Children Reared by 'Mom and Dad' Are Better Off Than Those in Same-Sex Couple Households

[sw85]

OK, second attempt.

I have a hard time understanding this argument. How do you determine whether something is “bad” without taking into account it’s consequences. My understanding of what is a “good” action is that which is beneficial or least harmfull.

We need to do some unpacking here, so let’s analyze the two ethical systems that are competing (well, complementing) really quickly.

What I condemned previously is consequentialism, the belief that the morality of an act is determined by the outcome it produces. My objection to this is that it basically denies moral agency altogether, since outcomes are only dimly predictable and often beyond my control.

Here’s an example. Suppose I’m a police officer and my city experiences a riot. I apprehend a murderer, place him in cuffs, but realize the jails are overflowing and that he will likely be released. Since order is dissolving I have no way to detain him, and I know if I release him he will kill again. A mob is coming, so I need to make a decision. “The ends justify the means,” I say, so I pull out my gun and shoot him in the back of the head.

You might argue that the consequence here is “you saved some other people’s lives.” But is that the case? How could I have known in advance? What if someone was taping me doing this, published it on YouTube, and incited the riots even further, causing even further harm than might have occurred otherwise? Consequentialism puts me in the odd position of believing that killing this murderer was good or evil depending entirely on how other people react to it. In other words, I cease to be a moral agent altogether.

Let’s take another, clearer example. I’m a doctor and I have five patients who are each dying from a different kind of organ failure. A sixth patient comes in for routine surgery. I kill him, harvest his organs, and implant them into the other five, saving their lives. Since consequentialism is all about maximizing value, I’ve done a good thing: I saved five lives, which is more than the one life I destroyed. So I’m in the clear. Which means that consequentialism literally endorses murder under certain circumstances. Likewise with all kinds of other things, like lying.

Now imagine a society in which everyone behaved this way: lied or murdered when it was convenient. Obviously it would be unworkable: it would descend into barbarism. Consequentialists try to get around this through “rule consequentialism,” i.e., by saying that we have to subordinate individual consequentialist acts to a broader consequentialist framework that maximizes overall good, even though individual goods may be lost. But why should this be necessary? If consequentialism leads to violence and horror, that’s evidence that it’s wrong and should be abandoned.

The specific form of consequentialism you endorse is called utilitarianism. The only difference is that for utilitarianism, “maximizing good” means “maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain.” There are obvious problems with this. For instance, utilitarians might oppose rape on the grounds that it causes more pain for the victim than it does pleasure for the rapist. But what if it were possible to arrange it so that she couldn’t possibly remember it – if you had one of those little Men in Black memory flasher/eraser things? No harm to her, right? Rape away? If you believe this to be true, what does that say about you? And if you don’t believe it to be true, well, you are not a utilitarian: you recognize that maximizing pleasure/minimizing pain is not, in fact, the highest good.

The problem with these ethical systems is that they attempt to isolate considerations of “what is good” from considerations of “what is,” which is something we Catholics believe is impossible. The way we are by nature is what is good: human nature is the mode or vehicle for human goodness. To be a good person is to be a characteristically excellent person, i.e., to behave in ways that express human nature most fully. This includes using your reproductive system in a manner consistent with the end of reproduction. So, for us, when you say “it doesn’t lead to bad outcomes,” you’re missing the point. It is itself a bad outcome.

You state that if homosexual couples raise kids that are far better off than those raised by heterosexual couples, then this would still be wrong because they couldn’t provide them with a “good moral example”. I’m guessing, by “good moral example” you mean the idea that homosexual relationships are bad. But without bad consequences, I don’t see where you get your morals from.

By “consequences” I’m assuming you mean things like health, socioeconomic status, literacy, etc. In other words, material things. What is bad is what produces material hardship, what is good is what reduces that.

By why should I believe that’s the case? If you say “only material things are good,” you are basically saying “only material things exist.” You are denying that there are nonmaterial goods necessary for human flourishing.

In other words, the reason you don’t see why we object to it is because you subscribe to a metaphysical system that denies that there is any reason to object to it.

I can’t explain to you why this is wrong because there is already a fundamental disconnect here. That’s all. Sorry.

 

[Lokabrenna]

Um, did anyone see this letter that’s been going around?

Letter to the editors and advisory editors of Social Science Research

As researchers and scholars, many of whom with extensive experience in quantitative and qualitative research in family structures and child outcomes, we write to raise serious concerns about the most recent issue of Social Science Research and the set of papers focused on parenting by lesbians and gay men. In this regard, we have particular concern about Mark Regnerus’ paper entitled “How different are the adult children of parents who have same-sex relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures Study.”

