meritocrat

Is homosexuality unethical?

If so, then why? Do you believe so based on religious reasons?

Alonzo Fyfe

I wish to use this opportunity to apply some of the claims I have been making about the nature of moral value.

To determine if an act is bad, one needs to determine if a person with good desires would be willing to perform the act.

Acts can fall into one of three categories.

(1) Wrong (a person with good desires would not perform the act).

(2) Right (a person with good desires would perform the act).

(3) Permissible (a person with good desires has no special reason to either perform or not perform the act).

A good desire is a desire that would tend toward the fulfillment of other desires; a bad desire is a desire that wound tend toward thwarting other desires.

A desire to engage in homosexual acts counts neither as a good desire or a bad desire. Morally, it is neutral. As such, the desire to engage in homosexual acts is morally neutral; it falls in the category of permissible -- neither obligatory nor prohibited.

Those who believe that homosexuality is wrong are making one of two mistakes.

(A) They are taking their own desires as a sign of intrinsic merit -- and falsely assigning to homosexual acts an intrinsic "ought not to be doneness" that they somehow "sense" through their inherent "moral value sensor". From this they infer that those who do not "sense" the same value they do have defective "intrinsic value detectors" -- they are "sick", or "perverse". When, in fact, the only thing they sense is their own desire or aversion.

(B) They falsely believe that there is a God that prohibits such activities (a God invented by people making the intrinsic value mistake identified above), and through this are still giving weight to the uninformed bigotries and prejudices of ignorant barbarians who have been dead for over two thousand years.

dk

I guess it depends upon whether... We understand religion as the source, context or the objective of ethics. Ethics is a science that applies moral principles to different circumstance, so as a…

1. moral source sexuality presents a dictum.
   implying sex supersedes faith.
2. moral context sexuality presents a circumstance (condition),
   implying sex personifies faith.
3. moral object sexuality presents a proposition.
   implying sex becomes faith.

I mean faith to describe religion in the broadest most general metaphysical, material and psychological sense as an essential basis for moral action. For example a hedonist (1. above) would certainly understand sexual desire as a basis (source) for a moral dictum, a Christian (2. above) would understand sex within the context of higher moral dictums and a evolutionist (3. above) would see sex as a mechanism of change.

Alonzo Fyfe

On the question of whether the moral prohibition is based on religion . . . there is a significant problem with this.

There has never been a God to say that this is wrong. It has never happened. The decision to call homosexuality wrong was made by human beings. They then attributed this to a God to give the idea strength and authority, but it was still a human decision -- a part of a human invention -- to attribute to this imaginary God the dictate that homosexuality is bad.

It was not God's fault. It was never God's fault. The fault starts with those who invented God, and those who continue to believe those inventors.

twisted brother

So early in the discussion, no fundies have jumped in to spoil the clear philosophical discourse.

I admit that I completely agree with Alonzo Fyfe.

Dr Rick

A little deconstruction is in order, here:

Religion is an attempt to represent and order beliefs and experiences; it can include ethics, but not all ethical systems have a relationship to religion.

Ethics involves systematizing, defending, and recommending the abstract concepts of right and wrong behavior; science is a specific set of methods for the study of natural phenomena.

Applied ethics involves examining specific issues and their circumstances, such as abortion and homosexuality, but the study of from where or how those ethics arise, known as metaethics is not circumstantance specific.

huh?

That's true only if you believe that all ethical behavior arises from religious faith.

Many Christians are also "evolutionists," and some evolutionists are hedonists.

Alonzo Fyfe

Which, of course, leaves open the question of whether concepts of right and wrong behavior can be reduced to natural phenomena.

On this issue, since "right" and "wrong" is said to be able to influence the movement of physical objects (human actions), they had BETTER be reducable to some sort of natural phenomena.

Which would make a science of ethics possible.



Also note: Few ethicists link morality to evolution. Such a link violates a basic principle of logic known as the "is/ought" distinction. There simply is no valid inference to be drawn from premises of the form "humans evolved a disposition to behave this way" to "humans OUGHT to behave this way".

Majestyk

Homosexual behavior is not, in and of itself, unethical.

Dr Rick

"Right" and "wrong" don't influence the movement of physical objects. It's neither "wrong" nor "right" that hot air rises, nor is there any "science" that defines earthquakes as good or bad; these things just are. We might not like the effects they produce and even apply some normative values to them, but the actual physical properties of which science is concerned is not a matter of ethics.

dk

What? You just said, "To determine if an act is bad, one needs to determine if a person with good desires would be willing to perform the act." This doesn’t address morality at all... because…
1st The statement relies entirely upon appearances hostile to the idea of self determination.
2nd Its ambiguous because "good" lacks any relationship to truth and
3rd It degrades people to zombie like automatons that play a copycat game.
I submit people grow and prosper by resolving real problems with suitable solutions. Morality serves as a platform to engage a reasonable person’s commitment so they might participate in life. In other words morality regulates conduct and relationships to empower people with the potential to overcome life's problems. You haven’t addressed God, morality or homosexuality. Thirst is a desire, and I submit a person’s thirst for water, knowledge, intimacy and God direct people towards suitable goals and morality sets people on a reasonable course.