There are, and it requires a second, third, fourth, etc. opinion, or however many it takes because if it is a mass delusion, and the other person is afflicted as well, then we just end up reinforcing the delusion without ever knowing we are all deluding ourselves.

Again, logic and reason clears the fogginess and fuzziness of the terms we are using.

Transgender identity mistakes intra-sex diversity (different ways of being male or female) for inter-sex distinction (being male vs. female) - confusing kinds of men/women (i.e., variations within sexes) with kinds of genders..

When someone transitions and says “I’m a woman,” they're not rejecting the sex/gender binary, but reaffirming it — they are still operating within the same two categories (man/woman), just switching sides. If gender is supposed to be distinct from sex, why use the terms? Wouldn’t that show that gender is still dependent on the sex binary? “Being male” or “being female” is a natural kind — something biologically grounded — and all the ways of living out those kinds are variations within that category, not grounds for a new category.

From this view, gender is not a separate ontological layer (“social role distinct from sex”) — it’s a descriptive shorthand for the spectrum of behaviors humans exhibit. So when we call a behavior “feminine” or “masculine,” we’re just naming a pattern that some men and women exhibit more often — not defining a separate gendered essence or identity.

I'm not denying we all have personal and subjective feelings and inclinations. What I am saying is that what we often interpret as “gender incongruence” is not a conflict between one’s biological sex and some separate “gender identity.” It is simply a reflection of the natural diversity in how humans live, feel, and express themselves. The supposed “incongruence” is a conceptual overlay imposed by the gender framework. Once you remove that framework (gender neutral), there’s no conflict — just human behavioral and psychological diversity. A man who feels like he “should be a woman” isn’t actually experiencing an identity mismatch. Instead, he’s just expressing a variant of male human experience — one that happens to share traits culturally associated with women.

I bet there's a lot of people have that symptom. — unenlightened

:lol:

because if it is a mass delusion, and the other person is afflicted as well, then we just end up reinforcing the delusion without ever knowing we are all deluding ourselves. — Harry Hindu

Yes indeed. I pity you, I really do.

Two psychiatrists meet on the Street. "Hello" say the first, "you're fine, how am I?"

But seriously, for a moment, a 'mass delusion', is by definition not a mental illness but a social one - and that has profound implications. It becomes a great stretch to maintain the medical model at all.

To put it bluntly, if you can see my delusion, then either you are in my mind, or the delusion is out there and to that extent not a delusion. At the moment, I suspect the former is more likely.

I apologize: I can’t remember if I responded to your first point in this reply.

But now I'm wondering: would you like to see changes in the sexual behaviour of people?

Well, of course. I think we are all sinners, there’s plenty of different sins, each person has a different hand of cards from the deck, and we all must strive to live as good (ethical) lives as possible. There is such a thing, in traditional thought, albeit non-existent in progressive thought (usually), as immoral sexual acts that are consensual between parties and acts against oneself.

By analogy, there was real world event where two men consented for one of them to eat the other. If consenting—in a proper way free of duress and inhibitory conditions—eliminates the possibility of an act being harmful or, perhaps, simply is morally permissible in virtue of it being consensual; then there’s nothing wrong with what happened.

However, when we view ethics in a naturalistic way (metaethically), it becomes clear this is immoral because it deprives the one killed of their nature completely (by there non-existence) and so all ‘the good’ for them is lost and the action is contrary to every natural end of them—existence being the most fundamental good and prerequisite for all other goods. I would be interested to know what ethical theory you are operating under—metaethically, normative ethically, and applied ethically—to evaluate this example to compare.

If so, how should that be achieved? 

I think socially we should have norms that incentivize the good and dis-incentivize the bad and of which cultivate a nation-soul centered around the virtues and human flourishing.

A key tenant of Christian thought is love of perfect goodness (God) and of the ordering of things relative to Him—to the point of loving your enemies and wanting their good even as they nail you to a cross. I think society legally and socially should reflect this. This is where the idea of responding to evil with only proportionate and without retaliation comes from: if you love your enemy, you seek not to destroy or annihilate them but to stop them from doing evil and to change their ways.

When you state that certain sexual behaviours are immoral, do you propose to do anything about it or would you like anyone else to do something about it?

The response to evil needs to be proportionate (out of love not for the evil but the person who mistakenly embodies it) and centered towards what is good for all (including the person committing the evil). Hence, justice proper is restorative and not retributive; and not all immoral acts deserve physical force to stop.