LGBT parenting is a highly politicized topic. While the presence of a vibrant and controversial public debate should in no way censor scholarship, it should compel the academy to hold scholarship around that topic to our most rigorous standards. We are very concerned that these standards were not upheld in this issue or with this paper, given the apparently expedited process of publication and the decision to publish commentaries on the paper by scholars who were directly involved with the study and have limited experience in LGBT parenting research. We also have serious concerns about the scholarly merit of this paper.

In this letter, we detail the specific concerns that lead us to request that you publicly disclose the reasons for both the expedited peer review process of this clearly controversial paper and the choice of commentators invited to submit critiques. We further request that you invite scholars with specific expertise in LGBT parenting issues to submit a detailed critique of the paper and accompanying commentaries for publication in the next issue of the journal.

We question the process by which this paper was submitted, reviewed, and accepted for publication. The paper was received by the journal on February 1, 2012. A revision was received on February 29, and the paper was accepted on March 12. This suggests that the peer review process and substantive revisions occurred within a period of just five weeks. According to the peer review policy of the Social Science Research website hosted by Elsevier, the first step of the review process is an initial manuscript evaluation by the editor. Once deemed to meet minimum criteria, at least 2 experts are secured for a peer review. The website states that, “Typically manuscripts are reviewed within 2-3 months of submission but substantially longer review times are not uncommon” and that “Revised manuscripts are usually returned to the initial referees upon receipt.” Clearly, Dr. Regnerus’ paper was returned to him very quickly, because he had time to revise the manuscript and get it back to the journal by February 29th. Further, it appears that a second substantive peer review may not have occurred as the paper was accepted just two weeks after the revision was submitted.

The five-week submission to acceptance length was much shorter than all of the other articles published in the July 2012 issue. The average period of review for papers published in this issue was more than a year and the median review time was more than ten months. As we note below, there are substantial concerns about the merits of this paper, and these concerns should have been identified through a thorough and rigorous peer review process.

We further question the selection of commenters for the Regnerus paper. While Cynthia Osborne and Paul Amato are certainly well-respected scholars, they are also both active participants in the Regnerus study. According to her curriculum vitae, Dr. Osborne is a Co-Principal Investigator of the New Family Structure Survey. Dr. Amato served as a paid consultant on the advisory group convened to provide insights into study design and methods. Perhaps more importantly, neither Osborne nor Amato have ever published work that considers LGBT family or parenting issues. A cursory examination of this body of literature would reveal a wide range of scholars who are much more qualified to evaluate the merits of this study and were neither directly involved in the study design nor compensated for that involvement.

We have substantial concerns about the merits of this paper and question whether it actually uses methods and instruments that answer the research questions posed in the paper. The author claims that the purpose of the analysis is to begin to address the question, “Do the children of gay and lesbian parents look comparable to those of their heterosexual counterparts?” (p. 755). He creates several categories of “family type”, including “lesbian mother” and “gay father” as well as “divorced late,” “stepfamily,” and “single-parent.” But, as the author notes, for those respondents who indicated that a parent had a “same-sex relationship,” these categories were collapsed to boost sample size:

That is, a small minority of respondents might fit more than one group. I have, however, forced their mutual exclusivity here for analytic purposes. For example, a respondent whose mother had a same-sex relationship might also qualify in Group 5 or Group 7, but in this case my analytical interest is in maximizing the sample size of Groups 2 and 3 so the respondent would be placed in Group 2 (LMs). Since Group 3 (GFs) is the smallest and most difficult to locate randomly in the population, its composition trumped that of others, even LMs. (There were 12 cases of respondents who reported both a mother and a father having a same-sex relationship; all are analyzed here as GFs, after ancillary analyses revealed comparable exposure to both their mother and father).

By doing this, the author is unable to distinguish between the impact of having a parent who has had a continuous same-sex relationship from the impact of having same-sex parents who broke-up from the impact of living in a same-sex stepfamily from the impact of living with a single parent who may have dated a same-sex partner; each of these groups are included in a single “lesbian mother” or “gay father” group depending on the gender of the parent who had a same-sex relationship. Specifically, this paper fails to distinguish family structure and family instability. Thus, it fails to distinguish, for children whose parents ever had a same-sex relationship experience, the associations due to family structure from the associations due to family stability. However, he does attempt to distinguish family structure from family instability for the children of different-sex parents by identifying children who lived in an intact biological family. To make a group equivalent to the group he labels as having “lesbian” or “gay” parents, the author should have grouped all other respondents together and included those who lived in an intact biological family with those who ever experienced divorce, or whose parents ever had a different-sex romantic relationship. That seems absurd to family structure researchers, yet that type of grouping is exactly what he did with his “lesbian mother” and “gay father” groups.

