A big thank you to everyone – and I do mean everyone – who has commented on Why children may want to keep a secret. This has been an exceptionally lively debate, now amounting to well over 11,000 words and it ain’t necessarily over yet. Inevitably, some words of real wisdom in all this will be overlooked, failing to make the impression they deserve.
The ones I most strongly feel need to be rescued from oblivion came in a contribution by T. Rivas, when he talked about the development of society over decades or centuries. In his view, “the development of human and ‘even’ animal rights since the period of Enlightenment is part of an inevitable progress in civilization and leaving behind barbarity”. After a certain point, he says, “the moral and emancipatory progress cannot be undone anymore, because it has become an intrinsic part of rational moral progress. This point has been reached with women’s and gay rights in many parts of the Western world and more and more people are realizing that animal rights are simply another strictly logical consequence of respect for the individual. One day, the same will happen with erotic and relational rights of children and pedophiles.”
Heretic TOC will not here be concerned with whether Rivas is right or wrong as to the inevitability of moral progress, except to say that brilliant minds have argued the point at least since the great burgeoning of rationalist optimism in the 18th century Enlightenment to which he refers. The political philosopher John Gray, for example, insists in his book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals, that “the old Adam” will out: human moral frailty is always with us; the perfectibility of man is an illusion; our selfishness, arrogance and shortsightedness render us vulnerable to all sorts of disaster, such as man-made climate change apocalypse. Psychologist Steven Pinker, on the other hand, argues in his recent book The Better Angels of Our Nature, that we are gradually becoming less violent. He suggests that moral progress, although not inevitable, is likely to continue thanks to factors which have already proved beneficial, such as increased education, mutual interdependence through trade, and the spread of democracy.
Among those impressed by Pinker’s analysis is moral philosopher Peter Singer, a name particularly relevant here in view of Rivas’s reference to animals, concern for whom was pioneered by Singer in his 1976 book Animal Liberation. When Rivas speaks of “people…realizing that animal rights are simply another strictly logical consequence of respect for the individual”, he appears to be invoking something like historian W.H. Lecky’s concept, developed by Singer, of human concern as an expanding circle which begins with the individual, then embraces the family, then ever wider social groups up to nations, and eventually all humanity and even beyond, with animals included.
There is a long tradition, subscribed to in their very different ways by Hobbes, Kant, Rousseau and numerous other such luminaries, that the needs and interests of individuals might be given consideration if they are rational beings capable of thrashing out between themselves what the rules of good conduct should be. Having agreed on the rules (which find some approximation in law and government) and come to a sort of social contract, social justice is then expressed primarily in terms of individuals’ rights and responsibilities. As non-rational creatures, so the reasoning went, children and animals (and women!) might be owed a duty of care by their “owners” but if they had no responsibilities they could have no rights.
Jeremy Bentham bypassed all that contractual thinking. Regarding animals, he said the key question was not “Can they reason?” but “Can they suffer?” His so-called Utilitarian (a ghastly word which fails to capture the majestic power of the concept) philosophy focused on the amount of happiness or unhappiness we experience, which translates in crude but very important terms to pleasure versus pain. We all know about pain, in particular, whether physical or emotional, and the tremendous imperative to avoid it, especially as regards extreme suffering.
Singer’s approach, like Bentham’s, is Utilitarian. This has enabled him to focus our thinking on making choices that maximize the amount of pleasure we all experience and minimize the pain. The former might sound a bit trivial and hedonistic, but the latter is definitely not, especially when it comes to concerning ourselves with such questions as the horrors and degradation of keeping slaves or exploiting workers in dangerous sweatshops – or the suffering of battery chickens and laboratory animals. What he asks us to do, rather than legalistically concerning ourselves with rational capacity (which includes, incidentally, the concept of “informed consent” as applied to children), and rights tied to responsibilities, is to focus instead on the consequences of our actions when measured against a very clear ethical principle: will our actions tend to increase or decrease the sum total of suffering?
