:up:

"Liberal agenda" in the true sense of the phrase

You are splitting hairs here. Everyone knows that liberalism as a popular movement in america has agendas just like conservatives do.

Yes. You are suggesting that if the negative consequences of doing the right thing are too great, then we shouldn't do it. If I could only save myself from extreme torture as opposed to simply getting murdered by murdering someone else, that wouldn't magically make me murdering someone permissible. What if me murdering this person saved the rest of humanity from endless suffering? Still not permissible.

You didn't even try to answer the question, because you know I am right that the sex organs are not designed to be put in the anus (irregardless if you think men will tend to do it or tend to like to do it).

You are right: I am claiming that maleness and femaleness are a part of the real nature of men and woman; and this is different than the modern metaphysics smuggled into biology (although I wouldn't say either are incompatible with biology).

As Leontiskos said here, a male has the essence of maleness independently of how imperfectly he instantiates it in his existence. There is a metaphysical distinction between the form (act) and matter (potency) being made here that really helps clarify how gender and sex operate (irregardless if one believes they are conceptually distinct or not).

I'm here, Bob.

I am glad to hear that, believe it or not (:

Next time, please tag me in the post so I get a notification. I just happen to see this post and otherwise wouldn’t have responded at all.

 I held off because it looked to me as if 
↪Jamal
 might be about to do something in accord with the guidelines, but it seems not.

Unless @Jamal would like to make the horrifying but typical liberal mistake of censoring those that have different philosophical views than them that help further the discussion on major political issues in America, I would suggest that the best response to a view that one gravely disagrees with is to contend with it and dismantle it for all to see instead of trying to put it in pandora’s box.

I would like to also say that I am disappointed that you decided to report the thread instead of contending with the ideas; especially since this touches on a very interesting debate between liberals and conservatives in america right now—this isn’t a niche position I am taking here (at least in America). The fact you would prefer it get censored is disheartening to me.

You claim your approach is neo-Aristotelian, but apart from the name, there's nothing to indicate why

Good question! It is Aristotelian because I am using his metaphysics through-and-through here, albeit it more Aristo-thomistic. The key metaphysical distinction I am making between the form and matter of a human is Aristotelian; and the very concepts of ‘substance’, ‘soul’, etc. I used are Aristotelian.

You say sex is "a distinct type of substance", a very odd phrasing; as if we could put sex on a scale and measure it's mass, or wash it down the drain

Interesting you would say that, considering I am openly using Aristotle’s metaphysics. A substance for Aristotle is an essentially ordered unity that exists by itself (e.g., water, iron, etc.) as opposed to an unessentially ordered unity for another (e.g., a chair, a table, etc.). Essentially vs. unessentially ordered unities is an essential aspect of Aristotelian thought.

More recent work uses possible world semantics and talks of essential properties rather than substance. An essence here becomes a predicate attributed to an individual in every possible world in which it exists.

That’s fine, but this would also be true for an essence as used in Aristotelian thought if one accepts possible world theory. I personally don’t, but I am willing to grant it for the sake of our conversation to see what you are thinking. An essence is just a quiddity: it is that is essential to a thing that makes it that thing. This is perfectly compatible with your description (although it is not a definition), given possible world theory, that it is about predicates “attributed to an individual in every possible world in which it exists”. That is just to reiterate, without defining an essence, that an in every possible world in which a being exists it would have to have its essential properties.

That is a much more workable definition than the nonsense of "that which makes something what it is, and not something else".

It’s just a broader definition that doesn’t require possible worlds theory. PWT has many issues with it.

CC: @Leontiskos

Keep offering philosophy to those who don't rise above name-calling. :up:— Leontiskos
That had me laughing out loud. No way to talk about our god-king Horus, though.
…
Do you follow this? Should I dumb it down a bit more? 

If you and I were in the middle ages, I would imagine you as a priest and me as a peasant and you would be mocking me for not being able to read the Bible while also refusing to teach me how to read.

Sex is physical, gender is social. Your insistence that they are the same substance is ridiculous

I am not interested in throwing insults back and forth, but I do want to note that you suggested I am too stupid to understand possible worlds theory in modal logic and then blatantly used the term ‘substance’ incorrectly. Neither gender nor sex are a substance…

Irregardless: why do you believe gender is “social”? How would you define each?

The latin genus referred to the classification of nouns — masculine, feminine, or neuter. So historically, neuter is one of the categories that “gender” originally encompassed.The original meaning of “gender” already included the notion of “neither male nor female”

Yeah, but that wasn’t applied to people (except in rare cases); and it was used to refer to something other than a person that couldn’t be meaningfully given a gender. ‘Neuter’ doesn’t refer to an actual third gender: it is a lack of gender.

So again, you are stipulating that there are two genders, determined by sex, and then pretending that this is a discovery, that it could not be otherwise.

