Jump to content
Science Forums

Devil's Advocate Question: Is There A Rational Reason Not To Rape And Kill A Child?


motherengine

Recommended Posts

I apologize to anyone offended by the specifics of this question; I find them to be the most provocative (e.g., what could be more patently 'evil'?) and therefore the most likely to get at the crux of an issue.  I am not planning on committing such an act, nor am I seeking validation for such an act.  I pose this question in order to explore the nature of moral belief and rationalism.

 

Definition of rational: [Merriam-Webster] based on facts or reason and not on emotions or feelings

 

Question:

 

John wants to rape and kill a child.  He is not afraid of any personal adverse consequences and he does not care about the feelings of the victim's friends/family.

 

Is there a rational reason for John to forgo the action?

Edited by motherengine
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Welcome to hypography, motherengine. That’s quite the warm, fuzzy post you’ve chosen with which to introduce yourself!

 

Please feel free to start a topic in the introductions forum to tell us something about yourself.

 

Is there a rational reason for John to forgo the action?

Yes, there are many rational reasons not to rape and kill a child.

 

Let’s consider the two acts, raping and killing a person, separately, starting with killing.

 

One class of reasons not to kill a person is to avoid punishment. You’ve given that John is “not afraid of any personal adverse consequences and he does not care about the feelings of the victim's friends/family”, but this only specifies that John lacks several situational kinds of normal emotions, fear and empathy. You’ve not given that John has no reasonable expectations of punishment. If John is not rationally aware that he may be punished for his acts, he’s not rational in his choice. If he is aware, but lacks a normal sense of rational selfishness, he’s also not rational in his choice.

 

My conclusion depends on rational not only being defined as “based on facts or reason and not on emotions or feelings” but on a more a more complicated, positive definition that, to quote from the above linked Wikipedia article, “an action is rational if and only if it maximizes one's self-interest”.

 

Playing devil’s advocate, there are scenarios where John’s actions might be rational efforts to maximize his self-interest, and thus be rational. For example, let’s assume that John is miserably poor, enslaved, and abused by his owner, in a state where slavery and the abuse of slaves is permitted, but murder is not, and the punishment for murder is incarceration in a humanely administered prison. John might, then, rationally commit a murder, or any other crime that causes him to be taken from his abusive owner and put in the improved conditions of his state’s prisons.

 

Considering rape, the only scenario I can imagine where rape could be rationally considered a rational, self-interest promoting act, is when it results in pregnancy and birth. A person who is unable to have reproductive sex consensually may rationally resort to rape in order to reproduce. Considered in light of the principle of rational selfishness, this reasoning can imply that the “self” who’s interest a person is seeking to maximize is not his person’s, but his genes, an idea much discussed, such as in books like Richard Dawkins’ 1976 The Selfish Gene.

 

Non-reproductive rape can gratify the rapist only in providing feelings of power, sexual identity affirmation, revenge, etc. Since we’re including “based on facts or reason and not on emotions or feelings” in the definition of rational, and giving that John rapes a person who cannot become pregnant and give birth to his child, because they are immature and soon to be killed by him, his act of rape cannot be rational, unless other conditions are given.

 

Here’s a scenario with such conditions: John is a powerful man, with a persona army, in a state where he is above the law. He rapes the child of a powerful rival, knowing that the rival will become enraged and attack him without adequate planning, allowing John to kill or otherwise neutralize his rival.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So then...ahem (onward and upward?):

 

My hypothetical John was not intended to be perceived as rational in his actions. I was posing the question more as a provocation of response concerning reason and the person responding.

 

If John were required to be rational in the area of maximizing his own self interest (Although how is that more positive? And how is it actually rational; i.e., wouldn‘t following self interest imply a non-rational motive?) I could alter john’s motive to include suicidal, medical and/or delusional aspects:

 

John is fed up with the world and believes that he has no place in it but he does want to fulfill a specific desire before dying: to rape and kill a child.

 

John has three days to live and really wants...

 

John believes that he can take over the human world, but in order to do so he has...

 

John is not interested in rational reasons at this point.

 

But, as John’s creator (so to speak), I am.

 

You could just dispense with motives altogether, I suppose.

 

Appeals to emotions can be rationally formulated, but can an emotional appeal itself be rational?

 

Is there a purely rational reason not to do anything one wants to do? Is reason not corrupted by emotion? I am suggesting that reason, as a system of thought, is not capable of being an instrument of moral argumentation without also being diluted or distorted in the process.

 

Again: This is less a declaration than an exploration of an idea.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you're defining the terms in such a way so as to ignore any interests except for one person's, then of course you're going to end up with silly situations where the interests of one person (that happen to run counter to the interests of the society) are "rational".

You're literally saying "If action X has positive outcomes and no negative outcomes, why not do X?".  

