> Nonetheless, his defense of Minsky is still problematic. Why? Because in the hypothetical situation he described, Minsky had sex with Guiffre even though he s

> Nonetheless, his defense of Minsky is still problematic. Why? Because in the hypothetical situation he described, Minsky had sex with Guiffre even though he should have seen red flags. [...] By defending Minsky, he was indicating to all future sexual predators, "I will try to find excuses to defend your bad behavior"; and to all future sexual victims, "There is no point in coming forward; I will try to excuse the person who did this to you." Yes, exactly. Pointing out extenuating circumstances of someone's (alleged) bad behavior is necessary and useful. But it should always come second to determining what the person should have done instead, and holding them accountable to push society towards a place where everybody has the responsible behavior by default. The attitude of "if there's any plausible reason person X might have thought they weren't doing anything wrong, we shouldn't punish them" gives the exact wrong incentives.