Banno, I noted many times in this thread that I don’t mind if someone wants to make a virtual distinction between sex and gender: I am purposefully collapsing them to avoid confusion. Someone could make essentially the same view I am but conceptually separate gender and sex. The issue liberals have is that they try to make them really distinct as opposed to virtually distinct.

Your show of kindness is admirable.

It should be made explicit that the views advocated in the OP are not only fraught with philosophical difficulties, but that they are ethically questionable. You and I have discussed elsewhere how there is a tendency amongst conservatives, and especially Christian conservatives, to think of themselves as the arbiters of morality, as possessing a special moral authority. It is well worth pointing out that their views on topics such as gender, abortion, capital punishment, race and so on are widely considered immoral.

We ought point both to the inconsistencies in their account, and also to the poverty of the underlying sentiment.

The core here is that the contents of one's underwear is not generally a suitable justification for one's role in society. The lie being promulgated is that of illegitimately inferring normative obligations from biological facts.

tag me in the post — Bob Ross

My apologies - that was not intentional.

Jamal will do as he pleases. I was simply wishing to stay out of his way.

...you decided to report the thread... — Bob Ross

I did no such thing. However to be clear, if it were in my power I would delete the thread as failing, under the mentioned guidelines. But it's not my call.

Perhaps my concern with regard to Aristotelian substances would be clearer if it were treated as a rhetorical critique: It seems to me, and I suspect to others, that your OP seeks to justify an immoral position by invoking an antique, superseded metaphysic. Not a strong move.

"Quiddity" treats essence as a thing to be discovered. Few would now take such an account seriously. There's a good few problems with that approach. How are we to understand quiddity apart from our conceptual apparatus - apart from our use of language? Possible world semantics makes no such metaphysical commitment. But further, it's not a question of choosing or rejecting possible world semantics, as if it were a mere dogma of modality; it is, whether you like it or not, the very language in which modality is made coherent.

I am purposefully collapsing them to avoid confusion. — Bob Ross

And yet the result of that "purposeful collapse" is an inability to distinguish constructed social role from biological fact, and the claim to have demonstrated that biology determines social role.

You do no have to attend a drag show, but you have not given good reason to prevent others from doing so.

It should be made explicit that the views advocated in the OP are not only fraught with philosophical difficulties, but that they are ethically questionable. You and I have discussed elsewhere how there is a tendency amongst conservatives, and especially Christian conservatives, to think of themselves as the arbiters of morality, as possessing a special moral authority. It is well worth pointing out that their views on topics such as gender, abortion, capital punishment, race and so on are widely considered immoral. — Banno

There is a moral arbiter here, but you've not identified him. He is the one always working behind the scenes to try to censor the things he disagrees with instead of arguing against them.

The core here is that the contents of one's underwear is not generally a suitable justification for one's role in society. — Banno

So would you argue with that the role of fertilizing ova does not belong to males and the role of bearing children through pregnancy does not belong to females? Let's see some arguments instead of ad hominem insults and the casting of aspersions. If you can only produce such sub-rational censorship, then it's no wonder the world is not buying what you're selling. The vast majority of people in the world and even in your culture are well aware that there are distinctively male acts and distinctively female acts, such as fertilizing ova and bearing children through pregnancy. Pretending everyone who disagrees with you is a bigot won't change that.

-

- Good points. :up:

...instead of arguing against them — Leontiskos

Again, I did not report this thread. And I am here, presenting arguments. And again, you would make this a thread about me, fabricating responses instead of reading them - as exemplified in your quite irrational main paragraph. Fertilising an ovum and bearing a child are not social roles. Un already pointed this out. It's you who repeatedly relies on ad homs.

Blatantly, it is you who is not responding to the arguments here.

Your vindictiveness is a bore, Leon.

you didn't even try to answer the question, because you know I am right that the sex organs are not designed to be put in the anus (irregardless if you think men will tend to do it or tend to like to do it). — Bob Ross

One's penis can go anywhere one chooses (with consent). But anal sex is not compulsory, right? No one is saying it is, although it's a common heterosexual activity. And a question of 'design' has not been demonstrated. A penis fits inside holes. Are you also against sticking a penis in a woman's mouth? Where do you get the idea that any particular kind of sex act is somehow wrong?

Yes. You are suggesting that if the negative consequences of doing the right thing are too great, then we shouldn't do it. If I could only save myself from extreme torture as opposed to simply getting murdered by murdering someone else, that wouldn't magically make me murdering someone permissible. What if me murdering this person saved the rest of humanity from endless suffering? Still not permissible. — Bob Ross

Thomson's violinist analogy is so obviously right in its conclusion, I can't fathom the thought processes required to come to the conclusion that, yes, you should be forced by the state to stay bedridden for 9 months after being kidnapped and hooked up to a person. That it should be illegal and you should be punished for choosing to unplug from that situation. Just to be clear, is that really your position?