We are part of societies.  We gain benefits by being a part of those societies.  We adhere to rules that help these societies - often these rules directly benefit us, other times they benefit the society and only indirectly benefit us (and may even have negative direct impacts on us, like taxation).  If you ignore that then you're missing an important part of the human experience and your base premise will be inherently flawed beyond the point that any formal logic will save it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You're literally saying "If action X has positive outcomes and no negative outcomes, why not do X?".

No; I am suggesting that, regardless of the outcome (which would be both pleasurable and unhealthy), reason has no place in its condemnation.

 

We are part of societies.  We gain benefits by being a part of those societies.

If you ignore that then you're missing an important part of the human experience and your base premise will be inherently flawed beyond the point that any formal logic will save it.

My point is that formal logic cannot save anyone. I am trying to figure out if otherwise rational people need to be irrational when confronted with moral issues. Is rationalism served or made inert by the issue of moral belief?

Edited by motherengine
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Moral issues deal with interactions between things, they cannot exist in a vacuum.  Formal logic works fine if you assume that morality is based on society's desires and not individuals' desires.  Hence it is moral to save lives, and immoral to end them. Moral to help people, immoral to hurt them. Hence why there can be difficulty in applying it - is it entirely consequence based?  Is it based solely on the act? Does the intent of the person matter?  These things matter to society, as to what behaviors and attitudes it wants to foster in order to continue.  By reducing the moral question to a single person acting you're ignoring what morality is which is making your question meaningless.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Society doesn’t exist as an actual thing with a singular agenda. In any and every society their will be absolute disagreement between members as to what is right and what is wrong about any given thing. And very differing social mores (also only having an illusion of being united) exist from group gathering to group gathering and throughout periods of history.

 

My question is not meaningless at all. It is intended as a provocation of thoughts concerning what I perceive to be a conflict between reason and moral belief. Are you suggesting that moral actions are rational?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My conclusion depends on rational not only being defined as “based on facts or reason and not on emotions or feelings” but on a more a more complicated, positive definition that, to quote from the above linked Wikipedia article, “an action is rational if and only if it maximizes one's self-interest”.

If John were required to be rational in the area of maximizing his own self interest (Although how is that more positive? ...

I referred not to any requirement for John, but to a definition of “rational” being positive.

 

A definition is positive if it gives attributes that the referent must have, negative if it gives attributes that it cannot have. Thus the definition “a rational act is not based on emotions or feelings” is negative, while the definition “a rational act maximizes one’s self-interest” is a positive one. “Positive” in this sense carries no moral or emotional connotation – it’s purely a technical logic usage of the term.

... And how is it actually rational; i.e., wouldn‘t following self interest imply a non-rational motive?)

The proposition “an action is rational if and only if it maximizes one's self-interest” is not rational in a formal, self-referential sense. Formally, it’s a postulate of a logical system, a proposition considered true so that other true propositions – theorems – can be written using the system. Informally, it’s a starting place so that people using the term “rational” can agree that they are using it to refer to the same concept.

 

I think this definition of rational, used to articulate the principle of rational selfishness, is more useful, and more complicated, than the one given the summary definition (I’m not sure what to call this part of the entry) given at the Merriam-webster.com page “[rational means] based on facts or reason and not on emotions or feelings”, or the 1st definition given by its oxforddictionaries.com page, “[rational means] based on or in accordance with reason or logic”, which is a circular definition.

 

I’ve a hunch, though, that what you most want to discuss, Motherengine, is not formal or informal definitions of “rational” or “definition”, but whether atheists can behave morally, in this thread.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Society doesn’t exist as an actual thing with a singular agenda. In any and every society their will be absolute disagreement between members as to what is right and what is wrong about any given thing. And very differing social mores (also only having an illusion of being united) exist from group gathering to group gathering and throughout periods of history.

 

My question is not meaningless at all. It is intended as a provocation of thoughts concerning what I perceive to be a conflict between reason and moral belief. Are you suggesting that moral actions are rational?

I'm suggesting that morality only exists when there is a society.  Societies are made up of individuals who all tug and pull at it in different directions, who change it, who mold it, who break away from it and who join it.  That doesn't imply that societies don't exist.  Individual atoms move in different directions but we still have wind.  Individual cars move in individual ways but we still have traffic.  Individuals have different ideas but we still have societies.  

 

The reason your question is meaningless is because it's attempting to push a morality onto a hypothetical in which there exists exactly one person with any agency.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Individuals have different ideas but we still have societies.  

 

The reason your question is meaningless is because it's attempting to push a morality onto a hypothetical in which there exists exactly one person with any agency.

There are groups of people taking shelter in specific areas that we call societies. I suppose I just find the word problematic when discussing mores; it often leads to an appeal to majority argument.

 

I don’t think that makes the question meaningless (it has meaning to me, even if it merely works to help me formulate stronger questions in the future) as it is intended to be a catalyst for thinking about the idea of moral absolutism. I’m not trying to teach anyone, mind you; I am trying to learn through experimentation.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...