How can homosexuality be immoral or contrary to natural ends if there is a genetic/evolutionary/biological reason for it?

[RepetantCatholic]

OK, so the first problem is you got it from Reddit. The second problem is allowing Darwin to be your morality. The two requirements for a species to survive are survival of the fit and the sexual selection. OK, survival of the fit is the easier of the two. So long as you can survive in the environment (food, habitat) then you are fit. Sexual selection is the toughest, the mate who chooses to procreate with you must see your inherent fitness as sufficient or excellent to risk offspring.

OK, so homosexuality is essentially population control is what you are writing. Because again, their sex doesn’t lead to offspring. Which essentially views their mutation as inferior to say other mutations which would help in furthering an ever greater population growth of fit men and women.

I don’t know I’m not lgbtq but it sure as hell sound demeaning to the lgtbq community. It sounds like what Scientist are concluding is inherent inferiority. Hence, if you take your morality from Scientist (who themselves may not be sexually selected) you sure as helk get Social Darwinism and a Nazism.

 

[Thorolfr]

Pai_Nosso:

So seeing your keen on being an advocate for gay people u should have some argument for the justification of anal sex given that is the practice most commonly used in male homosexuality.

Do you have a basis to claim that as fact?

I was recently looking through a new book I saw at the bookstore by Peggy Orenstein, Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent and Navigating the New Masculinity (Harper, 2020) and in a chapter on young gay men, she said that only about 39% of gay men practice anal sex. Among young gay men it’s probably even less. Although I didn’t look at it, she did cite a source for her information.

 

[Rau]

But it does say that if you are aware of someones suffering, you are able to fix it, and you don’t - yes that would be immoral.

How do you do with a scenario involving trade-offs? If 10 are dying in pain, is it moral to kill the one (who is innocent of any wrong) painlessly if that provides as means to save the 10?

 

[MarkRome]

An immoral act is one that increases, initiates or expands pain and suffering, or increases the probability of future pain and suffering from occurring.

Childbirth causes pain.
Sex increases the probability of future pain and suffering.
Therefore, sex is immoral.

 

[Freddy]

jan10000:

An immoral act is one that increases, initiates or expands pain and suffering, or increases the probability of future pain and suffering from occurring.

Childbirth causes pain.
Sex increases the probability of future pain and suffering.
Therefore, sex is immoral.

I don’t think that what Jan has suggested is in any way controversial in the slightest. If you want to treat it as nonsensical then that is your right. But you aren’t really adding anything to the conversation by making comments like that.

Don’t you think that there are some unstated qualifications to what she said that are quite simple to incorporate in the proposal. And they were unstated because they are so obvious as to not need stating. Maybe you could think of a couple.

 

[MarkRome]

I don’t think that what Jan has suggested is in any way controversial in the slightest.

Except that I just demonstrated how it doesn’t work as a moral framework. You just don’t have a good counter argument.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

I don’t think that what Jan has suggested is in any way controversial in the slightest.

Except that I just demonstrated how it doesn’t work as a moral framework. You just don’t have a good counter argument.

OK, you couldn’t think of any qualifications so I’ll have to point them out.

Firstly I thought it was obvious that causing pain in some way, if it led to greater pleasure or satisfaction or less pain overall would be a good thing. So having a baby, as I’m sure your mother will tell you (or your wife if you’re married and have kids) was well worth the temporary pain she went through in having you. Likewise if your wife cut herself on a dirty knife then cleaning the wound, though painful, would be of benefit.

Secondly you have to consider consent. There are people who like pain to a certain extent. Whether it’s eating a hot sauce or being whipped. So if someone wants to be caused pain then it’s not immoral to comply (as long as it doesn’t distress the one causing it).

That was pretty straightforward.

 

[MarkRome]

Firstly I thought it was obvious that causing pain in some way, if it led to greater pleasure or satisfaction or less pain overall would be a good thing

Jan’s moral framework doesn’t include pleasure or satisfaction. I thought she made that pretty clear.

Why does consent factor into this? If someone wants to be tortured and killed, is the act somehow now moral?

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

Firstly I thought it was obvious that causing pain in some way, if it led to greater pleasure or satisfaction or less pain overall would be a good thing

Jan’s moral framework doesn’t include pleasure or satisfaction. I thought she made that pretty clear.

Why does consent factor into this? If someone wants to be tortured and killed, is the act somehow now moral?

Jan will have to answer the first point. But I believe she tends to Sam Harris’s view that adding to one’s well being can be considered an aim in determining moral acts. Nevertheless, going back to cleaning the wound for example, refusing to do so would surely be immoral. So cleaning it would at worst be amoral. Likewise refusing to have sex because the woman wanted a baby (and for some weird reason you didn’t want her to have the pain of childbirth) would surely cause mental anguish and therefore be immoral.

