“Rape and victim-blaming” (Free-will or determinism?)
Last January, the social media was flooded with hashtags no to victim blaming, protect drunk girls, stop rape culture, etc., by clamor of the public outrage after the death of Christine Dacera, a flight attendant who was at first allegedly raped by her cohorts during the welcome of new year, as hasten declared by police. While the public believed the police report — which caused the public uproar for trial and castigation against alleged suspects — in spite for its insufficient evidence, on the other hand, upon further probe, the autopsy report revealed that her death was due to ruptured aortic aneurysm, and hence it was concluded that she was not raped. Nonetheless, the investigation continued among her several cohorts, who were with her during the New Year celebration, identifying whether there were any foul play involved in her sudden death.
Albeit that there was no occurrence of rape, contrary as what the public at first misjudged, and which they made an apology for their uncontrollable uproar realizing they were under in bad faith. People deeply expressed their differing opinions that provided us many lessons from that incident; some succinctly wished for bringing back death penalty against rapists, some also cried for protection against perpetrators, some concurred their opinion about the reason why a woman gets raped, some vehemently condemned rape because the existence of rapists, some conferred to drink responsibly, and some objectivized the incident for political narratives. However, the prevailing question where everyone’s attention were drawn at, “why there is rape?” People seem to have differing remarks, still the doxa remains among rapists; that is to say, not by the dress code of individual women, nor by its revealing state of nature in front of a man — surmising it as a hint for an adequate consent, and nor an attempt at carnal knowledge of a woman when under influenced or intoxicated by alcoholic beverages. In any case, others have also acknowledge that there are, regardless of age, male victims of rape.
Rape is a sexual assault carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against a person’s will involving sexual intercourse or any other form of sexual penetration. What causes rape? Quoting from Wikipedia: “There are many different theories explaining the causes of sexual violence. The theories that will be discussed in this article include military conquest, socioeconomics, anger, power, sadism, traits, ethical standards, laws, and evolutionary pressures that lend some explanation to the causes of sexual violence (such as rape, molestation, sexual harassment, stalking, incest, etc.) Please note, most of the research on the causes of sexual violence has only been done on male offenders (and has largely ignored female perpetrated sexual violence) and is in no way fully developed.” In spite that most studies are focused on offenders, it would certainly leave a horrifying trauma after the experience among rape victims. In the history, rape already made its appearance in early religious texts (Bible, Quran, Greek mythology, etc.)
Thereof, in the ancient wars, rape is considered as an instrument for warfare for breaking the morale of their foes. Even in the 20th century, the horrific events during WWII: Japanese atrocities in many occupied Asian countries, such as the infamous Rape of Nanking, and the abduction of many young Asian girls sent overseas as a sex slave to uplift the morale of their men who fought in other Asian regions. The encouragement of Soviet military officials among their men for keeping high morale after they crossed thousand miles on pushing back the Germans — where mass rape occurred in several countries along their way, and the rape of 2 million German girls after the Germany fell in 1945 from the Allied hands — mostly by the Soviet belligerents. (Anyway, let us focus more on the individual subjects other than delving on war crimes in this topic which is not the intent, nonetheless the history should not be forgotten which stimulates our consciousness in the present times against immorality, and thereby should not be tolerated nor perpetuated) Now, a serious question: what compels a person, regardless of gender, to rape? As the feminist author Susan Brownmiller wrote in her book Against Our Will (1975), “that rape is a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.” But the biologist Randy Thornhill and anthropologist Craig T. Palmer, author of A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion (2000), wrote the argument in the book that evolutionary psychology can account for rape among human beings. They criticize the assumption about the connection between what is naturally selected and what is morally right or wrong, rebutting the naturalistic fallacy which Susan Brownmiller referred, and provoked that rape is an expression of male domination and is not sexually motivated. In which after, the publication of the book became controversial no less than received negative reviews from feminists vehemently denouncing the claims. In this sense, it is clearly evident that for some who attempts to justify the occurrence of rape even that they are very reluctant when identified for victim-blaming, their judgment may seem to correspond as what Palmer and Thornhill described in their studies; while for those who condemn rape totally agree with Brownmiller without addressing the evolutionary perspective, i.e. rape is performed totally by the conscious agent who has the ability to control its own actions. Thornhill and Palmer seem to agree on it, “That rape is entirely based on biology does not imply that men cannot consciously choose not to rape. (p. 128),” but nevertheless it would be more plausible how they would negate each other to avoid contradictions.
