Con has proved in-
R1- that thoughts, emotions can be immoral
R2- accordingly pedophilia as a feeling can be and is immoral too
all scientifically, philosophically and psychologically.
In this round Con will add a couple of more arguments linking them to reassure his position.
ARGUMENT
Moral Emotion. If emotions can be reinstated into the moral boundary, then they are to be judged. Psychologist Haidt (2003) remarked regarding moral emotions-
“those emotions that are linked to the interests or welfare either of society as a whole or at least of persons other than the judge or agent.”(p. 853)
Pedophilia being not of this kind at all is definitely so immoral. Obvious isn't it?
Emotion-Object Moral Evaluation. According to De Sousa (1987), Deonna and Teroni (2012), a certain emotion can bill a corresponding object up for evaluation and moral judgement. Fear may lead for a certain object or event to be dangerous, similarly pedophilia presents children to be endangered and a pedophile to be dangerous. Since this begs for a moral judgement in terms of the situation measured by a society, it can be safely said that pedophilia is indeed immoral in a obvious sense.
Epistemic Consideration. According to Tappolet (2000), emotions can be a way of factually dissecting an act into moral spectrum and thus emotions can be called moral or immoral based on such motivation. Pedophilia being so conspicuous to it's motive doesn't need much elaboration.
Social Consensus. Tangney (2007) pointed out a beautiful aspect behind a certain emotion into becoming a decisive factor for a society to thrive-
“empirical researches suggest that guilt, on balance, is the more moral or adaptive emotion. Guilt appears to motivate reparative action, foster other-oriented empathy, and promote constructive strategies for coping with anger.”(p. 351)
Guilt is an emotion that directly resonates with moral evaluation and so does pedophilia according to the previous discussions. A society dealing with a lot of pedophiles must be pragmatic in taking actions which proves that it's immoral to even consider acting so disgustingly.
Dogmatic Dilemma. Those arguing that not having control over emotions renders such a judgement to be outrageous are inside a
paradox themselves. Because they still go on to blame people for certain emotions that they can't accept (e.g: being happy for someone's demise). The article on
Moral Emotions elaborates on the matter from an unbiased perspective. Actually, the concept of
free will pretty much abolishes such tendency of defense for pedophiles. Even those who believe in determinism can't but look for justice when it comes to moral evaluation.
REBUTTAL
Let's look at what Pro has accomplished so far with his resolve-
R1- Nullified by Con's R1
R2- Refuted by Con's R2
R3- Imposes his own opinions against well-established evidential studies.
He provides a source of cigarette addicts and claims that getting over addiction is hard relating to pedophilia- which I never disagreed on. But that doesn't negate the moral aspect behind any of this. Wherever I used peer reviewed studies to back up my arguments, Con used his own logical explanation against those studies to prove his point and that too not so significantly.
Pro tries to reverse the argument of utilitarianism principles by providing an analogy of one pedophile-heavy society. First of all, I never advocated for those principles, I just showed one of the examples how that works. Besides, Pro's claim fell right apart from a scientific experimental perspective. This is how statistics works anyway and he tried to rationalize it foolishly.
Pro naively decides to justify such thoughts like pedophilia with reasoning behind them. But it is almost basic philosophy to realize that noble reasons don't justify a crime; or in this case an immoral thought otherwise everything loses its moral foundation.
Pro claims blurriness within the concept of objective morality on couple of occasions but doesn't clear it out as part of his BoP.
The point is, con needs to directly note why the thought is immoral in itself.
I wonder what I had been doing for the last two rounds; however I hope he is satisfied after the R3 arguments that I put up.
He is advocating that we put pedophiles into jails merely due to possibility
Pro goes back to his null position that Con is trying to prove pedophilia is a crime. But I reassure you and it is evident from the arguments I worked out so far that I have always been trying to prove from scientific, philosophical and psychological perspective that pedophilia, by the definition of the debate description, is immoral. My entire point was to prove it's immoral whether one acts it out or not; with sufficient evidence. Pro trying to stretch it out to irrelevant proportion is a desperate measure to push Con to the verge of extremism to take advantage but that didn't fruit up well.
So, based on the evidential support that Con delivered and lack of same in contrast from Pro,
VOTE FOR CON!
PRO P1: Pedophilia = illness, illness isn't inherently immoral.
This is PRO's strongest point. CON does an okay job of dismantling it in R2 - stating that "...pedophilia is hardly any disorder...", and that but this is weakened by PRO's interpretation of their sixth source, "Neural correlates of moral judgment in pedophilia". (See Sources segment.) CON does not pick up on this in their final round, and the point is dropped in slight favour of CON - who uses their seventh source to drive home the concept that "The medicalization of a condition clearly does not preclude its moral evaluation...".
PRO P2: Pedophilia = thought, can't arrest people based on intent alone.
This point was somewhat poorly done - in PRO's first round, they approach upon the idea of an Orwellian future - being arrested for 'thoughtcrime'. CON slams this argument quite well in their R2 - questioning the relevance of illegality in a debate regarding morality - and PRO doesn't discuss the point at all in R2. Strongly in favour of CON.
[CON put a great deal of effort into proving that emotions or feelings can be immoral, and thus I've surmised their argument into a single point for brevity.]
CON P1: Emotions and feelings aren't exempt from questions of morality, and therefore pedophilia is immoral.
PRO's response to this is insufficient.
1. "con's study focuses on affirming what most people think is immoral" - per definition of "immoral", "...generally or traditionally held moral principles.", immorality is based on "what most people think is immoral".
2. "Clearly, ADHD can't be immoral if the problem is the solution..." - not clear what the rebuttal here actually is, and the "(If you get what I mean)" isn't especially strong rhetoric.
3. "So pedophiles have much less choice than the average person, which con is arguing about." This is the strongest rebuttal to CON's point, and it's sort of touched on in R3, "The point is, con needs to directly note why the thought is immoral in itself.", but ultimately it's on PRO to prove that pedophilia ISN'T immoral, and this simply isn't done.
Overall:
- The tie between pedophilia and other medical disorders was tenuous. Homosexuality was considered a disorder once upon a time, and it is statement of fact that it was considered to be immoral at that time too - at even into the modern age in some parts of the world.
- The 'thoughtcrime' angle was a serious error on the part of PRO.
- The concept that a thought alone is above moral consideration was the main point of contention - but given the definition of immoral as "conflicting with generally or traditionally held moral principles", it's hard to see how PRO could have gained ground here.
Misc. Notes:
- Was an uphill battle for PRO, and with respect to the topic at hand they managed pretty well.
- To both sides - read your sources, please. PRO, the MentalHealth.net site had a section specifically about Sexual Disorders that would have made for a better source. CON, I'm pretty sure you misinterpreted Source 6, and there are some claims in your argument that directly contradict Source 2.
- Best of luck to both of you with the other voters!
Thanks.
Nice job! I particularly enjoyed the William James reference.
Or at least that's my intuition.
Danger can exist without choice. Immorality cannot.
Then weapons are not dangerous, because you have every reason to not use it.
I actually think pro can easily win here given the definition he provided for the debate.
Per his definition, "pedophilia" is only a feeling. Feelings aren't immoral by themselves, they're completely uncontrollable.
In this case, pedophilia is so gruesomely immoral because the action is so harmful. The feeling isn't - of course it could become immoral if you don't get proper treatment for it.
If I am not literally arriving on a plane like 15 hours later, I would accept this one and possibly win because Con has much more stuff to work with, common common sense.
With the moral state of the current culture, I'm not so sure...
Yeah, I don't think you have a large margin to win this one.