Author Archives: Jeremy Stangroom

Men, Women and Consent

Posted by on January 11, 2013 5 comments

A little while ago I flagged up a new interactive philosophy experiment that deals with issues of consent. It’s now been completed by well over a thousand people, and it’s throwing up some interesting results. In particular, and I can’t say I find it surprising, there seems to be a quite a large difference between how men and women view consent.

(What’s to follow will make more sense if you complete the activity before reading.)

I’ve analysed the responses to two of the scenarios featured in the experiment. The first asks whether you would be doing something wrong if you went ahead with a sexual encounter in the knowledge that your partner would almost certainly come to regret it later. The second asks whether you would be doing something wrong if you went ahead with a sexual encounter in the knowledge that your partner (a) had been drinking (albeit they remain cogent); and (b) would not have consented to the sexual encounter if they hadn’t been drinking.

The data shows that 68% of women, compared to only 58% of men, think it would be wrong to go ahead with the sexual encounter in the Future Regret case. And that 79% of women, compared to only 70% of men, think it would be wrong to go ahead in the Alcohol case.

These results are easily statistically significant, although, as always, I need to point out that the sample is not representative, and that there might be confounding variables in play (e.g., it’s possible that there are systematic differences between the sorts of males and females who have completed this activity – e.g., age).

The Christmas Office Party

Posted by on December 25, 2012 81 comments

God knows why, but I’m still pondering issues of consent (though why what follows is relevant in this respect might not be immediately clear). Here’s another thought experiment.

It’s the evening of the Christmas office party. You know that you’re going to be drinking, and you know that this will inevitably impair your judgement, so you leave your car at home and travel to the venue by public transport. It is relevant here that part of your thinking in doing so is not wanting to risk the possibility that at the end of the evening in a moment of alcoholic induced madness you’ll attempt to drive yourself home.

The evening is a blast, and you drink a lot, which would not be a problem, except your partner shows up at the party, and hands you the keys to your car, saying they’d had to borrow it because their own car wouldn’t start, and that your car is in the parking lot outside. Your partner then rushes off to catch a bus to the airport for an overnight flight.

At this point, you’ve easily drunk enough so that your judgement is significantly impaired. It’s a cold night, you don’t fancy waiting around to catch a cab, plus your car is just outside the front door, so you decide to drive home.

Unfortunately, on your way home, a child steps in front of your car, you’re not able to stop in time (partly because your reactions are impaired by the alcohol you’ve consumed), and you run the child down.

These things are true:

a) You are not blasé about the dangers of drink driving. Your sober self would judge drink driving – regardless of its outcome – to be a significant wrong;

b) If it had been possible for your sober self to make a judgement on behalf of your drunk self then you would never have got into the car;

c) At the point at which you were given your keys, and told your car was just outside, you were already a long way past the point at which your judgement was significant impaired.

The question is – in this situation are you morally culpable for driving under the influence and (therefore) the accident?

Okay, my hunch is that people will say that “Yes, I am culpable”, but… I’m not sure that this judgement will make much sense without invoking some sort of “ideal-type” rational actor who given the same level of intoxication would not have made the decision to drive home.

Over to you. (If you’re not too busy doing Christmas-type things.)

Where Do You Set The Bar For Sexual Consent?

Posted by on December 16, 2012 13 comments

I’ve just completed a new interactive activity for my Philosophy Experiments web site. It deals with some of the issues of consent that I’ve been thinking and blogging about (e.g., here & here) over these last few months.

But You’ll Regret It In the Morning

The data is already showing something interesting – namely, that men and women tend to have a slightly different attitude towards some of the complications surrounding consent. Basically, it seems men are more likely than women to think a sexual encounter is morally permissible in the (arguably) borderline situations the activity focuses upon.

As usual, let me know if you spot any glaring errors, lacunae, etc.

Oh yes, I’ve also written a piece for the Huffington Post that covers similar issues.

Russell vs. Ryle–A Philosophical Spat

Posted by on November 20, 2012 11 comments

As is well-known, Bertrand Russell wasn’t too keen on the “ordinary language philosophy” that was popular among Oxford philosophers in the middle of the twentieth century. This meant that when the sociologist Ernest Gellner wrote a book, Words and Things (pub: 1959), that was highly critical of the approach, Russell was only too happy to write its Preface.

At this time, the editor of Mind was Gilbert Ryle, a leading exponent of the Oxford approach, and he refused to allow Words and Things to be reviewed in the journal on the grounds that it was abusive and could not therefore be regarded as a serious contribution to academic debate.

