Ethical Rape?

I’m musing, and I often like to muse about the conflicts that arise between sets of ethics. So, prompted by a recent class discussion, I’m musing if rape could ever be considered ethical.

It needs to be immediately noted that morals, ethics and legal systems are not the same thing. Rape is illegal. Rape is immoral. And in my opinion rape is always (get that always?) wrong.

So let me set up a scenario that might be familiar to frequent viewers of “Law & Order: SVU.” A woman police officer goes undercover in a female prison to expose a corrupt prison guard and drug ring. She is heavily briefed on how dangerous the mission is, and yet everyone realizes that this route is basically the only way to “catch the bad guy.” Long story short, she is sexually assaulted/raped by the evil prison guard. He is caught and put in prison on a litany of charges. Let it be noted that she was NOT looking to be sexually assaulted to catch the bad man. It just kinda happened that way.

Utilitarianism tells us simply that it is “the greatest good for the greatest majority.” Going off of this simplification of Jeremy Bentham’s brain child* it becomes clear that getting the bad guy is best for society, or the majority. He won’t have the chance to rape any more women and his other illicit activities will stop. In this case, the female police officer’s rape was the reason he was caught. So, in this line of reason, we could say her rape benefited the majority. Thus, the rape is ethical.

Again, it’s important to note that what is ethical isn’t always what is right. And vice versa. Ain’t ethics a bitch?

So let’s stray to the other side of the ethical fence to the deontological point of view. Because this is my blog, and my favorite ethical philosopher (yes, I have one, don’t you?) is Immanuel Kant, we’ll use his strict guidelines as our ethical road map.

Kant suggests that we create axioms to live by- or something that never contradicts humanity and is so rational that humanity must accept it.* This is basically his first Categorical Imperative. His second stems from the first and says that humans can never be a means to an end.

Well right there we’re stopped and it’s obvious the rape situation isn’t ethical. A person was used to obtain an end (the arrest of a very bad guy). But let’s look at it a bit further- sexual assault on a male or female, insults the rational of humanity. Again, I can’t see a way to allow for rape in accordance to this first Categorical Imperative.

So do a little tap dance and rejoice for the deontological approach that says rape is bad. At least I will.

*Bentham is credited for Utilitarianism, while John Stewart Mill is known for it. Mill took the concept and ran a bit. For this blog I’m going off of Bentham’s approach, which is a more stringent view of utilitarianism.
*Please refer to my earlier blog post about Kant and his approach to creating axioms.