. If he had been able to resist his urges a little more often maybe he would have lasted a while longer before reaching his threshold and maybe a woman or two wouldn't have died.
Maybe not. And the science of psychology is such that it's not currently possible to prove this one way or the other. But do you find that outside of the realm of possibility?
Quote:Quote:It's pretty simple: fantasy and pornography can be addictive, and lead to stronger compulsions.
You're making four claism here:
1) Pornography can be addictive
2) Sexual fantasy can be addictive
3) Addiction to pornography can lead to stronger compulsions
3) Addiction to sexual fantasy can lead to stronger compulsions
Claim 1 is commonly held to be true. The others aren't so well-established. Got any evidence for them?
Evidence that something is merely possible? All you need is one scenario that is not impossible. I have given you that.
Seriously, what kind of evidence do you have in mind? I have given you a man claiming that it was so, but that itself is no proof that it is or even was in his case.
If I said that it would invariably lead to these things then you could easily demand such evidence. I said that it can. Proving that something is merely possible merely requires that you show that it happened once.
But asking me to prove that it happened is to fundamentally misunderstand the science of psychology. I've shown you one man claiming it did in himself with Ted Bundy. But that's not proof that it did and there's really no way to prove these matters of the mind the way you ask me to. You are asking me to resolve decades-old intellectual debates for you in simple "evidence" and "proof".