Yea apparently it was so important to the government of Britain to dictate which consenting adults can fuck each other that they would force hormones and essentially permanent probation on a literal world-changing scientist and undeniable war hero over it
I will never recognize a government's right to tell adults what they can do with their own bodies and other consenting adults, and it's insane that there are zero governments in the entire world that can uphold the basic principle of full bodily autonomy. Death to tyrants
Seems reading comprehension isn't your strong suit. By definition, rape of any kind fails the "consenting adults" criterion pretty trivially. I draw the line exactly where I said I do, and the whole "the worst crimes I can think of justify the whole project of authoritarianism because it's simply a matter of degrees" line of reasoning is as puerile as it is unoriginal
Maybe I phrased it badly but I don't think it's insane that there are no governments that do that because there are obvious problems if they did. I guess you could go for full autonomy as long as the other people involved are not pissed off.
Ideally, governments just enforce the collective will of the public. What can override that? For example, you cite this “principle of full bodily autonomy.” Is that a thing that exists? What’s your proof for it. It sounds like some religious concept, except for libertarians.
Proof? So you're telling me you don't understand what a "principle" is basically. I define autonomy exactly how I said it. Adults should be able to do with their own bodies as they see fit, including consenting to any and every act done with another consenting adult. I say adults here because I do believe carving out some small exceptions for people who aren't fully able to take care of themselves is necessary, but I also think minors should have way more rights than most governments give them, just not all of those we afford adults
The entire concept of "human rights" is premised on the idea that there are some principles that should override "the will of the people", which without any kind of protections of rights amounts to simple mob rule. I don't think you should get to lynch someone because the whole village doesn't like them, and I don't think the government should get to tell you what to do in the bedroom or what drugs you can take, regardless of what you can get a howling mob to think. I swear they don't teach people basic ethics these days. Or maybe it's just tech people? No wonder this industry's a garbage fire right now
But who cares about your principles? Why should your non-falsifiable, non-scientific, non-empirical assertions about the nature of reality matter more than those of the mob?
You're just articulating a quasi-religious belief, and appointing ourself as the clergy of this quasi-religion, without admitting that's what you're doing.
Cool analogy didja learn it in middle school english?
Seems everyone and their grandma wants to hold the torch of "rationality" and declare anyone who has an actual belief about something "dogmatic." It's intellectually facile and morally bankrupt
But no, fool, the principle of autonomy, or in this context that "the state shouldn't make decisions about what individuals can do to and using their own bodies" is not an arbitrary moral position, it's a meta-norm that has deep mechanism design implications in a functioning cosmopolitan society, ones that the balance of evidence suggest make that society work better for everyone except for the very lucky tiny percent of authoritarian busybodies that win the inevitable holy wars that come of structuring society around the premise that a state should be able to micromanage your individual life. I say that we have not achieved a state that truly doesn't meddle in this way (and one that are closest have in some senses backslid in the last century or so), but every move in that direction has produced both stability and prosperity
The very mindset you're espousing, that no one person's morals should determine the law, is a derived principle of enlightenment liberality. It's exactly why populism can't create a stable functioning human society
Liberality and consensual autonomy isn't a charter for total nihilist moral relativism and it doesn't call for every decision to be made by pure mob rule, it calls for government to act as a superstructure to allow democracy without lynchings and pogroms against political dissenters and laws against sex you don't like. It's a technology, not a religion
Moral nihilism doesn't imply that you're wise, it implies that you're spineless
> every move in that direction has produced both stability and prosperity
Theatrics aside, it seems like you’re saying that the basis of your “principle” is empirical effectiveness. That is of course a reasonable secular basis for lawmaking. But that confronts two problems:
1) That still doesn’t give you a justification for overriding the democratic will. Empirical effectiveness is evidence that you might submit to the public about what policies would be beneficial. That doesn’t transform it into some “meta-norm” that by its own force overrides democratic law.
We have tremendous evidence that market economies are better than planned economies. But only kooky right-wingers think that makes capitalism a “meta-norm” that must override the popular will!
2) Your historical analysis falls short. China’s rise shows you can become rich and prosperous without embracing bodily autonomy as a principle. Even moral regulation of individuals in the west was quite stringent during the period when the west was getting rich—moreso than societies that were less regimented but didn’t get rich. Victorian England, for example, was a high water mark.
Moreover, the societies that have gone the furthest in embracing notions of bodily autonomy are uniformly on the path to extinction. Western Europe is slowly being replaced by Muslims from cultures that reject such notions.
Franklin was religious and believed man was created by God and had an “immortal soul,” and that God created morality as well. https://www.americanheritage.com/benjamin-franklin-his-relig... (“I believe in one God, Creator of the Universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable Service we render to him is doing good to his other Children. That the soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with Justice in another Life respecting its Conduct in this.”). It follows from that thinking that there are limits on what the government can do to a God-created individual. God’s law trumps man’s law.
But what’s the argument that doesn’t resort to the supernatural? There’s a logical, utilitarian basis for saying that governments are created by societies to effectuate the popular will. There’s no God-favored king or clergy, and biology doesn’t anoint some humans to rule over others, as with say bees, so the popular will should be carried out. Insofar as the people have committed to things like constitutions and laws, of course, that can provide a principled basis for limiting what the government can do to individuals.
But OP was talking about some “principle of full bodily autonomy” that apparently transcends any specific constitution or law. Where does that come from? If the people don’t believe in any notion of “bodily autonomy”—or impose particular limits on that concept—what higher law can possibly override that?
The more relevant portion is this: “As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts as to his Divinity; tho’ it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble.”
You invoked Franklin’s statements about “populism.” But Franklin thought that humans were made by God and that God-created law was a real thing that existed. Under that world view, it makes sense that a democratic society couldn’t decide to say legalize the murder of rich people, because God’s law was higher than man’s law. But presumably we are not having a theological discussion here. If we don’t accept the notion of divine law, how can there be limits on what democratic governments can do with the consent of the people? The people’s law should be the highest law, right?
The age of consent for heterosexual sex was 16 at the time. As gay sex was illegal, there was no corresponding age of consent for it, but it’s misleading to suggest that 19 was not considered a sufficient age for sexual consent in general.
I will never recognize a government's right to tell adults what they can do with their own bodies and other consenting adults, and it's insane that there are zero governments in the entire world that can uphold the basic principle of full bodily autonomy. Death to tyrants