It should be noted that the analyses also fail to distinguish family structure from family stability for single mothers; this group included both continuously single mothers and those single mothers who had previously experienced a divorce.
The paper employs an unusual method to measure the sexual orientation of the respondents’ parents. Even if the analyses had distinguished family stability from family structure, this paper and its accompanying study could not actually directly examine the impact of having a gay or lesbian parent on child outcomes because the interpretation of the measurement of parental sexual orientation is unclear. The author acknowledges as much when he states:

It is, however, very possible that the same-sex romantic relationships about which the respondents report were not framed by those respondents as indicating their own (or their parent’s own) understanding of their parent as gay or lesbian or bisexual in sexual orientation. Indeed, this is more a study of the children of parents who have had (and in some cases, are still in) same-sex relationships than it is one of children whose parents have self-identified or are ‘‘out’’ as gay or lesbian or bisexual.

Respondents were asked whether their parents had ever had a same-sex relationship. The author then identifies mothers and fathers as “lesbian” or “gay” without any substantiation of parental sexual orientation either by respondents or their parents. Given the author’s stated caveats, it is both inappropriate and factually incorrect for him to refer to these parents as “gay” or “lesbian” throughout the paper.

We are very concerned about the academic integrity of the peer review process for this paper as well as its intellectual merit. We question the decision of Social Science Research to publish the paper, and particularly, to
publish it without an extensive, rigorous peer review process and commentary from scholars with explicit expertise on LGBT family research. The methodologies used in this paper and the interpretation of the findings are inappropriate. The publication of this paper and the accompanying commentary calls the editorial process at Social Science Research, a well-regarded, highly cited social science journal (ranking in the top 15% of Sociology journals by ISI), into serious question. We urge you to publicly disclose the reasons for both the expedited peer review process of this clearly controversial paper and the choice of commentators invited to submit critiques. We further request that you invite scholars with specific expertise in LGBT parenting issues to submit a detailed critique of the paper and accompanying commentaries for publication in the next issue of the journal.

What followed was a list of academics so long that I couldn’t post the whole thing.
ETA: The list is so large, I can’t post it.

 

[Crescentinus]

What is more telling is that homosexism’s argument got wrecked earlier.

 

[cathoichelp]

OK, second attempt.

Here’s an example. Suppose I’m a police officer and my city experiences a riot. I apprehend a murderer, place him in cuffs, but realize the jails are overflowing and that he will likely be released. Since order is dissolving I have no way to detain him, and I know if I release him he will kill again. A mob is coming, so I need to make a decision. “The ends justify the means,” I say, so I pull out my gun and shoot him in the back of the head.

You might argue that the consequence here is “you saved some other people’s lives.” But is that the case? How could I have known in advance? What if someone was taping me doing this, published it on YouTube, and incited the riots even further, causing even further harm than might have occurred otherwise? Consequentialism puts me in the odd position of believing that killing this murderer was good or evil depending entirely on how other people react to it. In other words, I cease to be a moral agent altogether.

Let’s take another, clearer example. I’m a doctor and I have five patients who are each dying from a different kind of organ failure. A sixth patient comes in for routine surgery. I kill him, harvest his organs, and implant them into the other five, saving their lives. Since consequentialism is all about maximizing value, I’ve done a good thing: I saved five lives, which is more than the one life I destroyed. So I’m in the clear. Which means that consequentialism literally endorses murder under certain circumstances. Likewise with all kinds of other things, like lying.

Now imagine a society in which everyone behaved this way: lied or murdered when it was convenient. Obviously it would be unworkable: it would descend into barbarism. Consequentialists try to get around this through “rule consequentialism,” i.e., by saying that we have to subordinate individual consequentialist acts to a broader consequentialist framework that maximizes overall good, even though individual goods may be lost. But why should this be necessary? If consequentialism leads to violence and horror, that’s evidence that it’s wrong and should be abandoned.

The specific form of consequentialism you endorse is called utilitarianism. The only difference is that for utilitarianism, “maximizing good” means “maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain.” There are obvious problems with this. For instance, utilitarians might oppose rape on the grounds that it causes more pain for the victim than it does pleasure for the rapist. But what if it were possible to arrange it so that she couldn’t possibly remember it – if you had one of those little Men in Black memory flasher/eraser things? No harm to her, right? Rape away? If you believe this to be true, what does that say about you? And if you don’t believe it to be true, well, you are not a utilitarian: you recognize that maximizing pleasure/minimizing pain is not, in fact, the highest good.

The problem with these ethical systems is that they attempt to isolate considerations of “what is good” from considerations of “what is,” which is something we Catholics believe is impossible. The way we are by nature is what is good: human nature is the mode or vehicle for human goodness. To be a good person is to be a characteristically excellent person, i.e., to behave in ways that express human nature most fully. This includes using your reproductive system in a manner consistent with the end of reproduction. So, for us, when you say “it doesn’t lead to bad outcomes,” you’re missing the point. It is itself a bad outcome.

By “consequences” I’m assuming you mean things like health, socioeconomic status, literacy, etc. In other words, material things. What is bad is what produces material hardship, what is good is what reduces that.

