Ethics and Erotica

[AG31]

Having read three pages of this discussion I see yet another opportunity to highlight my campaign for simple erotica. I'm not campaigning that everyone should write it, or that anyone should read it, just that it shouldn't be dismissed as throw-away writing with terms like "stroker." The reason I bring it up here is to point out that not all erotica involves good and evil, as some have claimed explicitly and that others have implied.

I'd argue that most stories are founded, for good or bad, on some kind of ethical principle. At a base level, we want to see good triumph against evil.

Is the dom in a bdsm story evil? If you're just writing about erotic experience, not about the people experiencing it (think essay on joys of yoga), then it can't be (is not often?) about good and evil.

 

[AG31]

Robbing a bank doesn't really fall under morally wrong

So this was tongue in cheek, right? That's what that emoji means???

 

[Paul_Chance]

One of the powers of art is the ability to make people think about something, to consider it in a way they hadn't considered it before, and to consider ethical and unethical behavior.

It that manner short stories about unethical characters engaged in unethical acts can have an ethical impact, in that it can lead people to contemplate the ethics of their actions. It can be done subtly or it can be done explicitly in fiction.

Let's say you're telling a story that contains completely unethical characters doing completely unethical things. On the clumsier side, they get their comeuppance at the end. You can also end it without a neat resolution and leave the ethical conclusions to the reader.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

So this was tongue in cheek, right? That's what that emoji means???

No, I really meant that. It is legally and ethically wrong but not morally, at least not from the perspective of my own morality. Give most of it to charity and I would even praise your name.
Robin Hood has never been so needed as today.

 

[SimonDoom]

Having read three pages of this discussion I see yet another opportunity to highlight my campaign for simple erotica. I'm not campaigning that everyone should write it, or that anyone should read it, just that it shouldn't be dismissed as throw-away writing with terms like "stroker." The reason I bring it up here is to point out that not all erotica involves good and evil, as some have claimed explicitly and that others have implied.

Is the dom in a bdsm story evil? If you're just writing about erotic experience, not about the people experiencing it (think essay on joys of yoga), then it can't be (is not often?) about good and evil.

I think in my own way I write many "simple erotica" stories, if you interpret the concept broadly. In most of my stories, the plot and erotica are not separate. The plot revolves around something erotic and kinky, and every word in the story is supposed to be in service to the erotic purpose. I might want to add some details about character and background, but it all circles back to the desire to make the story erotic, to create a fun buzz.

 

[SimonDoom]

No, I really meant that. It is legally and ethically wrong but not morally, at least not from the perspective of my own morality. Give most of it to charity and I would even praise your name.
Robin Hood has never been so needed as today.

I think this is an excellent example of how trying to distinguish "personal morality" from "community ethics" breaks down into incoherence.

Either an action is right, or it's not. I don't see how, "This feels right for me to do, but I'm indifferent to whether others do it," or, worse yet, "I agree that people in the community should do this, but I personally carve out an exception for myself because the exception feels morally right to me," gets us anywhere, morally or ethically. That just seems incoherent.

The way I see it, we adopt criteria or principles to decide what actions are right and what are not, and the application of those criteria or principles determine what's moral/ethical. If you're not willing to adopt general principles for your own personal conduct, I don't see how you can claim it is "moral" in a meaningful sense, and if you ARE willing to adopt principles for your own personal conduct, why wouldn't they apply to others as well?

If, for example, you say, "I adopt as a personal moral principle that I am not going to publish erotic stories that I think will cause harm" and you actually believe in your principle, then why wouldn't you apply it to others? How does it make sense to say that you think it's immoral for you to publish stories that hurt people but you're indifferent to whether others do so?

 

[AG31]

to create a fun buzz.

Excellent!

 

[Bramblethorn]

If, for example, you say, "I adopt as a personal moral principle that I am not going to publish erotic stories that I think will cause harm" and you actually believe in your principle, then why wouldn't you apply it to others? How does it make sense to say that you think it's immoral for you to publish stories that hurt people but you're indifferent to whether others do so?

My friend and I are at a street crossing, each pushing a pram with a baby inside. The light is green, and we're about to cross, but I have just seen a car barrelling towards the crossing at high speed. There's no time for me to shout a warning.

Would it be "immoral" for my friend to push their pram out into the crossing, acting in the belief that it's safe to do so?

Would it be "immoral" for me to push my pram out into the crossing, acting in the belief that it's unsafe to do so?

The fact that I might consider somebody else's action harmful doesn't automatically imply that it's intentionally harmful. We can only act according to our understanding of the situation and the consequences of our actions, but we're all operating from different information and different capabilities for processing that information.

In this scenario, I'm certainly not indifferent to my friend's choices, but that doesn't make them immoral because my friend has no reason to believe them to be harmful.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I think this is an excellent example of how trying to distinguish "personal morality" from "community ethics" breaks down into incoherence.

