Disregarding all laws and religion, say there's a 20 year old boy who never really grew up and he sleeps around all the time. Then there's a 13 year old boy who's in love with another boy, and gives him blowjobs, but it's really as strong as love can be at that age (none believers, go away. 13 year olds can love, albeit very few but those who can CAN)
Are they both okay? One is mature one is immature, yet one's body is mature and the other's isn't. What's the most important factor?
2. To what extent should people be given medications to keep them happy/alive/painfree, all the while changing who they are/what they feel/the basis of their conscious mind?
2 important moral questions, FORGET SOCIETY and everything it taught you..?
1) Well,((and this is not society this is science)) people under the age of 21 aren't as smart as they are when they are adults. This si not because of naivety, though it has a role in this, but the frontal lobe of the brain, that thought processing and decision making occurs in, is not fully developed until that age.
I believe in the rights of those two boys to be together if they truly love each other. but it IS NOT okay because of the age gap and the age of the boys at hand. 13 year olds can make good decisions, yes, I'm 13, but sexual acts are mainly done out of passion and not reasoning, hence why there are laws prohibiting minors under the age of 16 to commit them. Disregarding that for a second, i suppose if they are in love, then yes, they have every right to stay together, but because one is 20 then it can be assumed that he is using the 13 year old.
The most important factor in maturity is probably the environment in which one grows up it.
2)Only to a point where they still have a conscious mind. Because once that is taken away, its just a shell not a person. the body does not make the person, the mind does.
2 important moral questions, FORGET SOCIETY and everything it taught you..?
1) I believe that it varies with the child in question. I'll explain, children are not mature because they get older but because they, through education and the exercise of reason, achieve a level of independent thought and moral judgment that takes into consideration questions about the effects their actions will take, on the well being of themselves and others. Provided they reach that point it might be morally responsible by the age of 16, meanwhile, for others it might never be morally responsible...
2) I would equate it to a cost/benefit analysis. If the benefits of the medication outweigh the changes to their personality, and other faculties than it could be the right choice as part of a plan towards recovery, but it shouldn't be the only action taken. Personally, I've taken a number of prescription drugs and can honestly say the benefits definitely do not outweigh the cost.
without rambling i can only answer question number 2.
i think pain is a small price to pay for the freedom of one's mind.
mind-addling and personality-shifting drugs should be an individual choice, but patients should be encouraged to disregard them.
no one is ever really old enough to not be ignorant when it comes to sex. we just get a little more informed as time goes by.
Killer questions. Really. I love this stuff!
1. The age of consent is, has to be, a community standard based on a best approximation of when adults remember feeling their consent was real and not unacceptably likely to bring them more trouble than the experience was worth. It's a compromise we make because there is no answer to your question. Every sex act that the actors perceive as non coerced, has a benefit and a downside, and both of those values are subjective.
As far as I am concerned, the age of consent should be the same age as the individual's demonstrable physical puberty. If your body is sexual, so are you. If you're naive as a 13 year old virgin, you're not less naive as a 20 year old one. However, I admit that since we are all in a cultural context, we might sometimes benefit more from the imposition of an age of consent %26quot;rule,%26quot; than we do from maximal freedom and autonomy.
Tough one - at any rate I think for the purpose of criminal law, for post-pubescent people, yes is yes and no is no. Nobody should be punished for sex that they honestly believed the other party really wanted. And we have to take people at their word if they are past puberty and say yes they want sex, even if they don't know everything about what they are doing. The best we can do is share objective, non-agenda-based information with youth.
Both boys in your example are okay as long as their partners are past puberty and consenting.
2. People should be allowed to take ANY drugs that alter their personality, abilities, emotions, consciousness, as much as they please, as long as they are fully informed about the objective consequences - including risks and shortcomings - of using the drugs. Exception: when the drug itself impairs their judgment enough that they would reasonably be expected to do demonstrable permanent harm to themselves or others, if they took more. (More gray areas are there, I know ...)
Every drug has a significant downside, but for drugs labeled and dispensed as %26quot;medication%26quot; the information is generally withheld, with trust put in a doctor to weigh risks and benefits. I believe a doctor will not weigh risks as heavily as the patient would, because it's not the doctor who will have to suffer any ill effects! I think if people had more complete information, they would only very rarely want to start taking drugs that seemed to %26quot;change who/what they are.%26quot; I have faced this issue personally, and while I think I have a right to use drugs to control my behavioral symptoms if I see fit, overall I only choose to do so at times when it's a last resort. It can always be expected to do some damage, that has to be balanced by benefit in the estimation of the informed consenter. As with everything, even people with the best information can have unfortunate biases and make choices we don't approve of, leading to syndromes in society, that controls would prevent -- but absent specific, demonstrable, permanent harm, I think informed personal autonomy is priority #1.