By why should I believe that’s the case? If you say “only material things are good,” you are basically saying “only material things exist.” You are denying that there are nonmaterial goods necessary for human flourishing.

In other words, the reason you don’t see why we object to it is because you subscribe to a metaphysical system that denies that there is any reason to object to it.

I can’t explain to you why this is wrong because there is already a fundamental disconnect here. That’s all. Sorry.

I find this post extremely interesting … Because you are directly quoting a lecture given at Harvard University … by Michael Sandal – who happens to be a political philosopher and professor but also friend of mine –

This lecture I do believe can be found online …
And it may also be in one of his books –

You should probably give him that credit

Also, while I am answering … Gays being parents is not utilitarian ethics –
Homosexuals do not become parents simply because saving one child is better than letting that child perish regardless of the (assumed) “moral” harm to the child …
Homosexuals can become parents in the same ways as anyone else.

And an argument could be made that traditionalist Catholic parents should not adopt because many draw a link between bullying and strict religious upbringings (I am just playing devils advocate I am NOT trying to argue that point one way or the other).

The point I am making is …
Simply saying Catholics think homosexuality is morally wrong – can not really be a reason to not allow someone else to be a parent because then you have opened the door to society saying …
Well we think Catholic Morality leads to suicide and increased rates of bullying -
(again that is just an example of how this line of I am moral judgment - (I am morally correct mindset) can be turned on anyone …

That’s not to say that there are not lines to be draw. If someone is a known abuser of children should be handed children simply because they think they are right.
But you can NOT prove harm there…

Saying it’s against natural law and the Catholic Faith … Does not prove harm to anyone other than Catholics following that faith and the harm is “perceived moral harm” …
Not physical not emotional …

 

[sw85]

I find this post extremely interesting … Because you are directly quoting a lecture given at Harvard University … by Michael Sandal – who happens to be a political philosopher and professor but also friend of mine –

This lecture I do believe can be found online …
And it may also be in one of his books –

You should probably give him that credit

I have never even so much as heard of this Sandal fellow, much less am I “directly quoting” him. What I’m talking about is Philosophy 101, stuff which everyone with a modestly rigorous undergrad ed should know.

Can you substantiate this not-very-thinly-veiled accusation of plagiarism or will you kindly be retracting it?

Also, while I am answering … Gays being parents is not utilitarian ethics –

The argument that it’s good for gays to be parents because no harm comes from it is a utilitarian argument, so in that sense, yes, it is. When you define “good” as “pleasant,” that’s a utilitarian argument.

Homosexuals do not become parents simply because saving one child is better than letting that child perish regardless of the (assumed) “moral” harm to the child …

That’s not what I’m saying.

Homosexuals can become parents in the same ways as anyone else.

This has nothing to do with what I’m saying.

And an argument could be made that traditionalist Catholic parents should not adopt because many draw a link between bullying and strict religious upbringings (I am just playing devils advocate I am NOT trying to argue that point one way or the other).

Plenty of people DO argue that. Which is evidence that people like me must NOT shrink from making the logical counterargument – if we’re going to get persecuted either way, we may as well stand on our feet instead of groveling on our knees.

The point I am making is …
Simply saying Catholics think homosexuality is morally wrong – can not really be a reason to not allow someone else to be a parent because then you have opened the door to society saying …

Who’s talking about “not allowing” whatever? This is a fairly academic discussion: whether or not homosexual couples raising children is good.

I reject your deceitful rhetorical sleight-of-hand common to leftists, who seek to reduce every ethical question into one of whether or not the government should send in the stormtroopers.

Well we think Catholic Morality leads to suicide and increased rates of bullying -
(again that is just an example of how this line of I am moral judgment - (I am morally correct mindset) can be turned on anyone …

Atheists make this argument literally all the time. They’re getting more vocal about it now. They’ve killed and persecuted us before over the perceived horribleness of Catholicism. So no, I’m not going unilaterally disarm. Nor am I going to conduct these discussions exclusively on their terms.

That’s not to say that there are not lines to be draw. If someone is a known abuser of children should be handed children simply because they think they are right.
But you can NOT prove harm there…

Saying it’s against natural law and the Catholic Faith … Does not prove harm to anyone other than Catholics following that faith and the harm is “perceived moral harm” …
Not physical not emotional …

And what I’m saying is that you do not get to decide on your own what constitutes harm. Nor do you get to object to every ethical system on the grounds that it’s contaminated with values while simultaneously smuggling in utilitarianism and demanding that it be the sole arbiter of the common good. There is no such thing as a value-free conception of the social good, because “good” is itself a value. (Actually, it IS value).

“I don’t agree with you” isn’t an argument. It’s a naked declaration of will in the face of reason and truth. If the natural law argument is wrong, we’re owed an explanation as to why, and one that doesn’t consist of the same silly errors Ed Feser keeps calling them out for. If atheists can’t be bothered to do their homework on this, too bad for them.

