Describing Christianity - Page 26

On October 24 2013 03:54 farvacola wrote:
"Everyone should have the ability to individually determine who they are attracted to and act on it accordingly."

That wasn't so hard.

On October 24 2013 04:00 Hryul wrote:

everyone should give his best that (his) society endures.

On October 24 2013 02:55 Lixler wrote:



It should be fairly easy for a Kantian to see how homosexuality is a deficiency of good. One cannot perform homosexual behavior in a way that accords with the categorical imperative; there is no rationally universalizable maxim that allows one to perform homosexual activity ("everyone should have sex with people they're attracted to" "one should have sex without wanting to procreate" etc.).

In any case, your view of the issue is misguided because you view homosexuality as an integral part of identity whereas pedophilia etc is a disease. First of all, the idea that homosexuality really defines your identity is a totally modern creation; Greeks or Romans wouldn't define themselves in these terms, because homosexual behavior was not seen as central to your identity. God doesn't decide what traits people decide to see an integral to their identity, which means that there's no reason for God to make "parts of identity" morally uncondemnable as compared to "accidental behaviors" which he can condemn. There are no essential eternal lines that divide up identity and accidental behaviors, which means there is no way to construct an argument to say that identity, rather than accidental behaviors, cannot rightly be condemned by God (since there's no way to appropriately divide up these categories in the first place).

Moreover, you think that the fact that homosexual behavior is determined by physical factors means that it cannot be condemned (well, maybe you wouldn't go this far).

It simply doesn't matter whether or not we have a physical explanation of some piece of behavior unless we've already got a moral philosophy in hand that explains what kinds of physical causes absolve us of guilt and what kinds don't. We can give a theoretically physical explanation for why a person murdered someone else, but that doesn't mean the murder has no moral significance. Given your espoused proclivity for moral philosophy, you ought to see that the question of whether determinism invalidates moral responsibility is very controversial, and in no way settles in such a way that "homosexuals can't be at fault because they are biologically different" simply has to be accepted by any reasonable moral philosopher.

You are very un-Kantian in your thinking. Kant makes a distinction between the rational moral agent and the contingent empirical agent who is subject to inclinations and desires. A rational moral agent simply must act in accordance with the categorical imperative, and it is not immediately clear that homosexuals really do that. Given Kant's broader views on sex and relationships, a lot of doubt is cast on the notion that a Kantian can really hold that homosexual behavior is morally acceptable.

On October 24 2013 07:18 ninazerg wrote:


Everyone?

I think it should be:

Some people that have the ability to communicate may make statements which may or may not aspire to anything, and these statements, if heard and perceived correctly or incorrectly by potential listeners, may or may not be disagreed with, due to chemical releases in the brain, and therefore, pledge your hearts, minds and bodies to Mother Russia.

By Kantian, I don't mean that I'm literally Immanuel Kant. I mean that I agree with the spirit of his moral philosophy (that is, his deontological system) and the categorical imperative strikes me as pretty good. I also think Kantianism (in some form) is the strongest alternative to utilitarianism, and I really fucking hate utilitarianism.

On October 24 2013 03:54 farvacola wrote:
"Everyone should have the ability to individually determine whom they are attracted to and act on it accordingly."

That wasn't so hard.

On October 24 2013 06:04 Shiori wrote:


By Kantian, I don't mean that I'm literally Immanuel Kant. I mean that I agree with the spirit of his moral philosophy (that is, his deontological system) and the categorical imperative strikes me as pretty good. I also think Kantianism (in some form) is the strongest alternative to utilitarianism, and I really fucking hate utilitarianism.

That said, I don't see what's so problematic about "everyone should have sex with people they're attracted to," unless you mean to say that the other person is obligated to have sex with them. We could just say "people should have sex only with those who consent to having sex with them, and whom they consent to having sex with."



No. Homosexuality isn't integral to your identity, as such, except insofar as sexuality as a whole is certainly part of one's identity. It's not that homosexuality qua homosexuality is uniquely integral to one's identity, but that sexual identity is integral to one's identity because humans are pretty obviously sexual creatures. I don't think pedophilia qua pedophilia is immoral, since it's not an actual action controlled by any agent. It's just an attraction. So long as it's not acted upon, there's no decision to be condemned. The reason pedophilic acts are immoral isn't that it's a "disease," but rather that it's raping children.

Side note: that the Greeks and Romans were wildly homosexual in their actions is a bizarre myth. While it's true that pederasty was common (and noble) in Greek society, the Greeks (nor the Romans) didn't think of homosexuality and heterosexuality is some abstract psychological construction because, well, they just didn't! In addition, the Greeks explicitly condemned anal sex.That doesn't mean that homosexuality didn't exist back then, or that there weren't people who were exclusively attracted to people of the same sex as themselves. But, again, it's tangential to the point: it's clear that there exist, today (and almost certainly throughout history) a whole lot of people who are exclusively and genuinely only attracted to persons of the same sex. Now, provided both parties are consenting, and, for the hell of it, let's say they're in a loving, mutually respectful relationship, how exactly does homosexual sex wind up being immoral?




No, but it does mean you can't claim, as Ironman did, that homosexuality is a choice.




It matters when the thing being condemned isn't even a choice proper. Sexual orientation isn't something you decide, neither under hard determinism, nor under compatibilism, nor under libertarianism because it has nothing to do with the will., if such a thing exists.



