Prostitutes Kant, Girls in Kant, Chuy

And on those grounds they could sue for compensation. To put it another way, would we say that the stamper's employers have violated them somehow?

You have a job to do, so do it. Thanks Tim for your extended comments and replies raising issues I agree are entirely salient to the discussion.

Taking your points in turn: 1 the similarities between prostitution and other occupations. You illustrate this two Prostitutes Kant, firstly by discussing the unpleasant and often degrading nature of other occupations and secondly by asking us to see how the prostitute could control her trade such that it was not rendered unpleasant to her. With regard to the Prostitutes Kant point, however, I don't see it as that Prostitutes Kant whether the prostitute "enjoys" sex or Prostitutes Kant given that the act in question here is not comparable to other sexual acts in the relevant manner i.

Prostitutes Kant I grant your first point, namely, that lots of trades are capable of being prosecuted in ways that are degrading and which require conditions being built into them to say they involve respect for the humanity of the person in question.

That's entirely right I think. However, the point I was making here is that, however the conditions are specified with regard to the prostitute, however well she sets her terms of trade, still there Prostitutes Kant an element in it of objectification along the lines set out in the article. You don't address this point really but Prostitutes Kant simply indicate disbelief concerning the point.

Your considered argument is to the effect that the client may not a consider the prostitute as a mere means and b as replaceable. The replaceability point is, I agree, tricky in the sense that the client could come to view the relation they have with a particular prostitute as especially important to them and not something that could be replicated by another.

However here we come to a boundary line. Should this develop into an intimate relationship of the kind that is not specific to prostitution the question will arise as to Prostitutes Kant it is that requires there here still to be trade involved at all? Would not such intimacy lead naturally to a relation that was non-prostitutive?

If not, what is to prevent replaceability coming back into the equation. With regard to treating "merely as a means" I don't see how this could ever fail to be part of the relation.

The prostitute is being used for a specific human purpose without the feelings, relations and intimacy that we expect within that purpose. It is stripping this out that ensures the relation becomes commercially available. But taking it also involves treating "merely as a means". Right, Gary. Thanks for your response. I don't address the Prostitutes Kant wanted you to illustrate what that element of objectification is Prostitutes Kant makes prostitution wrong. I'm starting to see it now.

I've argued that in an ideal situation, objectification is no longer exists. I also argue that it is the style or demeanor of the act that has the moral content Prostitutes Kant. You argue that the act necessitates objectification. We must say that prostitution renders the prostitute fungible because otherwise the relationship becomes irreplaceable, and prostitution is devoid of intimacy.

We must also Prostitutes Kant that Prostitutes Kant renders the worker as merely a means to some end. Both problems arise only if we presume that the relationship between Prostitutes Kant worker and client is a cold one. Why should we accept this? I will admit that the intimacy is Prostitutes Kant the same you'd find between the married, or between lovers-at-first-sight; but there are other forms of intimacy we Prostitutes Kant imagine between the sex worker and her client.

We use a bank teller as a means to our money, but we do not treat her like an ATM. Prostitutes Kant closer to the point, we still should ask the masseuse how their day has been, show them kindness, etc.

Equally, I can easily imagine a sexual code of conduct, kind words exchanged, fondness reciprocated. The service exchanged is still sex, Prostitutes Kant what is left out are all the trappings of a romantic relationship: the deeper feelings of commitment, the strong obligations, the Prostitutes Kant and complete exchange of thoughts. I still don't know what aspect of prostitution objectifies in itself. Thanks for your latest Tim which was very helpful and I suspected your basic argument was that objectification is only a contingent and not a necessary aspect of prostitution.

It is good to get this clarified as it makes manifest where the real difference of view between us resides. I am claiming that objectification is an essential part of the prostitutive relation so let me go through again why I think this is so.

I take four elements of objectification to be part of the prostitutive relation. I assume these to be: 1 denial of subjectivity 2 violability though, as I'll add, there are some complications with this 3 fungibility 4 instrumentality Going through these in turn, I should add it is was the first that I was referring to in my last reply and that Prostitutes Kant point about intimacy touches on.

You are right that when we engage the bank clerk which is instrumental there is no need to view them as equivalent to an ATM which would be to treat them as fungible.

The Prostitute// a short film by SURYA KANT VERMA

So, correct, instrumentality does equate with Prostitutes Kant. However, I was instead referring to denial Prostitutes Kant subjectivity which is a different point. So I'll try now Prostitutes Kant separate these characteristics out. Denial of subjectivity is part of the prostitutive contract I have suggested in one key sense. It could well be that the prostitute engages with a particularly considerate client and that said client takes account of her feelings and presses nothing upon her that would violate recognition of those feelings.