 

[Sparkythedog]

OK, second attempt.

Thank you for taking the time to respond twice. I know how annoying that is when your thoughts, that you took the time to type out, vanish in a computer glitch.

I’ve read your post several times and it seems that your main concern is losing moral agency. By moral agency I’m going to assume that you mean “the ability to judge between right and wrong and take responsibility for that judgement”. (If I’m not correct here please let me know)

You state that moral agency is diminished if the outcome is unknown, and I will agree with you to an extent. It is difficult to predict what effects a new technology or cultural change will have on our future society. I’m sure those who developed the internal combustion engine did not envision streets clogged with cars, accidents, urban sprawl, particulate pollution and global warming. And if they were still alive today I would not hold them accountable for not thinking of those things in advance. I would hold them accountable if they designed it poorly to save cost, knowing that cutting corners could cause injury to people. Evaluating consequences is a complicated process.

The “no win” scenarios that you describe with the police officer and the surgeon are overly simplified. The characters involved seem to exist in a vacuum and then are dropped into these situations without any foreknowledge of similar events, human empathy or cultural conditioning. We know what decisions they should make because we have prior experience with these scenarios.

We know from prior experience that the vigilante justice described in your first example is extremely error prone. What if the person the officer apprehended was the wrong guy. What if there is another aspect to his case that is unknown that would change his sentence. Killing people on the spot without a trial means that a lot of innocent people are going to die. We know this from our collective experience of prior consequences. We have decided, as a society, that we are uncomfortable with this kind of law. We want trials and courts (imperfect solutions in themselves but better) to decide with less bias the guilt or non-guilt of those charged with crimes. We know the consequences for these actions, as should a modern trained officer.

The same thing goes with the surgeon story. There have been times when cultural conditioning and lack of experience have led to stories like this happening. It tends to happen in societies based heavily on the idea of classes. It is easy to see a lower class as expendable. However we, as a group, have decided that we don’t want this type of medicine. We can empathize and see ourselves in that horrible scenario of being put to sleep and killed for our organs. We know the consequences for these actions, as should a modern trained surgeon.

Evaluation of consequences is a messy thing. Very few outcomes are going to be 100% beneficial or harmful. But evaluating the consequences as best we can based on personal or collective experience is the only reasonable way to proceed.

I can’t explain to you why this is wrong because there is already a fundamental disconnect here. That’s all. Sorry.

You don’t want to state how you derive morality or evaluate it. You say that I just wouldn’t understand, which, in turn, makes me think that you just can’t back up your own beliefs. It’s disingenuous to say there is a “fundamental disconnect” that you can cross but I cannot. Trust me, if you can do it, so can I.

It’s neither here nor there, but you brought it up, so let me just state for the record that I am a methodological materialist not an ontological materialist.

I’m going to guess that if you don’t weight the consequences, then you get your morality from an authority which, I’m again going to guess, would be the bible and tradition as interpreted by the Catholic Church. (Again, if I’m wrong please correct me)

In my opinion this is exactly the opposite of moral agency.

You have an authority saying that X action is bad. And your only moral obligation is to agree with the authority that X action is bad. If you disagree, then you are committing an immoral act. But how do you evaluate the action? How do you know that the authority is correct without weighing the consequences? This type of thinking strips you of your moral agency. You don’t have to think about the consequences of your actions because you trust that someone has already done it for you. All you have to do is abide. This is a system that shelters the bigotry that drew me to this post in the first place.

If I have made a straw man of your convictions, I apologize in advance. But if you don’t want that to happen in the future then have the courage to state them. (This isn’t meant to sound too angry - just provocative )

 

[sw85]

Thank you for taking the time to respond twice. I know how annoying that is when your thoughts, that you took the time to type out, vanish in a computer glitch.

I’ve read your post several times and it seems that your main concern is losing moral agency. By moral agency I’m going to assume that you mean “the ability to judge between right and wrong and take responsibility for that judgement”. (If I’m not correct here please let me know)

Basically, yes, that sounds right.

You state that moral agency is diminished if the outcome is unknown, and I will agree with you to an extent. It is difficult to predict what effects a new technology or cultural change will have on our future society. I’m sure those who developed the internal combustion engine did not envision streets clogged with cars, accidents, urban sprawl, particulate pollution and global warming. And if they were still alive today I would not hold them accountable for not thinking of those things in advance. I would hold them accountable if they designed it poorly to save cost, knowing that cutting corners could cause injury to people. Evaluating consequences is a complicated process.

The “no win” scenarios that you describe with the police officer and the surgeon are overly simplified. The characters involved seem to exist in a vacuum and then are dropped into these situations without any foreknowledge of similar events, human empathy or cultural conditioning. We know what decisions they should make because we have prior experience with these scenarios.

