Friday, March 29, 2024

SUNY’s Pedo-Friendly Prof Lectured At U.S. Military Academies and Insisted ‘Americans Should Not Be Grateful to Veterans.’

A State University of New York professor who said it wasn’t “obvious” why pedophilia was wrong has repeatedly lectured at institutions affiliated with the United States Military, including West Point and the Air Force Academy, the National Pulse can reveal.

Professor Stephen Kershnar – who teaches libertarian philosophy and applied ethics at State University of New York (SUNY) Fredonia – was filmed questioning whether pedophilia was in fact unethical.

“Imagine that an adult male wants to have sex with a 12-year-old girl. Imagine that she’s a willing participant,” Kershnar began.

“A very standard, very widely held view is that there’s something deeply wrong about this — and it’s wrong independent of it being criminalized. It’s not obvious to me that it’s in fact wrong. I think this is a mistake,” added the professor.

He also said, “the notion that it’s wrong… even with a one-year-old, it’s not quite obvious to me.” He noted, on video, that in “at least one culture,” there are reports of grandmothers “fellating their baby boys to calm them down when they’re colicky. I don’t know if it’s true… if this were to be true… it’s hard to see what would be wrong with it.”

The National Pulse can now reveal that Kershnar has repeatedly lectured at institutions affiliated with the U.S. Military, including the prestigious West Point and the Air Force Academy. Kershnar’s resumé reveals the following presentations delivered from 2000 to 2019:

  • “Space Wars and Property Rights,” International Society of Military Ethics, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado, June 29, 2019 

  • “Statistical Discrimination at the Military Academies,” International Society for Military Ethics, Annapolis, Maryland, January 29, 2016 

  • “An Axiomatic Theory of Just War,” International Society for Military Ethics, University Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana, October 13, 1014 

  • “Pfc. Justin Watt and the Duty to Inform on One’s Fellow Officers,” United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, March 25, 2013 

  • “The Moral Duty to Obey Military Orders is at Most a Weak One,” United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, April 16, 2012

  • “Gratitude and Veterans,” International Society of Military Ethics, University of San Diego, San Diego, California, January 26, 2011

  • “Should we be grateful to veterans?” United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, September 22, 2010 

  • “Torture and Side-Constraints,” International Society for Military Ethics, University of San Diego, San Diego, California, January 28, 2010 

  • “The Nature of a Threat,” Joint [Military] Services Conference on Professional Ethics, Springfield, Virginia, January 27, 2006 

  • “Just War Theory and Assassination,” West Point Philosophy Society, United States Military Academy at West Point, West Point, New York, September 10, 2002

  • “War and the Immunity Thesis” West Point Philosophy Society, United States Military Academy at West Point, West Point, New York, November 28, 2000

Kershnar lectured five times at West Point, including two presentations at the academy’s Philosophy Society. Other groups include the International Society for Military Ethics and the Joint Military Services Conference on Professional Ethics.

Kershnar has also authored papers such as on entitledGratitude Toward Veterans: Why Americans Should Not Be Very Grateful to Veterans,” the abstract of which states:

“I argue that U.S. citizens should not be very grateful to veterans. In evaluating whether the significant gratitude toward veterans is justified, I begin by exploring the nature of gratitude. On my account, one person should be very grateful to a second person just in case the second person reasonably attempted to provide a significant benefit to the first and was primarily motivated by concern for the first’s well-being. I then look at whether veterans typically satisfy these conditions and argue that they do not.”

Another, called “A Liberal Argument for Slavery,” asserts that “[t]he slavery contract is not a rights violation since the right not to be enslaved and the right not to give out a benefit are waivable and the conjunction of their voluntary waiver is not itself a rights violation.”

Kershnar is also the author of a number of controversial books including Sex, Discrimination, and Violence: Surprising and Unpopular Results in Applied Ethics, Total Collapse: The Case Against Responsibility and Morality, and Pedophilia and Adult–Child Sex: A Philosophical Analysis.

Read:

More From The Pulse