We can easily notice the position from the various authors aforementioned, which boils down in the long-aged philosophical argument between determinism and free-will. Determinism is the doctrine that all behavior has a cause, external from the agent’s control. Whereas free-will is the doctrine that an agent has the ability to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. Also, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant defined determinism and freewill: a.) “Animal Willkiir (arbitrium brutum) is not only pathologically affected by sensory impulses and desires, but ‘pathologically necessitated’ by them. An animal inevitably acts on its strongest current desire, unless it is externally prevented from doing so.” b.) Free Willkiir (arbitrum liberum) is also sensory (sinnlich), in that it is pathologically affected by impulses, but is not necessitated by them and can choose to act against them, either for its long-term happiness (viz. the best overall satisfaction of its probable future desires, as well as its present desires) or on rational principles that are independent of its desires and impulses altogether.” (M. Inwood, “a Hegel dictionary,” p.312). In other words, Susan Brownmiller believed it is the will by the rapist to sexually assault their victims. Palmer and Thornhill are nearly in the position of determinism, although even they believe that rape has evolutionary basis or that rape is predominated on the nature of evolution, they didn’t also refer that predators have no control to restrict or prevent themselves before taking the action, nor did they attempt to justify rape, and nor suggest to tolerate or exempt rape in the society; instead, they have only laid-out and provide arguments based on the scientific evidences. It wouldn’t be fair to their studies if they were only to be accused as such... Whatever be the case, rape is considered a criminal offense in most countries, including the Philippines. Above all, crime is contingency as a subjective (individual) will of evil, and the task of the universal authority must prevent or bring justice.
But, they made a remark to anyone who attempts to object their study with naturalistic fallacy: “Rejections of evolutionary theory based on naturalistic fallacy, and hence on ideological grounds, are not tenable. The naturalistic fallacy has been described so many times that those who continue to evince it in their critiques of evolutionary explanations should be dismissed on the basis of lack of scholarship alone.” (Although they conceded that agents are conscious, as aforementioned) Nonetheless, what I am more interested at, how do they determine what is “natural” anyway? Does natural law mean we should do whatever is natural? The answer is precisely NO! If you realize, most problems occur when people think of something natural as cruel or everything is permissible in contrast to rules. When speaking of human nature, it is generally meant about the fully developed, cultivated, and idealized human beings, that is to say, an individual human being who has developed their body, emotion, reason, and spirit — one who has united with its own deep conscience. The ultimate reason that distinguishes us from any other animals in nature is that we are thinking beings, as Aristotle wrote in his Nicomachean Ethics I. 13 humans are rational animals with rational principles, and therefore rationality itself is the ultimate and true human nature. Natural law should never be equated with what is law of nature nor law of the jungle and whatsoever. It may be that one can be enticed in such a passive manner under contingencies (e.g. sees naked woman, half-clothed, and so on), however the urge as such must be abstained from actualizing it into action by the agent, even if its own genes predispose toward such actions. After all, they have conceded on advocating to educate both males and females to reduce rape; but still, some of their suggestions are unspecific. Hence, we do not know fully what is in their minds. We must not neglect the proper objects of moral judgments are motives and not from consequences that lie within. Palmer and Thornhill may have only provided a description on how men are endowed in its nature to dominate is nonetheless correct, yet arrived at an impasse. They had ascribed the word “dominate” exclusively on subjugating the environment or external from individual subjects, failing to realize the first step is to subjugate the internal of subjects itself.
Stricto sensu or in strict sense, we must better understand the word “dominate” is originated from Latin a.) “dominus” (lord, master), b.) “dominari”, c.) “dominat” (ruled, governed), d.) and in the present understanding is “control by mastery.” We should not neglect the ipso facto or by the very fact that the ultimate aim of human nature is to fully develop the natural and mental faculties of an agent. Thus, we can rephrase the original argument by Palmer and Thornhill with the formulation of the etymology of dominate from its Latin origins, and it is therefore that the ultimate “expression of male (the ‘dominus’ or lord, master) domination is to fully control and master oneself by keeping in check the demeanor and nature of its own (‘dominat’ or ruled, governed), i.e. man or the agent as the ‘dominus’ should ‘dominat’ oneself to fully develop and cultivate the ultimate human nature through rationality.
Man, as the lord over his own body, emotion, reason, spirit, and actions through dominating his passive-animalistic instincts by rationality — thus to fully recognize itself an autonomous agent, would never be hesitant from his judgments to condemn the immoral and false universal act of rape.
Above all, and with all sincerity, the further argument between the opposing positions, since the discovery by Thornhill and Palmer was published, still proceeds up until today that I cannot make myself able to cover all of those; wherein some journals are published that endeavor to debunk the study, and whereas some journals also seek to defend the position about the discovery. But the most important here is that no matter what positions are legitimate, the conclusion should always be that rape is wrong and I believe both positions will certainly agree.