In cases of injustice (viz., immoral acts against a person), physical force as a means to enforcing morality is reserved for immoralities that are, in their gravity (either to the other person afflicted or an act against oneself), detrimental enough to the good of the victim that it is proportionate to do so. Proportionality is key here. E.g., a person that is inflicting themselves with self-hate (which causes them to be down in the weather a bit) is not something which would warrant physical force (because it would be disproportionate as a remedy to the situation); but if they are trying to commit suicide (even consensually and in a state where they are not ‘out of their mind’) then it is justified to use force to save them. E.g., stopping a murder by physical force is proportionate but stopping someone from being mean to someone else on purpose does not warrant such force.

Also, the penal system, applied ethically, is supposed to mimick providing a remedy to restore the dignity of the one offended and the will of the (repentant) criminal (although I grant this is not at all what happens in American prison systems at all). Consequently, self-inflicted sins require a different approach because the one offended and the offender are the same. In short, it wouldn’t make sense to imprison or criminally charge someone for doing evil against themselves; instead, it would require rehabilitation.

There’s also a practical aspect, applied ethically, to this too that cannot be ignored. I am weary of the government; and so I am not interested in trying to setup cameras everywhere like in China to stop people from doing every immoral deed. There has to be checks and balances here.

The question becomes: “where does homosexuality and transgenderism fall in terms of the gravity of the act?”.

In short, transgenderism would be viewed, in my view, as I’ve unapologetically said many times in this thread, as a mental illness and be treated like one. The context matters: sometimes a schizophrenic is posing too much of a risk to themselves and the public so they get sent to a rehab center; sometimes they are stable enough to live productive lives in society. I think if a transgender is posing a significant risk to themselves then, similarly, we have a duty to help them by protecting themselves from themselves and rehabilitate them. If they are not posing a significant risk and can live a productive life in society (which many can and do), then that shouldn’t happen. Where the analogy breaks, is that schizophrenia causes a risk by way of hallucinations which is different than a person having gender dysphoria; so the schizophrenic would need to be on medication (most likely) to not pose a significant risk to others (depending on how bad it is); whereas that’s not the immediate case with gender dysphoria. The biggest risk it to themselves, like a chronically depressed or suicidal person. Because of this, the approach is a bit different: I think we would have no right to force them to take any medication unless it something proven to be analogous to the schizophrenic example of taking meds to not hallucinate; and we would take the approach of having governmental and societal institutions and programs that help consenting transgenders get better (like alcoholics anonymous).

For homosexuality, it is not a mental illness by any stretch of the imagination: it’s a pyscho-sociological (at worst) or pyscho-physiological (at best) phenomenon. The harm they, as consenting adults, are doing to each other I would view analogous, although not quite the same, as heterosexual couples that perform effectively the same sexual acts: physical force or punishment isn’t a proportionate response and it wouldn’t make sense to do so. Instead, there should be programs for helping homosexuals with their sexual orientation issue and for helping all couples with their sexual vices that are voluntary. Socially, we should love those who are sinful—which is all of us—and try to live by example so that people can see that what they are doing is evil and everyone should be readily willing to help them be better (and quick to judge nor to condemn).

I think a lot of liberals think that being against homosexuality and the like has to lead to homophobia; but that’s just not the case.

I assume that all else being equal you would prefer to live in a society in which the sexual activities you think are immoral are at the very least stigmatized, no?

It depends on what you mean by stigmatized. I would say that the family and friends should love them (in the eudaimonic sense) and be kind to them and live by example to try and help them onto a better path. We are all sinners; and we should live by example proportionately to what we know about the good.

Like I said, if the person is posing a significant risk to themselves or others then physical force may be a reasonable response (for their own good and the good of others).

3. It leads to a more humane society: no loving couples are stigmatized (privation of goodness, mental illness, etc) because of their private consensual acts.

But, again, ‘humane’ here is begging the question. Also, ‘loving’ is being used incoherently here: you can’t harm someone with love (which goes back to our differences in our understandings of love and harm).

Ultimately, I think liberalism and conservatism in America boil down to four concepts at play that are really influencing the differences between the two. That is, love, harm, freedom, and goodness. We are not using these concepts the same at all.

Funny that you keep repeating this "obstinate belief", when even the toy definition you took it from says more than that:
 obstinate or unreasonable attachment to a belief, opinion, or faction, in particular prejudice against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group.

