Ut

You don't define what is a disorder. Psychiatrists do.

Guess what? They disagree with you.

scigirl

To anyone who is smart enough to post in Philosophy:

Phil made the following argument on the first page in this thread:
Later he claimed the following:
So is phil correct - did he indeed use methods of moral relativism to (attempt to) show that homosexuality is wrong? If so, which methods did he use? He obviously didn't use natural law since his argument does not appear to be saying that any sex outside of producing children is wrong (in fact he does admit that he does not hold this view). So what is he trying to use - is there any precedent for such an argument, and are there any examples of this type of argument actually working to an applied real life situation?

Thanks in advance for this clarification,

scigirl

Gurdur

As I've always said, bluff. It works.

Anyway, let's look at Phil's argument:
Going wrong already. Atheism has no single set of ethics. The number of ethical systems held by atheists is n+1, where n = the number of individual atheists, and the +1 is the one ethical system everyone disagrees with.
More or less correct. This is a utilitarian argument, and not necessarily atheist.
And this is where Phil makes his greatest mistake.
Natural death owing to old age is not usually regarded as an "evil" under any utilitarian system of ethics, simply because it's an unavoidable part of life.
Therefore, if all humans were to die of natural death owing to old age, even if this means the complete extinction of humanity, while that might be regrettable, it does not make it an "evil".
And let's face natural facts ---- sooner or later the entire Universe must collapse into a black-hole or disappear into entropy, so the human race is eventually doomed to extinction in any case.
It would be ethically meaningless to describe a completely unavoidable natural phenomena as "moral" or "immoral".

Moreover, if we take Phil's argument and extend it ad absurdum, then it would mean that all people must breed to be moral ---- an extremely dubious assumption.
And we've already seen where Phil gets it wrong himself.
uh, actually no; utilitarianism, of the kind Phil uses, doesn't need to be relativist. Phil tried using utilitarian ethics, not necessarily relativist ethics, and failed in any case.
The only precedent I can think of is planning for as-yet unborn generations, something which I myself am all in favour of; yet Phil doesn't plan for future generations, he demands future generations, a different kettle of fish.

Dr Rick

I'm not sure of the answer to your question, scigirl, but I do recognize that phil's argument is factually wrong and also employs the fallacy of Dicto simpliciter (Sweeping generalization)

His argument is essentially:

P1) It is good (for society) to reproduce.

P2) Homosexuals don't reproduce (that's the factual error, btw; they can and do as shown in this thread);

C1) If everyone was a homosexual, there would be no reproduction

C2) therefore, homosexuals are morally wrong.

The argument doesn't work because it mechnically and incorrectly applies a general rule to a specific situation; we can make the fallacy even more apparent when we substitute the words nuns or women for homosexuals.

abe smith

that PHIL here added the *celibates* in to his argument? If those who choose not-to-propagate are bad, immoral, evil,,,, then all those voluntary celibates including (male) clerics of the Roman Catholic sect (sic. the Roman Catholics , an affinity group, are not "the Church" nor "the church".) .... I say, all those RC celibate clerics, from JP2 on down , are (by phil's criteria) a bunch of nasty immoral unnatural dirty perverts; and ....
HEY! maybe phil's correct!
I love it!

MzNeko

<bows>

Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week...

BrotherMan

And now for your totally inappropriate non sequitur!

A-hem.

"A spanking! A spanking! And then, the oral sex!"

Thank you. And now back to your regularly scheduled topic.

openeyes

You can kiss whomever you please as long as it's ok with the other person and you have no other "understanding" with perhaps a significant other that would preclude that action.

(As a doctor, I'm sure you'd also know to refrain if you have a bad cold, SARS, a cold sore or something like that.)

Now, back to the regularly scheduled "serious" debate!

scigirl

Scigirl looks around...

Where did it go? I thought phil was going to impress us with his well-reasoned argument as to why homosexuality is wrong in an absolute sense.

Hmm, glad I didn't hold my breath.

scigirl

abe smith

News of yesterday & today (17th& 18th june GLOBE & NYT) is that Premier Cretien of Canada announced that Canadian Parliament will immediately broach & almost certainly pass/make law for ALL of Canada (They'll be World's 3rd after Netherlands & Belgium.) --- making same-sex *Marriage* legal. In fact, unlike the practice in Netherlands & Belgium, wh have tighter rules, the new Canadian law will not require a premarital residence period; and will be available for LEGAL marriage of ANY (nationality) same-sex couple who want to come to Canada to tie the knot.
Considering the strong-party Canadian govt and the strong approval figures among Canadian citizenry both FAVORING same-sex right -to-marry, it certainly does look like a done-deal. Esp as Cretien makes clear that the religious *sects* of Canada will be free to deal-with the issue as they like; (and screw you-all, clerics of all sorts; we'll just ankle on down to the Town Hall and you can bite your nails and fulminate against that.)
WAY TEW GOH, CANADA! (I wonder what my people in Newfy will make of this? Most of them who'ld be scandalised are long underground, I think; may they rest in peace.)