Atheist Richard Dawkins makes shocking claim about pedophilia
8:55 AM 09/11/2013


Sexual assault victims’ organizations are slamming evolutionary biologist and leading atheist Richard Dawkins for comments he made about the inoffensiveness of “mild pedophilia.”

Dawkins made the remarks in a recent interview with The Times magazine. He said that during his time at a boarding school as a boy in the 1950s, a teacher “pulled me on his knee and put his hand inside my shorts.” Dawkins described the incident as “mild pedophilia” that left him no worse off. Neither Dawkins nor the other boys abused by this teacher suffered permanent physical or mental damage, he said.

“I don’t think he did any of us lasting harm,” said Dawkins.

Dawkins also said that it was improper to judge the acts committed by this teacher by today’s higher moral standards.

“I am very conscious that you can’t condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours,” he said. “Just as we don’t look back at the 18th and 19th centuries and condemn people for racism in the same way as we would condemn a modern person for racism, I look back a few decades to my childhood and see things like caning, like mild pedophilia, and can’t find it in me to condemn it by the same standards as I or anyone would today.”

His perspective on sexual assault drew strong criticism from numerous victims’ rights organizations, including Peter Watt, director of child protection at the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

“Mr. Dawkins seems to think that because a crime was committed a long time ago we should judge it in a different way,” said Watt, according to The Washington Post. “But we know that the victims of sexual abuse suffer the same effects whether it was 50 years ago or yesterday.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/11/at...#ixzz2egr3WQJC

Whats your point? That hes morally corrupt because hes an atheist?

Kinda bad timing for you, festeringZit, given what's currently happening in the Islam thread w/r/t judging paedophilia by the standards of the time.

Interesting that you would make that point because Dawkin's 'standard of the time' is only 50 years ago and in the other conversation it's something that happened 1500 years ago, so presumably there's a statue of limitations type of deal when it comes to how historical or past events are judged in terms of how they influence or justify contemporary events. Since the CoE only stopped marrying girls aged 12 in the 1920's and they're not judged negatively for that, it must be more than 50 years, and less than 80 or 90? Do the victims still have to be alive?

None of which has anything to do with Dawkins calling it 'mild pedophilia' though, I think that's kinda a misstep for him. And, there are two issues IMO, that of the long term effect on the child, and the fact that an adult took advantage of a child, something that I don't think can be glossed over and shrugged off so easily. I also think he's being somewhat inconsistent given his opinions on how religions have acted historically. He's certainly not giving them a pass because of the 'standards of the time'.

I appreciate the original article is behind a paywall, so you can't know some of this but...

I don't see how this is a misstep. The entire article is an interview based on his memoirs in which he recounts a story of being touched up by a teacher. What he says is that he considers this "mild" compared to other instances of sexual assault on children, and that he doesn't feel it had a lasting effect on him. I think his point that sexual assault of differing severity should be punished with differing severity is pretty easy to justify (for example, there is a good reason to have more severe sentences for murder than armed robbery because otherwise criminals are going to be less inclined to leave witnesses alive).

I think this is making too much of his comments. For example, I might say that I don't consider it worth pressing charges against kids who egg houses. But that doesn't mean that I think other people shouldn't have the right to do so if they wish. It's more like "it's happened to me, I wasn't really bothered about it, I don't think it's worth wasting police time on". Again, his comments here are in the context of recounting an incident that happened to him and how he feels about it.

Here's a quote from the article:

Now, that still isn't a free pass. After all, some of the incidents with the church are not the sort of inappropriate touching he's talking about in the interview but actual rape. He's also not saying that if an action was more acceptable at a certain time we should just give it a free pass, but that we should take that fact into consideration

I don't know how to respond to this, largely because I'm not really a moral relativist, so it all seems a bit moot.

Why not?

Sure, we talk about Dawkins in this forum a lot, but what does this topic have to do with R, G, or T?

I was wondering this too. If morals aren't relative, then they're absolute right? I'm not sure at this point how atheists can claim to have absolute morals.

There is a tenuous link in that Dawkins has claimed in the past that the urging of religion on young, vulnerable children is actually worse than physical child abuse.

Why not?

I don't see that being discussed here, and it's clearly ridiculous anyway.

They can, just not derived from a god. Probably most don't (they might have their own morals but wouldn't say their morals are objective facts of the universe), but I gotta think some do. A part of me even does.

I don't think those are the only two options. They can also just be non-existent, I think there's a difference between moral relativism and "there's no such thing as morals".

I was a victim of "mild pedophilia" as a kid and don't think I'm worse off for it either. That says nothing about my zero stance policy towards it today. Things really were different back then (I'm 52 now). You didn't run to your parents or authorities when you faced problems as a kid unless it was extremely serious. I'm not saying it was right and that things aren't better now. But it makes sense to me that things like bullying, mild pedophilia, and child abuse were more commonplace back then. At least that they weren't reported as often. In fact, this is the first time I've ever admitted to anyone that I was a victim. 42 years after the fact!