This annoyed Russell, who promptly penned a letter to The Times, which resulted in a philosophical spat that played out in the newspaper’s letters pages during November 1959.

I reproduce it below.

Read more »

Over A Cliff

Posted by on November 14, 2012 60 comments

I’ve been doing some thinking – not a lot, obviously, because one doesn’t want to overdo that sort of thing – about the nature of informed consent. I’m curious about what people think about the following scenario, which is designed to illuminate one aspect of the phenomenon.

You’re on a cliff, and in front of you is a narrow path, to the right of which there is a sheer drop down to the sea. You’re about to choose whether to traverse this path or instead turn back and head for home, when a syringe drops from the sky injecting you with a drug that has the following effect.

You remain aware of all the reasons why the narrow path spells danger. You are also aware that normally you would be very reluctant to traverse the path. However, as a result of the drug, these things no longer have any significant motivational force – they have lost the capacity to bind your behaviour. Put simply, you know that you would be taking a risk by not turning back, but you don’t care – it doesn’t feel as if it is a big deal (although, if asked, you could explain why it was a big deal and would report that previously you would have felt it to be a big deal – but you wouldn’t care about of these things either ).

The question is whether under these circumstances any choice you make is a fully informed choice? Or, to put this question a slightly different way, if I told you that you had to make the choice under these circumstances, would you feel that you were being deprived of something central to the decision-making process?

My tentative view is that would not be a fully informed choice, even though you still have access to all the relevant information.

As I say, I’d be very curious to know what other people think about this…

Not Suitable For Unusually Stupid Children

Posted by on November 12, 2012 2 comments

Another entry in my occasional bad-tempered Prefaces series. This is from Bertrand Russell’s Unpopular Essays.
Preface to Unpopular Essays

A word as to the title. In the Preface to my Human Knowledge, I said that I was writing not only for professional philosophers, and that “philosophy proper deals with matters of interest to the general educated public.” Reviewers took me to task, saying that they found parts of the book difficult, and implying that my words were such as to mislead purchasers. I do not wish to expose myself again to this charge; I will therefore confess that there are several sentences in the present volume which some unusually stupid children of ten might find a little puzzling. On this ground I do not claim that the essays are popular; and if not popular, then “unpopular”.

In the Volume 2 of his biography, Ray Monk provides some context for the “peevish” tone struck here. Russell had been disappointed by the reaction to Human Knowledge, which he had hoped would win the respect of academic philosophers as well as appeal to a large general audience. In fact, neither of these things occurred. The book was savaged by his colleagues – Norman Malcolm declared that “Anyone who feels grateful to Russell, as I do, for the splendid work he did in philosophy and logic during the first twenty years of this century, is likely to regard the present book with considerable regret” – and largely ignored by the general public.

Bertrand Russell, LIFE magazine profile, April 1 1940

Posted by on November 9, 2012 7 comments

Just flagging this up, because it’s cool.

Bertrand Russell Rides Out Collegiate Cyclone

It’s a LIFE magazine profile of Bertrand Russell that was published in April 1940, right in the middle of the College of the City of New York scandal. (This is where Russell was described in court as “lecherous, salacious, libidinous, lustful, venerous, erotomaniac, aphrodisiac, atheistic, irreverent, narrow-minded, bigoted and untruthful”.)

More Sex When Drunk

Posted by on November 7, 2012 42 comments

This is a quick follow up to my Sex When Drunk – A Moral Dilemma post.

I’ve just been reading a UK Law Commission report titled “Consent In Sex Offences” (pub: 2000), which I came across while researching the background to the 2003 Sexual Offences Act, Generally, the report is well worth a read, but what has particularly caught my attention is the following section:

There is a possible difficulty where consent is given but then overtaken by incapacity through drink or drugs. For example, at 8 pm P makes it clear that she is looking forward to having intercourse with D that night. By 11 pm she is too drunk to know what she is doing, but D has intercourse with her anyway. Can it be said that she does not (because she cannot) consent to the intercourse at the material time, namely the time of the intercourse? In our view it cannot. Consent is not a state of mind which must invariably exist at the time of the act consented to, but an expression of agreement to that act – the granting of permission for it.

In the ordinary course of events, consent to the doing of an act at some future time remains effective unless it is withdrawn. There is therefore no  conceptual problem with P giving consent well in advance of the act to which she consents, at a time when she has capacity to do so. It would be for the jury to consider in a particular case whether, in all the circumstances, as a matter of fact the consent had been withdrawn.