Were the contract itself to recognise this then Prostitutes Kant would transform the relationship into one in which the subjectivity of the prostitute was officially recognised as such and, in so doing, her fungibility would be compromised. What makes her tradeable, in other words, is precisely that her subjectivity is denied a constitutive role in the relation with her that is prostitutive.

Violability is more complicated because, as I indicated in the original posting, there is nothing absolute about it here.

Kant on sex, marriage, concubines, prostitutes, and incest [text] – Stephen Hicks, Ph.D.

The prostitute can, for example, dictate contractual terms such that some elements of her body are "off-bounds". In this sense violability is only a relative part of her situation. However, the problem I have here is that I don't see how it Prostitutes Kant part Prostitutes Kant the recognised situation Prostitutes Kant other trades to include it.

I am unsure on that point and may be willing to concede it but at present it strikes me that violability even though only relative is essential to prostitution and only contingent in other trades if present in them at all. Fungibility and instrumentality go together as aspects of objectification. She is fungible in being trade-able, capable of being treated as a commodity and viewed in this way as replaceable by things.

That is surely essential to the prostitute's trade but, arguably, not exclusive to it. I think I can agree that others are similarly fungible but when fungibility is added to denial of subjectivity and instrumentality something different arises. Finally, instrumentality, the suggestion I made in the posting is not merely Prostitutes Kant the Prostitutes Kant is treated like this Prostitutes Kant she is so in a narrow sense.

I'd need persuasion that it wasn't a narrow sense that was applicable. Just a note, seeing that Tim pretty much has said what I would've said. Another explanation might involve social convention or religious influence on people's views, even the non-religious. None of them mutually exclusive. Prostitutes Kant

What Would Kant Think About Prostitution? - Words | Help Me

The main argument is the one you address. Thanks to both for this intelligent discussion. Hi Moses, thanks for your additional comment. I understand some might disapprove Prostitutes Kant prostitution for aesthetic reasons or, as you say, for religious ones. Prostitutes Kant agree these can be combined with moral ones or presented by someone in a "mixed" way that is often not easy to disentangle. I came to this blog and post Prostitutes Kant one on cosmopolitics but could not resist peeking into this.

I basically study workers and labour economics and the validity of prostitution had been raised and subject to heated debate.

What Would Kant Think About Prostitution? Presenting the issue of prostitution which is defined as “the practice or occupation of engaging in sexual. To sum up: prostitution is ruled out on moral grounds; the same applies to concubinage; there only remains matrimony, and in matrimony polygamy.

However, this led to me introspect on how exactly prostitution was different from other Prostitutes Kant. And what I realised was that it was similar to all other Prostitutes Kant. Except in the case of 'violability'. No worker in any trade Prostitutes Kant to subject Prostitutes Kant body as a demarcated, unique space from being invaded and used by someone else a foreign body.

This is a violent humiliation when someone wilfully enters your space and - what is most personal to your being - your body. It is perhaps the ultimate end of all Prostitutes Kant holy concepts of private property, privacy and personal space. I am no expert in philosophy but an ardent student and hence if this argument has already been stated and disproved - then I would like Prostitutes Kant be illuminated.

Thanks for your comment Yojimbo: good to have another contribution to the debate on this posting, particularly coming from someone who studies questions connected to labour since the source of this posting was precisely to determine a sense in which, even under the most ideal conditions, a prostitute's "labour" has characteristics that are distinct from those of other workers.

If you Prostitutes Kant above to my reply dated 28th August you'll see I there treated of four characteristics that I took to be both elements of objectification and part of the prostitute's situation.

In that reply I specifically indicated that my view of violability Prostitutes Kant less sweeping than you have suggested here. The reason why we here differ is I, think, because we have viewed this property in different ways. I, however, was stressing a different sense of violability in my earlier reply. I was pointing to the way that a contract exists in the prostitutive relation. There has to be an Prostitutes Kant between prostitute and Prostitutes Kant concerning what is Prostitutes Kant the bounds of the contact between them and the Prostitutes Kant is often and certainly in the ideal case would be in a position to indicate clearly what she will Prostitutes Kant will not allow in the area of violability.

So it need not be absolute though you are right it always has to be present. Back in that reply, however, I was careful to stress that whilst violability is relative in the prostitute's situation, its presence is part of her condition and this could not be otherwise though I also there stressed that denial of subjectivity is likewise Prostitutes Kant to her condition in a way it is not essential to other types of labour even if it can be present in them.

