Bestiality is immoral

Let's jump right in. " Your idea of a "compelling reason" is not necessarily anyone else"s, if you want it in law it should be an objectively compelling reason." We're debating morality, not law. I think there are different standards. And I don't mind clarifying what I mean by a compelling reason either. Typically it is wrong to violate another person, to impose your will upon them without their consent. Some situations may warrant it, however. Say a person is standing in the middle of the road and is about to be hit by a car. You shout at them to move, but they just have to stand there to keep looking at their phone or a billboard or something. You then push them out of the path of the car, against their will, saving their life. I would call that a compelling reason - when you act in good faith to prevent immanent harm to another person in spite of their apparent lack of consent. I didn't go into details about this because I don't believe sexual activity ever falls into this category. At the same time I think it is important to take note of broad exceptions to rules, lest we needlessly limit ourselves. " If it is your position that there is in fact nothing that they want then there is no reason to respect the non-existent will which you are projecting onto them. I may as well worry about what my car would want if it had a will." We'll address some more details about the will below. For now, though, I would point out that your car is not capable of suffering, whereas animals and children are. I would posit that any being capable of experiencing pleasure and pain can be presumed to desire pleasure and want to avoid pain, even if this may not be the case in some circumstances. So the distinction between inanimate objects such as trees and cares on the one hand, and beings capable of cognition and sensation on the other, is empirically justifiable. "Instinct and will are not opposites." I didn't say they were opposites. They are different, though. "They can foresee some of them [implications] as can small children." Immediate effects, yes. That isn't the same as an implication, though. A child cannot understand that something it does may be seen, by a pedophile, as an invitation to a sexual encounter. Nor can it understand that a sexual encounter may cause lasting pain in various ways. The same can be said of animals. "So too with adults we think we see the implications of our actions but we are often mistaken." Of course. But we have the ability to reason, which, among other things, is an ability to recognize and manage risks. Our best efforts may come to naught, and we may even encounter risks and difficulties that we could not anticipate. The use of reason also enables us to deal with unforeseen problems. To impose something inherently risky upon a being without the cognitive capacity to appreciate or prepare for potential problems, solely for the purpose of physical pleasure or even some kind of emotional bond (which we cannot ever be sure is shared by the cognitively limited being), is to act contrary to their best interests, and is not morally justifiable. There is no compelling reason to do it. " Saying the level which is common to your average adult human is the only morally relevant level of knowledge is a line in the sand that defies nature when applied to anything but reasonably well educated adult humans in modern society." Ah, but there's the rub, isn't it? Reasonably well-educated adult in humans in modern society are precisely those who are insisting that they ought to be able to copulate with animals. Case in point, yourself. I would argue that what we think of as a reasonable education or even what we in 21st century America think of as "adulthood" isn't required, though, only higher cognitive abilities and a minimal degree of socialization. With higher cognition comes greater culpability and responsibility for one's actions - especially when they propose to interact with cognitively limited beings and engage in risky behavior with them. This next point is important, so I want to revisit what I wrote: "I don't wish to challenge Con's D.6 itself, but to raise the point that the "something" twice referred to in the definition encompasses far more than the immediate physical act of sex." And Con's response: "It can but does not need to." My reply is that it does need to. Sexual activity comes with certain inherent risks, and it changes those who engage in it for better or worse. So there can be no meaningful discussion of sex without the consequences of sex, just as there can be no meaningful discussion of war without the consequences of war. You can discuss it, but the discussion will be formal and hollow, detached from all reality and experience, and consequently of little use. " A dog doesn"t know about disease. If they get a disease from sex with a human I wouldn"t claim they consented to getting the disease." As well he shouldn't! "However that does not mean the dog failed to consent to the sex, the immediate physical act." No, it does not "mean" that, I agree. What actually happens as a result of sex is not the issue, since any number of things can happen. Since I haven't argued this point, I'm going to move on. "Zoophiles do not propose to offload the responsibility of knowing and avoiding consequences animals cannot foresee onto animals." What zoophiles intended and what can actually happen are different. If an animal is damaged as a result of a sexual encounter, there is little if anything the zoophile can do to reverse it. Pedophiles can apologize to their victims but they can't undo the damage done. Some consequences are permanent and irreversible, and that is why the risk factor is high. This is among the reasons that societies and religions urge sexual restraint. "The only thing that they are understood as consenting to is what they can consent to. " Of course. The point is that they can't consent to everything inherent in the activity you would like to engage in with them, and given the risk factors involved, this is quite necessary to meet our shared understanding of what is moral. " If you say they must see all risks you see, then even feeding them would be immoral since they have no idea that you have assessed the possibility that the food is poisoned and found it insignificant." The risk factors involved in eating are insignificant next to the certainty of death that not eating would entail. The risk factors involved in sexual activity are significant next to the consequences of abstinence, which are nil. Another empirically justifiable distinction, in my view. "What you need to realize is that in both examples the dog consents to eating chocolate. Lack of consent is not what makes the second a moral problem." Well, I disagree. The first dog is able to reflect, consider, and say "I don't care, give it anyway." Don't care about what? The possibility of sickness and/or death? Fine. That is consent. If you realize that the second dog can't foresee the bad consequences of eating chocolate, you are realizing that the dog cannot meaningfully consent to eating chocolate. I can concede that not all risks place a moral limitation on the cognitively advanced party. It is right to point out that even nourishing food is risky. But acknowledging that virtually anything can happen at any time isn't a substantive argument. The riskier the behavior, or the more responsibilities it entails, the more important consent becomes for participation in it. " Pointing out that animals can"t consent to things they don"t understand really has no moral implications." Of course it does, when those "things" can cause great harm to them and only occur at the whim of more advanced and powerful beings. Obviously the "thing" we are talking about matters. " The vast majority of the potential psychological harm to children comes from the fact that as their minds grow they realize how much worse their decision making skills were when younger. " I'm afraid I can't agree to this statement. The "vast majority"? How do you know this? Changes in the behavior of abused children are often immediate and obvious. They become withdrawn, agitated, and disturbed very early on. "When abused yes indeed they do (and your link leads to something on dog fighting). " There's not much out there on the specific effects of bestiality on animals. But if their cognitive abilities are on par with those of small children human, it is not unreasonable to assume that the effects of sexual abuse are the same. "Walking a dog can turn into abuse if you are pulling the leash faster than they can run. Feeding them can turn into abuse if you knowingly put poisons in the food." I would say needlessly putting your pets at risk by having sex with them is abuse. "What I do insist on is that any claim of emotional or physical harm be grounded in objective observations and logic." Which I don't think you provided in your account of the effects of abuse on children in the least. "The position on sexual abuse should be based on the same principles as the rest of the animal abuse laws. The state must demonstrate neglect or pain or else they don"t have a case and it doesn"t matter if you"re in Narnia (where animals can talk) or not." This is quite convenient for abusers everywhere, isn't it, since animals can't talk? There are other indicators of abuse, however, and I am not opposed to using them as criteria for criminality. But here we are talking about morality. Remember? ;) "I know very little about such inherent potential." Read the link on child abuse I posted. "Trying to fit them into the 'child' niche lends the idea that if they have sex it"s only because somebody came along and tricked them into it. That is incorrect." I think the burden of proof is now on YOU to prove that. I'm out of room, so I will leave it there.