The contemporary mindset that is associated with liberal thought seems to be of the view that if something is enjoyable and it does not harm anyone, then there is nothing morally wrong with doing it.  And where two people are involved, the only addition is that there be mutual agreement between them.  So while I may not like S & M sex, the idea seems to be that if two people are comfortable with it, then there is nothing to be said against their engaging in such behavior.  Let me refer to this line of thought as the no-injury thesis.  I shall challenge the validity of this thesis.  It is despicable that people do some things even if ne’er a person is harmed.  Needless to say, this line of thought is very Kantian.  However, I also think that Mill would subscribe to it as well.  He distinguished sharply between what the law should proscribe and what good-minded people should aspire to do.  On the one hand, Mill thought that human beings should aim for excellence; on the other, he thought that there were limits to what the law should require in this regard.  Holding the latter view is compatible with not embrace the no-injury thesis.  Mill did not think that anything a person does is morally acceptable just so long as no one was harmed by the behavior. 

It wasn’t too long ago when very few accepted the no-injury thesis.  Once upon a time, the following remarks had considerable force “Have you no shame?”  Invariably, this utterance meant that there was something morally unsavory about the character of what one had done or what one was contemplating doing.  One did not diffuse the charge with the retort: “No body is harmed”.  So, for instance, parents could say to their child “You ought to be ashamed of dressing like that,” without supposing for a moment that injury to anyone followed in the wake of the attire the child adorned.  The child understood the from the outset that it was irrelevant that the attire did not harm anyone.  While it may be true that, in the past, dressing like a tramp applied more to women than men, it was certainly possible for a man to dress like a tramp. 

Nowadays, of course, the charge of dressing like a tramp seems all but completely out of place; for it is intoned that a person has the right to dress as she or he wishes without any form of harassment from others, it being understood that how a person dresses cannot be said to cause injury to anyone at all.  So the words “You ought to be ashamed of yourself for dressing like that” stand as nothing more than a social relic of a past era—at best a cute anachronistic phrase.  The no-injury thesis now enjoys widespread acceptance. 

But the possibility of virtual reality scenarios reveals that the no-injury thesis is far less defensible than is commonly supposed these days. 

Suppose that Opidopo likes virtual reality scenarios of pedophilia or virtual reality scenarios of rape (or both).  And suppose further that he has considerable self-discipline; hence, it is absolutely out of the question that he himself would ever commit an act of pedophilia or rape.  Indeed, he rightly thinks that it is wrong for anyone to behave in these ways.  Yet, he cannot wait to get home in order to set back and enjoy a cold beer and view virtual reality scenarios of pedophilia or rape.  Since we are talking about virtual reality scenarios, then it is a conceptual truth that there is no one being harmed in these scenarios.  Furthermore, since Opidopo is not at all inclined so to behave, then he is not making himself worse off from the standpoint of exhibiting the right sort of behavior.  Opidopo’s watching these virtual reality scenes has no spill over into his life at all. 

My examples thus far have pertained to sex.  But we need not limit ourselves to examples of this nature.  Suppose that Opidopo really enjoys virtual reality scenes of ethnic oppression.  He truly enjoys watching one ethnic group oppress another in all sorts of ingenious ways.  To be sure, in his daily life Opidopo is one politically correct individual.  Ne’er an ethnic slur issues from his lips.  Nor would he ever think to treat individuals of this or that ethnic group unjustly.  But once more: he just loves downing a cold beer and viewing a virtual reality scene of ethnic oppression. 

This brings us back to the no-injury thesis, which reads thusly: anything a person does is morally acceptable just so long as no one is harmed by the behavior.  Well, if anything is true, it is true that there are some virtual reality scenarios that a person should find utterly repulsive.  I should that it manifestly obvious that it is absolutely appropriate to say to Opidopo “Have you no shame in taking delight in virtual reality scenarios of this sort?”  I hold that Opidopo is morally disfigured with respect to imaginative empathy.  And this truth is not in any way vitiated by the other truth that no one is harmed by his viewing the virtual reality scenarios that I have described. 

Now, I must acknowledge that moral disfigurement with respect to imaginative empathy is a kind of injury.  Interestingly, though, defenders of the no-injury thesis do not have this sort of injury in mind, precisely because the behavior does not have any spill over in terms of having a deleterious impact upon social interactions.  Precisely my point, however, is that the utterance “Have you no shame?” can be appropriate even when there is absolutely no adverse spill over whatsoever in terms of social interaction.