A friend of mine made a point the other day that I thought was insightful. If matter is all that exists, and there is no free will because everything is either determined or indeterminate, then there is no real distinction between rape and consensual sex since the distinction relies on the notion of free will. If the will is not free, then strictly speaking, no act of sex is chosen—even so called consensual sex is not chosen. Every act of sex is chosen for us by forces that lie outside of our control. We may think that we choose to engage in sexual activity or choose to refrain from doing so, but these are just illusions. Prior physical processes cause us to either have the desire to engage in sex or the desire not to engage in sex.
How, then, can the rapist be faulted if physics have determined for him to desire to engage in sex with someone for whom physics has not determined a corresponding desire? Is it the rapist’s fault that physics have determined for him to believe that it is ok to engage in sexual acts with others, even if they do not desire it? In a deterministic world, such beliefs and actions are determined by physics, not chosen, and thus the person who holds such beliefs and engages in such activities can hardly be blamed for doing what he has been made to do. He can no more be blamed for his beliefs and behaviors than my car can be blamed for running out of gas.
In a deterministic world we could still use the term “rape” to describe sexual acts in which at least one of the participants does not desire to be part of the experience, but we could not say that what makes a sexual act an act of rape is that at least one participant in the sexual act does not consent to it since consent is not possible in a deterministic world. The degree to which we have reason to believe that consent is real, rape is evil, and rapists are morally responsible for their behavior, we have reason to believe that materialism is false.
For any materialists out there, I would be interested in hearing your take on this. How do you make sense of the distinction between rape and consensual sex without the concept of consent? And if you think rape is properly defined by the issue of consent, how do you square this with your deterministic worldview that has no room for free will?
Thinking to Believe 
July 12, 2012 at 10:43 am
“No will, no consent, no blame, no morality, no responsibility” does not at all follow from determinism.
I’m a Christian, but libertarian notions of free will aren’t even coherent, let alone Biblical, let alone true.
Wikipedia’s article on compatibilism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism
“Horace,” a thought experiment that shows the nonfunctionality of incompatibilism:
http://extremestan.blogspot.com/2011/08/horace-simulation.html
“Free” actually means “free from X,” where X is often implied (to the detriment of communication). “Buy 1 get 1 free,” for instance, means “buy 1 get 1 free of charge.” So, when we say “free will,” what are we saying the will is free *from*?
Compatibilistic free will says that even though our wills are caused, we can still talk about what they aim for. “Free will” means “Will free from redirective oppression, coercion, or other devices by agents on similar layers of abstraction.”
“Will free of all prior influence” is the prima-facie-nonsensical and contrary-to-reality definition of the metaphysical libertarians.
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July 13, 2012 at 6:15 am
Stan is right. We have to determine the meaning of free will. As a Christian, I believe the natural man only has the ability to choose sin. This means he is responsible for that sin. It is the consequences of this sin which Jesus has rescued us from. So the lack of free will does not mean lack of responsibility.
This argument only works in a naturalistic worldview, but if the Christian uses this line of thought, he is giving ground to that worlview. It would be a better tactice to invite someone into our worlview: If rape is wrong, then it is possible to choose to go against nature, and if you can choose against nature, naturalism is not a complete worldview.
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July 13, 2012 at 9:34 am
“if you can choose against nature, naturalism is not a complete worldview.”
People choose *according* to who they are (otherwise it wouldn’t be *them* choosing). Some people rape. Most people don’t. Both are “natural” in the sense that they are not supernatural, which is the sense we mean when we talk about metaphysical naturalism.
This is why the word “natural” is terrible. There’s a sense vs. supernatural, a sense vs. artificial, and a sense vs. bizarre (and more), all of which are mixed up with one another constantly. It’s a really, really terrible word, made even moreso because philosophy is all about coherence and consistency of concept and communication.
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July 13, 2012 at 10:59 am
If I concede the ‘no free will’ point, I’m still left with the phenomena of experience; the most valuable commodity in all of the universe.
Rape is a vandalism of experience. It lowers well being. It creates an experiential victim.
If you don’t see the significance of that we disagree about what morality is.
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July 13, 2012 at 4:47 pm
Allallt,
If your experience doesn’t match your worldview, then so much the worse for your worldview. And that’s my point. We know by experience that what makes one instance of sexual intercourse “consentual sex” and another instance of sexual intercourse “rape” is that in the first instance a human gives their consent and in the second instance they don’t. And yet, if materialism is true, there is no such thing as consent, and thus “consent” cannot be what separates instances of rape from non-rape. Likewise, if naturalism is true, then it follows that a person is not morally responsible for raping others (indeed, given naturalism rape is not even inherently immoral). Since we know by experience that rape is wrong and that we are accountable moral agents, then the naturalistic worldview cannot be right since it contradicts our most basic intuitions and experience.
Jason
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October 16, 2013 at 6:31 am
Allallt experience is irrelevant in the world without free will , it is too predetermined so it could not have possibly been otherwise.Other than that you all participate in discussions as if you had free will but you don’t , all that you wrote was predetermined don’t ever forget that and your disbelief in God is also predetermined so it doesn’t matter what you say it’s not like you could have said anything else , or maybe you know very well that you do actually posses free will so if you do – than , and ONLY than will any discussion ever make sense.
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October 16, 2013 at 7:43 am
Here are some non-sequiturs:
“There is no libertarian free will, thus there’s no such thing as consent.”
“There is no libertarian free will, thus it doesn’t matter what you say.”
“There is no libertarian free will, thus nobody is morally responsible.”
These are all instances of Kochab’s Fallacy, where the dramatic and sweeping nature of a revelation erroneously sweeps too generously, assisted by wishful thinking that something unaffected be affected:
http://stanpatton.wikispaces.com/Kochab+the+Trader
Here’s a ~10 minute video that explains how responsibility isn’t as black and white as libertarian free will advocates would like to think, and how a nuanced and dynamic view of responsibility is 100% compatible with determinism:
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