A philosophy professor in New York is now under investigation following his "horrifying" and "reprehensible" remarks defending pedophilia and child rape.
Professor Stephen Kershnar from the State University of New York (SUNY) Fredonia in Western New York is under fire for comments made in a video appearance made in 2020 in the podcast titled "Unregistered with Thaddeus Russell" and a January 30 video on YouTube "Brain in a Vat," in which he spoke about sexual taboos.
Kershnar, who teaches libertarian philosophy and applied ethics at SUNY, questioned why adults should not be legally allowed to have sex with children as young as one year old.
"Imagine that an adult male wants to have sex with a 12-year-old girl. Imagine that she's a willing participant. A very standard, very widely held view is there's something deeply wrong about this. And it's wrong independent of it being criminalized," Kershnar said in a video clip posted on Twitter on Tuesday, which went viral, Fox News reported.
"It's not obvious to me that is in fact wrong. I think this is a mistake. And I think that exploring why it's a mistake will tell us not only things about adult-child sex and statutory rape, but also about fundamental principles of morality," Kershnar argued.
Faithwire reported that in the January 30 interview, Kershnar declared that "the notion that it's wrong [to have sexual relations] even with a one-year-old, it's not quite obvious to me."
During the December 2020 interview, Kershnar argued that the "rights-based argument" disintegrates for him when it comes to child-adult sexual interaction because "we make children do all sorts of things that they don't want to do." He reasoned that adults make children "go to church...go to school...and we don't care what they say."
Kershnar added that females, even as minors have menstrual cycles and are capable of pregnancy which to him was immediately a sign that the it would not be wrong to have sex with them because "they're designed by evolution to begin reproduction at that period."
In 2017, Kershnar wrote a book titled "Pedophilia and Adult-Child Sex: A Philosophical Analysis." Since then, he had been the subject of rebuttal for his condemnable views. In fact, SUNY Fredonia President Stephen Kolison condemned Kershnar's comments through a recently released statement.
"The views expressed by the professor are reprehensible and do not represent the values of SUNY Fredonia in any way, shape or form," the statement posted on Twitter read. "They are solely the professor's views. The matter is being reviewed."
According to Syracuse, some students at SUNY said they refrain from attending Kershnar's class until the school completes an investigation into the professor.
Marc Guilliod, a freshman who currently attends Kershnar's class, told WGRZ, "It's almost outrageous that he's still here, but he should be fired. I don't think it should just be an investigation." Sophia Walter, a junior at SUNY Fredonia who had just transferred during the spring semester, said that it was "alarming" to her to hear about the professor after just two weeks attending the school.