Either an action is right, or it's not. I don't see how, "This feels right for me to do, but I'm indifferent to whether others do it," or, worse yet, "I agree that people in the community should do this, but I personally carve out an exception for myself because the exception feels morally right to me," gets us anywhere, morally or ethically. That just seems incoherent.

The way I see it, we adopt criteria or principles to decide what actions are right and what are not, and the application of those criteria or principles determine what's moral/ethical. If you're not willing to adopt general principles for your own personal conduct, I don't see how you can claim it is "moral" in a meaningful sense, and if you ARE willing to adopt principles for your own personal conduct, why wouldn't they apply to others as well?

If, for example, you say, "I adopt as a personal moral principle that I am not going to publish erotic stories that I think will cause harm" and you actually believe in your principle, then why wouldn't you apply it to others? How does it make sense to say that you think it's immoral for you to publish stories that hurt people but you're indifferent to whether others do so?

I think we are talking about different things here. Robbing a bank is illegal. You would get arrested for that. Robbing a bank is also against community values; there is no civil community that would condone a robbery, no matter who was the target. But in my own morality, robbing a bank is quite okay as long as your intentions with the money are charitable. It doesn't matter if I am robbing it or if someone else is. It is right by my own morality no matter who does it, as long as they are using the money for something altruistic. I never claimed that I was coming up with an exception all for myself; my moral view stands no matter who does the robbery, assuming they are using the money for something good and charitable and not for their own selfish needs. If they are doing it for themselves, then it is completely irrelevant, as it would just come down to one selfish thief stealing from another one.

Either an action is right, or it's not.

This is correct for any individual, but it doesn't extend beyond that. Your sense of right and wrong could differ significantly from my own.

Let's make things a bit more clear. I need to abide by the law or risk being condemned as a criminal. I need to abide by the ethics of the community or risk becoming an outcast. In both of these cases, it is the fear of consequences that is making me abide by them, not my personal sense of right and wrong. If I could get away with doing something that is against the law or against the community ethics, but right by my own morality, I would do it. It would be the right thing to do. In my soul, in my heart, I put my own measure of right and wrong above that of the law and above that of the ethics of the community. I feel that both of those are often full of shit and are designed to cater to the needs of the privileged.

 

[HordHolm]

If, for example, you say, "I adopt as a personal moral principle that I am not going to publish erotic stories that I think will cause harm" and you actually believe in your principle, then why wouldn't you apply it to others? How does it make sense to say that you think it's immoral for you to publish stories that hurt people but you're indifferent to whether others do so?

You may also have, as a point of moral principle, an aversion to imposing your morality on another author. Thus, "I am not going to publish something that I think will cause harm, but I believe it to be morally wrong for me to prevent another from doing so."

 

[SimonDoom]

I think we are talking about different things here. Robbing a bank is illegal. You would get arrested for that. Robbing a bank is also against community values; there is no civil community that would condone a robbery, no matter who was the target. But in my own morality, robbing a bank is quite okay as long as your intentions with the money are charitable. It doesn't matter if I am robbing it or if someone else is. It is right by my own morality no matter who does it, as long as they are using the money for something altruistic. I never claimed that I was coming up with an exception all for myself; my moral view stands no matter who does the robbery, assuming they are using the money for something good and charitable and not for their own selfish needs. If they are doing it for themselves, then it is completely irrelevant, as it would just come down to one selfish thief stealing from another one.

You honestly believe it's moral to walk into a bank and use violence to take the bank's money? Why would you think that?

It seems to me that for an action to be "moral" one must be able to justify it on the ground that, if generally followed, society would be better off. It's completely obvious this is not the case here. We cannot rationally want banks to be robbed a lot, because if they were, they would shut down, or they would be far less effective, their operations would be more costly, they would have to pass on the costs to their depositors and charge higher interest to ordinary people trying to get loans. This is nutty. You're not just robbing a wealthy institution; you're hurting all the ordinary people who use that bank to deposit their money. You're hurting the people trying to buy cars and houses. A well-functioning society needs banks, and it needs them to be safe and secure. If we are rational and responsible and moral, we must want people to be able to hold property safely and securely in the banks in which they put their money. Why in the world would you think you know how to spend that money better than the people who choose to keep their money in that bank?

I believe as a fundamental moral/ethical principle that it's never right to use violence to take property from another person because you think you can do something better with that money.

Obviously, you can't want that as a general principle for everyone, because it would create anarchy and mayhem to the detriment of everybody.

And if you say the principle isn't generally applicable but applies only to yourself, then that's evidence of sociopathy.

There's not a lot of room for gray in this scenario.

 

[SimonDoom]

You may also have, as a point of moral principle, an aversion to imposing your morality on another author. Thus, "I am not going to publish something that I think will cause harm, but I believe it to be morally wrong for me to prevent another from doing so."

