Nearly everyone realizes that it is ethically problematic to raise certain questions in certain contexts. You don't, for example, walk into a holocaust memorial and start asking questions about the legitimacy of the evidence for the holocaust. Now, the writer over at the Philosophical Disquietations blog (note: who does NOT oppose homosexuality!) doesn't feel the same way about the "question" of gay sex. There is something, apparently, called the "Impeded Function Argument" against this kind of sexual activity, and to be fair to the (excellent) blog in question, John thinks we should try to understand the argument because it is (apparently) "gaining traction" in some quarters.
However, there is a problem, here. To admit that it is worth our time examining the argument is to supply it with a certain credibility, or to imply that its conclusion is not absurd. If we saw that an argument had the conclusion: "thus, there are square circles" we would not feel the need to look at the premises. We can know, via the absurdity of the conclusion, that the premises must be false or irrelevant.
The conclusion of the "Impeded Function Argument" is there is something morally wrong with a person's freely chosen consensual activity which harms no-one and which is an necessary expression of a central part of their psychological identity. The conclusion is absurd. Why, then, look into the premises?
I can hear the standard philosophical objections already, but consider this: to admit the barest possibility that I might be swayed by the argument, or by any other argument with the same conclusion, is to loosen my grip on some of my deepest ethical principles. Isn't there something troubling about that?
Finally, to bring things back to where I began, there must be a point at which the very asking of a question is ethically wrong. If a blog has 1000 readers, we can be sure that 50 of those readers identify as homosexual. Is it not their right to live in a society which does not belive that they must supply a justification for what they do, when the activity in question is (1) freely chosen, (2) harms no one, (3) is an expression of their identity, and (4) is an important component of a healthy and happy life?
If I were one of these 50 people, my thought would be something like: "I shouldn't have to even encounter such arguments, let alone engage with them. Furthermore, the proper response to those who make them is not rational discussion, it's a refusal to admit that they even have a viewpoint worth discussing. And if someone actually tries to stop me from being myself, I will not meet them with words, I will meet them with bullets."
As philosophers, we tend to think that any and all questions are open for discussion. However, if we are also to be ethical beings, we should admit that some questions should not be raised, particularly when the raising of the question constitutes a profound insult to an already marginalized group of peoeple who deserve far better. And a natural way of offering this love and respect to them is to say that there is no question at all.
18 comments:
It's a fair point and Richard Chappell made a similar comment before he discussed Robert George's (and ors) article "What is Marriage?" on his blog. (Although, I note, he still went ahead and discussed the argument).
Perhaps I should have issued that caveat at the outset. That might have taken the edge off (the tone of the post is perhaps overly respectful to the argument and so that leads to misunderstanding - as appeared to happen on Reddit). Still, I'm somewhat reluctant to edit it any further or take it down, since it's already out there and I might be accused of self-censorship or cowardliness.
The only reason I discussed it is because I'm teaching a class on natural law in a few weeks and this is one area where natural law arguments of this sort are still seriously considered (e.g. in the work of George, Finnis, Grisez etc). The perverted faculty or impeded function argument tends - in various guises - to form part of their critique of same-sex marriage.
Like it or not, flawed and ridiculous arguments are widely believed and I still think the best way to deal with them is to patiently and reasonably point out their flaws. I think that approach is quite disarming and can really force people to change their views (it certainly did for me - although not on this particular issue). In this respect I'm encouraged by the example of John Corvino who has been doing a wonderful talk "What's wrong with Homosexuality?" for a number of years (you can find extracts from it online). In it, he humourously and reasonably debunks a whole range of anti-homosexuality arguments. I think it's effective. And I'd worry about "responding with bullets"; I think violence should be a last resort.
Your concern about the forum is interesting. Do you really think it would be inappropriate to respond to holocaust deniers in a holocaust museums? (Which is, I think a fairer analogy with what I'm doing in that blog post). I seem to recall Michael Shermer did a talk in a holocaust museum in which he responded to deniers. I believe he was invited there do to so. Would it be okay to debunk the impeded-function argument if I was invited by a gay rights group to do so? Is a public blog an inappropriate forum for this? Was the original forum - a newsletter sent to professional philosophers - more appropriate?