I thought a deity was required for there to be a standard by which we can objectively judge what is absolute and what isn't, otherwise isn't it just someone's subjective opinion?

I should probably wait until I've read a book I recently ordered about Ethics and Morality before getting into this though.

Yeah I thought I had some absolute moral standards too but now I'm not so sure and think I might be a moral relativist. The conversation about what it is and isn't ok to teach to children as indisputable truths has caused me to examine more closely, in attempt to define, what constitutes an indisputable truth. I would say that absolute morality falls into that spectrum.

I'm pretty sure I was too. Although I don't really remember it, my mother told me that my piano teacher used to sit me on his lap (I was 6) and she was quite suspicious of his motives. I'm definitely not the worse of for it, I don't even remember it.

However, this doesn't excuse the adult in question for doing it and as nice as I remember him to be, if he was guilty of even mild touching up I'd have no reservations at all about seeing him punished for it. It's a betrayal of the child's trust and a gross failure of the responsibility adults have to protect children in their care, not take advantage of them.

Hopefully things will be clearer after reading the Rachels book, but Wikipedia has a pretty good summary:

So, without making a long post explaining my exact position it's probably sufficient to say that I'm broadly sympathetic to consequentialism and as per the Wikipedia entry, consequentialism is neither a moral absolutist nor a moral relativist position.

I completely agree. My only point (and I think this was also Dawkins' point), was that it was a different era and it probably happened more frequently and without the fanfare or significant long term effects than is attributed to it today. This doesn't make it right or mean that it should be tolerated in any way.

Interesting. Are you saying that it didnt have long term effects then, but does now?

A crime need not have a bad effect to be a crime. In DUCY I mention some examples. Being watched by a peeping Tom, giving a patient who will respond to a placebo that placebo and charging him like it was real. Selling a fraudulent autographed baseball to a collector who will never resell it. The victim is only hurt if he is told about it but its still a crime if he is not.

Also isn't it true that people who are victims of abuse have psychological problems around the issue. For example, I believe that abused children are more likely to be abusers in adulthood.

If that is true, should we simply accept the assessment of an abused person that the abuse does not cause harm? Or is his/her judgment possibly impaired?

zumby, consequentialism is relativistic. If you can't see that, then you are unequivocally, "absolutely" ill-equipped to make the utilitarian calculations upon which consequentialism depends.

consequentialism is situationally relative but I think when most people are talking of moral relativism they are talking of cultural relativism and in this context I don't think it is.

Consequentialism is situationally relative, yes, as the means for achieving the end of well-being must be flexible enough to accommodate any number of potentially repulsive methods. However it should also be considered "absolutely" relative, if we're honest with ourselves and we concede that any given consequence (such as, say, perceived maximized aggregate human well-being for this next minute, or this next hour, or this next day, or this next week, etc) is philosophically arbitrary.

Not to mention that if we were both members of the voluntary human extinction movement (and I'm not saying I'm not a member, for what it's worth), then my idea of maximizing momentary well-being is a bit different than yours as a non-member of said "admirable" organization.

It is is true that people who are victims of abuse might have psychological problems as a result of it, but plenty of people will do just fine.

That ofcourse is no reason to accept abuse. Plenty of people do just fine after violent robberies as well, but generally speaking we tend to flip the coin when we pass laws and ethical judgment and ask "how often does this action result in bad and what happens when it does".

As for being able to assess one's psychological wellbeing... this is something most people are well equipped to do. That doesn't mean they are always right, or that they always tell the truth... but how you feel is ultimately something only you yourself can truly know.

As for Dawkin's statements, I think he is extremely arrogant when he speaks on behalf of others... and not only that but his speech is easily construed as a normative statement... "you shouldn't have taken any harm from this"... a type of argument that plagues many debates on social and physical abuse alike. It is an extremely stupid thing to say. We are all slightly different... a geneticist of all people should know that more than most.

I'm not sure it's good to go outrage mode over the use of the phrase 'mild paedophilia'. I would understand if the criticism was directed at him for making excuses because it happened in a different time, but it seems to focus more on the use of the word 'mild'. Anyone who is familiar with Richard Dawkins has heard him use the racism example dozens of times to show that attitudes and cultures change with time so it's hardly new. There's a debate to be had with regards to this view of course, but it doesn't seem like this is what the outrage is about.

Also, one mild hypocrisy here is how Richard Dawkins will make excuses for people in the UK/west 50 years ago yet will harshly judge 3rd world/Muslim practices when many of those countries are in the same stages the west was 200-300 years ago. I generally think he's a reactionary conservative who presents himself as a liberal progressive, but in this case I don't get the furor-if you want to go after him, why not discuss his questionable positions on eugenics or rape?

I didn't say that at all. I also have no idea why you think it was implied?