You didn't even try to answer the question, because you know I am right that the sex organs are not designed to be put in the anus (irregardless if you think men will tend to do it or tend to like to do it). — Bob Ross

My point is that gay men aren't the only ones with the desire to put their sex organs into questionable orifices. The fact that they desire anal sex with other men cannot be held against them (as you obviously intended it to be) since straight men also have the same desire.

https://www.cjonline.com/story/news/crime/2018/05/03/kansas-man-arrested-for-attempted-sex-with-car/12322358007/

I don't know if the guy in the story was straight or not, but it really makes no difference, since it's equally plausible that a gay or straight man would try and fuck a car.

That’s fine, but I don’t think that is how gender theory nor my theory uses the terms. — Bob Ross

Correct. What I'm espousing is the definition of gender according to modern day gender theory as I understand it. It is fine to disagree with it.

Most people are sadly moved by emotion and not reason. — Bob Ross

This is an easy mentality for intelligent and learned people to fall into. I fell into this mistake once as well, so I speak from experience. We are moved by both emotion and reason. Some people are more invested emotionally, others rationally. But we all serve different purposes. I'm not sure what religion you follow, but regardless in Christianity Jesus' continual message was to not think that we are above other people because we are superior to others in our own way. Knowing about Jesus did not make his disciples better than other people, it was that they had the gift of knowing the sacrifice of forgiveness and this grace was to inspire them to spread the message despite personal hardships in doing so.

His disciples bickered over who they thought would be at Jesus right hand when he ascended to heaven. The Pharisees and Saducees, Jewish priests of their day, thought that their knowledge put them above the common people. Jesus admonished them all. In Christianity, Jesus is essentially God. And yet he washed the feet of unclean women, forgave the low and despised in society, and literally died for what are essentially bugs beneath Gods feet. That was the lesson. Might, reason, beauty, power are to be of service for each other. We cannot look down on one another because of our differences. We are all in it together under God. Whether you believe that particular religion or not, there is a powerful message of what a divine being would be like and how it views us.

What I am doing here is attempting to help people by using language that helps them avoid the conflations and sophistry meant to deceive them in gender theory: I’m trying to help them but in an oversimplified way to reach the average person. — Bob Ross

Having spoken with you over the years I am sure you have nothing but good intentions. However, this is a philosophy board and not a political one. Being simple in language is a virtue, but treating people here as simple is not. People want to be inspired by thinking about something in an enlightened way, not riled up against a perceived enemy. The enemy is not other people here, but unclear thinking captured by unwarranted assertions and unexamined assumptions.

You personally see trans people as deviant. I see trans people as people with the free choice in how to live. Others think trans people should get to change the rest of how society lives and thinks. But are we talking with each other, or at each other?

Some of the push back against you here I see as unwarranted, but some of it is warranted. Declaring without a carefully reasoned and referenced view as to why trans people are sexually deviant is an attack on a section of people, which I feel we should all be careful in doing in a thinking forum. What makes them deviant? What studies and or moral theories lead to this conclusion? Is this really the point and focus of your OP? Politics is about assertions and control. Philosophy is about questioning, exploring, and understanding. It is why I avoid politics in philosophical discussions, because I feel the two can rarely meet together properly.

Just a reminder not to get too wrapped up in passion that we forget the role of philosophy here. Careful definitions, attacks on words and not people, and listening to and addressing others concerns even if it appears they are not being charitable back.

Suppose we take the male sex and the social role of begetting/impregnating. Begetting is not merely a social role, but it is also a social role... — Leontiskos

Fertilising an ovum and bearing a child are not social roles. — Banno

Why not? Do you have any arguments, or only assertions?

Given your continual lack of argumentation and philosophical engagement, I will guess at your rationale, as it always proves futile to try to get you to give an argument yourself:

The probable reason you reject bearing children (and fertilizing ova) as social roles is because you are begging the question. You think: <If something pertains to sex, then it is not a social role; bearing children pertains to sex; therefore bearing children is not a social role>. This is of course fallacious reasoning which depends on the very conclusion you were meant to prove. Other, similar arguments suffer the same fate, e.g.: <A power one is born with cannot ground a social role; the ability to bear children is a power females are born with; therefore the bearing of children is not a social role>.

(At this point in the conversation your usual route is to fault me for guessing at your arguments, and you will call my guesses strawmen. But again, if you are not willing to provide your own arguments then I can do little more than guess. If what I have presented are strawmen, then you will have to offer the alternative to the strawmen. If you cannot offer any alternative, then there is no reason to believe my guesses are strawmen.)

Straight man like anal sex too. — RogueAI

Well, would you concede that coitus is more reproductively advantageous than anal sex, and therefore better insofar as the reproduction of the species is concerned? And if one accepts the theory of Darwinian evolution, then they would probably also concede that because coitus contributes more to a species' survival than anal sex, evolution therefore favors coitus in a special way. This is why a Darwinian evolutionist such as Richard Dawkins is also quite skeptical of the claims of gender theory, particularly when those claims are taken to the remarkable conclusions which many activists promote. If a species does not enact and favor the uniqueness of coitus, then they fail to understand their own reproductive means.