This sort of argument ought to be crushed wherever and whenever it is found.
It is all very well to come over faint at the mere idea that some people might be inclined to take it seriously, but the fact is: some people are inclined to take it seriously. Chances are, they're already inclined to see gay sex as in some way "wrong" and are searching for an argument to provide a shred of intellectual respectability for their views. They should be denied this opportunity so that their position is exposed for what it is: a prejudiced gut-reaction.
If you think that people can't be bamboozled by nonsense dressed up in the quasi-scientific clothes of functionalism, you should take a good look around. It happens all the time. And the best way to stop it is to nip it in the bud.
I made a similar argument before with regards to the Bell Curve. If you presently have a strong reason to think X, you need to be given good reason to think a new argument for ~X is going to be worth your time.
Of course, this works for both sides. The argument might be a lot better than you give it credit for, but that fact can't be a rational reason for changing your behavior, for the simple reason that you're not aware of whether or not it's a fact.
Let me start by saying I don't in any way agree with the substance of the initial blog's proposition. And I take your point about ethical considerations for where, when, and in what context we raise a particular question.
I am nervous, however, about the impulse to limit inquiry. Are you making a principle out of this - namely, that we should always jump to the conclusion first and evaluate whether it makes sense before reading the justification, considering it, allowing it to be voiced in a public way? Because many propositions that have changed and disrupted human history looked pretty absurd when they were first voiced. If all we did was to say, "That makes no sense. It's a logical impossibility," we are judging the proposal based on our own understanding of the world, which is necessarily limited and may be quite limited regarding a specific subject - quantum physics, say - relative to the person making the apparently absurd proposal.
Who, then, gets to decide what are reasonable proposals and which are absurd? What are the criteria for ideas that may be on the ethical fringe?
We can still put limits on the application of inquiry. For example, knowing how to make and launch nuclear bombs does not (allegedly) give a government permission to nuke another region - there are a variety of limitations, both codified and otherwise, that limit such activity, and we generally consider that best for society. I am worried that following your suggestion removes the possibility of surprise and, such as it is (not in terms of the morality of homosexual sex, but ideas in general), progress.
I don't want to make too much of this, but people do realise that the original blog post (mine!) does not actually endorse the argument against homosexual sex, right?
Hi John,
I've edited the post to make that clear, and I sincerely apologize if your intentions were misread by anyone reading this.
You raise what are, of course, very important objections to the post. And I wasn't suggesting that you should take the particular post down. Rather, I was trying to unearth something about the way in which we must suspend our ethical principles in order to engage with the argument. I maintain that this requires us to treat the conclusion as possibly true, and thus it requires us to suspend our principes (and our respect for our homosexual friends, of whom we all have many, knowingly or not). That is troubling.
As for your analogy, if a holocaust denier came into a memorial and started talking nonsense, he would not be reasoned with, he would be removed. Which is exactly what I am suggesting.
At this level of discourse, when one is dealing with persons whose gut-level "disgust" reactions threaten the civil liberties of honest people, the only proper response is violence, broadly construed. Exclusion and mockery are a good start. This is not a position to which anyone really holds because they were swayed by reasonable argument, and so it is possible that we have reached the limits of reason, here.
I really wish I could convey all of this without implying any personal disrepect. I'm honestly trying not to moralize, here, rather, I think there is an argument for the conclusion that such arguments are nto worth engageing with.
Actually, I should edit that: violence is a route, but it's not the only one. As I understand it, such persons often change their ways by being educated in certain respects, and more often than not by encountering gay people in real life so that their existence seems more "normal". That says a lot about the "posiiton" itself.
However, I maintain that if the threat of an actual restriction on homosexual sex were to arise, then violence would be absolutely justified.
Should this be taken as a general endorsement of how to react to arguments? Or is it meant only with regards to homosexual sex acts?
