From Kershnar v. Kolison, decided Friday by Judge Lawrence Vilardo (W.D.N.Y.):
Among the many topics he studies, [SUNY Fredonia philosophy professor Stephen] Kershnar is especially interested in the "moral and legal issues implicated by sexual conduct [between] adolescents and children." His scholarship questions "whether, as a moral matter, adult-child sex is always wrong, and why we should criminalize it" even though he believes that "as a legal matter, [it] should always be criminalized." "Kershnar argues that it is important that the arguments favoring criminalization of [adult-child sex] be scrutinized so that they are defensible, [because] 'if incorrect reasons are given recognition in support of morally legitimate laws,' like those against [adult-child sex], 'then th[o]se reasons may … be used to support morally illegitimate' laws."
Kershnar elaborated on these views during two podcast appearances. In December 2020, he appeared on an episode of Unregistered—a podcast hosted by an Occidental College professor—to discuss "the traditional philosophical justifications of age[-]of[-]consent laws in the United States." During that episode, he said that "it[ i]s not obvious to [him] why" adult-child sex is always "unlawful because … humans are designed by evolution to begin reproduction below the age of 18."
A little more than a year later, on January 30, 2022, Kershnar appeared on Brain in a Vat, a podcast described as "thought experiments and conversations with philosophers." During that appearance, Kershnar said:
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 that there's something deeply wrong about this, and it's wrong independent of being criminalized. It's not obvious to me that it is in fact wrong.
Similarly, in response to a question about "whether… [,] in an attempt to find a threshold of consent," a one-year-old could ever consent to sexual activity with an adult, Kershnar said:
