Sex with animals is ethically permissible

I took VIC as a prerequisite for morally permissible (hereafter: permissible) sex with non-persons because VIC is the standard minimal criterion for permissible sex with persons and simply laid out an argument (the first one) which shows that if one rejects this as a necessary condition for permissible sex then one is left with the absurd conclusion that pedophilia* is permissible. However, I did offer a second argument for the conclusion that MAPC* is not a sufficient condition for permissible sex with animals, because it allows for pedophilia*. I think that MAPC* is a more plausible prerequisite for permissible sex with animals than VIC. It obviously requires much less of animals and is actually something that they can offer. So, for the moment, think of VIC as a first pass at a criterion for permissible bestiality. I think that MAPC* should be a necessary condition, if not also a sufficient condition, for permissible bestiality. I think that sex with an animal requires some form of consent (or consent*) because animals have interests, i.e. things can positively and negatively affect their wellbeing. The fact that these animals have interests is a function of their being conscious and sentient as well as having desires. Their interests can be directly affected by pleasure and pain or by having their desires fulfilled or thwarted. However, inanimate do not possess interests (or wellbeing for that matter) of any sort as they are not conscious. Thus, animals being used in ways that thwart their desires or cause them pain"for no go reason (e.g. in order to save 10 persons from death)"is impermissible. However, if we accept MAPC*, we must also accept the permissibility of bestiality*. At this point, I think this it is essential to draw attention to the fact that Jarhyn and I seem to have a different conception about what a moral argument concerns. This became clear to me at two points in Jarhyn's previous post: (1) when he discusses the fact that persons* may be hard to distinguish from persons and (2) when he discusses the fact he doesn't think all cases of pedophilia are impermissible, but because most are, it is pragmatic to consider them all impermissible. These are epistemic questions, which I was largely ignoring, because in my opinion, they apply more saliently in debates about law or public policy and not morality. I took it that when I said "pedophilia* is impermissible" I was talking about hypothetical scenarios in which we knew that an act of pedophilia* had occurred. In addition, I'm not concerned about what is actually true of real world. Morality is not about what is the case, but rather, what ought to be the case. If it were the case that pedophilia* is permissible, then there is a possible world in which most instances of it are permissible. That is, if there are certain criteria by which an instance of pedophilia* could be judged permissible, then there is a possible world in which most persons who engage in pedophilia* do so permissibly. And, therefore, if one accepts that there are such criteria, then one is committed to acknowledging pedophilia* as permissible in all these cases. This difference in approach is also apparent in Jarhyn's claim that it is possible for persons* to be saved or made adults and so on. But, I've been arguing that if we accept that they will never become adults, then such and such is true. Of course, they may be fixed, but so may animals. If we're considering far-out technology to be a possibility, then I see no reason to limit it to only being able to fix humans. I take it that when we discuss certain scenarios, we take them to be possible and only consider the features which we've agreed on. Jarhyn's approach includes what a professor of mine calls "engineering solutions," where a person changes the precise features under consideration so as to avoid problems as opposed to facing the problem under consideration. I do not mean this as a criticism, but mainly as a way of elucidating the difference in approach. Game theory: as far as I can see, you have yet to defend game theory against consequentialism, deontological ethics, or even virtue theory, all of which have much greater support in the philosophical community than game theory. Again, your whole argument depends upon this theory and therefore you have to give us some positive reason to think that it is the right (or best) theory. The fact that you claim there is a goal for this social arrangement makes me think that it would be permissible to do horrible things to people if it helped to promote the goal or if the only way for this goal to be achieved was to murder a group of innocent children, this would be permissible. So what's the goal of this arrangement and what are its limits? It also seems that people only have an instrumental value in this arrangement. You write, "It is apparent that the intrinsic value of people to people is in their ability to increase the survivability of people." But this seems to me to be instrumental value, not intrinsic value. People are valuable not for their own sake (i.e. intrinsically), but for the sake of their ability to increase survivability (instrumentally). To be intrinsically valuable, people would have to have some feature that was valuable in and of itself and not in virtue of its usefulness for others. You write, "It is readily apparent that any person who has joined the collective is bound to the clear responsibility to defend other people such as themselves from natural evil. As they are the ethical equals of the agent in question, it is the value of the agent to themselves which means that he other must also have value." Why is it readily apparent? Are these people consenting to be part of this collective? Is this some kind of social contract? This account does not sound like it allows for special obligations to friends and family. For example, if I had to choose between saving my mother or a complete stranger from drowning, I would not be justified in saving my mother. Or, even if I had to choose between 5 close family members (father, mother, wife, and two siblings) and 10 complete strangers, would I have to save the 10? How would your theory handle these kinds of cases?