This is an instance of what Gad Saad calls "suicidal empathy," e.g. the desire to be so "empathetic" that one no longer recognizes any reproductive difference between the act of coitus and other sexual acts. The reasoning goes: <If we recognize that an opposite-sex couple has greater reproductive power than a same-sex couple, then we are failing to be empathetic and egalitarian; We cannot fail to be empathetic and egalitarian; Therefore, we cannot recognize that an opposite-sex couple has greater reproductive power than a same-sex couple>. Saad sees that sort of reasoning as suicidal at the species-level given that it disregards the survival of the species. The more general form of the reasoning is: <My idea is so good and so right, that the possibility that it will destroy the whole is irrelevant>.

Well, would you concede that coitus is more reproductively advantageous than anal sex, and therefore better insofar as the reproduction of the species is concerned? — Leontiskos

Yes, but just because something is more reproductively advantageous does not mean it's moral, or the people doing the reproductively advantageous acts are "better" in any way. You and Bob seem to be implying gays are inferior or need to be "cured" because they are not maximizing reproductive efficiency. And if anal sex is reproductively disadvantageous, what about contraception? Abortion? Masturbation? Oral sex? Vasectomies?

It is rather difficult to make sense of all this decarative definitional stuff, because your definitions are not clearly distinguished

What part of my definitions were not clear?

and at the same time fail to account for the variety of human behaviour and social relations

On the contrary, it accounts for the behavioral aspect of gender by noting that it is the upshot one’s nature; thusly avoiding the critical confusion of thinking gender is divorced from sex.

To be honest, I might just opt-in for the other schema I was playing with, of which I noted also depicts essentially the same ideas I am noting with the equality of sex and gender, that holds gender and sex as conceptually but not really distinct. That might help people avoid this (invalid) rejoinder that I am not accounting for the social aspects of how biological sex will tend to express itself.

Males can include gays, cross dressers, celibates castrati, none of whom tend to 'serve the role of providing, protecting, impregnating, etc. a female.'

Yes, but they are fully men because they have male souls; and they simply aren’t, in existence, properly living up to their nature.

I'm not saying you are a bigot i said what you wrote was bigoted

This is an important distinction, but my rejoinder would be essentially the same. I don’t think you are writing bigotry by opposing stereotypical conservative values and beliefs. It seems way to convenient to label your most prominent opposition in America as all writing bigotry by noting that homosexuality, transgenderism, and sexually degenerate behavior is bad (for those participating in it).

 "Let's cure those deviants."

Imagine someone believed that transgenderism was a mental illness called ‘gender dysphoria’, akin to (but not identical to) someone with schizophrenia. Would you consider them a bigot or purporting bigotry by noting that we should help cure people with transgenderism just like we help schizophrenics???

 I think that’s fair; he was big on re-educating dissenters. What you think about Stalin is irrelevant to my point.

I don’t believe in re-educating dissenters. I am fine with free speech; however, it is commonly accepted that people who are extremely mentally (or/and physically) unwell need desperate help and they may be confined for a while for their own safety to themselves (like suicidal people for example). Should everyone who has a mental illness be put in a camp? No.

Wouldn’t you agree that being homosexual or transgender is a result of socio-psychological disorders or/and biological developmental issues?— Bob Ross

No, and this is another bigoted position.

Then you are, in fact, labeling your opposition as bigoted instead of refuting their position. I could easily say the same thing about your views: it doesn’t help further the conversation.

I don’t know you to establish how seriously you offer this, but that sentence reads like something a child would write, surely? I can't help but feel some compassion for you that your religion appears to have made you so reductive and homophobic.

Notice that you didn’t engage with what I said because it is obviously true. A sex organ is not designed to be inserted in an anus; even if you believe that it is morally permissible to do so. The fact you resort to name-calling as an evasion technique instead of rebuttling my position is saddening.

I could be wrong but from what I read here my view would be that it might benefit you to stop hiding behind theories, metaphysics, and fundamentalist religion, and get out into the real world. Spend time with lots of different kinds of people for a few years. Maybe some real-world exposure will help you understand the diversity and beauty in people who differ from your prescribed notions. And that perhaps what needs to change is you, not them.

Instead of making baseless assumptions about my life, begging the question, and name-calling; why don’t you just contend with the view?

That said, I’m glad you feel confident expressing your opinions here for us all to explore. It’s interesting to see what comes out in response, Perhaps it reveals a little more about the true nature of some of our members.

You do understand that the hugely popular conservative view right now in America is that transgenderism is a mental illness—right? You keep pretending like this is a crazy, outlandish, bigoted, and ‘transphobic’ position to take; and keep straw manning the position with name-calling and baseless assumptions to evade engaging in the discussion. Acknowledging that something is a mental illness does not entail that one hates people who have it….do you really not believe that???