I would say that your insistence that trans is a mental illness, based only on your personal philosophizing, against the entirely of mainstream medical opinion, who I must presume is collectively vastly more qualified than you to make this judgement, is plenty obstinate.

The definition you cited requires it to be “obstinate or unreasonable” which is a loose way of saying what I was saying. Being prejudiced does not necessitate that one is being bigoted, even if I were to grant you that I am prejudiced (which I am not).

Secondly, the DSM-V used to consider transgenderism gender dysphoria: they only removed that in recent years to fit liberal agenda. This was a consensus amongst experts.

It isn't a chair because you can't sit on it. What is your definition of a chair? If you can't give one because you think it requires essentialism, then I think we need to hash that out first and come back to this.

You rely on these notions of "nature" extensively. They are however meaningless devoid of an explanation of what "our true human nature" which awaits to be fulfilled in fact is. So please explain what in your opinion this ultimate nature of humanity whose fulfillment we ought to strive for is. This being quite pivotal to the subject matter at hand

We don’t need to have perfect and complete knowledge of the nature of a being to have good reasons to believe they have a nature.

Essence realism accounts for the self-unity of substances, the similarity of different instantiations of substance (viz., different supposita), avoids meteorological nihilism, and avoids positing that a members of a causal series can exhibit a property that no member itself can provide innately.

No apostle was Jesus. Period

Jesus instituted the church, His bride, with the apostles which is guided by the Holy Spirit. He gave them the power to bind, loose, speak, and forgive on His behalf. If an apostle condemns something, as a direct disciple of Jesus which was ordained as the first bishops by Jesus Himself with said powers, then it is dogma. If you reject this, then the vast majority of Christianity is lost.

Moreover, Jesus didn’t address every ethical point of contention nor did the apostles write everything that He said down; so we don’t know nor is it important if Jesus Himself explicitly condemned it.

Even more importantly, the Old Law was not abolished with the New Law: Jesus was the New Law embodied which fulfilled the Old Law. In the Old Law, there are aspects that were temporary (like allowing divorce) and one’s that were not (which are still in effect today like the banning of bestiality, homosexuality, etc.).

The Bible and the church could not be more clear that homosexuality is immoral.

Here’s a reference just in case you want to check it out: https://www.catholic.com/audio/cot/jesus-said-nothing-about-homosexuality-rebutted & https://www.catholic.com/tract/early-teachings-on-homosexuality.

Jesus condemned galore

No He didn’t and even if He did I don’t see the relevance at all: we are discussing the morality behind homosexuality.

Jesus condemned galore. It's he who stated that the camel (a beast of burden) will have an easier time than the fat rich guy when it comes to entering the kingdom of god (the needle's eye)

Galore is not the same as being greedy and selfish. Jesus doesn’t mind if everyone had an overabundance of wealth; what He does mind is someone that is super wealthy and does not to help those in need.

 And yes, this lack of condemnation by he upon which all of Christianity is pivoted on is not only indicative but immensely informative.

The church has always condemned homosexuality all the way back to the apostles and the Old Law. There was never a pivot.

There is. Gender isn't a role like an actor or actress in Hollywood where the role is fictional, segregated from reality. Gender is more of a social expectation of the sexes. Society is not saying, "you are a woman because you wear a dress". Society is saying that "you are already defined as a woman because of your biology, and because society also has a rule that exposing yourself is illegal, then we expect you to wear certain clothing to symbolize your sex under the clothing so that people of specific SEXUAL orientations can find mates that align with their SEXUAL preferences". — Harry Hindu

I guess the thing that concerns me the most about these arguments is that you are implying that blind conformity to social expectations is inherently good, and disobedience is inherently bad. I'd rather surround myself with people who were more open minded so i could be more honest and less irritated with them.

For example, in the more renaissance time periods in europe, it was considered shameful for a woman to show her ankles in public in christian societies. Now, the expectations are much looser in western countries. In some Muslim countries, it's considered shameful to take off your head scarf unless you are around your immediate family (and once again, the stricter onus is on the women, as muslim men do not always need to cover their faces). If any of these things you or Bob Ross are saying is true about gender ideas being objective, or about trans identity being a mental illness, then how could any of these cultural conflicts exist? Would you ever question an authority figure's ideas about anything?

