[claudiawerner]

>I don't know. Stallman doesn't address it. Hence, if he's really trying to change minds, he's doing a bad job of it.

I agree, and after the media started to gather around his comments, he regretted that he did such a poor job of communicating.

>It's a very weak argument to say they are wrong, based on your views, when they can say that you are wrong based on their views.

Firstly, it is not as "absolute" as you make it sound. Nowhere does he actually use that word or imply that his moral judgements are handed down from heaven. He explicitly says "I think" - and as a moral claim, it only requires as much justification as our other moral claims, which all reduce to "ought", which cannot be gained from an "is". Your moral view is that all humans are of equal moral worth, your view is that murder is wrong, etc. - all of these reduce to matters of opinion which are difficult if not impossible to justify absolutely. Stallman, for one, does not appear to be a moral realist. If Stallman had proclaimed that he was actually a subscriber to the doctrine of moral error theory (perhaps even with good reason, say he read a paper on the doctrine which he found convincing), he wouldn't have to justify "That's morally wrong" any more than he'd have to justify "I don't like bananas".

>Correct. The point is, he doesn't offer any replacement viewpoint, other than "the current law is wrong." Therefore, it's very easy to interpret his statement as promoting sex with minors.

His statement is more than that, it claims (a) that the law is wrong (again from his point of view) that it is of consequence if the victim is 17 or 18, (b) that the law (perhaps globally) is wrong that whether this act in particular is permissible depends on the specific location of the act. Whatever misunderstanding comes about from these two points is only from reading more into what he said than what he actually expressed, a chain of inferences that build up until someone on HN can say that by the same logic he'd be OK with the rape of a five year old.

>Then would need to show how the existing laws are actually immoral.

It's immoral according to his system of morality. You don't have to listen to it, and he doesn't have to listen to yours. The law is a different matter.

>Now, what does he consider to be "abuse of minors"?

I did not put that part in quotes myself because he never uses that term, even so, I apologize for the misattribution on my part. He says,

"Since then, through personal conversations, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that. I am grateful for the conversations that enabled me to understand why."

That is to say, he thinks that "sex with a child" can harm them psychologically, and as such, "adults should not do that". Granted, this is not a comment on the law (there are many things we should not do which are not illegal), but they are comments on his moral system (by the use of "should" in this apparently non-instrumental sense).

[eesmith]

You wrote: "Firstly, it is not as "absolute" as you make it sound. Nowhere does he actually use that word"

Stallman wrote: "I’ve concluded from various examples of accusation inflation that it is absolutely wrong to use the term “sexual assault” in an accusation.

How is "absolutely wrong" not a use of "absolute"?

You'll note that I have the context correct too.

[claudiawerner]

Ah, I did think he used it somewhere but I must have missed it, you're right. But in this case he is not referring to a moral principle as much as a terminological point. "Absolutely wrong" here refers to rhetoric and writing, it's not clear to me that he thinks people who use the term "sexual assault" in an accusation are morally bankrupt.

[eesmith]

Nor did I claim it was in reference to a moral principle. I wrote specifically about his terminological point, which is clearly incorrect, saying:

> The thing is, the current law backs their interpretation that this is sexual assault, or at the very least would be some some jurisdictions.

> Hence, his personal view that it's absolutely unreasonable is bogus.

You misread Stallman, and misread me, which makes it hard to have any sort of discussion.

[claudiawerner]

I said:

>Why? He is making direct reference to the fact he thinks the law is problematic. He thinks it's morally absurd. It is very likely that you, too, have issues with the way certain laws are defined.

The context of this is that he thinks there is a moral problem with someone being able to provide sex without it being classified as assault at 18 but not at 17. We are talking about a moral principle here. You responded to this point (by quoting me asking "Why?") with:

>Hence, his personal view that it's absolutely unreasonable is bogus.

I believe we're still talking about a moral principle when you introduce the word "absolutely". My response to that, in turn, was:

>Firstly, it is not as "absolute" as you make it sound. Nowhere does he actually use that word or imply that his moral judgements are handed down from heaven. He explicitly says "I think" - and as a moral claim, it only requires as much justification as our other moral claims, which all reduce to "ought", which cannot be gained from an "is".