With all that being said, I am always open-minded and would be glad to discuss the OP with you if you ever decide to engage with it instead of straw manning it with baseless name-calling. If not, no worries and I wish you the best Tom!

I did no such thing.

I apologize: I thought Jamal said you did—I must have misunderstood.

However to be clear, if it were in my power I would delete the thread as failing, under the mentioned guidelines. But it's not my call.

Ok, but this goes back to my main point: it is saddening that you are so anti-free-speech. What you are advocating for is to censor anyone who comes up with an alternative view to gender theory. This is a discussion with major philosophical backdroppings that needs to be sorted out in America and has profound influence on the rest of the world.

"Quiddity" treats essence as a thing to be discovered.

Correct; and to be clear: you are an anti-realist about essences if you disagree with the above quoted statement. You would have to be nominalist...that’s not a trivial commitment to have.

How are we to understand quiddity apart from our conceptual apparatus - apart from our use of language?

Linguistics isn’t identical to conceptualizations; but, beyond that, yes: if you are a realist about essences—if you are one of the many people in the world who think that, e.g., two humans really share a nature—then you have to explain how that works. The only way it works is if there is a unity—a whole—to a being which provides its intelligibility: there must be an actualizing principle. This provides the essences to things.

Possible world semantics makes no such metaphysical commitment

Your view seems very centered around possible world theory...which is fine; but, again, if you disagree that essences are real then you are saying that humans do not share a nature, two chairs don’t share a nature, etc.---viz., you are a nominalist.

This is just the age-old debate between nominalism and form realism rehashed.

as if it were a mere dogma of modality; it is, whether you like it or not, the very language in which modality is made coherent.

Firstly, I reject possible world theory (but we can discuss that if you would like). Secondly, why would we need to reject that, e.g., two humans share the same nature in order to accept that, e.g., possibly X is equal to X existing in some possible world?

And yet the result of that "purposeful collapse" is an inability to distinguish constructed social role from biological fact, and the claim to have demonstrated that biology determines social role

It doesn’t collapse in this way because I am claiming that the only social aspects of gender that are legitimate are those that are the upshot of one’s procreative nature; so there may, and usually are, social expectations and views of gender that are patently false that a society may have.

In your view and the modern gender theory view, it is impossible for a society to get a gender wrong; because it is purely a social construct. Sure, you may quibble with epistemically how to hash out when it is a true social norm that X gender does such-and-such and presents themselves in this-and-that manner; but fundamentally gender is inter-subjective on this view. It is anti-realism about gender akin to anti-realism about ethics: e.g., people who debate whether men should wear dresses are not giving judgments that express something objective no different than how people who debate whether killing babies for fun is wrong are not giving judgments that express something objective (under moral anti-realism).

You do no have to attend a drag show, but you have not given good reason to prevent others from doing so.

Because it is:

1. Harmful to children and incentivizes them to harm themselves;
2. Gravely harmful to the adults (participating); and
3. It exemplifies grave evil that society should not be condoning.

There is a moral arbiter here, but you've not identified him. He is the one always working behind the scenes to try to censor the things he disagrees with instead of arguing against them.

@Banno, I try my best to avoid making serious accusations against my opponents and I want to be as charitable to them as possible, but given the staunch hatred I am getting on this thread for trying to discuss a basic and prominent topic I am inclined to agree here. This thread has unintentionally exposed members of this forum that are pro-censorship and that favor name-calling over intellectual conversations. With that being said, I truly commend @Jamal for respecting free speech here, although they disagree with the OP.

One's penis can go anywhere one chooses (with consent). But anal sex is not compulsory, right? No one is saying it is, although it's a common heterosexual activity. And a question of 'design' has not been demonstrated. A penis fits inside holes. Are you also against sticking a penis in a woman's mouth? Where do you get the idea that any particular kind of sex act is somehow wrong?

To clarify, are you answering “no” to my question?!? You really don’t believe that a penis is not designed to be inserted into an anus?

I get that ‘design’ might be a strong word for you; but wouldn’t you say it at least is contrary to the ‘natural functions’ of the penis?

I am saying a particular kind of sex act is wrong if it is contrary to the natural ends and teleology of a human. I think this even holds in atheistic views that are forms of moral naturalism like Filippe Foote’s ‘natural goodness’.

Thomson's violinist analogy is so obviously right in its conclusion

Is it?

I can't fathom the thought processes required to come to the conclusion that

Well, that’s a problem. I understand why someone would conclude that they could cut the cord...otherwise I couldn’t really say that I am right in my conclusion that they are wrong. How do you know I am wrong about it being immoral to murder the violinist even towards the good end of saving yourself if you don’t understand why someone would take that position?

Just to be clear, is that really your position?

