"Rape Penalty"

Thanks for the debate thett3. ==What are we even debating about? == My opponent says he wanted a debate about whether the rape penalty is just, and I agree – this is the exact debate that I wanted as well. However, there are a few areas of confusion. Firstly, let's look to utilitarianism, which is the first area of confusion. My opponent keeps arguing that practical objections are not relevant. However, utilitarianism is a moral system that judges a policy's "justness" by whether it achieves the greatest good for the greatest number. Practical objections tie into ethics as far as utilitarianism is concerned. If the rape penalty encourages rape (because rapists enjoy being raped), then it does not achieve the greatest good for the greatest number. If the RP spreads STD's to everyone, it is not moral under utilitarianism. If there are not enough "volunteers" to do the raping and the State must force people to rape rapists, that would not achieve the greatest good for the greatest number. Secondly, let's look to the hypothetical. My opponent shouldn't just get to assume that the rape penalty is 100% effective – that's not fair, as far as utilitarianism is concerned. If he wanted such a debate, he should have made clear in his opening that this was a debate about logical validity, not about the morality of the rape penalty. Consequentialist moral systems like utilitarianism look at the morality of actions by their consequences, i. e. results. My opponent does not give me access to any of these arguments if he assumes perfect implementation of his policy, which means it's not really a debate about morality. [He also drops my arguments about the contrapositive, showing how ridiculous his interpretation is because I'd be affirming the resolution no matter what I argued. And he drops my argument that since the RP will NOT be 100% effective, we are debating about something that would never happen, which is useless. And he drops my example about cold fusion, showing how a normal person would interpret his resolution. If you want an easy way to vote on resolutional interpretation, vote on these dropped arguments since they are conceded. ] Thirdly, I realized this just now, let's look to what recidivism means. Recidivism means reoffending, not deterrence. So even if you buy that we can assume 100% prevention of recidivism, this wouldn't solve the problem of unreported rapes. In addition, this leads to a really important new argument: under utilitarianism, it would be better to lock rapists in jail for life – this also has a 100% recidivism prevention, but without any of the other problems of the RP (like STD's and finding volunteers). Lastly, if the RP provides additional incentive to rape (because then a hot woman "rapes" you repeatedly in prison for the rest of your life), then we may be expanding the total pool of rapists significantly (frustrated male adolescents, anyone? ), even if we reduce the pool of reoffenders to zero. Fourthly, what does an eye for an eye implementation mean? By definition, it means receiving the exact same punishment as the crime. Otherwise it would be a policy of "one eye for two eyes" if the criminal is punished in excess of his crime. So we are debating about the RP being the ONLY punishment the rapist receives since that is the resolution that my opponent crafted and that was my understanding when I accepted. ==On to my case== 1. Who does the raping? My opponent says volunteers. What if there are no volunteers? Do rapists go free, if we cannot find someone to punish them? What if a rapist hires an attractive hooker to volunteer to rape him? And by accepting random people off the street to volunteer, we are literally sanctioning rape in these circumstances, which leads to all my objections about the State not having the right to sanction crime, such as using rape as a legitimate tool of war. What would capital punishment be like if we accepted random volunteers off the street to bash prisoner's heads in? It sets the absolute wrong precedent – commit the crime without approval, you're a criminal; commit it with approval, you're scott free. 2. Not a punishment Even if you assume 100% recidivism prevention, if you have Playboy Bunnies raping the rapists, you will expand the total pool of first time offenders, which is immoral under utilitarianism because it makes society worse off. But my opponent still fails to explain how this prevents recidivism if rapists enjoy the punishment. He also fails to explain how preventing re-offending stops all these unreported rapes from occurring in the first place. 4. Constitutionality The RP is still unconstitutional since the Supreme Court defines things that are "outside the bounds of human decency" as violating the 8th Amendment. A vote Pro is a vote to throw away the Constitution and its protections against State power. We cannot sanction any punishment merely because it is effective in achieving deterrence because some punishments deny people their humanity. 5. Kritik This is a double bind – either my opponent allows female volunteers (including paid hookers), in which case this is not much of a punishment, or he did in fact assume male-on-male rape, which is an act of penetration/subjugation (which is why we view it as a "punishment" in the context of this debate round). Look to the Spike Peterson evidence; he says that trumping up male power in its symbolic form is responsible for most rape and violence in society. If we view rape as the ultimate act of punishment, then we make it more attractive to would be emasculated rapists. Vote Con to reject this vision of rape. Voting Issues 1. The RP is immoral because it will increase, not decrease, rape. Since it is a reward for some and allows circumvention for others (hiring hookers to volunteer), it will actually result in more, not less recidivism. The RP by itself (an eye for an eye), is not much of a deterrent. This makes it a bad policy under utilitarianism. 2. Even if we accept that it is 100% effective in stopping recidivism (which we shouldn't), but even if we do, firstly, the only reason it stops recidivism is all the former rapists keep raping, but this time the State sanctions it, as long as they only rape rapists in "service" to the State. Second, it would greatly expand the pool of rapists because they may want to be raped and it decreases deterrence drastically since they don't have to serve any jail time, only get raped once (an eye for an eye). If we greatly expand the pool of first-offenders, on balance, there may be MORE, not fewer rapes. This is also immoral under utilitarianism. 3. The kritik. Many kritiks in debate don't tie in very well, but this is one clear case where it does. Viewing rape as the ultimate act of subjugation/humiliation is PRECISELY the reason why so many people engage in rape. It really is problematic that my opponent thinks that being raped as punishment would be so humiliating that rapists would never re-offend. This gives rape the very power that makes it attractive in real life. Kritiks ask the judge to reject the rhetoric of the resolution, so whatever interpretation you choose shouldn't matter.