You rely on these notions of "nature" extensively. They are however meaningless devoid of an explanation of what "our true human nature" which awaits to be fulfilled in fact is. So please explain what in your opinion this ultimate nature of humanity whose fulfillment we ought to strive for is. This being quite pivotal to the subject matter at hand -- javra

We don’t need to have perfect and complete knowledge of the nature of a being to have good reasons to believe they have a nature. — Bob Ross

And yet the speak of it with such immense authority and complete conviction in passages such as this:

Nothing about two consenting, superficially (hedonistically) happy homosexuals having sex is loving, harmless, nor good for them; because it goes contrary to their nature. — Bob Ross

Boldface mine. All this at face value being utter doublethink.

As to the rest, I'll skip the religious fluff and stick to facts regarding what Jesus Christ himself did and said ... and facts regarding what he didn't. I admire him far too much to not do so.

I don’t see the relevance of the examples you gave here, but I will respond.

Then let's build on it. Let's say the person-in-the-psychotic-rage-from-the-unforeseen-drug-interaction isn't trying to kill you, they don't have any weapons, but are merely trying to drag you into their idling van. You resist, of course, and stab them with a pocket-knife you have and it kills them. Is that murder?

Normative ethically, the response to an evil must be proportionate; but applied ethically there is some charitable weight granted in favor of the victim. If objectively I could have shot someone once to neutralize them as a threat but instead shot them four times, then would give the subjective element of the case a charitable interpretation and lend some weight in our calculation in favor of the victim; and in this case they would not be charged with murder.

Normatively ethically, idealistically, shooting someone three extra times than was necessary is murder or manslaughter; but applied ethically we would not necessarily deem it as either. To contrast, imagine I shoot that person once, the threat is obviously neutralized, and I take my sweet time and end up shooting them three more times out of retribution, pride, or retaliation. Depending on how disconnected the three extra shots are, we may not be able to use the charitable interpretation of the subjective element of the event to acquit them of murder. Whereas imagine I shoot the person four times very quickly out of panic to neutralize the legitimate threat but, realistically with 20/20 hindsight vision, I could have only shot them once. That’s clearly going to be a case where I am acquitted because of a charitable weight given to me as the victim.

In your example, stabbing them, normatively ethically speaking, must be a proportionate and least harmful means of neutralizing the threat to not be murder relative to the objective and subjective elements of the case (e.g., I might only be aware of stabbing them as a viable means although objectively I could have just punched them in the face); otherwise, I am intending to kill them—not to neutralize the threat.

Now let's say the person-in-the-psychotic-rage-from-the-unforeseen-drug-interaction isn't attacking you at all, but they are screaming death threats at you, and in your personal space, and a good Samaritan comes up behind the psychotic and puts them in a chokehold, but he does it wrong and the psychotic dies.

This would be an example, all else being equal, where technically objectively the good Samaritan committed manslaughter (because they unintentionally killed them out of negligence); but, again, we must weigh in the subjective elements of the situation. It may not outweigh the manslaughter charge in this case, since it seems like they really did something incredibly disproportionate, but it will still be relevant for sentencing.

We have to realize that perfect justice operates no where like man’s justice. We don’t know for sure what someone intends, knows, etc. or what exactly happened. We use evidence based reasoning under the court of law to try to resemble justice.

But seriously, for a moment, a 'mass delusion', is by definition not a mental illness but a social one - and that has profound implications. It becomes a great stretch to maintain the medical model at all. — unenlightened

For those who don’t know of it, there’s a parable/fable that speaks to this exact issue. In short, there’s a kingdom with a water well that, when drunk from, turns the individual crazy—this due to having had a spell cast on it by somebody or other. Everyone but the king and the nobility drinks from it (the king and nobility have their own water source). The king still wants to rule his kingdom but the general populous, now of the same mindset and in agreement with each other, comes to perceive the king and his associates as insanely crazy people, proceeding to rebel against them in all sorts of ways (with a give me liberty or give me death mindset). Eventually, out of fear for their own safety and in desperation, the king and nobility then come to decide that the only way out of the situation is for them to drink from the spell-cast well as well. At which point, the populace rejoices in the kings newly found sanity. And the king rules the kingdom happily ever after to everyone’s pleasure and benefit.

Multiple versions of this fable, some more philosophically poignant than others. Myself, I think I first heard of it as a child. And it does tend to illustrate well enough how certain notions of insanity and sanity are purely social constructs that have nothing to do with any solid grounding—other than that of an interpersonally created reality (with interpersonally created realities including those of languages, cash values, and most of what is cultural, culture-specific mores included).