We know from prior experience that the vigilante justice described in your first example is extremely error prone. What if the person the officer apprehended was the wrong guy. What if there is another aspect to his case that is unknown that would change his sentence. Killing people on the spot without a trial means that a lot of innocent people are going to die. We know this from our collective experience of prior consequences. We have decided, as a society, that we are uncomfortable with this kind of law. We want trials and courts (imperfect solutions in themselves but better) to decide with less bias the guilt or non-guilt of those charged with crimes. We know the consequences for these actions, as should a modern trained officer.

This is what is called “rule consequentialism,” which runs afoul of a different set of problems, outlined extensively by David Oderberg here.
To wit:

*The rule consequentialist is generally right about the consequences of such a rule. But is he always right? Could there not be a society ordered by a system of rules that included rules allowing or requiring punishment of the innocent, torture of the innocent, oppression of minorities, slavery, theft, bribery, and so on? Haven’t such societies actually existed throughout history? But, says the rule consequentialist, value is never maximized in societies abiding by such systems. Yet how can he be so sure? On the one hand, he could say that the injustices in such societies are themselves so horrendous that no good consequences could outweigh them. But then the rule consequentialist would himself be operating with a non-consequentialist conception of what is good and bad: for that is just what the non-consequentialist holds, namely that certain acts are so wrong that no amount of good consequences can outweigh them.

On the other hand, the rule consequentialist could take such a society at face value: it could be a well ordered, highly stable society offering the best situation for the vast majority of its citizens, and as such the system of moral rules they obeyed would maximize value even though a minority of innocent people – maybe a tiny minority – were subject to the harshest, most unjust treatment imaginable, treated perhaps as nothing more than human cattle by the majority. Now such societies are clearly realistic, very arguably historical, and at least easily conceivable. This is why some rule consequentialists insist that you have to build into rule consequentialism extra principles protecting, say, liberty, or fairness, or justice. To do so, in my view, is to give the game away: it is effectively to abandon consequentialism. Furthermore it is ad hoc. Why stop at justice or liberty? Why not introduce many more non-consequentialist rules, rules against certain kinds of action that, if performed, might nevertheless maximize value?*

The same thing goes with the surgeon story. There have been times when cultural conditioning and lack of experience have led to stories like this happening. It tends to happen in societies based heavily on the idea of classes. It is easy to see a lower class as expendable. However we, as a group, have decided that we don’t want this type of medicine.

The question, though, is why? Why have we reached this determination? Unless you’re prepared to argue that it’s an arbitrary assertion of will you must acknowledge we are reaching for some higher moral principle than mere value-maximization. And unless you are prepared to argue that group consensus is absolutely binding and ironclad, one has to wonder why we would react with such visceral horror to the idea of this murderous doctor, whose primary sin, under a consequentialist framework, would, after all, be simply that he violated an arbitrary social arrangement.

Again, the problem here is that consequentialism doesn’t explain our moral intuitions, and that’s exactly what an ethical system is supposed to: not only to explain it but to extrapolate broader principles to apply in grayer areas. In this case, it leaves you in the awkward position of believing that our prohibition on doctors murdering patients for instrumental reasons is just an arbitrary social construct that in no way corresponds to a real and objective sense of moral evil.

We can empathize and see ourselves in that horrible scenario of being put to sleep and killed for our organs. We know the consequences for these actions, as should a modern trained surgeon.

And we don’t want it to happen to us, yes. But why? Consequentialism tells us this would be a good thing. But clearly, it wouldn’t be; we instinctively recognize it as a revolting course of action. So clearly consequentialism lacks explanatory value in terms of our moral intuitions.

You don’t want to state how you derive morality or evaluate it. You say that I just wouldn’t understand, which, in turn, makes me think that you just can’t back up your own beliefs. It’s disingenuous to say there is a “fundamental disconnect” that you can cross but I cannot. Trust me, if you can do it, so can I.

My purpose here is polemical, not apologetical. There’s a reason for that. I’m a natural law ethicist. Natural law ethics is a tradition that goes back 2,500 years and has lots of supporting distinctions and nuances. I can’t possibly do it justice in a single forum post. I’m working on a book on the topic, for Heaven’s sake.

I recently posted a list of references for interested readers earlier here. These include some readings by Ed Feser and David Oderberg. If you’re genuinely interested in learning more, I encourage you to check them out and PM me with questions.

