PHIL 150 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Necrophilia, Zoophilia
Document Summary
Skepticism about perversion: sexual desire has no particular aim and can have various objects. All objects of sexual desire are on a par if they do not harm and produce sexual pleasure. Sexual desire is an appetite that cannot be perfected or perverted. Sexual perversion thesis: sexual desire has appropriate and inappropriate objects. A sex act is perverted when it does not an appropriate object. Nagel s three conditions on a theory of perversion: sexual perversion must have some link to the natural/unnatural distinction. If anything is perverted, then there are clear cases of perversion (bestiality and necrophilia) and clear non-cases (adult heterosexual intercourse): perversion must be the result of unnatural inclinations, not unnatural practices. Sexual desire: is a kind of perception, but a perception that involves several layers of mutual recognition of attraction. You see the object of your desire and yourself in certain characteristics ways. X senses y whenever x regards y with sexual desire.
