Ethical Seduction

ABSTRACT

Many of us worry that seduction belongs in the category of sexual wrongdoing alongside coercion and rape. But this worry plays down our ambivalence towards seduction. Despite our discomfort, we sometimes desire to be seduced: We want other people to sweep us off our feet and woo us. This tension makes clear that seduction has some appeal and implies that it is not a straightforward moral problem. In this paper, I argue that seduction is neither itself good nor bad and that ethical seduction is possible. Though “ethical seduction” may sound like an oxymoron, I propose criteria to mark the good‐making features of seduction, which include the indirect, nonrational engagement of people's latent desires and interests in ways that (i) amplify any positive emotions with which people are not in tune, and/or (ii) deactivate the problematic inhibitions that lead people to resist what they freely desire.