P1: Murder is the direct intentional killing of an innocent person.
P2: It is wrong to murder.
P3: Directly intentionally killing the innocent violinist is murder.
P4: Therefore, directly intentionally killing the innocent violinist is wrong.

What you are saying is:

P1: Involuntary use of a person’s body is a violation of a person’s right to bodily autonomy.
P2: A violation of a persons’ right to bodily autonomy is wrong.
P3: The innocent violinist is using a persons’ body without their consent.
P4: Therefore, it is wrong for the innocent violinist to use the person’s body without their consent.

What you are failing to understand is that the violinist is not the one violating this person’s bodily autonomy: it is the person who hooked them up to them that committed the violation and consequently the immoral act. Now, the violinist and the other victim are stuck in a predicament: how do they go about resolving it? Can they do something immoral to resolve it? No, but you are arguing “yes”: you are saying this victim can murder the violinist to resolve the situation. That’s wrong: two wrongs don’t make a right. Wouldn’t you agree?

That's utterly irrelevant to what I was saying. I was arguing that inserting a penis in an anus violates the natural ends of both organs.

What you are failing to understand is that the violinist is not the one violating this person’s bodily autonomy: it is the person who hooked them up to them that committed the violation and consequently the immoral act. Now, the violinist and the other victim are stuck in a predicament: how do they go about resolving it? Can they do something immoral to resolve it? No, but you are arguing “yes”: you are saying this victim can murder the violinist to resolve the situation. That’s wrong: two wrongs don’t make a right. Wouldn’t you agree? — Bob Ross

Take the thought experiment to its logical conclusion: instead of the violinist being hooked up to you for 9 months, he's hooked up to you for 45 years and during that time, you're in total physical agony. And also, he's not just hooked up to you, he's hooked up to a thousand other people, all necessary to keep him alive. But why stop at a thousand? Let's say it's a million people. A billion. Is your position still that it's immoral for any one of those people to unhook themselves and end all the suffering? After all, two wrongs don't make a right. At some point, you must realize your position becomes untenable.

I was arguing that inserting a penis in an anus violates the natural ends of both organs. — Bob Ross

Why were you arguing that? It seemed that you were implying gay people are defective or need to be "cured" because they like anal sex, which is why I replied that plenty of straight people like it too. What was your point?

The US has an infatuation with free speech not found elsewhere. Or rather,
it pretends to allow anyone to say what they please, the practical outcome of which is to have speech controlled by the very rich. As the criticism of Feyerabend says, "anything goes" just means that nothing changes. Do you think that the forums should drop the rule agains posting bigotry and racism? That would quite radically change it's nature. But it's what is implied by insisting that there be no restrictions on what can be posted. All of that is a side issue, and here, it's @Jamal and @Baden who decide what stays and what goes, whether we like it or not.

Correct; and to be clear: you are an anti-realist about essences if you disagree with the above quoted statement. You would have to be nominalist...that’s not a trivial commitment to have. — Bob Ross

Not quite. It's not uncommon to presume that either realism is true or nominalism is true. But the two are not exhaustive, nor mutually exclusive. There are intermediate or alternative responses that avoid the simple binary. For example, Kant's conceptualism, Ramsey's pragmatism and Davidson's linguistic deflation all challenge the supposed dichotomy. We choose to talk of essences in a way that works for us.

So your

...two humans really share a nature—then you have to explain how that works. — Bob Ross

imposes a nature as much as it shows a nature. What you are doing here is stipulating that certain characteristics determine who is human and who isn't, and then insisting on explaining away any falsification of your stipulation as aberrant. Now that might be acceptable, if you acknowledged that this was what you are doing. But instead you insist that your stipulation is fact.

I reject possible world theory — Bob Ross

Then you reject the most coherent semantics for modal language, a framework that allows modality to be expressed without incoherence or circularity. What is your alternative?

Now have a close look at

I am claiming that the only social aspects of gender that are legitimate are those that are the upshot of one’s procreative nature; so there may, and usually are, social expectations and views of gender that are patently false that a society may have. — Bob Ross

Can you see how this mixes factual and normative language? I've bolded the normative term for you. It's you and I who decide what is legitimate, not biology. It's an attitude, not a fact. That't the is/ought barrier being broken by your rhetoric.

Here's the same thing, again:

I am saying a particular kind of sex act is wrong if it is contrary to the natural ends and teleology of a human. — Bob Ross

...the pretence of a normative teleology on a par with brute fact.

In your view and the modern gender theory view, it is impossible for a society to get a gender wrong... — Bob Ross

Not quite; gender is fluid, because like all social artefacts it is the result of a "counts as..." statement (this is what @Leontiskos is missing). See my thread on John Searle if you need more explanation of this. One gets an institutional fact wrong when one breaks the "counts as..." convention that inaugurates that fact. You apparently want sex to count as gender, failing to notice the very many differences between our uses of the two terms.

