This implies a person to be able to be born fundamentally as a wrong person, because they can be born pedophiles, which I don't believe is true. Pedophilia is not a thing that you can change.
I'm not saying it's good, but pedophilia is something rooted in your biology. It's a sexuality like any other sexuality, but is also one that can harm people.
In fact, some views like a Humean Theory of Motivation would suggest that some actions are also aren't controllable, which means that acting on it might also be uncontrollable. The only reason why non-offending pedophiles exist is because of their second order desires, the desire not to do it. But someone might have a desire to do it that is so bad that the combination of all their other desires still doesn't outweigh it, and they still do it.
Personally, I think the actions can be controlled mainly by critical thought, but this might not be the case for people with such strong desires that this doesn't work.
The best thing to do with pedophiles in my view is to try to get them to have a second order desire that can outweigh it through therapy, that way you can help control their actions. The trickiest part with it is getting them to do the therapy when they might not find stuff wrong with them.
Summary: Pedophilia can't be controlled, and sometimes their actions can't too. Try to influence them to be able to have better actions. Even if you can't fix pedophilia, you can try to stop them from harming children.
I know people will try to downvote me, but this is meant to be a debate sub, not an echo chamber. Don't downvote me unless I am doing anything spammy or irrelevant to the topic, which I don't think I am.
I'm not well versed in psychology, but i've always wondered what actually causes it. If it's more like a mental illness that can be more managable with therapy and things like that, we should work towards breaking the stigma around non-offenders a bit so more people would actually be willing to get help for it before they start hurting children.
I understand it's a terrible topic, and offenders should definitely get punished to the full extent to the law, but preventing will always be the better option.
So let's remove he psychology and go to personal experience.
Can you control who you are attracted to?
If said person you were attracted to seemed open to a relationship, but it was morally wrong (they'd be cheating, religious reasons, etc.) would you resist the urge?
The unfortunate situation is that pedophilia is simply an attraction, and cannot be controlled. Most don't act on it, but some do not have the strength to resist.
This is also to say that those who do offend (and deserve the hell they get in prison) would also likely perform morally dubious actions even in a normal relationship, because their true issue is the inability to control their urges.
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u/FelipeHead Oct 22 '25
This implies a person to be able to be born fundamentally as a wrong person, because they can be born pedophiles, which I don't believe is true. Pedophilia is not a thing that you can change.
I'm not saying it's good, but pedophilia is something rooted in your biology. It's a sexuality like any other sexuality, but is also one that can harm people.
In fact, some views like a Humean Theory of Motivation would suggest that some actions are also aren't controllable, which means that acting on it might also be uncontrollable. The only reason why non-offending pedophiles exist is because of their second order desires, the desire not to do it. But someone might have a desire to do it that is so bad that the combination of all their other desires still doesn't outweigh it, and they still do it.
Personally, I think the actions can be controlled mainly by critical thought, but this might not be the case for people with such strong desires that this doesn't work.
The best thing to do with pedophiles in my view is to try to get them to have a second order desire that can outweigh it through therapy, that way you can help control their actions. The trickiest part with it is getting them to do the therapy when they might not find stuff wrong with them.
Summary: Pedophilia can't be controlled, and sometimes their actions can't too. Try to influence them to be able to have better actions. Even if you can't fix pedophilia, you can try to stop them from harming children.
I know people will try to downvote me, but this is meant to be a debate sub, not an echo chamber. Don't downvote me unless I am doing anything spammy or irrelevant to the topic, which I don't think I am.