Touch on Trial

Abstract

lations between unequals, this essay addresses very different questions: When do more-powerful people owe touch to less-powerful people as a consequence of their moral responsibility to care and nurture? How are we to understand morally the enjoyment that powerful adults receive from such contacts with their charges? This essay draws on psychological literature on touch to argue that touch is a condition of human flourishing. Consequently, in many circum stances (especially the nurture of children) the obligation to care not only per mits but requires physical affection. It argues as well that the lines separating required, permitted, and forbidden touch are somewhat culture-dependent but nevertheless can be adjudicated. Finally, it suggests how traditional theologies and ethics of embodiment might support and be developed by these claims, showing that a positive ethic of touch shares the same theological foundations as the existing ethic of protection. This essay's thesis is simple and seemingly quixotic: Affectionate, firm, appropriate touch is a human need and a moral right. Infants and chil dren require attentive, affectionate, intimate touch from adults in or der to thrive. It is imperative for the good of children that powerful adults touch them. Nongenital, nonsexual, firm touch promotes not only developmental health in young children but also physical and psychological health in people of all ages, through myriad pathways whose relationships are not yet fully under stood. Consequently, although research into these pathways must continue, we know enough to say confidently that people ordinarily need touch in order to flourish. In other words, all people have a right to be touched in an appropriate manner.