When we fail to recognise the difference between institutional facts and brute facts we become vulnerable to satire. This explains the damnation heaped on drag by conservatives - "you can't do that! It's against nature!" No it isn't - it's against what was presumed to count as natural, but which doesn't. No force of nature prevents a male from dressing in drag. That's down to convention.

staunch hatred — Bob Ross

To be clear, I don't hate you. If you are every over this way I would buy you a beer and have a chat with you. But I do wish you to be aware that what you are advocating is seen by many as immoral. Hence the strong language.

That accusation of name-calling - I'm here, and I've just spent a half-hour responding to your post with an extended account of why I think it problematic. That's a lot more than just name-calling. Don't fall into @Leontiskos's lack of intellectual engagement when challenged.



Added: I'll reinforce one particular point here. You are welcome to your views, and you are welcome to express them. What is objectionable is the pretence that your attitudes are natural, such that they are the inevitable outcome of how things are. They are not; they are an ought imposed by you over and above the is of how things are. And there are alternatives to your attitudes, with equal legitimacy.

This is an easy mentality for intelligent and learned people to fall into.

I agree with everything said here; but it doesn’t address my point. I am not trying to convey that we should have a superiority complex, posture, or gate-keep: I am saying that how one conveys message is contextual to the audience that they are trying to receive it. You have to convey things in a simplified way to the average person to get them to gravitate, or even think about, your view. If you sit down and give an elaborate theory philosophically in front of the average, hard-working American; they are not going to understand you: not because they are stupid, but because they lack the education on that specific topic. We are all affected by this too: there’s plenty of topics I am grossly uneducated on as well and someone educated on it would have to dumb it down for me too.

Having spoken with you over the years I am sure you have nothing but good intentions. However, this is a philosophy board and not a political one. Being simple in language is a virtue, but treating people here as simple is not. People want to be inspired by thinking about something in an enlightened way, not riled up against a perceived enemy. The enemy is not other people here, but unclear thinking captured by unwarranted assertions and unexamined assumptions.

Over-simplification is not a virtue; but being able to convey a message in a contextually useful way that is simple for people to understand is...and that is what I am advocating for. I do see and agree with your point: I agree that we should be intellectually virtuous, and I am not suggesting we should do otherwise. I am pointing out that you have to make your message receptive to your audience, and also helpful for them to avoid semantic traps. Gender theory is a gigantic semantic trap—as you yourself even admitted (if I remember correctly)—and I am providing an alternative view that uses a different schema to help ward of that trap.

Since I think people on this forum (excluding some like yourself of course) seem to be incapable of dealing legitimately with an opposing view that they adamantly disagree with; I am going to rewrite the OP, while preserving the original content, to use the schema that conceptually separates gender and sex to help them understand my position better. At the end of the day I am only interested in furthering the discussion to get at the truth; so if rewording it helps then I am fine with that.

Declaring without a carefully reasoned and referenced view as to why trans people are sexually deviant is an attack on a section of people, which I feel we should all be careful in doing in a thinking forum. What makes them deviant?

Firstly, this wasn’t in the OP: I mentioned this to someone on a broader discussion about politics. This is not a claim I am making that is pertinent to the OP.

I think the LGBQ+ community is a community of sexually deviant people: they embrace sexuality in an grossly overly-exhalted way and engage in what would be normally considered sexually extreme or deviant acts. Granted, ‘sexual deviancy’ tends to be evaluated inter-subjectively (on what the social norms currently are); but having oral sex, anal sex, engaging in pornos, having orgies, enjoying sissification, BDSM, etc. are all sexually deviant acts that are a part of and quite closely connected to that community. Even in the case of less deviant people, like a less deviant homosexual couple for example, they tend to do deviant sex acts (like anal sex, for example). There are sexually deviant straight people too.

Philosophy is about questioning, exploring, and understanding. It is why I avoid politics in philosophical discussions, because I feel the two can rarely meet together properly.

The problem with this is that philosophy is supposed to inform politics. My metaphysics on gender and sex are informing my political views on gender theory and vice-versa for my opponents. Politics is not separable from philosophy.

Just a reminder not to get too wrapped up in passion that we forget the role of philosophy here. Careful definitions, attacks on words and not people, and listening to and addressing others concerns even if it appears they are not being charitable back.

Fair enough and I agree!

It seems way to convenient to label your most prominent opposition in America as all writing bigotry by noting that homosexuality, transgenderism, and sexually degenerate behavior is bad (for those participating in it). — Bob Ross

Calling people degenerate is bigotry. To use your terminology, this much is 'obviously true'. If I said theists are delusional and need to be cured of their magical thinking, that would be the same thing.