I’ve got to say I find that position a little… counterintuitive – in particular, the claim that “In the ordinary course of events, consent to the doing of an act at some future time remains effective unless it is withdrawn.”

Really? As a general rule, surely not. It’s got to be contextual. If I meet somebody at a bar, and I’m flirting with them, and they promise me a “good time” back at their apartment later on (where we both accurately understand this to mean a sexual encounter), and then we carry on drinking for a while before staggering back to their place, whereupon they promptly fall fast asleep in a heap on their couch, I cannot assume that their consent remains effective simply because it hasn’t been withdrawn.

Can I?

Lord Russell meet Lord Russell

Posted by on October 20, 2012 3 comments

More from the world of Bertrand Russell. Here’s an exchange of letters between Russell and his namesake, Lord Russell of Liverpool, which took place in February 1959.

Dear Lord Russell

I am forwarding the enclosed as Monsieur Edmond Paris, and he is not alone, has got us mixed up. The first paragraph of his letter refers to you. The others are for me and I shall be replying to them. Would you please return the letter when you have read it.

Yours truly,
Russell of Liverpool

Dear Lord Russell

Thank you for your letter and for the enclosure which I return herewith. I have been wondering whether there is any means of preventing the confusion between you and me, and I half-thought we might write a joint letter to The Times in the following terms: Sir, To prevent the continuation of confusions which frequently occur, we beg to state that neither of us is the other. Do you think this would be a good plan?

Yours sincerely,
Russell

Dear Lord Russell

Many thanks for your letter of the 18th.

I am not sure whether you are in earnest or joking about a joint letter to The Times but, in either event, I think it is a good idea. Even were it not effective it would provide a little light amusement, and if you would care to write such a letter I would gladly add my signature below yours.

[…]

Yours sincerely,
Russell of Liverpool

Dear Lord Russell of Liverpool

Thank you for you letter of February 20. I was both serious and joking in my suggestion of a joint letter. I enclose a draft which I have signed, but I am entirely willing to alter the wording, if you think it too frivolous. I think, however, the present wording is more likely to secure attention than a more solemn statement.

Yours sincerely,
Russell

Dear Lord Russell

I have forwarded our letter to The Times but I have asked them, of course, to put your name before mine.

I like the wording immensely.

Russell of Liverpool

And thanks to the magic of the internet, here’s the letter, which appeared in The Times on February 28 1959.

russell_russell

More On Loving Bertrand Russell

Posted by on October 17, 2012 4 comments

“I feel I must be honest & just say once…that I am utterly devoted to thee, & have been for over 50 years. My friends have always known that I loved thee more than anyone else in the world, & they now rejoice with me that I am now able to see thee again.”—Alys Pearsall Smith

I thought I’d add some further detail to the heartbreaking tale of Alys Pearsall Smith’s lifelong love for Bertrand Russell.

Alys Pearsall Smith

Alys Pearsall Smith

Russell fell out of love with Alys in 1901, and finally left her in 1911. In August 1926, Russell’s Aunt Agatha – his mother’s sister – wrote the following letter to Russell, now married to Dora, after he had complained about a picture of Alys his aunt had up on her mantelpiece.

You owe her everything since the separation. But for her, Dora would be Miss Black, and your children illegitimate – the slightest spark of gratitude in you would acknowledge what you owe to her since you left her, in so many ways that I cannot write of. Her conduct has been noble since the separation – I am very far from being the only one who thinks this…

It would have been more manly and chivalrous of you to write me not to withdraw friendship from the woman you brought into the family, the woman you once loved and had forsaken, though her love was unchanged… You now in these later times always speak of “pain to me”, “giving me pain”, etc. – Do you ever think of Alys’s suffering – from her love for you… Yet she always speaks beautifully of you, wishing only for your happiness. Do not imagine for a moment that I ever forget, and did not feel most acutely, your own unhappiness… but to those who truly loved you, it is heart-breaking that you have not grown nobler, stronger, more loving and tender through suffering, but in every way the reverse.

Russell’s biographer, Ray Monk, notes that while Alys remained helplessly in love with Russell, following his public activities closely, and keeping a scrapbook of cuttings about him, Russell for his part scarcely gave her a thought. As for Aunt Agatha, Dora dismissed her as a “malicious old lady”, Russell’s brother Frank labelled her an “acid old spinster” and Russell hardly noticed her at all.