I have just found out today that the man I have been dating for 6 months is mildly autistic. I had no idea about this until just a few hours ago, so this realization left me shocked. I understand autism and that it is nothing like mental retardation, or anything to that extent. But still I feel like I am doing something morally wrong by continuing to date him. Should I end the relationship because it isn't fair to him, seeing as he may not fully understand his feelings or mine? Or should I continue the relationship because his autism is only mild? Please let me know what you think, I am completely torn and cannot figure out whether I am doing something horribly wrong or not.
I am not sure you really have a philosophical question here. You worry that it might be morally wrong for you to continue to date a man with autism because he "may not fully understand his feelings or mine." I suspect that you are laboring under a misunderstanding of the nature of "autism." An autistic individual is not necessarily incapable of introspecting or articulating his (or her) own feelings; nor is an autistic person necessarily unable to understand the feelings of others. What appears to be the case, according to the experts I have read, is that autistic individuals lack certain ways of coming to understand the feelings of others that non-autistic people find natural. Autistic individuals typically have trouble "reading" facial expressions and body language, for example. Nonetheless, many autistic people contrive other ways of learning about the psychological states of other people, ways that are often effective enough that these other people don't realize that they're interacting...
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