Notice that you didn’t engage with what I said because it is obviously true. A sex organ is not designed to be inserted in an anus; even if you believe that it is morally permissible to do so. The fact you resort to name-calling as an evasion technique instead of rebuttling my position is saddening. — Bob Ross

Notice that you haven't presented an 'argument' to refute. You made a belief claim that you haven’t demonstrated to be true, and I pointed this out. First, there’s the problem that you haven’t demonstrated that any part of us is “designed,” and you’ve also failed to make the case that a sex organ is not designed to be inserted into an anus, you’ve merely stated an opinion. We use our parts of our bodies for any number of things. And you never answered my question: when a man puts his penis in a woman’s mouth, is that also a violation of design according to you? Or using fingers for typing? Who decides what counts as a violation of usage and who decides what counts as design?

Now, even if we take a neutral view that human bodies evolved over time to have certain functions, that still doesn’t amount to an argument against using a penis for anal sex. People can use their bodies in surprising, eccentric, and creative ways to experience pleasure — from dance to sex. Who gets to decide what counts as “unnatural”? In most cases, if it can be done, it's natural.

I don’t believe in re-educating dissenters. I am fine with free speech; however, it is commonly accepted that people who are extremely mentally (or/and physically) unwell need desperate help and they may be confined for a while for their own safety to themselves (like suicidal people for example). Should everyone who has a mental illness be put in a camp? No. — Bob Ross

This is disingenuous. Comparing someone who might be suicidal or violent (or 'extremely mentally unwell") to someone who is gay or trans is just a case of you applying a label of mental illness on a phenomenon what you dislike or are afraid of. It would be no different to me claiming that Christians who are deluded into thinking there’s a magic sky wizard should be given counselling to remove their faith and become “normal.”

Wouldn’t you agree that being homosexual or transgender is a result of socio-psychological disorders or/and biological developmental issues? — Bob Ross

No, that seems to be another bigoted position.

Then you are, in fact, labeling your opposition as bigoted instead of refuting their position. I could easily say the same thing about your views: it doesn’t help further the conversation. — Bob Ross

Not really. If you say gay and tans people are deviant, you are saying bigoted things. You are presenting a moral judgment founded in bias and stigma. It's textbook bigotry.

You do understand that the hugely popular conservative view right now in America is that transgenderism is a mental illness—right? You keep pretending like this is a crazy, outlandish, bigoted, and ‘transphobic’ position to take; and keep straw manning the position with name-calling and baseless assumptions to evade engaging in the discussion. Acknowledging that something is a mental illness does not entail that one hates people who have it….do you really not believe that??? — Bob Ross

That's just an example of argumentum ad populum. I'm sure as many Americans probably think the world is only 6,000 years old. Who cares how many think something? And by the way, I didn't say that these pejorative views were "outlandish" or "crazy" I said they were bigoted. I am well aware of positions held by some in the Right. And I don't live in America.

I’m not evading anything, you’re simply failing to offer any coherent reasoning for a position. Saying “the penis isn’t designed for anal sex” isn’t an argument; it’s just an unsupported assertion. If that’s the level of reasoning being offered, what exactly is there to engage with? Pointing out the lack of evidence or logic isn’t evasion.

And there’s a broader problem: conflating anal sex with homosexuality is primitive. Many gay men do not like or practice anal sex, and there are lesbians for whom this framing is entirely irrelevant. Your view on lesbians? Reducing homosexuality to a particular sex act is a crude simplification. The point people have been making (and that you seem to be evading) is that anal sex is a sexual act that transcends sexual preference. You cannot use it to portray gay people as somehow inherently 'against nature' or whatever it might be.

Anyway, I'll let you have the last word since this seems to be going nowhere. I suspect that we don't have enough in common to build a productive conversation. I have nothing against you as a person and wish you well. I have no doubt that you are sincere and doing the best you can with your thinking and I would say the same applies to me. I’d be interested in a thread soem time about how we can have conversations with people who don’t share basic axioms or frameworks, and how we can develop a society that allows for pluralism.

Yes, but just because something is more reproductively advantageous does not mean [...] the people doing the reproductively advantageous acts are "better" in any way. — RogueAI

No? Wouldn't you say that someone who does something that is more reproductively advantageous is better at reproducing than someone who doesn't (ceteris paribus)? If you disagree, then I would have to know how you are defining "better."

Your objection seems to rest on the claim, "X is more reproductively advantageous than Y, and X is not better than Y in any way." This is a common claim (contradiction) underlying your position. Your position seems to commit you to denying or overlooking obvious truths, such as the truth that if X is more reproductively advantageous than Y, then X is better than Y in one way.

You and Bob seem to be implying gays are inferior or need to be "cured" because they are not maximizing reproductive efficiency. — RogueAI

That's a strange leap. No one has said anything to that effect. But it is the sort of non-sequitur that is operative when someone wants to impute bad motive.

And if anal sex is reproductively disadvantageous, what about contraception? Abortion? Masturbation? Oral sex? Vasectomies? — RogueAI

They are relatively reproductively disadvantageous as well. They are examples of the "other sexual acts" I referenced here:

...the desire to be so "empathetic" that one no longer recognizes any reproductive difference between the act of coitus and other sexual acts. — Leontiskos