Used properly, this approach can be very illuminating: see for instance the way Singer uses it to test the mettle of our moral beliefs in his essay The Drowning Child and the Expanding Circle. Lesser thinkers than Singer, however, have invalidly seized upon very well known and obvious limitations of “consequentialist” thinking (e.g. the impossibility of predicting the consequences of one’s actions with certainly), in an effort to trash it entirely. I encountered a classic example myself only recently, when a certain person who shall remain nameless sought to consign my review of Margaux Fragoso’s Tiger, Tiger memoir to the garbage can on the basis that it is “wrapped up in consequentialist morality”, as though that automatically invalidated it. My interlocutor appeared to believe that consequentialism can be used to justify anything, such as slavery. And so it can, if it is misapplied, and all the other major systems of ethics can be misapplied too: “virtue” ethics, for example, can be used lazily to make a virtue of anything that is traditionally approved of, no matter how dubious – “virtuous” paedophiles please note! For instance, even a “proper” philosopher, such as Roger Scruton, manages to conclude that cruelty to animals can be justified as the legitimate pursuit of a virtuous man when it happens to be the traditional pursuit of respected people, such as the fox-hunting English gentry. Ironically, after bad-mouthing consequentialist reasoning, my critic then proceeded to deploy it himself in a way which might be worth examining in a future blog.
For now, though, I’ll just give another prize example – this time used against Singer – of what we might dub “consequentialism abuse”. Perhaps we need a law against it. Victims such as Singer and myself might then get lots of sympathetic media coverage and be able to claim compensation! This time the villain is one Moshe Averick, who was ordained as a rabbi but became a theology teacher rather than a priest. Unsurprisingly, the rabbi dislikes atheism, and he wrote:
…the logical and philosophical consequences of atheists’ belief systems are inescapable. When asked by journalist William Crawley if he thought that pedophilia was “just wrong”, Professor Peter Singer of Princeton University – a world-famous philosopher of “ethics” – responded as follows:
“I don’t have intrinsic moral taboos. My view is not that anything is just wrong…You’re trying to put words in my mouth.”
Singer went on to explain that he is a “consequentialist.” For the benefit of the philosophically challenged let me explain “consequentialism” in a nutshell: If you like the consequences it’s ethical, if you don’t like the consequences it’s unethical. Thus, if you enjoy child pornography and having sex with children it’s ethical, if you dislike child pornography and having sex with children it’s unethical. In an article entitled Heavy Petting, Singer likewise gave his stamp of approval to bestiality. As a reward for producing such pearls of wisdom, he has been granted the privilege of teaching our children “ethics” at an Ivy League university.
Apart from making it clear via this satirically outrageous misrepresentation why the rabbi does not teach at an Ivy League university, this little extract from his snappily titled article A Plea to Atheists: Pedophilia Is Next On the Slippery Slope; Let Us Turn Back Before It Is Too Late usefully alerts us to matters of rather greater interest than himself. One is the claim that Singer supports “bestiality”, despite the fact that his fame was built on a radical insistence animals should be treated well, with respect and dignity. Another is the hint that Singer may not necessarily be against paedophilia either. But is any of this true?
Let’s take “bestiality” first, as this is easy to check out. The article in question, Heavy Petting, is a review of a book by Dutch biologist Midas Dekkers called Dearest Pet: On Bestiality, which I have read and highly recommend. Singer is careful to say that sexually violent acts towards animals are clearly wrong, but that is not the whole story. He says:
But sex with animals does not always involve cruelty. Who has not been at a social occasion disrupted by the household dog gripping the legs of a visitor and vigorously rubbing its penis against them? The host usually discourages such activities, but in private not everyone objects to being used by her or his dog in this way, and occasionally mutually satisfying activities may develop.
As for paedophilia, Singer has understandably been less forthcoming: he has an Ivy League job, after all, and presumably wants to keep it. So he did not allow journalist William Crawley to put words into his mouth, nor did he rise to the bait, so far as I am aware, when another journalist, William Saletan, in a Slate article none too subtly titled Shag the dog, tried to hook him with this challenge:
What about Singer? He has often compared the mental ability of higher animals to that of children. Does he think this level of comprehension is sufficient to give consent to sex? If the answer is no, isn’t zoophilia wrong? If the answer is yes, isn’t pedophilia OK?
Singer’s fellow philosopher Tom Regan, himself a supporter of animal rights, agrees with the implication from Saletan: the argument that favours “bestiality” could be used to justify having sex with children. Regan writes that Singer’s position is a consequence of his adopting a consequentialist approach to the moral status of animals rather than a strictly rights-based one, and he argues that a rights-based position distances itself from non-consensual sex.