 

[cathoichelp]

You have taken all this philosophy and never heard of Michael Sandal huh? Interesting! I was not really meaning to accuse you of plagiarism – I was more suggesting that if your examples were coming from Sandal you should mention it. But apparently where you learn moral reasoning one of the most influential modern philosophers is not discussed??
here you go …
I have not played this entire lecture I am working … but I believe your examples are in here…
justiceharvard.org/2011/03/episode-01/#watch

And then you also quoted H. J. McCloskey–without giving credit.
with the Sheriff example …

You have given their direct examples of Utility and not heard of them… that is odd-

Gays being parents would fall under the principal of utility if the action caused more harm or more good to society or even the person(s) involved …
What studies show is the effects are neutral … there are of course differences and different challenges for children who are adopted – in ANY family –

Another words there is no way to apply the principal of utility unless you can prove it is benefiting society -
or not benefiting society
And your only argument is it goes against my religion – which I do understand you completely believe to be the only truth …

so –

In order for what you are saying to be correct no one but Catholics should have children. Because you are saying that unless “gods law” is taught and upheld in a home it is damaging …
So any other person, other than a Catholic Family or one teaching such ethics to children, would, according to you, only be having children based on Utilitarian ethics–which gives us at least one point we can agree on … utilitarianism is problematic -

 

[sw85]

You have taken all this philosophy and never heard of Michael Sandal huh? Interesting! I was not really meaning to accuse you of plagiarism – I was more suggesting that if your examples were coming from Sandal you should mention it. But apparently where you learn moral reasoning one of the most influential modern philosophers is not discussed??
here you go …
I have not played this entire lecture I am working … but I believe your examples are in here…
justiceharvard.org/2011/03/episode-01/#watch

And then you also quoted H. J. McCloskey–without giving credit.
with the Sheriff example …

I have been reading/studying/writing about philosophy for the better part of a decade now, when I first picked up Kant’s Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals at a used bookstore for $1.25 when I was 17 or so. It is very possible I have come across these sorts of examples before and simply don’t remember when/where (though, again, neither the names Sandal or McCloskey ring any bells for me). If not, well, they are intuitively very useful examples, so it’s hardly impossible that they occurred to two or more people at different times with no contact with one another.

Gays being parents would fall under the principal of utility if the action caused more harm or more good to society or even the person(s) involved …
What studies show is the effects are neutral … there are of course differences and different challenges for children who are adopted – in ANY family –

What I am saying is that the argument that material indicators alone justifies claims re: the moral goodness of homosexual parenting is itself a utilitarian argument. I’m rejecting this claim. There are higher goods than health and prosperity.

In order for what you are saying to be correct no one but Catholics should have children. Because you are saying that unless “gods law” is taught and upheld in a home it is damaging …

To be clear, I’m talking about natural law here, not divine positive law. But yes, I agree it is in fact very damaging for children not to be raised in such a manner that their sensibilities are trained toward obedience to the good. But it’s also irrelevant to the immediate discussion.

So any other person, other than a Catholic Family or one teaching such ethics to children, would, according to you, only be having children based on Utilitarian ethics–which gives us at least one point we can agree on … utilitarianism is problematic -

Surely you can see why a Catholic would think non-Catholic families are disadvantaged in the quest for salvation?

 

[He_Man]

Yeah I agree with you…that’s a good point. How long have same sex couples been around? Like in retro spect don’t you think it’s like comparing a little kid to an old man? Same sex households have only been around for a blink of an eye compared to hetero…

Does secular evidence matter when God has already spoken? I don’t care if you could produce a survery taken of 6 Billion people with 100% certainty showing that same-sex households produce “better” children, I’d say the same thing - not according to the Lord and the Holy Father.

That’s all we should care about when forming our personal beliefs as Catholics. This sort of study is nice for non-believers who refuse to submit to the will of God.

 

[He_Man]

Yay lying with statistics to bash gay people!

Come on, of course in tact families fare better than divided families that have gone through a lot of upheaval. That’s true for heterosexually reared kids as well.

To me, what this study shows is the danger of trying to pretend to be something you’re not (straight). To try and live a false life will likely crumble, at great detriment to yourself and your family. Better to be who you are from the start, rather than setting yourself and your family up for great strife.

Thank you for posting this. It has made me even more convinced how important it is to make homosexuals feel accepted in our society so they don’t feel the need to “fake it” and harm their children by doing so.

This is true, assuming you place the “happiness” of the parents above what is best for the children.

If you place the child’s welfare first, then that becomes you driving premise in looking at these sort of studies, and renders the happiness of the parents moot.

 

[cathoichelp]

I have been reading/studying/writing about philosophy for the better part of a decade now, when I first picked up Kant’s Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals at a used bookstore for $1.25 when I was 17 or so. It is very possible I have come across these sorts of examples before and simply don’t remember when/where (though, again, neither the names Sandal or McCloskey ring any bells for me). If not, well, they are intuitively very useful examples, so it’s hardly impossible that they occurred to two or more people at different times with no contact with one another.

Those are pretty big names to not remember …regardless my apologies I would not want to accuse anyone of something … I found it odd you were pulling out examples from very well known individuals and not citing them … you would not find any of this in Metaphysics of Morals hahahahaha… McCloskey’s famous Sheriff example that you quoted - i believe was in the 1960s … Unless Kant was also omnipresent lol /
What I am saying is that the argument that material indicators alone justifies claims re: the moral goodness of homosexual parenting is itself a utilitarian argument. I’m rejecting this claim. There are higher goods than health and prosperity.