Example: was Moses a man with mystical abilities and visions … or was he a full-blown schizophrenic who would have benefited from modern day anti-psychotics so as to not be bothered by things such as burning bushes that spoke to him? But as the stories go, at the end of the day, dude was functional. Hence sane (i.e., of a healthy enough—but never completely perfect—mind). From a different vantage, for those who believe in the possibility of such things, same can be said of all modern-day psychics world over (who happen to not be deceiving charlatans): they're sane rather than in need of psychiatric institutions.

.however, his logic has been criticized on the basis of some of his "is" statements for their lack of acknowledgement that being is not a fixed state. For example, "he is a boy": if that boy gets their penis removed, wears a wig, and talks with a lisp, then many will no longer see them as such...what are they then?

This isn’t a problem for Aristotle’s thought because the essence of something is in its form. The form is the actualizing principle that makes the instantiated being (suppositum) what is it. The form is not identical to the essence: an essence is abstract whatness, whereas form is real whatness.

A boy is a boy not because we have some sort of definition that provides in the abstract the essential properties of a boy; but rather because that essence is instantiated in that boy in his form. For a human, the substantial form of their body is their soul; and the boy has a male, human soul; so this boy is fully a boy in essence (because it is in his form) in substance—even if his existence doesn’t fully reflect that. Materials beings for Aristotle are comprised of form and matter. The form is complete; the matter may not receive the form completely. A boy missing a leg is missing an essential aspect of being a human in existence (esse) in matter; but in existence his form includes it.

but what practical relevance does this have?

It clarifies the difference between an expression of gender and gender itself. Maleness (sex) and masculinity (gender) are not reducible to social expressions of them and they are intrinsic to the essence (and by proxy the form) of a man. Thusly, men cannot become women without killing them: transitioning is impossible; mimicking a gender doesn’t make you that gender; etc.

But how can you justify this perception of health? Is health then supposed to be equivalent with "well, they tell me that im a male, so it's unhealthy to wear pink or read cosmo"? 

The color pink, for example, is an expression of gender—it is not a part of gender itself. This, again, is a key mistake modern gender theory does. Now, either this expression is symbolic (e.g., the Mars symbol represents maleness), mistaken (e.g., using an umbrella in the rain is not itself representing any gender), or gravitational (e.g., being protective is masculine).

Whether or not “pink is feminine” is symbolic, mistaken, or gravitational is going to depend on if:

1. The gravitation to the color has any biological (natural) basis (then it would have a gravitational element to it);
2. The color properly represents something feminine (like the female person on bathroom doors)(then it would have an element of symbolism); or/and
3. The color pink has no connection to gender whatsoever (then it is a mistake).

I am not sure which category(ies) pinkness falls under: I’ll have to think about that more. What are your thoughts? That seems hard to tell. Like I stated many times before to people, there may be aspects of social gender expectations that are really illegitimate. Importantly, modern gender theory doesn’t allow for this because it denies the reality of gender and instead views it as purely a social construct.

What is your definition of a chair? If you can't give one because you think it requires essentialism, then I think we need to hash that out first and come back to this. — Bob Ross

It's not that we can't "give a definition" so much as that definitions do not do what you think they do.

Others have carried the point. I'm sorry you can't see it. Read Austin or Wittgenstein some time.

I am not sure which category(ies) pinkness falls under: I’ll have to think about that more. What are your thoughts? — Bob Ross

Using your framework, it's symbolically feminine as pink can be associated with girliness, gentleness, affection, lightheartedness...but that's only because our culture repeats this imagery (for example, manufacturing pink colored toys for little girls). I've read that in early 1900's america, pink was what boys wore, blue was what girls wore.

You misunderstand. Perhaps I was unclear. She was through menopause a long time ago because she is 73.

Oh, nevermind then.

The criterion you claim is essential, the next sentence clearly says is not essential

This facial incoherence is due to a misunderstanding of hylomorphism. Essences, forms, being, and matter are distinct from each other.

A man that is missing limbs is simultaneously fully man in essence in virtue of their substantial form (viz., their male soul) and not fully realized as a man in existence (because the matter—their body—has not properly been realized by their soul).

How do you investigate what is essential, what is accidental and what is a defect? What are the criteria?