Regan’s position is logical, I think, but that does not mean Singer is wrong; indeed, it would be fascinating to hear what the latter might say about paedophilia were he free to do so without suffering serious consequences. Unfortunately, though, that is a “consequentialist” consideration Singer is unlikely to overlook!
a new study on detection of “animal sexual abuse”:
“Human-Pet Relationships among Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse”
https://doi.org/10.1080/10538712.2022.2112350
a new text on the equality between humans and the other animals:
[…] had a long childhood relationship with a paedophile. I briefly mentioned this book once before in The consequences of consequentialism last year, a piece which might particularly interest those heretics here of a philosophical […]
In practice, the utilitarian and rights positions within animal ethics may have a lot in common. For instance, many if not most utilitarians agree that the pleasure gained from eating meat and dairy products can never be as intense and important as the suffering and discomfort inflicted on the animals who are sacrificed to that pleasure. However, in principle, a utilitarian might weigh the interests of individual animals against important and less frivolous interests of mankind such as health care, and even argue for invasive experiments on animals that may yield important information for the development of new treatments.
Also, some utilitarians claim that eating some free range meat is better than being a vegan because more animals would benefit from being alive at least for a limited amount of time, even if they are killed violently. Apart from the rather technical question if such utilitarians are right about the outcome of their cost–benefit analysis, it is clear that (some types of) utilitarianism may in general lead to a situation that is not in the best interest of the individual animal. As rights philosophers such as Tom Regan and Gary Francione point out, it is not the individual animal that comes first for the utilitarian tradition but an impersonal notion of ‘utility’. In contrast, the rights tradition concentrate on the intrinsic value of the individual animal, which should never be treated as a means or commodity but regarded as an end in itself. Authors such as Francione reject the cost–benefit analyses of utilitarianism and defend a ‘radical’ position of a strict veganism and the abolition of all types of exploitation of animals.
Being a vegan and author on veganism and animal ethics myself, I’m part of the rights movement within animal ethics. I agree that the individual animal’s rights should never be sacrificed to the greater good. However, I do not agree that this implies that bestiality is by definition immoral.
In my view, bestiality may sometimes be morally acceptable within a rights philosophy, without the risks implied by utilitarianism. Putting utility first might mean that sacrificing an individual during a bloody orgy may sometimes be morally good as long as the individual’s suffering is outweighed by other people’s extatic pleasure. We can think of particular cases, especially involving dearly loved pets such as dogs, in which the erotic desires of the individual pet might match those of the human that takes care of that pet. This does not mean that bestiality in general should be legalised but simply that each individual case should be judged on its own merits. Embracing the inalienable rights of the individual animal does not immediately imply that any type of erotic interaction with humans should be prohibited without exception.
In this respect, there seems to be an analogy with voluntary pornography and prostitution involving adult sex workers outside a context of crime and the suppression of women (or men). Some rights philosophers may reject these practices as inherently incompatible with the dignity of the individual. In my view, this derives from a rather negative idea of all recreational sexuality outside that is not linked to a loving, personal relationship. If it is true that sex which does not involve personal love is by definition humiliating and degrading, then it must also be true that such sex cannot be compatible with individual dignity. This would imply that all types of pornography and prostitution should become or remain illegal.
Similarly, practices like bestiality seem to clash with the dignity of the individual animal, not only if the animal is forced to participate in the sexual act (which obviously against its individual freedom for the selfish pleasure of humans) but even if it is rather eager to do so. There might seem to be a way out for loving relationships between pets and their human friends, but the thing is that some authors in the field of animal rights such as Francione see the very phenomenon of keeping pets as problematic. They state that pets were forcefully from their natural habitat many generations ago and adapted to human circumstances without benefiting from this on the individual level. Of course, the existing pets should not be killed but cherished by people who care for them (Francione is often photographed with his own dogs) but we should strive non-violently for the abolition of domestic animals altogether. (It is not at all clear whether most dogs and cats were originally domesticated with force but we won’t go into that here. It is enough to point out that not all interspecific relationships – even in nature – can be reduced to selfish domination.)
In my view, what is missed in this line of thought is not that utility is really a better principle than deontological rights after all, but the understanding that if a practice often or even normally goes against the rights of individual sentient beings, this does not imply that the practice should be abolished rather than reformed. To be sure, a practice like eating meat, eggs or cheese or drinking milk can never be reformed to the extent that it would not involve the violation of rights of individual animals. That is why rights philosophers correctly point out that veganism should be the moral baseline for all humans. For a similar reason, there can never be any justification for the rape or sexual molestation of animals or people.
