Criminalisation of prostitution, and minority rights for disabled persons, are important contemporary political issues. The article examines their intersection by analysing the conditions and arguments for making a legal exception for disabled persons to a general prohibition against purchasing sexual services. It explores the badness of prostitution, focusing on and discussing the argument that prostitution harms prostitutes, considers forms of regulation and the arguments for and against with emphasis on a liberty-based objection to prohibition, and finally presents and analyses three (...) arguments for a legal exception, based on sexual rights, beneficence, and luck egalitarianism, respectively. It concludes that although the general case for and against criminalisation is complicated there is a good case for a legal exception. (shrink)

I first distinguish promises with positive sexual content (e.g., promises to perform sexual acts) and promises with negative sexual content (e.g., promises to refrain from sexual acts—as one does when making monogamy promises). I argue that sexual content—even positive sexual content—does not cause a promise to misfire. However, the content of some successful promises is such that a promisee ought not to accept the promise, and, if she does accept, she ought then to release her promisor from the promise. I (...) argue that both positive and negative sexual promises have content of this kind. (shrink)

In pornography, standard modelling contracts often require a performer to surrender rights over their public image and sexual media in perpetuity and across mediums. Under these contracts, performers are unable to determine who accesses, for what duration, and under what conditions, their sexual media. As a result, pornography has been described by some performers as a “life sentence” - a phrase which, if true, violates some strong intuitions we share about the importance of autonomy in sexual activity. Using the framework (...) of “affirmative consent,” I argue that these contracts violate performers' rights to sexual autonomy, and ought therefore to be considered objectionable. Overall, I argue that the legal regimes we create have a strong impact on people’s lives, and more important than legislating individual outcomes, the type of infrastructure we build around people’s decisions has the potential to radically empower - or disempower - those engaged in sex work. (shrink)

Feminist critics of the stigmatization of prostitution such as Martha Nussbaum and Sybil Schwarzenbach argue that the features of the practice do not, or at least need not, differ essentially from those of other more respected sorts of labor. I argue that even the least degraded forms of the current practice of prostitution remain objectionable on feminist grounds because patrons demand a semblance of sexual self-expression that engages discriminatory beliefs about women's sexuality.

Is sex work (specifically, prostitution) vulnerable to technological unemployment? Several authors have argued that it is. They claim that the advent of sophisticated sexual robots will lead to the displacement of human prostitutes, just as, say, the advent of sophisticated manufacturing robots have displaced many traditional forms of factory labour. But are they right? In this article, I critically assess the argument that has been made in favour of this displacement hypothesis. Although I grant the argument a degree of credibility, (...) I argue that the opposing hypothesis -- that prostitution will be resilient to technological unemployment -- is also worth considering. Indeed, I argue that increasing levels of technological unemployment in other fields may well drive more people into the sex work industry. Furthermore, I argue that no matter which hypothesis you prefer -- displacement or resilience -- you can make a good argument for the necessity of a basic income guarantee, either as an obvious way to correct for the precarity of sex work, or as a way to disincentivise those who may be drawn to prostitution. (shrink)

This paper argues that potential cases of oppression, such as sex trafficking, can sometimes comprise autonomous choices by the trafficked individuals. This issue still divides radical from liberal feminists, with the former wanting to ‘rescue’ the ‘victims’ and the latter insisting that there might be good reasons for ‘hiding from the rescuers.’ This article presents new arguments for the liberal approach and raises two demands: first, help organizations should be run by affected women and be open-minded about whether or not (...) the trafficked individuals should remain in the sex industry. Second, the career choices of trafficked individuals should be expanded by the introduction of an opportunity-extending right to asylum. (shrink)

In this paper, I try to make sense of the possibility of several forms of voluntarily undertaken “sexual obligation.” The claim that there can be sexual obligations is liable to generate worries with respect to concerns for gender justice, sexual freedom, and autonomy, especially if such obligations arise in a context of unjust background conditions. This paper takes such concerns seriously but holds that, despite unjust background circumstances, some practices that give rise to ethical sexual obligations can actually ameliorate some (...) of the problems caused by such background conditions. Similarly, despite a surface appearance that sexual obligation and sexual autonomy are in tension, this need not be the case. By understanding how practices and conventions regulate the way such obligations can arise, this paper shows how supporting the possibility of sexual obligation can actually facilitate individual efforts to achieve sexual autonomy. (shrink)

There are few participants in academic or policy debates over prostitution who would disagree that steps should be taken to improve conditions for those working in prostitution; so Moen1 is in good and plentiful company with respect to his recommendations.I will focus here on the analysis leading up to his conclusions, and with whether it helps us understand why prostitution is so commonly harmful and what it would take to mitigate those harms.i On these matters I am dubious. The question (...) of whether or not prostitution is harmful would seem, manifestly, to be an empirical question, rather than a philosophical issue. I take it that Moen's aim is to clarify the evaluative task, and then to evaluate the arguments that can be made to show prostitution is harmful—tasks which philosophers can responsibly engage in. But I would suggest that Moen's approach to this particular subject oversimplifies it by abstracting away from key facts about the context in which prostitution takes place, and thus that it does not offer as strong a case for normalising prostitution as he hopes.The basic thesis of Moen's essay is that if casual sex is harmless , then the sale of casual sexual services for money is also harmless, or at …. (shrink)

Sex raises fundamental philosophical questions about topics such as personal identity and well-being, the relationship between emotion and reason, the nature of autonomy and consent, and the dual nature of persons as individuals but also social beings. This article serves as an overview of the philosophy of sex in the English-speaking philosophical tradition and explicates philosophical debate in several specific areas: sexual objectification, rape and consent, sex work, sexual identities and queer theory, the medicalization of sexuality, and polyamory. It situates (...) these topics in a framework of shifting cultural attitudes and argues for the importance of the philosophy of sex. It ends with some suggestions about future research, particularly with regard to the changing nature of pornography and sexual justice in legal theory. (shrink)