By investigating what constitutes the essential powers that the being has: what it is to be that thing as opposed to something else. This is a scientific, metaphysical, and empirical inquiry into ordinary objects. Think of it like this: if a, e.g., kitten develops in a perfectly healthy manner (uninhibited by its environment and what not) then what would we expect it to become independently of coincidental factors (like fur color)?

Is something that would never have four legs, in principle, be a cat? No. It is a part of what a cat is to have four legs. Could it still be a cat and be black instead of orange? Yes.

Could a specific cat be missing legs? Yes; but its essence as instantiated in its form—in it’s soul—would include the teleology of having four legs and the matter simply would not have been realized properly by the soul or it was destroyed by something else (like mutilation).

It is surely the essential nature of a homosexual that they are attracted to the same sex.

No. It is essential to what it means to be homosexual to be attracted to the same sex; but that is a reflection of what is essential to a sexual orientation which is not a substance nor a being. When I say that it is essential to hate to will the bad of something for its own sake, I am not committing myself to the idea that hate has a real essence because hate is not itself a real entity. The human that is homosexual is a substance; and that being has a human nature which precludes that sexual orientation.

, because a bosun's chair doesn't look like a chair, a human cannot sit on a doll's-house chair, and sometimes we sit on stools, branches, benches, saddles, the ground, and so on

Just because something can be sat on does not mean it has a form that includes ‘something that is sat on by a person’. A log is not a chair because its form is that of wood—of a tree—and is being technically misused (not in an immoral sense, but still a misuse) of it: it does not have an essence such that it is supposed to be sat on. It has a soul—a substantial form in virtue of which the tree is alive—and when chopped down is a dying deposit of a substance called wood which was ordered towards the good of the tree originally.

If you believe that we can define sex and gender, then please define them.

Cheers, Bob.

Ok, I concede. I understand even less than I did when you began of what you claim. I shrug, dismiss and move on. You have no criteria, just endless unsubstantiated pontifications. Your empirical essences are fantasies.

Dale Martin explains the background of the Christian condemnation of homosexuality in Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation. The following is not a quote from that book, but from this essay.

And they assumed that the sex act enacted the proper hierarchy of God-ordained nature. The man, as the penetrator, was superior, and the woman, as the penetrated, was inferior. Homosexual sex was “unnatural” in this view because, people assumed, either a man would have to be penetrated—which was “unnatural” whether he was penetrated by a man or a woman—or a woman would have to be the one penetrating—again, with either a man or another woman.

With the rise of the feminist movement, even Christians began thinking of men and women as equals, the idea that femaleness itself was inferior was rejected, and the hierarchy of the sex act was replaced with the notion of egalitarian complementarity: male and female are equal and complement one another. Thus, these days both liberal and conservative Christians tend to think of sexual intercourse as something that should take place between one man and one woman, treated equally, and that it is entirely appropriate to have sex just for the enjoyment of it — Dale Martin

@Hanover You probably know this stuff already, but Dale Martin is a cool lecturer. This isn't about homosexuality, it's just about Judaism as the backdrop for Christianity:

So it was all to do with a lack of imagination in regard to sex acts.

So it was all to do with a lack of imagination in regard to sex acts. — Banno

It was about how they saw the natures of men and women. We would say their assessment of nature was wrong.

And disclaiming prejudice in this case is equivalent to someone in the early 20th century saying "I am not prejudiced against Africans; I just think that since they do not have the benefit of civilization they need to submit to British rule, for their own good." (I'm not saying you're racist or believe British colonialism was great) — Jamal

I want to leverage this analogy as well. I want to say that @Jamal and others within this thread are a bit like the European who lands on the shores of Africa, finds a strange people speaking a strange language, and immediately begins making all sorts of uncharitable assumptions about their motivational and moral state. Only after such a person begins to contextualize both their own tradition and the tradition they are encountering will they be in a position to attempt the sorts of judgments that are here being made prematurely.

One broad-brush overview of the different historical moral positions is found in Nathan Jacobs’ series on the topic, beginning with <this video>. In the second video of the series, beginning at 1:41:19, Jacobs draws it all back to our current culture. He argues that the distinctive moral character of the current culture is a merger between nominalism and utilitarianism which derives from materialism and empiricism. He begins with the trans issue, moves to feminism, then to the notion of oppression, then to questions of anthropology, then to hedonism and identifying with one’s passions, and eventually to the (only historically novel) idea that being affirmed by others in one’s moral decisions is the key to happiness.