However, this does not mean that living together with pets is by itself morally wrong or that sexual transactions must inherently depend on exploitation of the weak. In their interesting book Zoopolis, vegan authors Sue Donaldson & Will Kymlicka try to show how animal rights and the non-commercial keeping pets can be reconciled in a dignified way. One of the measures proposed by them is granting pets a special kind of citizenship comparable to that of young children.
Similarly, there are liberal feminists who are in favor of women’s free choice in matters such as pornography and prostitution. Just because certain practices go wrong very often does not mean those things are inherently wrong in themselves.
Of course, all this implies a liberal interpretation of the philosophy of individual rights, which leaves behind conservative caricatures. For liberals like myself, what is acceptable should not be established on the basis of what is deemed normal by society’s norms (let alone by one’s own particular predilections) but by the wishes and orientations of all the individuals involved.
In the context of sexuality this implies the following. As soon as the rights of one individual are violated by a sexual practice, it should be prohibited, but never because of the mere form of that type of sexuality.
The emancipation of erotic pedophilia can only be morally sound if it is based on the fact that children may willingling engage in pedophile relationships. It is not enough if the child benefits from the eroticism (which would be the utilitarian rationale), the main thing is that the eroticism should always remain voluntary, because within a liberal interpretation of individual rights, this is what determines whether it goes against the individual’s dignity. This implies pedophile relationships cannot be simply set free unconditionally, but voluntary pedophile relationships should be legalized under very strict conditions and monitored by parents or caretakers against the general background of an empowerment of children and children’s individual rights. They should become legal in the same sense that children’s voluntary relationships with peers are legal. Monitoring of relationships and the empowerment of children would prevent situations in which child would only go along with certain acts just to please the adult. This is comparable to empowering teenage girls within monitored relationships with boys of their own age, rather than simply forbidding such relationships in general.
Unfortunately, proponents of animal rights, women’s rights and children’s rights often share an underlying, implicit conservative and intolerant conception of sexual rights. For animals and children, sexual rights would be identical to just one negative right, “the right to be left alone sexually'”and for women, sexual rights would amount to ”the right to sexual self-determination”, but mostly in a limited form so that socially deviant forms are not really taken seriously enough (e.g. in the case of S&M, exhibitionism, voluntary sex work, etc.).
Really taking the individual and his or her rights seriously implies that one listens to the individual’s own story and perception. This is only possible with an open mind and an explicit rejection of conservative standards.
Also see:
– The denial of injustice: http://www.animalfreedom.org/english/column/injustice.html
– Sexual Intolerance: http://www.txtxs.nl/artikel.asp?artid=837
[TOC adds: Many thanks for this deep and carefully considered contribution. I’m sorry there has been some delay in approving it: I have been away for some days and not had time to check my messages over the weekend. I may run this separately also as a guest blog, as it deserves fuller exposure.]
While I think of it, there is one other point 🙂
I’m not sure PS actually would have to accept that adult-minor sex is permissible if bestiality is (sometimes) permissible on utilitarian grounds. One Australian ethicist I knew (a former student of Singer’s) once summarised his position as being: “if an animal doesn’t like what you’re doing to it, it will just run away.” Whether that is true or not, I don’t think the same thing is necessarily true of children. The kind of power adults have over children is different from the kind of power humans have over domestic animals, and common sense suggests there may be any number of reasons why children would not ‘run away’ if they don’t like what an adult is doing – fear, or eagerness to please, or confusion. Children are perhaps less sensible than animals.
The differences between paedophilia and bestiality are worth considering, and not just because most paedophiles (I imagine) would suppose that an adult-child relationship is qualitatively different from a human-animal relationship. Power and coercion are important for utilitarianism, just as they are for any rights-based ethical theory. I’m not suggesting, of course, that all adult-child relationships involve an abuse of power or the exploitation of a child’s powerlessness – merely that in my view the complexity of power relations in human relationships makes the zoophilia analogy a problematic one.
It does take a rather selective historical vision (not to mention a very Eurocentric one) to discern a great pattern of moral progress in human history (well, either that or some very questionable human calculus such as Steven Pinker indulges in). I think it’s wisest to leave all talk of ‘progress’ strictly in the subjunctive voice.