Arguments against the possible use of genetic test results in private health and life insurance predominantly refer to the problem of certain gene carriers failing to obtain affordable insurance cover. However, some moral intuitions speaking against this practice seem to be more fundamental than mere concerns about adverse distributional effects. In their perspective, the central ethical problem is not that some people might fail to get insurance cover because of their ‘bad genes’, but rather that some people would manage to (...) get insurance cover because of their ‘good genes’. This paper tries to highlight the ethical background of these intuitions. Their guiding idea appears to be that, by pointing to his favourable test results, a customer might make an attempt to ‘sell his body’. The rationale of this concept is developed and its applicability to the case at issue is critically investigated. The aim is to clarify an essential objection against the use of genetic information in private insurance which has not yet been openly addressed in the academic debate of the topic. (shrink)

Is prostitution immoral? In this book, Rob Lovering argues that it is not. Offering a careful and thorough critique of the many―twenty, to be exact―arguments for prostitution's immorality, Lovering leaves no claim unchallenged. Drawing on the relevant literature along with his own creative thinking, Lovering offers a clear and reasoned moral defense of the world's oldest profession. Lovering demonstrates convincingly, on both consequentialist and nonconsequentialist grounds, that there is nothing immoral about prostitution between consenting adults. The legal implications of this (...) view are also brought to bear on the current discourse surrounding this controversial topic. (shrink)

El propósito central de este ensayo consiste en contextualizar el debate contemporáneo entre la abolición de la prostitución o la regulación el trabajo sexual en la dinámica de un humanitarismo sexual altamente sentimentalizado. El texto muestra, en primer lugar, que la compasión —como fuerza central que mueve al humanitarismo sexual a “rescatar” a las víctimas de explotación sexual— no es necesariamente, como sostienen algunos, una fuerza que silencia a quien la recibe. Las diferencias de contexto y de dinámicas políticas, pueden (...) determinar que, en ciertas ocasiones, la compasión efectivamente silencie, mientras que en otras puede dar lugar a dinámicas sociales verdaderamente emancipatorias. El artículo propone, así, que, en cada caso concreto en que aparece la compasión como fuerza movilizadora, se haga un análisis pragmático de los costos y beneficios de este uso. En segundo lugar, el ensayo traslada el marco conceptual anterior a la discusión constitucional sobre la prostitución y el trabajo sexual en Colombia y muestra cómo ésta ocurre en un terreno dominado por un humanitarismo sexual compasivo que ha determinado la “sentimentalización” de los valores de dignidad, autonomía e igualdad. Un análisis pragmático de la jurisprudencia de la Corte Constitucional colombiana sobre prostitución, trabajo sexual y tráfico de personas permite concluir, al menos provisionalmente, que la señalada sentimentalización constitucional sustenta, de manera simultánea, el proyecto político de la regulación del trabajo sexual y el de la abolición de la prostitución. (shrink)

Comprender los dilemas éticos en torno a la subrogación de útero exige un conocimiento preciso de los conceptos de libertad y autonomía reproductiva. Una aproximación pertinente debe reconocer la naturaleza de la opresión sexual, sobre todo de cómo influye en la autonomía de las mujeres, en sus elecciones, en la identidad propia y en las relaciones interpersonales. El objetivo de este ensayo es defender la relevancia de las críticas del feminismo radical a las corrientes liberales progresistas, que a menudo prestan (...) mayor atención a los intereses de los denominados padres intencionales. Considerando lo que varias filósofas igualitaristas han expuesto desde una perspectiva socio-relacional de la autonomía para permitir la subrogación bajo ciertas condiciones -específicamente, sostienen que la regulación es compatible con la autonomía reproductiva de las mujeres si se sigue una modalidad altruista en un ambiente de protección y apoyo ante la revocación del consentimiento-, defiendo que las feministas radicales esclarecen apropiadamente cómo la opresión contra la mujer permanece en el ambiente cultural que aprueba los contratos de subrogación. La metodología macroscópica, basada en la metáfora del ave enjaulada de la filósofa norteamericana Marilyn Frye, es una herramienta provechosa para comprender por qué la subrogación no implica una mejoría para la autonomía reproductiva de las mujeres, incluso si permite que algunas madres gestantes obtengan un ingreso suficiente para sobrellevar la presión económica. (shrink)

Understanding the ethical concerns of paid and altruistic surrogacy requires a knowledge of reproductive freedom and procreative autonomy. An accurate approach must be sensitive enough of the nature of sexual oppression, specifically in its influence in women’s choices, self-identity and personal relationships. The aim of this essay is to stand up for the prominence of radical feminism in questioning reproductive liberalism, which overfocus the interests of the so-called intended parents. Having in mind what egalitarian philosophers have put forward from a (...) social-relational autonomy view to allow surrogacy contracts under certain circumstances —particularly, they suggest that legalization could be compatible with women’s reproductive autonomy following an altruistic fashion under protective measures and supportive to the surrogate’s revocation of consent—, I uphold that radical feminists properly make clear how oppression remains in the cultural environment that endorses surrogacy contracts. A macroscopic methodology, based on American philosopher’s Marilyn Frye metaphor of the caged bird, is a helpful tool to comprehend why surrogacy contracts do not enhance women’s reproductive autonomy, even if they enable some surrogate mothers to gain an income enough to endure tough economic pressure. (shrink)