The whole time the usage of the word "absolute" in the way I referred to it in my last quote has been in reference to what Stallman thinks of morality, and my claim is that he does not consider it "absolutely immoral" or anything else "absolute". This is because he prefaces it with "I think", but also because he just doesn't use that word when speaking about morality. The fact he uses the word in another context, namely the notion of accusation inflation, has nothing to do with his metaethics.

[eesmith]

I don't care about his personal morality, or metaethics, and I'm certainly not talking about his moral position.

His email had:

> The term “sexual assault” is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X.

The term "sexual assault" is no more vague and slippery than "copyright infringement." Sure, there are edge cases, but "sexual assault" in general means "any nonconsensual sexual act proscribed by Federal, tribal, or State law, including when the victim lacks capacity to consent". https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/34/12291#a_27 (34 U.S. Code § 12291 (29)).

Is that so hard to understand?

This isn't a moral question, this is a legal definition.

Why it is not reasonable, under the generally understood US legal definition, to use the phrase "sexual assault" with sex between a 73-year old man and a woman under the age of consent?

Why is it not reasonable, under the generally understood US legal definition, to use the phrase "sexual assault" when describing sex with a sex slave who is not meaningfully able to give consent?

He may not consider the age-of-consent laws to be morally justifiable. That's all well and good. I'm not arguing that point, which is the one you bring up.

But it doesn't change the fact that "sexual assault" is the correct legal term here, so his personal beliefs don't matter.

He then goes on to write:

> The word “assaulting” presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing.

There are two points here. Stallman could have criticized the original email for using the term 'assaulting' (which can mean physical assault), instead of the correct legal term "sexual assault". He did not.

Instead, he coupled the physical aspect of "assaulting" with "sexual assault" and used that to construct his own definition of what sexual assault means - one which is different from the generally understood US legal definition.

That he may not like the term - great. He doesn't like "intellectual property" because he doesn't think copyright, patents, and trademark should be thought of the same as physical "property". I can understand that argument. But here he's not arguing like he even knows what the current widely-accepted legal term means, before wanting to tear it down.

I've even (elsewhere in these comments) pointed to the US military law, at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/920 as an example of a place in US law which distinguishes between 'rape' and 'sexual assault (not all jurisdictions do that). Go to it and see that it's rape which has the association with force or violence:

  (a)Rape.—Any person subject to this chapter who commits a sexual act 
     upon another person by—
    (1) using unlawful force against that other person;
    (2) using force causing or likely to cause death or grievous bodily
      harm to any person;
    (3) threatening or placing that other person in fear that any person
      will be subjected to death, grievous bodily harm, or kidnapping,
      and *sexual assault* which does not.
     ..

while

  (b)Sexual Assault.—Any person subject to this chapter who— 
    ...
    (2) commits a sexual act upon another person—
      (A) without the consent of the other person; or

He sounds like a kook making up his own naive definitions and forcing them on everyone else, when the question of what "sexual assault" means was worked out long ago, and at least for this case is not vague and slippery. Just because he's ignorant of the law doesn't mean that he's worth listening to.

He knows a bunch of lawyers - why didn't he do his homework first, and talk with them?

You point to his moral views on rape, which indeed is prefaced with "I think". But none of my argument has anything to do with his views on rape.

Instead, I'm criticizing:

> I’ve concluded from various examples of accusation inflation that it is absolutely wrong to use the term “sexual assault” in an accusation.

Quoting the Big Libowski - 'That's just like, your opinion, man'.

It's such a low grade opinion, farcically wrong given the people who are literally accused, in the legal system, of sexual assault, that it reveals something deeply wrong with Stallman's understanding of the entire topic. Here's one lawsuit accusing sexual assault - https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.557135... .

If it really wants to tear down and replace the legal framework concerning sexual assault, he shot himself in both feet with his effort.