Zofia Sierant
Jagiellonian University
Rape is commonly considered to be morally worse than comparable cases of violation of bodily autonomy. Sexual autonomy is somehow special to human self-identity and therefore should be particularly protected. Explaining this intuition is a central point of the debate on wrongness of rape.
The starting point of this paper is a solution proposed by David Archard that uses a “special model of interests” to put sexuality in the center of the self. In this model everything that is in the center is to be especially protected and violation of it is a violation of a person’s identity and is therefore a serious kind of wrong.
In the second part of this paper, I will summarize the debate between David Benatar and Fiona Woollard which revolves around the problem of how to simultaneously regard rape and pedophilia as seriously wrong while holding a liberal view on sexual ethics.
In the third part I would like to focus on a part of Woollard’s response to Benatar in which she distinguishes between rape and consensual sex saying that rape is sexual activity minus consent and sex is sexual activity plus consent. This shows that rape has a sexual component and that this makes it a more serious kind of wrong from others forms of abuse.
The examples above illustrate that, within this debate, there is a unspoken assumption that sexuality is – or can be – significant to people. I would like to critically examine this assumption saying that the reasons why we think that are still unclear and need further explanation. I will also explain why different forms of restrictive sexual ethics are not the answer to this problem.
Chair: Sarah Köglsperger
Time: 03 September, 18:10 – 18:40
Location: SR 1.004
SOPhiA 2026 