General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The unspoken issue at the center of prostitution is causation [View all]The Magistrate
(95,243 posts)The only element of this which engages my interest is the question of whether when a person says they are acting voluntarily, they ought to be believed, and if not, why not. You have not engaged that question, indeed, you have not even come close to doing so. The standard for saying people are actually being compelled, whatever they may say, set up in the original comments, is so broad as to effectively rule out the very idea of voluntary choice, were it to be applied broadly. The person who proposed it has suggested that it applies only in a specific field, but has not been able to provide any grounds on which this restriction is to rest.
How you manage to get from my querying whether people who say they act voluntarily should be believed, and if not, why not, to proclaiming me a Randite, a person who claims the highest moral good is self-aggrandizement, and that all persons should be regarded as mere implements for one's own benefit, whatever their own claims to self-hood or need may be, is one of those small mysteries, which along with the Trinity, and how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie-Pop, I suspect will go forever without adequate explication....