No this is not being said … what is being said is there is no harm – the only harm you site is your religious view–and again I know you believe it is the only truth–But many many people believe the only truth is something entirely different.

To be clear, I’m talking about natural law here, not divine positive law. But yes, I agree it is in fact very damaging for children not to be raised in such a manner that their sensibilities are trained toward obedience to the good. But it’s also irrelevant to the immediate discussion.

so you are not arguing against gay parenting as much as secular parenting? lol

Surely you can see why a Catholic would think non-Catholic families are disadvantaged in the quest for salvation?

Not according to the teachings of your church — in which you could not possibly know the intent - or culpability or chance for salvation of any other person. Especially since you can’t really be guilty of violating "moral law"or committing mortal sins without having an understanding of them. So a child who was never taught any of this – has no less of a chance for salvation than you –

 

[Sparkythedog]

My purpose here is polemical, not apologetical. There’s a reason for that. I’m a natural law ethicist. Natural law ethics is a tradition that goes back 2,500 years and has lots of supporting distinctions and nuances. I can’t possibly do it justice in a single forum post. I’m working on a book on the topic, for Heaven’s sake.

I recently posted a list of references for interested readers earlier here. These include some readings by Ed Feser and David Oderberg. If you’re genuinely interested in learning more, I encourage you to check them out and PM me with questions.

I’ll read Feser’s essay and get back to you in a few days.

 

[Bradski]

You have an authority saying that X action is bad. And your only moral obligation is to agree with the authority that X action is bad. If you disagree, then you are committing an immoral act. But how do you evaluate the action? How do you know that the authority is correct without weighing the consequences? This type of thinking strips you of your moral agency. You don’t have to think about the consequences of your actions because you trust that someone has already done it for you. All you have to do is abide.

This just about cuts to the core of the discussion.

The Church says that homosexuality is wrong. Is it possible for a Catholic to consider this question and decide whether it is correct or not (and remain a Catholic)? Are you allowed to question it? If not then any arguments you use in support of the premise are based on what has already been decided by others as opposed to what you have come to believe yourself.

My position on homosexuality has changed. I have listened to all sides of the debate and have met with and talked to homosexuals. I have family members and friends who are gay whereas before I didn’t know any. I found that the arguments against homosexuality were based on lack of knowledge, fear, homophobia and religious beliefs.

Now I have more knowledge, I realise I have no need to fear it, I am no longer homophobic and I am not constrained by any particular religious beliefs. I can now admit that I was wrong. It can be quite humbling to do so, but also quite liberating. A lot of Catholics are in the process of doing the same thing – admitting that what they believed, or what the church was telling them what they needed to believe, was wrong. Does that mean they’re no longer Catholic? That’s not for me to say.

But you don’t become a member of the faith by ticking a certain number of boxes to be allowed in. You don’t get to choose which Catholic beliefs you can skip. If you’re a true Catholic, then you must argue against homosexuality. Whether you would have come to that belief yourself or not.

 

[fix]

This just about cuts to the core of the discussion.

The Church says that homosexuality is wrong. Is it possible for a Catholic to consider this question and decide whether it is correct or not (and remain a Catholic)? Are you allowed to question it? If not then any arguments you use in support of the premise are based on what has already been decided by others as opposed to what you have come to believe yourself.

My position on homosexuality has changed. I have listened to all sides of the debate and have met with and talked to homosexuals. I have family members and friends who are gay whereas before I didn’t know any. I found that the arguments against homosexuality were based on lack of knowledge, fear, homophobia and religious beliefs.

Now I have more knowledge, I realise I have no need to fear it, I am no longer homophobic and I am not constrained by any particular religious beliefs. I can now admit that I was wrong. It can be quite humbling to do so, but also quite liberating. A lot of Catholics are in the process of doing the same thing – admitting that what they believed, or what the church was telling them what they needed to believe, was wrong. Does that mean they’re no longer Catholic? That’s not for me to say.

But you don’t become a member of the faith by ticking a certain number of boxes to be allowed in. You don’t get to choose which Catholic beliefs you can skip. If you’re a true Catholic, then you must argue against homosexuality. Whether you would have come to that belief yourself or not.

Why is your position correct?

 

[Bradski]

Why is your position correct?

Why is it correct? Well, I think that I’m right. I’ve been prepared to talk to as many people, to read and listen to as many views on the matter and to take on the thoughts and considerations of people I think are worth listening to (on both sides of the debate).

I’ve thought about it for many years and I’ve come to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality or gay marriage. I may be wrong. I may be wrong about lots of things. But I’m the one that has to make the decision. I’m the one that has to live with my conscience. God forbid that I should let someone else make those decisions for me.

How about you? Is it a personal decision?