So I don't Prostitutes Kant it is only violability that makes this condition different. It is true other forms of objectification are present in other kinds of labour but the presence of this two violability and denial of subjectivity impacts on the presence of fungibility and instrumentality Prostitutes Kant change the character of these latter and it is the inter-relation of these four distinct types of objectification that is, I think, essential to prostitution.

Thanks for your reply, Gary. There is a reason why I stress 'violability' as a differentiating factor. As you wisely point out, all the other characteristics of objectification are intrinsic to some degree in most occupations for employees. A classic example I would like to point out is assembly-line manufacturing - A very high degree of objectification exists here where aspects such as fungibility, instrumentality, denial of subjectivity all are strongly present and lead to the objectification of the worker.

Service-oriented jobs where the degree of objectification leading to 'alienation' was perceived to be lesser are thus sought out for. Thus, all aspects of objectification especially denial of subjectivity are found in assembly-manufacturing jobs especially non-unionised ones.

Thus, I arrived at the conclusion that the clinching differentiator was that of 'violability'. There are perhaps Prostitutes Kant other formal occupations where a worker who is employed allows their employer to even lay a finger on their person and thus this profession becomes unique - in the Prostitutes Kant world. It is true that the prostitute enters into a voluntary contract with the terms of contract set out. This is troublesome in the case of sex-workers because their agreements are often informal - and thus have no Prostitutes Kant recognition.

Perhaps, the question really is that if a worker entered a contract allowing themselves to be abused by their employer - will it be socially acceptable? Prostitution, unfortunately will remain a deeply controversial topic because perhaps at the core of it - is the nature of man Prostitutes Kant. PS Prostitutes Kant Thanks for the Dworkin suggestion. Post a Comment. Friday, 26 August The Wrongness of Prostitution. Recently I had a protracted dispute with two philosophers on Prostitutes Kant over the moral status of prostitution.

The conversation settled on this topic after an initial altercation concerning reality television but there's Prostitutes Kant doubt that the subject of prostitution is of much greater interest than reality television.

Essentially my inter-locutors presented two alternative views of prostitution to the conception that it is morally wrong. On the one hand, the argument was Prostitutes Kant that dislike of prostitution is an aesthetic rather than a moral stance and, on the other, the argument was made that it is essentially not different to any Prostitutes Kant trade.

The Myth of the Happy Hooker: Kantian Moral Reflections on a Phenomenology of Prostitution

The second of these arguments seems to me more worthy of consideration than the first, not least because it cuts to the core of the disagreement.

Prostitutes Kant first argument can only really be responded to by showing that the reasons for objecting to prostitution are primarily Prostitutes Kant rather than aesthetic ones. In Prostitutes Kant posting I want to list the reasons for considering prostitution morally objectionable at greater length than can be done in a set of tweets but should add that it is only as a moral question it is here being treated, not as a jurisprudential one though there are certainly important questions in the latter area.

But there is here, as elsewhere, no simple move from moral to jurisprudential considerations. Finally, I should make clear that in presenting arguments concerning the wrongness of prostitution it is the trade as a whole that is being so considered, not simply, or even primarily, the acts of the Prostitutes Kant alone.

Acts of clients are just as much Prostitutes Kant here as wrong, perhaps, though I'll leave this open for the sake of the argument here, it is the clients who are engaging in acts that are much more wrong than the prostitutes themselves.

Finally, gender matters are Prostitutes Kant in the discussion in the Prostitutes Kant that the feminine article is preferred for the reference to the prostitute, not to deny that there are male prostitutes but they are rather less numerous.

As I brought out in a Prostitutes Kant sometime ago Kant's arguments in the area of sexuality have a great deal in common with those of some contemporary feminists.

Sexuality, therefore, exposes mankind to the danger of equality with the beasts. But as man has this desire from nature, the question arises how far he can properly make use of it without injury to his manhood. How far Prostitutes Kant persons allow one of the opposite sex to satisfy his or her desire upon them? Can they sell themselves, or let themselves out on hire, or by some other contract allow use to be made Prostitutes Kant their sexual faculties?

Philosophers generally point out the harm done by this inclination and the ruin it brings the body or to the commonwealth, and they believe that, except for the harm it does, there would Prostitutes Kant nothing contemptible in such conduct in itself.

I intend to argue that an important Kantian moral principle suggests that sex work is not immoral, but rather, that prohibiting prostitution. Prostitution is such a controversial topic which could be in a conflict with Kant's moral theory, but that is still to be determined.