You think you have to agree with Kant on sex to be a Kantian? I don't think any neo-Kantian scholars would seriously hold to Kant's views on sex. His views on relationships (interpersonal in general) aren't bad, but he doesn't seem to understand what sex even is, the way it's described.

I don't understand how homosexual sex violates the CI anymore than other kinds of sex. From the point of view of agency, the motivations and consenting and, really, just the whole thing in general doesn't really differ much from heterosexuality.

I think the danger of staying too close to Kant's original writings is that one could end up becoming a very sterile human being. I don't think that's particularly healthy, neither for morality nor for life in general. As much as Kant wishes it weren't so, human emotions, desires, inclinations, and whatnot do exist. Yes, we can talk about being rational till we're blue in the face, but you haven't (and nobody ever really has) provided anything even resembling a rational argument as to why people are obliged not to engage in homosexual intercourse. I'm not sure how you can say that "it is not immediately clear that homosexuals really do that" but then fail to mention that the moral imperative not to engage in homosexual sex (as opposed to, say, heterosexual sex) is even less clear.

I mean, homosexual sex is basically the same deal as any other kind of consensual sex, as far as I'm concerned. We can talk about counter-examples viz. what volition underpins said consent (e.g. I'm sure Kant would object to prostitutes on the grounds that, if nothing else, they're conceivably not respecting themselves or treating themselves/someone else as an end in themselves etc. etc. I'm sure he'd come up with something) till we're blue in the fact, but the fact is that homosexual sex, in the sense which one decides to engage in it/experiences it/desires it/perceives it, is nearly identical to heterosexual sex. Given that, you have to show that something about homosexual sex in particular (with respect to how it differs from heterosexual sex) makes it invalid to use the same or similar arguments as those which justify heterosexual sex to justify homosexual sex.

On October 24 2013 04:00 Hryul wrote:

everyone should give his best that (his) society endures.

On October 24 2013 07:52 MoltkeWarding wrote:
Can you not see that at least in its procreative function, heterosexual sex has a definite final cause which is missing in homosexual sex?

It is difficult to maintain that sex performed solely for the sake of pleasure (which, I remind you, means all homosexual sex, and most heterosexual)

Or rather, it's difficult to distinguish between "inappropriate" inclinations like drug addictions or sudden whimsy and "appropriate" inclinations like garden-variety desires etc.

I don't think Kant's own defense of sex within a marriage is available to a modern proponent of homosexual sex, namely because he won't think that homosexual sex is only okay within a marriage, nor that marriage means gaining a total right to the other person's body and soul. (Very few people think both that homosexual sex is okay and that there is no such thing as rape within a marriage)

On October 24 2013 07:59 farvacola wrote:
"Rational agents" don't exist anyway, so I'm not sure why I even commented

They're asking why, even if they view the person they're having sex with as the light of their life and consider sex (like the rest of humanity) to be the most intimate way of bonding (which is probably accurate given its neurochemical effects) how are they treating that person as a means, or particularly "just" as a means?

I thought this to be obvious from the context -.-

On October 24 2013 09:12 MoltkeWarding wrote:
Lixler is still operating under the assumption that Shiori subscribes to a Kantian outlook, and both provides and demands his justification in the same currency. If this were so, his critique is valid: it would be extremely difficult to justify homosexuality in Kantian ethics.

However it's obvious that Shiori has abandoned that outpost a while ago, although we don't exactly know where he has fled to.

They're asking why, even if they view the person they're having sex with as the light of their life and consider sex (like the rest of humanity) to be the most intimate way of bonding (which is probably accurate given its neurochemical effects) how are they treating that person as a means, or particularly "just" as a means?

Actually, the artificial inducement of intimate feelings through the secretion of endorphins undoubtedly accounts for the implausibly high number of teenage girls who trespass into dead-end relationships. Using sex to drug the mind into pushing a friendship into the relationship zone generally does not end well. To put it in the prosaic language of economics, it's the stimulus which distorts the price equilibrium set by the market.

On October 24 2013 08:27 Shiori wrote:


Are you kidding me? You think that all that stuff about deepening one's emotional connection to another person, establishing intimacy/trust, and so on and so forth, doesn't exist?

You are in no way using another person solely as a means when you have sex in a consensual, "loving" context. That's just absolutely false, and if we can't even agree on that, there's not much point moving forward.

Thinking that having homosexual sex (or, really, anything other than strictly procreative sex, or whatever bizarre restriction you'd put on it) amounts to disregarding the dignity of the person is just...ridiculously offensive. Are people not allowed to love other people in the world you're arguing for? And I mean are they actually allowed to love as human beings, not as empty computers, or whatever.



Well, I'm not really arguing for us to think of people as "just a means to pleasure." I don't think that homosexuals are arguing for special status in that regard. They're asking why, even if they view the person they're having sex with as the light of their life and consider sex (like the rest of humanity) to be the most intimate way of bonding (which is probably accurate given its neurochemical effects) how are they treating that person as a means, or particularly "just" as a means? This is how human beings express love. To deny one's emotions entirely (when they are so obviously tied to one's thoughts, as modern psychology has demonstrated) is more of an attack on dignity than anything else. Kant was brilliant, but he was pre-psychological. That's important.



That's fine. Kant's arguments about marriage are very obviously him biting the bullet, in a sense. Sex, for Kant, seems to be the one thing that, well, just can't be done away with, but which is emotionally laden.