While I have great respect for Peter Singer, I think moral utilitarianism has problems that arise even when it is stated by quite sympathetically, as those familiar thought experiments like ‘the good transplant surgeon’ suggest. Utilitarianism may be fine as a rule of thumb, especially if stated negatively (the purpose of the exercise being not to ‘maximise utility’ but to ‘minimise suffering’!), but it has some awkward consequences when applied rigorously. I tend to agree with John Rawls that utilitarians miss the point: what should concern us is not simply utility but justice, and where utility calculations violate fundamental ideas of fairness and proper treatment of all people, they must be discarded. I’m not sure where that brings us with regard to paedophilia: probably it takes us once again up to the brick wall where we are forced to decide what ‘proper treatment’ of children might be like. Peering at the world compassionately from behind his veil of ignorance, where would Rawls draw the line between the right of paedophiles to sexual expression, the right of children to be sexually active, and the right of children to be protected from harm or sexual exploitation by adults? Rawls doesn’t provide us with a method of deciding how these various goods should be balanced, though he does at least give us a standpoint from which we can imagine ourselves as the ‘other’.
An advantage of consequentialism is that it forces us to look at real consequences when trying to choose between moral paths – it doesn’t allow us to rely simply on prejudices or speculation. But an advantage of Rawls’ outlook is that he doesn’t reduce the moral question simply to an individual’s harsh and uncompromising choice; rather it sees moral choices as matters of justice that societies as a whole need to be concerned with (and indeed structured around). If we can agree with Rawls that societies need to be passionately committed to justice and fairness for all their citizens (and not just for the majority!), then we can perhaps begin to apply utilitarianism as a standard of where we should draw the line when apparent goods are brought into conflict.
Yes, indeed! Utilitarianism has serious limitations, although I do think it has enriched ethical thought enormously. I focused on consequentialism in order to tackle a critic of my own work and bring in Singer, because he may have an interesting view of paedophilia, privately at least; but I too agree with Rawls and many others that fairness is massively important, especially to avoid the potentially gross injustices that are such a pitfall of pure utilitarianism. In fact, I made extensive use of Rawls’ theory of justice in Chapter 7 of my book Paedophilia: The Radical Case. Anyone interested in these philosophical issues might like to check out Chapter 7: The Philosophy of Children’s Rights . I would urge readers to start at the beginning of the chapter rather than going straight to the first mention of Rawls.
Would you like to specify these ‘problems’? As a (preference-precedent-average) Utilitarian, I’d like to know on what grounds you’d find me immoral. After all, we all know on what grounds the average person finds you immoral ;D
I suspect most problems (eg: organ donor) are dealt with by the ‘precedent’ part while others (eg: drugging everyone) are handled by ‘preference’. Finally, the ‘repugnant conclusion’ is solved by ‘average’!
PS: If you aren’t Utilitarian, what are your meta-ethics? Surely you aren’t (gasp!) a deontologist! Everyone knows that those vile creeps are a danger to children – they’ve been known to fuck with their minds!
All the major meta-ethical systems have important insights and no one of them, in my view, is adequate on its own. At points where they contradict each other, it is necessary to consider the particular situation to which we seek to apply them and the extent to which they match our moral intuitions. Our intuitions may well be modified through cogitation. Indeed, if that were not the case there would perhaps be little point in ethical reflection. But in the end our intuitions trump everything: we must decide what is right based on what we feel, all things considered.
I would like to discuss things with you at length. Alas, I cannot!
“All the major meta-ethical systems have important insights and no one of them, in my view, is adequate on its own.”
Sounds like an atheist version of “every religion is good!” I’d simply like to point out that some religions/ethics want you to sacrifice your children to Moloch. Just sayin’.
“But in the end our intuitions trump everything”
Well, yes. It’s not like we have a real-world source of morality outside of ourselves. However, the point of having a single, self-consistent Metaethical structure is to decide cases where your intuitions overlap, contradict, or fail return a consistent answer – eg: the abortion debate.
“I would like to discuss things with you at length. Alas, I cannot!”
Oh, right. The as-yet unannounced documentary. Might you at least be persuaded to read the Consequentialist FAQ? (http://www.raikoth.net/consequentialism.html)
Quite so. Ask yourself why no such “single, self-consistent Metaethical structure” exists. It is not for the want of trying. Have a go yourself. Make it your life’s work to become the philosopher who finally cracks it!