But Prostitutes Kant this were Prostitutes Kant, and if giving vent to this desire was not in itself abominable and did not involve immorality, then any one who could avoid being harmed by them could make whatever use he wanted of his sexual propensities. For the prohibitions of prudence are never unconditional; and Prostitutes Kant conduct would in itself be unobjectionable, and would only be harmful under certain conditions.

But in point of fact, there is in the conduct itself something which is contemptible and contrary to the dictates of morality. It follows, therefore, that there must be certain conditions under which alone the use of the sexual faculties would be in keeping with morality. There must be a basis for restraining our freedom in the use we make of our inclinations so that they conform to the principles of morality.

We shall endeavor to discover these conditions and this basis. Man Prostitutes Kant dispose over himself because he is not Prostitutes Kant thing; he is not his own property; to Prostitutes Kant that he is would be self-contradictory; for in so far as he is a person he is a Subject in whom the ownership of things can be vested, Prostitutes Kant if he were his own property, he would be a thing over which he could have ownership.

In this way the two persons become a unity of will.

But a person cannot be a property and so cannot be a thing which can be owned, for it is impossible to be a person and a thing, the proprietor and the property. Accordingly, a man Prostitutes Kant not at his own disposal. Prostitutes Kant is not entitled to sell a limb, not even one of his teeth.

Human beings are, therefore, not entitled to offer themselves, for profit, as things for the use of others in the Prostitutes Kant of their sexual propensities. In so doing they would run the risk of having their person used by all and sundry as an instrument for the satisfaction of inclination. This way of satisfying sexuality is prostitution, in which one satisfies the inclinations of others for gain. It is possible for either Prostitutes Kant.

The underlying moral principle is that man is not his own property and cannot do with his body Prostitutes Kant he will. The body is part of the self; in its togetherness with the self it constitutes the person; a man cannot make of his person a thing, and this is exactly Prostitutes Kant happens in prostitution.

This manner of satisfying sexual desire is, therefore, not permitted Prostitutes Kant the rules of morality. Prostitutes Kant what of the second method, Prostitutes Kant concubinage? Is this also inadmissible? In this case both persons satisfy their desire mutually and there is no idea of gain, but they serve each other only for the satisfaction of sexuality.

There appears to be nothing unsuitable in this arrangement, but there is nevertheless one Prostitutes Kant which rules it out. Concubinage consists in one Prostitutes Kant surrendering to another only for the satisfaction of their sexual desire whilst retaining freedom and rights in other personal respects affecting welfare and happiness.

But the person who so surrenders is used as a thing; the desire is still directed only towards sex and not towards the person as a human being. But it is obvious that to surrender part of Prostitutes Kant is to surrender the whole, because a human being is a unity.

It is not possible to have the disposal of a part only of a person without having at the same time a right of disposal over the whole person, for each part of a person is integrally bound up with the whole. But concubinage does not give me a Prostitutes Kant of disposal over the whole Prostitutes Kant but only over a part, namely the sexual organs. It presupposes a contract. This contract deals only with the enjoyment of a part of the person and not with the entire circumstances of the person.

Concubinage is certainly a contract, but it Prostitutes Kant one-sided; the rights of the two parties are not equal. But if in concubinage I enjoy a part of a person, I thereby enjoy the whole person yet by the terms of the arrangement I have not the rights over the whole person, but only over a part; I, therefore, make the person into a thing.

For that reason this method of satisfying sexual desire is also not Prostitutes Kant by the rules of morality. The sole condition on which we are free to make use of our sexual desire depends upon the right to dispose over the person as a whole—over the welfare and happiness and generally over all the circumstances of that person. But how am I to obtain these rights over the whole person? Only by giving that person the same rights over the whole of myself. This happens only in marriage. Matrimony is an agreement between two persons by which they grant each other equal reciprocal rights, each of them undertaking to surrender the whole of their person to the other with a complete right of disposal over it.

We can now apprehend by reason how a sexual union is possible without degrading Prostitutes Kant and breaking the moral laws. But if I yield myself completely to another and obtain the person of the other in return, I win myself back; I have given myself up as the property of another, but in turn I take that other as my property, and so win myself back again in winning the person whose property I have become.

In this way the two persons become a unity of will. Whatever good or ill, joy or sorrow befall either of them, the other will share in it.

Thus sexuality leads to a Prostitutes Kant of human beings, and in that union alone its exercise is possible. This condition of the use of sexuality, which is only fulfilled in marriage, is a moral condition. But let us pursue this aspect further and examine the case of a man who takes two wives.