The sort of overview that Jacobs provides would offer the “Europeans” within this thread the resources needed to contextualize their own position. The “uncivilized people” that the “Europeans” within the thread are encountering are simply human beings, acting in good faith, who are neither nominalists nor utilitarians. They believe that the good life is found by living in harmony in reality, and such people include Platonists, Aristotelians, Stoics, pagans, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, and many others. A person who favors living in harmony with reality is going to look odd to a person who is a nominalistic utilitarian of one variety or another. And maybe at the end of the day the “Europeans” will successfully convert the “natives,” but the first thing they need to do is to contextualize both their own tradition and the tradition they are encountering. The first thing they need to do is engage and understand the traditions in question, rather than immediately dismissing them in one way or another by assuming superiority.

Ultimately, I think liberalism and conservatism in America boil down to four concepts at play that are really influencing the differences between the two. That is, love, harm, freedom, and goodness. We are not using these concepts the same at all. — Bob Ross

First, I realize that your view is significantly American, but don't assimilate me to your parochial politics. I'm not American and I am highly sceptical of liberalism in all its senses and manifestations.

That aside, I think you're right. You're making MacIntyre's strong point that our frameworks are incommensurable.

Yes indeed. I pity you, I really do. — unenlightened

Ad hominems and cherry picking posts is all you got.. You lose. I win.

But seriously, for a moment, a 'mass delusion', is by definition not a mental illness but a social one - and that has profound implications. It becomes a great stretch to maintain the medical model at all.

To put it bluntly, if you can see my delusion, then either you are in my mind, or the delusion is out there and to that extent not a delusion. At the moment, I suspect the former is more likely. — unenlightened

...mental illness, social illness. It's still an illness.

Maybe you didn't notice through that haze of hate, but I was agreeing with Hypercin that Christianity is a type of mass delusion.

Conservative Christians are immoral and mentally ill — hypericin

So maybe you should ask hypercin how they would go about determining if Christians are delusional. I thought that was obvious. But in your attempts to throw mud you got all muddy.

That aside, I think you're right. You're making MacIntyre's strong point that our frameworks are incommensurable. — Jamal

This right here. To quote an old meme, "You win all the internets." In general the way we talk to each other over issues has become atrocious (not you Jamal). We use terrible vocabulary, emotional appeals, and worst of all, discount each other because a position on a topic is considered 'the enemy'. The idea that, "Even talking about this will hurt someone" is one of the greatest evils to be put in the minds of people.

We have to talk to people we are disgusted by. We have to stop elevating a discussion to a moral or status stance. We need to be listening to each other as much as we talk with each other instead of at each other. We need philosophy.

Clear language, contextual analysis, and the wisdom to explore anything and everything. I remember a person one time came to this forum and advocated that murder wasn't actually immoral. Most responses were dismissive and an attempt to shut down the idea. But a person like that needs their idea explored. To say, "Lets take your premises and accept them as true, what contradictions arise?"

Philosophy challenges God, social issues, government, society, norms, and assumptions. It does not give hemlock to those who say our planet revolves around the sun, or that the sun revolves around us. It is the willingness to talk with and explore all avenues for rational truth, which often conflicts with the emotions of others and even ourselves want.

Though we will always encounter people with frameworks different from our own, I hope we keep talking with each other. Bit by bit we may learn to understand each other, and even if some things are irreconcilable, there is always some common ground to be reached. Thank you Jamal for conversing with Bob on a matter that is in my opinion, one of the most important philosophical issues of our time.

If that's so I wouldn't put it that there is some kind of "liberal" theory of gender, for instance

I agree and am not meaning to convey that there are liberal or conservative theories of genders; but, rather, that there are gender theories compatible with liberalism and conservatism and some are prominent among each.

This is why I think diving into politics in this thread is and was a red herring: people are skipping past the philosophical and psycho-sociological discussion about gender theory to ethics—which puts the cart before the horse. Ontology is prior to ethics.

That is, there is no liberal or conservative gender so much as gender is a performance within a culture which utilizes this spectrum for self-identification

(emphasis added)

But this is the modern theory of gender. You just described gender as a social construct and social expression. This is exactly what we are disputing here.

But I don't think what I've presented falls into this category you've denoted in your first paragraph where one must either think in terms of essences where there are two genders which must adhere to such-and-such rules regarding sex and relationships OR we are left with psychologizing.