As for my laconic responses, nothing to do with documentary: just sheer time pressure on several fronts. You could try addressing at least some of your questions to others here. You might get a decent discussion. How about using the teacher’s tactic of nailing particular named individuals? “You, Johnson, you’re very quiet today. What’s your view?”
“Ask yourself why no such “single, self-consistent Metaethical structure” exists”
The only problem I’ve ever encountered that manages to seriously confuse me is The Lifespan Dilemma. However, I suspect this has less to do with my ethics than my inability work with numbers greater than the total number of atoms is the observable universe. I will, of course, accept that my Metaethics may not be agreeable to everyone – but seriously though: Deontology?
“You could try addressing at least some of your questions to others here.”
I would but I’m going through the archives. I don’t expect to get a hold of many other readers until your next post comes out – which will probably be quite a while if you’re under time pressure. Unless, of course, you’re accepting guest posts….
“nailing particular named individuals”
Well, that’s certainly one way to break through the Bystander Effect!
>Unless, of course, you’re accepting guest posts….
By all means submit one. That would be great! I never guarantee to publish anything but I am confident a contribution from you would be interesting.
Great! However, I’m now left with a dilemma: what do I write about? I’ll need some time to plan if I’m to live up to the quality of the posts already on this blog!
My first idea was a thought experiment: phrase the issue of inter-generational sex as an analogy involving aliens and see if thinking about the problem in the abstract (Far Mode) gives any new insights. At the very least you’d have something to point antis to if you wanted them to understand the situation in the abstract.
(Note: the post wouldn’t draw any conclusions on the issue. It’s just a framing device. That’s kind of the point of thought-experiments.)
What do you think? If you like this idea, how should I submit it? I’d rather not use email since my email-address includes my real name – when I set it up I didn’t have anonymous communication with peadophiles in mind 😛
The idea is fine but it all depends what you can make of it. Take your time.
You can submit it as an ordinary comment. Comments never appear until I give the thumbs up (press “Approve” button) as moderator. All I need do is cut and paste it from the comments section to the blog window, plus any editing.
Glad you like the posts here, and thanks for saying so!
OK. I’ll start brainstorming.
You might also want to checkout the full argument in favour of Consequentialism in general and Utilitarianism in particular.
[Forgot link I meant to add. I’m sure you’ll edit it in.]
http://www.raikoth.net/consequentialism.html
+++What about Singer? He has often compared the mental ability of higher animals to that of children. Does he think this level of comprehension is sufficient to give consent to sex? If the answer is no, isn’t zoophilia wrong? If the answer is yes, isn’t pedophilia OK?+++
Luckily enough, things like “mental ability” and “level of comprehension” have very little to do with the capability to “consent to sex” – let alone to enjoy it – otherwise, creatures such as turkeys and crayfishes would find it rather difficult to perform their conjugal duties!
[TOC: Love it! Great point SB!]
what i dont get is why are you only considered a paedophile if you are 16 or over?
[TOC: That’s changing, Mr P. Campaigners against “abuse”, and the media, are increasingly talking about “paedophiles” at ever lower ages. I think the lowest I’ve seen is about 4 or 5. The medical world, though, is often influenced (too much so, indeed) by what the average, or “normal” person is like, and it is very common — entirely normal in fact, for children to be sexually attracted to others of their own age. Attraction to children only becomes unusual as a dominant or exclusive orientation in young people once they are approaching adulthood.]
Almost perfectly presented, as ever; but for the last line, ‘Singer’ not ‘Signger’. Incidentally, and consequently, never/rarely noted at H-TOC what IS ‘pedophilia’ ? Sexual display/talk/grooming/contact with an under 12, or with an under-AOC 12 thru 21 ? And are aMused under-8s proactively approaching adults sexually, as they surely do, consequently non-victim ‘adultophiles’; or severely life-scarred ‘victims’ ? Cute T-shirt/Knickers/Pants/sPeedos slogans, “Don’t Underrate The Under 8s” “Nice At Nine And At 8.30” Lurve Power
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/underrate
[TOC adds: Like Queen Victoria, I am not always easy to amuse, but this made me smile! Thanks for the correction, too, which shows me that at least one reader managed to plough through right to the end!]