Perhaps a little background is required to get us going. Let us begin with the reference to Japan and then onto how it pertains to both rape and morality.
In the news:
Japan’s low fertility rate remained unchanged at 1.39 children per woman last year, according to government figures released Tuesday in the rapidly ageing country…Government projections show the birth rate will drop to just 1.35 children per woman within 50 years, well below the replacement rate. Japan’s population is expected to shrink to a third of its current size over the next century.*
This denotes a population which is dwindling, under populated, to dangerous levels which could lead to—potentially or at least theoretically—to the extinction of a people, a “race,” a nationality, etc. The report continues:
The low birth rate has sparked fears of a looming crisis as the number of workers expected to support a burgeoning population of pensioners dwindles. Japanese young people have put off starting families, seeing it as a heavy burden on their lifestyles and careers…The greying population is a headache for policymakers who are faced with trying to ensure an ever-dwindling pool of workers can pay for the growing number of pensioners.*
Interestingly enough, a recent discussion with an Atheist divulged the view that “All living things evolve continuously, because we all experience random mutations. Selection determines what effect this has on the a population….Normative ethics cannot be objective.”
Granting the Atheist’s assertion about evolution this amounts to a conclusion to the likes of that evolution is continuous, via random mutations and selection determines what effect this has on the a population. Therefore, if overpopulation occurs along with a mutation towards killing off the less fit, then murder will be moral.
Now, in the case of Japan we have a similar situation in the review: not overpopulation but under population.
Sam Harris wrote:
If I could wave a magic wand and get rid of either rape or religion, Harris explains, I would not hesitate to get rid of religion.**
Also:
…there’s nothing more natural than rape. Human beings rape, chimpanzees rape, orangutans rape, rape clearly is part of an evolutionary strategy to get your genes into the next generation if you’re a male.**
Richard Dawkins was asked:
Ultimately, your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we’ve evolved five fingers rather than six.**
He responded thusly:
You could say that, yeah.**
Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer wrote:
The males of most species-including humans-are usually more eager to mate than the females…In rape, the male circumvents the female’s choice…evolutionary theory applies to rape, as it does to other areas of human affairs, on both logical and evidentiary grounds…Human rape arises from men’s evolved machinery for obtaining a high number of mates in an environment where females choose mates.**
Joann E. Rodgers wrote:
Rape or at least rape-like acts clearly exist in many species, giving additional weight to both rape’s “natural” roots and its “value” in our biological and psychological legacy.**
Also:
Even rape, fetishes, bondage, and other so-called aberrant sexual behaviors are almost certainly biologically predisposed, if not adaptive, and may therefore be what biologists call ‘conserved’ traits, attributes or properties useful or essential to life across all cultures and genomes.**
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong wrote:
What makes rape immoral is that rape harms the victim in terrible ways…What’s immoral about causing serious harms to people without justification? Animals do this all the time. Forcible sexual copulation goes on all the time in the animal kingdom. What’s wrong with causing harm? It simply is, objectively, don’t you agree?
So, according to the alleged champions of reason, the best, the brightest, the most intellectual and the most evolved personages upon the earth today rape is perfectly natural, played a beneficial role in human evolution and is now considered only arbitrarily immoral.
Asserting nothing but simply granting these Atheistic evolutionary claims in places such as Japan which is facing a population crisis rape may, very well, make both an evolutionary and a moral come back.
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong based his claim that rape is immoral upon a rhetorical question. Rape is immoral because is causes harm and causing harm is immoral because we agree that it is immoral.
Note that there are very many rapists who do not agree and, besides, such issues are not to be voted upon and thus decided by majority view.
Thus, Japanese men can agree that rape is no longer immoral because they are benefiting, nay saving, their nation and it will all be towards the greater good.
Note that I made a similar statement during a debate with an Atheist on the issue of morality, see the video: Morality: some logical conclusions of Darwinian evolution
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* AFP, “Japan birth rate stays flat,” NewStraitsTimes, June 5, 2012 AD
** Ken Ammi, “Atheism, the Bible, Rape and EvilBible.com, part 6 of 6,” True Freethinker
*** Ken Ammi, “Atheism and Rape – Walter Sinnott-Armstrong Elucidates,” True Freethinker