And you have another purpose in mind that explains “why we have sex organs in the first place?”
Well, no, actually.
Lots of people interpret “subjective” differently. In fact, I’m discussing this matter with Charlemagne III in another thread. When I say morality is subjective, I mean that all moral codes assume at least one moral/value as axiomatic. In other words, you cannot derive an “ought” from an “is”, but you can derive it from another “ought”. And since any choice of axioms cannot be justified, by definition, it follows that neither of us can prove the other wrong on some “absolute” basis if we choose different axioms. (A good example of this sort of thing is the various types of geometry. It would be nonsensical to try to argue that Euclidean geometry is right and elliptic geometry is wrong, since they differ due to the choice of axioms.)
Given your second question, I know where you’re going with this. But to consider the question in its own right, I would say that we need to specify what “stealing” is. Is it stealing to take my friend’s car keys from him so that he can’t drive drunk? Can a person own something if they lack the competence to use it responsibly? If not, then that would suggest an answer to your next question about terrorist threats.
If we overlooked the possible event of a terrorist threat in our initial consideration of the rule, we would surely revise it in the face of this new information. If you don’t like complicating a rule, then maybe we could arrange a provisional hierarchy where rules can be bypassed when other rules take precedence (not unlike our legal system). Nothing changes fundamentally, though. All rules are still accountable to the standard set by the greatest happiness principle.
By itself, being natural proves nothing, and we seem to agree on that much. It is suggestive of something, though. Pleasure is the body’s way of reinforcing biologically desirable behaviors. Since our brains–especially men’s brains–are wired to have a powerful sex drive that encourages promiscuity, that will be a source of pleasure for us, at least on average. Pleasure doesn’t immediately translate to happiness, and we certainly don’t allow ourselves to act on every impulse anyway, but still…it is suggestive that monogamy may not be the best formula for happiness.
Another possibility is that being born gay diminishes someone’s prospects for happiness right off the bat. If that is indeed the case, then the question becomes whether gay sex exacerbates the problem. But I don’t remember if you agree with the premise that people may be born gay.
Happiness is notoriously hard to study directly. The obvious method would be to just conduct a survey and ask people to gauge their happiness, but the very act of monitoring one’s own happiness seems to affect it. And even if it didn’t, emotions do not lend themselves well to measurement. Suppose we were both asked to gauge our happiness with 10 being happiest and 1 being most miserable. Maybe we have different ideas of how much 10 should be. To me, 10 might be winning the lottery and to someone else it may be graduating high school or getting married. Those aren’t comparable. Even if 10 were defined beforehand it would still cause problems, because we may not value whatever 10 represents equally.
If I get my way and I still suffer from it, usually one of two things happened: 1) I miscalculated. I did not foresee the consequences of what I wanted. 2) I had multiple preferences that conflicted with each other.Why should other people satisfy my preferences, in such a case?
What is interesting about this claim is that you conveniently forget that it is also humans who DO biology.
You assume that a person’s happiness correlates directly with their reported happiness. Why should we believe that?
This depends whether sexual organs are there for pleasure or they are there for procreation. For me pleasure go first as the first cause since living a life without pleasure is a eternal torment leading to extinction.
Alien life might, I don’t know. It’s irrelevant to my point, which is that prescriptive statements are outside the jurisdiction of science.
But this is circular reasoning, since it’s the ethical system in question that decides which outcomes are absurd. If you don’t think so, consider the following ethical system: Don’t do things that bring about “weird or absurd consequences”.
Preference utilitarianism views some preferences as having more weight than others. I don’t know where you would get the impression that it doesn’t. For example, some preferences are clearly more fundamental than others. Many of my preferences require that my preference for freedom of speech be satisfied as a prerequisite, for example.
Prodigal_Son certainly expressed no confusion about my position in this regard.We actually do forms of “preference manipulation” all the time. Children are raised to have realistic expectations of their futures. Most people learn through dating that they need to settle. Some people even subscribe to religions where you are basically coached to overcome impulses that are hard to satisfy. None of this is necessarily evil. In fact, it’s often a good thing.
There are multiple problems with this scenario. For one, I never equated happiness to pleasure. Most preferences people have cannot be satisfied with a high, and the suicide rate of alcoholics attests to this.
Now now, don’t get all defensive and coyOf course, Paul isn’t condemning gay people. Paul isn’t God, and Paul opposes any human being condemning anyone else. I do to. I don’t think gay people are more guilty of sin than straight people. I just think sodomy – straight or gay – is a sin. (I could list off for you a number of my own sins that are just as bad as sodomy – heck, they’re listed in Romans 1. I’m certainly in no position to judge sinners, but I am in a position to judge sins).