But isn't that just dodging moral responsibility? That's a pose, not a principle, isn't it? Deep down we all want everyone else to follow at least SOME moral/ethical principles. We don't seriously say, "I don't personally believe in murder, but I'm not going to judge somebody else who murders." That's not in any sense a moral stance; it's a refusal to take a moral stance.

 

[djrip]

But isn't that just dodging moral responsibility? That's a pose, not a principle, isn't it? Deep down we all want everyone else to follow at least SOME moral/ethical principles. We don't seriously say, "I don't personally believe in murder, but I'm not going to judge somebody else who murders." That's not in any sense a moral stance; it's a refusal to take a moral stance.

I think this is resolved by your initial clarification that were are talking about what we think is wrong, not what we think should be prohibited. If we oppose writing on a topic, but our morality forbids us from imposing our morals on another, then we would oppose legal censorship or legal efforts to suppress that topic, or even community efforts like organized boycotts, but we could still say, I consider writing about that topic to be morally wrong.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

You honestly believe it's moral to walk into a bank and use violence to take the bank's money? Why would you think that?

You need to watch fewer Westerns and Jason Statham movies. I never said violence was okay. It was all meant in the way, let's say, taking the money electronically or in some similar way. Hurting anybody in the process defeats the whole idea of the act being in accordance with my own morality.
Also, I feel that your view of banks is a rather naive one. The money I would be taking would go to those who need it the most, the ones who were robbed by those same banks among others. Either way, the whole idea of bank robbing was mostly meant as a simple example of legal vs ethics vs personal morality. I used that example only because AG31 mentioned banks. I didn't work out all the moral nuances and consequences, of course. It feels rather stupid to work out all the moral angles and to make sure that the act doesn't create any negative side effects for innocent people, and all that for something that will never happen. I am not that idle to engage in such a futile usage of time. It was all meant as a simplistic example.

 

[HordHolm]

But isn't that just dodging moral responsibility? That's a pose, not a principle, isn't it? Deep down we all want everyone else to follow at least SOME moral/ethical principles. We don't seriously say, "I don't personally believe in murder, but I'm not going to judge somebody else who murders." That's not in any sense a moral stance; it's a refusal to take a moral stance.

I totally disagree. People have a set of morals, not one single one. One moral position in a set may sometimes clash with another. You are trying to create absolutes, but people are messy. Sometimes it is easy to take a clear moral stance, at others one moral a person might have may come into conflict with another. At which point one must make a judgement as to which moral position trumps the others. Sometimes, of course, the decision may be clear and simple, at others it may be murkier.

Here, for example, we are talking about publishing, rather than actually doing. In this situation it may be far more difficult to decide whether a personal, moral refusal to publish trumps a personal, moral belief in the freedom of the individual to publish.

 

[SimonDoom]

My friend and I are at a street crossing, each pushing a pram with a baby inside. The light is green, and we're about to cross, but I have just seen a car barrelling towards the crossing at high speed. There's no time for me to shout a warning.

Would it be "immoral" for my friend to push their pram out into the crossing, acting in the belief that it's safe to do so?

Would it be "immoral" for me to push my pram out into the crossing, acting in the belief that it's unsafe to do so?

The fact that I might consider somebody else's action harmful doesn't automatically imply that it's intentionally harmful. We can only act according to our understanding of the situation and the consequences of our actions, but we're all operating from different information and different capabilities for processing that information.

In this scenario, I'm certainly not indifferent to my friend's choices, but that doesn't make them immoral because my friend has no reason to believe them to be harmful.

I think this is pretty easily resolved by the fact that the morality of an action can only be determined based on the state of the mind of the actor. A person acting negligently, recklessly, or intentionally may act immorally. A person who acts with total unawareness and no reason to know cannot act immorally. If you knowingly put a baby in danger, yes, you act immorally. If your friend has no knowledge that the baby is in danger, then the friend does not act immorally.

None of this applies, I think, to the publication of erotic stories, except to the extent one author truly has valid evidence of danger that puts them "on notice" or makes them "aware" of the possible risk of danger, and another author has no such knowledge. But this is fanciful. We're all, in fact, just guessing, or drawing whatever conclusions we can from minimal evidence.

You and your friend are in completely different positions because of the differences in your knowledge.

You and I, on the other hand, are more or less in exactly the same position of knowledge regarding the possible harm of erotic stories. Neither of us has knowledge comparable to what you have in your scenario, and neither of us is as blind as your friend in your scenario. We might have read different things or been exposed to different bits of evidence or experience, but our states of knowledge are still pretty similar. If I believe that I should not, as a moral matter, publish stories I have reason to believe will cause harm, then it seems to me that, rationally and ethically, I should not want you to publish such stories either. If I am totally indifferent to whether you cause harm to others, then I don't see how I can claim that my choice not to publish such stories is a moral choice. It's just a personal preference, like the pizza example.