What I mean there is, would you consider it reasonable for a person convinced that homosexual acts are wrong to say the question isn't even open for debate?
Or, to use a more distant answer - one you may actually agree with for all I know - can we treat eliminative materialists to a reply like that? 'Your view is absurd, and not only is it absurd, it would be repugnant to act as if you were worth the time engaging.'? And if so, do you have a list of topics - even a rough guideline - for this kind of conclusion?
Also, you say...
The conclusion of the "Impeded Function Argument" is there is something morally wrong with a person's freely chosen consensual activity which harms no-one and which is an necessary expression of a central part of their psychological identity. The conclusion is absurd. Why, then, look into the premises?
A) "Freely chosen"? Isn't what comprises a free choice open to debate?
B) Isn't what comprises "harm" open to debate?
C) Isn't whether the expression is "necessary" open to debate?
D) Isn't whether this is "central to their identity" open to debate?
I suppose I should tack on...
I shouldn't have to even encounter such arguments, let alone engage with them. Furthermore, the proper response to those who make them is not rational discussion, it's a refusal to admit that they even have a viewpoint worth discussing. And if someone actually tries to stop me from being myself, I will not meet them with words, I will meet them with bullets.
Is this response also beyond discussion / something that shouldn't be doubted or questioned?
Hi Crude,
Your first group of questions are precisely the "philosophical objections" I made reference to in the post. They are viable objections from a theoretical point of view. But what I was trying to say in the post is that there is another point of view, i.e. the perspective of my actual practical-ethical committments, which prohibits me from taking the Impeded Function Argument seriously.
Now, I think you're right that there is room for debate on the factual judgments I'm making, (freedom, necessity, etc.). Engaging with those questions does not strictly require me to loosen or abandon my ethical committments, indeed, it may allow me to strengthen them or refine their application.
Importantly, there is a difference between considering the mainly factual/philosophical question "is homosexual sex freely chosen/part of a person's identity/etc" and considering the question "is homosexual sex morally wrong". The former group of questions are factual/philosophical and don't require a suspension of the ethical in order to get them going. However, any argument which explicitly claims to establish the moral wrongness of homosexuality just can't be worth considering. I am bound by my deepest principles to say that. To say anything else is not just to betray my own values, it's to offer a subtle yet profound insult to friends and family who are gay or bisexual.
This is helping me to clarify what I'm saying, so thanks for the commentary. I now see that I might be committed to something like a conditional claim about gay rights, rather than an absolute "gay rights must be respected". If it (bizarrely) turned out that my 4 claims about gay sex were all false, then I might be committed to re-examining my judgment. But I think the basic ethical judgment has the form of a conditional: IF these conditions obtain, the activity is justified, and almost trivially so. Not sure about this, though.
Nick,
However, any argument which explicitly claims to establish the moral wrongness of homosexuality just can't be worth considering. I am bound by my deepest principles to say that. To say anything else is not just to betray my own values, it's to offer a subtle yet profound insult to friends and family who are gay or bisexual.
Well, what are your deepest principles based on? I'm getting the impression it can't be, say, firm conclusions of reasoned arguments - it wouldn't make sense to consider any arguments to the contrary forbidden (or at least practically forbidden) then. Is it just gut feeling/intuition? Emotion? (Actually, in light of your final paragraph, maybe it IS based on reasoned arguments. But I ask just to be sure.)
Also, how is it a 'profound insult'? I think that turns on a number of things - principally viewing inclination towards those sexual acts, as you said, central to the person's identity. But it seems to me just as potentially insulting to view people that way. Not just by defining them in terms of their sexual inclinations, but defining bisexuals by the 'homosexual' ones. Actually, bisexuals seem to get the short end of the stick in all these discussions, but that's another issue.
now see that I might be committed to something like a conditional claim about gay rights, rather than an absolute "gay rights must be respected". If it (bizarrely) turned out that my 4 claims about gay sex were all false, then I might be committed to re-examining my judgment. But I think the basic ethical judgment has the form of a conditional: IF these conditions obtain, the activity is justified, and almost trivially so. Not sure about this, though.