If gender is a performance within culture that is for self-identification, then gender is divorced from sex; for anyone can perform in a manner that is properly identified with such-and-such social cues and expectations and they thereby would be, in gender is just that, that given gender.

What the OP is getting at is something more subtle in metaphysics: is the ‘performance’, social expectations, and social cues identical to gender OR is gender an aspect of the real nature a being has.

But, medically speaking, all of that is wrong. There is nothing wrong with having sex of the various kinds. There is no nature to which our soul must aspire towards which a Dominican scholastic was able to perceive. The opinions of priests are often mistaken when it comes to sexual health.

We like to think now like Hume: doctors deny doing ethics when they inform you of the ‘descriptive facts’ about health because prescriptive and descriptive statements are seen as divorced from each other. However, they are giving normative claims simultaneously. When you and your doctor agree that your hand isn’t working properly, you both are implicitly conceding that there is a way it should be working: that’s a normative claim that is tied directly to a descriptive claim.

Likewise, health wise, it is obvious that many forms of sex that people engage in are unhealthy for the body. Like I stated to other people on here, anal sex does damage the anus (even granting it heals itself to some extent over time and one can do exercises to help strengthen it); and deepthroating does damage the throat’s ability to gag (which is for avoiding choking). Now, you are right that the doctor won’t purport these kinds of facts as related to anything normative; but they are closely connected to normative ones. The way the nature of a human is does dictate how that human, biologically, is supposed to function and operate: that’s a direct tying of descriptions and prescriptions.

Which is why I mentioned hedonism -- sure I can check the math, but if there is at least one other reasonable ethical stance towards this problem of ethics (the ethics of sex, gender, and boning) then we're lead right back to "Which ethic should we choose?";

Like I was trying to note to @Jamal, this is the real debate for sexuality ethics is indeed...ethics; and this isn’t incommensurable to resolve: we would need to start with metaethics, then normative ethics, then applied ethics. In order to dive into our metaethical disagreements, we will have to dive into metaphysics and ontology.

More importantly, the OP is really about whether or not gender is a social construct or something else; and whether or not the Aristotelian take accounts for it. It is not a discussion itself about ethics: it is a discussion about human ontology.

All this at face value being utter doublethink.

I can hold a belief on a proposition, X, with high credence and still concede that I might be wrong: that’s all I did there. Doublethink is when one holds two contradictory or highly incoherent beliefs: that’s not the case here.

Likewise, I can be confident that X is not Y without knowing to a high degree what Y is. If you ask me: “what would a pizza-worshipper do with a cheese pizza?”; I can hold the belief that “I don’t know exactly what a pizza-worshipper would do with pizza” AND that “they wouldn’t go and throw it away in the trash and forget about it”.

Moreover, most importantly, I said that we don’t need ‘perfect and complete’ knowledge to know that one has a nature...that’s different than saying that I don’t know sufficiently that we have one. You can investigate empirically a being to decipher what their nature is.

As to the rest, I'll skip the religious fluff and stick to facts regarding what Jesus Christ himself did and said ... and facts regarding what he didn't. I admire him far too much to not do so.

My friend, we don’t have any writings from Jesus. The Gospels are written by the Apostles who are relaying what they saw and were taught by Jesus; and the church is the succession of the oral tradition going back to the Apostles and, in turn, what Jesus taught them.

If you don’t think that an apostle can get it right about homosexuality after being directly taught by Jesus, of which we don’t know exactly what Jesus taught them (as we don’t know orally what was conveyed and we have no writings from Jesus), then you have no good reasons to accept the Gospels which they wrote nor the stories they told about Jesus or what they taught their disciples in turn from what they claimed Jesus taught them.

I could see this as a plausible account, but I am not sure if the 'gentleness' of certain colors has a gravitational effect, generally, on women over men; similar to how men tend to gravitate to jobs about 'things' (e.g., engineering, architecture, etc.) and women to jobs about 'people' (e.g., nursing, therapy, etc.). I don't know the effects of the colors on us biologically as it relates to nature.

To me, it is obvious that, e.g., the Mars symbol for maleness is purely symbolic because I am confident there is nothing about the symbol that men would gravitate towards but, rather, is a construct we came up with to refer to maleness in the abstract. Color it is not so obvious to me.

:heart:

If you ever want to have a conversation about gender theory, then just message me. When you refuse to define the key terms, it is just hard to progress the conversation.