We might reach different conclusions about risk based on the evidence, but that's not a moral process, that's an empirical process that may lead to different moral choices.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think this is resolved by your initial clarification that were are talking about what we think is wrong, not what we think should be prohibited. If we oppose writing on a topic, but our morality forbids us from imposing our morals on another, then we would oppose legal censorship or legal efforts to suppress that topic, or even community efforts like organized boycotts, but we could still say, I consider writing about that topic to be morally wrong.

No, let's be clear, I'm not talking about the law. This isn't about that.

Example: I think lying and cheating are wrong, say, in the context of a marriage. I don't think they should be illegal, but I think they are wrong, and I think they are just as wrong for other people as they are for me. It's not just a matter of, "Hey, whatever works for people," because lying and cheating necessarily involve a lack of consent by the person being lied to and cheated.

I'm not going to say, "Well, I wouldn't cheat, but I'm not going to judge someone else who cheats." I WILL judge them. I will think less of them. Their actions pose just the same risk of injuring other people as mine do, and the principle "Don't hurt people" is for me a moral/ethical meta-principle that applies to us all with equal moral force.

 

[HordHolm]

Perhaps it might be worth quoting Voltaire:

"I wholly disagree with what you say and will contend to the death for your right to say it."

 

[HordHolm]

Example: I think lying and cheating are wrong, say, in the context of a marriage. I don't think they should be illegal, but I think they are wrong, and I think they are just as wrong for other people as they are for me. It's not just a matter of, "Hey, whatever works for people," because lying and cheating necessarily involve a lack of consent by the person being lied to and cheated.

I'm not going to say, "Well, I wouldn't cheat, but I'm not going to judge someone else who cheats." I WILL judge them. I will think less of them. Their actions pose just the same risk of injuring other people as mine do, and the principle "Don't hurt people" is for me a moral/ethical meta-principle that applies to us all with equal moral force.

But going back to your original intentions on this thread and relating that to your example here, we are actually talking about writing about cheating and lying, not actually cheating and lying, and then publishing the written work we have created.

 

[SimonDoom]

Here, for example, we are talking about publishing, rather than actually doing. In this situation it may be far more difficult to decide whether a personal, moral refusal to publish trumps a personal, moral belief in the freedom of the individual to publish.

That makes sense to me. I like the way you explained this.

I might say to myself, for example, "I'm not sure how great the risk of causing injury to others from publishing certain kinds of stories is, but I'm not willing to take that risk for myself, but at the same time I'm uncertain enough that I won't judge another person for making a different assessment."

In this case, I think I've made a moral judgment, but it's hedged with some uncertainty about the real-world consequences, making it harder to balance the competing moral principles you describe. Fair enough.

To put it in a different context, it's like a vegetarian who says, "I'm not going to eat beef, because I am worried that the beef industry causes environmental damage and I don't want to cause harm, but I'm humble enough about my own knowledge that I think others should be able to make the decision to eat beef for themselves based on their appraisal of the facts."

 

[AwkwardMD]

I am a minority that is not often seen in mainstream media. I used to not believe that representation mattered. One of the things that changed my mind was seeing the reactions when people who are used to being the center of attention have not been centered to the degree they feel appropriate.

I got a very mild taste of this when I wrote some Chinese swear words using Chinese characters. Talking about that in the forums got me some wild stories. I think there was one comment to the effect of, "leaving these words untranslated ruined the story for me." Where these words were, like, nine sentences and their relevance to the plot was that the narrator didn't understand them. (Details are probably wrong. I'm going from memory.)

This was a story of mine. I can find the original comment if you want the details, but your recollections are essentially accurate.

 

[HordHolm]

To put it in a different context, it's like a vegetarian who says, "I'm not going to eat beef, because I am worried that the beef industry causes environmental damage and I don't want to cause harm, but I'm humble enough about my own knowledge that I think others should be able to make the decision to eat beef for themselves based on their appraisal of the facts."

An even better example might be: from a vegetarian perspective, is it morally ok to publish a recipe for beef bourguignon?

 

[AG31]

I wish this thread would veer away from discussions of what morality is and back to how erotica authors decide how (or whether) it (however they define it) relates to their writing.

 

[alohadave]

But in my own morality, robbing a bank is quite okay as long as your intentions with the money are charitable. It doesn't matter if I am robbing it or if someone else is. It is right by my own morality no matter who does it, as long as they are using the money for something altruistic.

Does that extend to any crime? You can commit any crime as long as the proceeds are used for charity or a good cause?

Sounds a lot like the ends justify the means.

 

[XerXesXu]

In this scenario, I'm certainly not indifferent to my friend's choices, but that doesn't make them immoral because my friend has no reason to believe them to be harmful.

'Forgive them Lord, they know not what they do.'