You seem to want to accuse me of being a bigot or some such thing. I don’t understand why you want to do that.
. Paul isn’t condemning you, nor is he condemning gays, nor is he condemning anyone. He’s saying that by condemning others for what we also do, we condemn ourselves.Does the rate differ between celibate and non celibate? If not, or it the celibate rate is higher, then…
Nope. See above. People get all excited because of Paul’s language. Do one of those Catholic meditation things, make believe that up until last week you worshiped Venus or something, read the whole Letter in context.
Agreed, except I think it’s up to society to say on behalf of the children when and how agencies can discriminate.
There you go again
. I was pointing out how opponents could and do use things, but point taken, I’ll be less enthusiastic. I fully agree on divorce, although it’s beyond me what to do about it. Re. your paper, have you tried philpapers.org? Not sure what the publishing conditions are but it has over a million entries online, it’s not peer reviewed or anything and I think most professionals are members.Sounds like a classic case of circular reasoning.
Only if science is outside the jurisdiction of morality.
I think you’re complicated things. In Rom 2:1 Paul is telling them realize that just calling yourself a Christian doesn’t mean you are following Christ, you also have to change your behavior.
You don’t ask people with black skin if discrimination has stopped. You don’t go near the victims of discrimination. You ask people in general is this (racialist) joke funny? Is this stereotype valid? And so on.You are playing semantic games here by defining a necessary condition as a “preference.” What you are doing is relying upon the moral sensibilities of normal human beings to assert their preference for fundamentals that are not merely preferences but obligatory for morality to function.
You missed the point here.
I’m not sure what we’re arguing about here. You seem to have been saying before that Paul wasn’t censuring homosexual activity. But now you say that “the idolators” (including those having gay sex) are “wicked”. OK, I’m fine with that. And then you say that we’re all wicked, and have no basis to judge other people’s souls. I’m fine with that.Now now, don’t get all defensive and coy
Put the Letter into context. Rome at this time is still full of idolatry and cults. Some of the members of the Church are Jews (there are many in Rome), others were idolators perhaps only days or weeks before hearing the Letter. Imagine yourself there.
Paul begins by rallying the troops, telling you all that the idolators will bring the wrath of God down on themselves for their wickedness. Then just as you’re all feeling warn and fuzzy about how good you are in comparison, he drops a bit of a bombshell by saying in no uncertain terms that those in the church who continue with their previous habits are no different.
Well, you tell me. If you can show me that celibate gay folks are more likely to be genuinely unhappy than sexually active gay folks, I’ll shut up.Does the rate differ between celibate and non celibate? If not, or it the celibate rate is higher, then…
I think philpapers just assembles papers published in other sources. After I’m more established in the field, I might try to publish it again. Most philosophers, though, think criticisms of divorce are complete bunk. Sad, but true.
Given that you currently have a thread going about what the nature of things means, I’m not sure how an act can be “unnatural”. Do you mean the world will explode or something?
Where’s the commandment?
Telling teenagers that they displease God just by being how God made them can really mess them up for life.
Hear, hear!
And that would include the behaviour of those women who “exchanged natural relations for unnatural,” the men who “gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another” and commit “shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.”
No. I’m asking that the Letter is read in the context of the original audience, with their knowledge and worldview in the original setting, asking what is the author’s intention to that audience, what was the author trying to tell them. As opposed to quote mining, etc.
I think you’re complicated things. In Rom 2:1 Paul is telling them realize that just calling yourself a Christian doesn’t mean you are following Christ, you also have to change your behavior.
The fact that utilitarianism leads us to protect what even other moral codes deem “obligatory for morality” is a testament to its power. Don’t dismiss my argument as a semantics game just because you don’t like it. If I am playing on ambiguities in my writing, call me out on it.
Well, yes, obviously. Moral codes of any kind are only concerned with what humans care about. If there ever comes a time when human nature fundamentally changes and we value radically different things, moral codes will change to reflect that. One of the advantages of utilitarianism is that it will adapt naturally as preferences change. Other moralities will make ad hoc adjustments over time since they are inflexible to begin with.
Please provide a plausible scenario in which humans would no longer prefer freedom of speech. What you are describing is a pipe dream.
Another pipe dream. The fact that you have to contrive such outrageous situations to make utilitarianism look bad proves how solid a philosophy it is.
And telling teenagers that they are free to follow whatever inclination or whim enters their hormone laden brains can also “really mess them up for life.”
Which is why my point was that unless he has a legitimate test of that claim (rather than some assorted anecdotes) he cannot actually conclude his final point.