I suppose you could maintain that morality is independent of morality and if you commit child rape in your head or in the real world both are equally immoral. Whether those thoughts cause real emotion is really unimportant to me as I think the only thing that matters in terms of the law and morality are the consequences (ignoring the problematic grey areas from the whole "does the end justify the means" question). If the law takes it upon itself to punish morality, something which can only be relative, unless you subscribe to some fanciful deity, then it is forcing its views upon people even though they are no more correct than what they are suppressing. The best solution to this that I see is to only enact laws when one person's actions have a negative effect on another who do not accept those effects.
Following that view child porn, involving real children, should be punished as children are harmed in its creation. Whether or not watching that itself should be a crime is actually a worthwhile question too but we'll just assume the answer is yes for now. However when you draw a child, or cubs, having sex no being is actually having sex and no one is being harmed. As there is no consequence to the action there is no reason to punish that action.
If, on the other hand, you do maintain that thought crimes are as bad as crimes committed in reality then why should art affect the punishment of those crimes? Can a game with killing be art if killing someone and hanging up their mutilated body reality is not art? Art does not excuse crime in the real world so it should not justify virtual acts of crime.
I'll agree that a large part of the problem is cultural norms and to counter that is my first paragraph of acting only when actions affect others.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
I suppose you could maintain that morality is independent of morality and if you commit child rape in your head or in the real world both are equally immoral. Whether those thoughts cause real emotion is really unimportant to me as I think the only thing that matters in terms of the law and morality are the consequences (ignoring the problematic grey areas from the whole "does the end justify the means" question). If the law takes it upon itself to punish morality, something which can only be relative, unless you subscribe to some fanciful deity, then it is forcing its views upon people even though they are no more correct than what they are suppressing. The best solution to this that I see is to only enact laws when one person's actions have a negative effect on another who do not accept those effects.
Following that view child porn, involving real children, should be punished as children are harmed in its creation. Whether or not watching that itself should be a crime is actually a worthwhile question too but we'll just assume the answer is yes for now. However when you draw a child, or cubs, having sex no being is actually having sex and no one is being harmed. As there is no consequence to the action there is no reason to punish that action.
If, on the other hand, you do maintain that thought crimes are as bad as crimes committed in reality then why should art affect the punishment of those crimes? Can a game with killing be art if killing someone and hanging up their mutilated body reality is not art? Art does not excuse crime in the real world so it should not justify virtual acts of crime.
I'll agree that a large part of the problem is cultural norms and to counter that is my first paragraph of acting only when actions affect others.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~