And if someone likes being in pain and you have no problem in causing it and assuming there are no mental problems associated with the desire and no long term affects that would cause unwanted pain or discomfort then I struggle to class it as immoral.

Killing them? Well, there are certainly long term affects there. And perhaps we’re perhaps heading into euthanasia territory. Tricky subject…

 

[o_mlly]

I reserve the right to modify it (I’ve already acknowledged this with the idea of ‘well-being’).

I missed that modification. Perhaps it was in another thread. Please restate your modification. Is the moral value in the modified code changed from mitigating pain to increasing well-being?

Yes, with the following caveats. Acts the are purely internal are neutral in terms of morality.

Yes, I think I understand. Let me test my understanding so far.

In your moral code, any act that affects only the actor’s well-being is amoral. The scope of your moral code is limited to “avoid doing evil to others”. Evil acts are acts for which the reasonable foreseeable effects reduces others’ net well-being. Good acts are acts for which the reasonable foreseeable effects increase the well-being of others. Is that correct?

This seems fair - but I’m not sure where you are going with it. I hope it is not a trap.

No trap. Classical utilitarian moral systems are a special set of consequentialist moral systems. In consequentialist systems, the foreseeable effects are the reasonably foreseeable effects inclusive of all persons affected. The deviation you propose in your modified utilitarian system alters the classical understanding of the components used in the calculation of effects to be all persons affected except the actor. Is that correct?

Because the sadist’s act is creating pleasure, it is neutral in terms of morality. Similarly, the masochist allowing himself to be hit is also creating pleasure, so it to is neutral.

I see. So is it fair to say that the modified utilitarian system you propose does not address the morality of disordered human acts such as SMD, sexual masochism disorder?

• I have an itch on my back. I am ‘suffering’ (for sake of argument). I ask you to scratch it. The ‘moral’ thing to do would be to scratch it. It would be ‘immoral’ not to scratch it.
• But let’s say I need a ride to get to a job interview. You ask me to scratch the itch anyway. I do the moral thing and scratch your itch. But I end up missing a taxi …

OK. Your proposed moral system recognizes that an enabled moral actor has an obligation to mitigate the pain of others, iff doing so does not unduly cause the actor pain.

ANY act that increases the suffering of the partner would be immoral. The type of act is not really relevant.

The above seems a contradiction to me. If by relevancy you mean acts that fall within the scope of your moral system then sexual acts for which the reasonable foreseeable effect increases the pain or suffering of the partner are proscribed. No?

 

[Rau]

But it does say that if you are aware of someones suffering, you are able to fix it, and you don’t - yes that would be immoral.

Is there a response available?

 

[Rau]

Killing one of the ten somehow saves the other 9.

No, the 1 to be killed is fine, not a threat, not one of the 10 - but by killing that 1, 10 can be saved from painful death.

But it could be that you have answered my question anyway, because you say:

Rather than have someone perform an immoral act by killing the tenth, the tenth would self-administer the vaccine (or whatever needed to be done).

So presumably killing (an innocent person) in your scheme is always immoral. I assume that means - immoral regardless of other benefits.

 

[Rau]

If the 11th refuses, then yes, the moral act would be for the 10th to cut loose the 11th.

I don’t know about rope scenarios - it’s not what I posited. But nevertheless, are you saying that under your scheme, it would be moral to directly (intentionally) kill an innocent person as a means to save a larger number?

Consider dropping the atomic bomb. How many American lives were saved? Was that a moral act?

I believe catholic moral theology would hold that act to be (mass) murder.

 

[Rau]

All you are doing is asking me if I will choose a large amount of suffering, or larger amount of suffering. The framework says to minimize the suffering.

I understand. In catholic moral theology (as you probably know) there are lines that may not be crossed regardless of outcomes. Most other schemes admit no such lines. Often therefore good and evil can only be separated by a balance of consequences analysis. On the one hand this seems attractive, but on the other hand, we are forever needing to do calculations about the future as the first order assessment of good vs evil. To “minimize suffering” means for everyone for all time. That may be hard (impossible) to judge. In the Catholic scheme, the first order considerations are given to us: the “Thou shall’t not…” rules. This eliminates a big part of the need to judge future consequences.

 

[Rau]

For example, the ‘closeness’ of two people affect heir moral calculus.

That much is true in catholic moral theology too. To murder one’s mother, or one’s child is more heinous than to kill a stranger. But of course that never permits murdering an innocent stranger as a means to save mother.

 

[EndTimes]

How can we still argue that homosexuality is immoral/contrary to the procreative faculties if there is an explicit genetic/evolutionary/biological reason for it?"

Just don’t posit that as true
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