Fair enough. Certainly I can see how someone could view homosexual acts as either moral or, at the least, not immoral, given the belief in success of various supporting arguments. I was just wondering if those were viewed as so self-evident that any objection to them was unthinkable even in principle.
What you're advocating here - refusing to even consider an argument because it has a morally repugnant conclusion - makes me very uncomfortable. Many people with whom I disagree very strongly seem to take exactly this approach.
Opponents of same-sex marriage: they find the possibility of gay couples morally repugnant, so they don't even consider the arguments in its favor.
Creationists: they find the conclusion of a 14 billion year old earth morally repugnant (because it conflicts with their interpretation of the Bible), so they won't even consider the scientific evidence in its favor.
Abortion opponents: the conclusion here is, to them, the murder of a child. So they won't even consider the other side's arguments.
I think we need to be willing to put all our basic assumptions to the test. Any time we are tempted to draw the line and say "Beyond this line I'm not even willing to THINK about," we deny another part of our deepest nature: rationality.
And if we abandon rationality, we're really sunk.
Robert,
What you're advocating here - refusing to even consider an argument because it has a morally repugnant conclusion - makes me very uncomfortable. Many people with whom I disagree very strongly seem to take exactly this approach.
One thing I wonder. You mention that many people you disagree with strongly take this approach.
What if that weren't the case? What if the people you disagreed with were willing to question their views - and the people you agreed with were not?
Would that be a problem?
Hi Nick,
I agree with much of John's comment. I think it might be useful to draw the distinction between 'use' and 'mention' here. While there may be something ethically problematic with using the Impeded Function Argument in most contexts, I don't see what's ethically problematic about mentioning the argument in order to identify its flaws. What's good about a reductio is that it forces us to discard at least one premise of the argument. Finding out which false premises lead one to the repugnant conclusion is a good thing, I take it. If anything, it forces us to focus our efforts on trying to show why these premises are false.
Robert, I see your points and I do not think they should be ignored. But what you haven't done is provide me with a viable alternative. I've shown you how engaging with certain arguments can cause us to lose our grip on our deepest ideals and can make us insult people we really shouldn't be insulting. Do you have anything to say about how to avoid this? If not, it seems like you're committed to the idea that rational thought necessarily undermines ethical comittement. If this is the case, I surely am permitted to choose ethics.
Bruno, you know I love the analytic philosopy Bag Of Tricks more than anyone, but making a distinction won't help you on this one. An argument is being "used" when a thinker engages with the premises in order to see if the conclusion follows. The only place the anti-gay argument is merely mentioned, so far as I can tell, is in my own post.
I would have to disagree with you on this one, Nick. When I try to see whether a conclusion follows from a set of premises, I'm not trying to convince anybody that the conclusion is true. I'm only trying to determine whether it's valid. It would be a misnomer to say that I'm using the argument here. Arguments are used to convince people. Surely I can talk about the validity (or invalidity) of an argument of which I hold the conclusion to be false without trying to convince anybody.
Makes me think of the following;
"Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
(Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 5)
Seriously I disagree with the conclusion that we shouldn't face arguments that conclude in ways that contradict our values. In fact to do so feels like an act of fear and fear spreads like contagion and contaminates our enjoyment.
That maybe the Catholic upbringing in me, but so long as I have a refused question it grows in importance. And I would rather seize the moral high ground by being able to say that I have given weight to all alternatives to my view.
I definately feel however this post is on to something. Just because a series of arguments make logically necessary a certain conclusion I think we can leap elsewhere. I think we can just say "F**k that" to logical consistency if we means we would betray our values. Logical necessity is just a value anyway and often abused; there are lies, damn lies, statistics and logical necessity.
I also don't think we're often in that forced choice. Long chains of arguments in ethics are seldom that compelling requiring so many assumptions on the way we can exit at any time.
In fact I would encourage following the most loopy chains of thought purely for what they might unearth of interest in us. Are we privelaging the natural (however we define it) for any sensible reason for example?
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