Yes, but they are fully men because they have male souls; — Bob Ross

And is there sex in heaven?

Calling people degenerate is bigotry.

Even if it really is degenerate? This is the basic, colloquial definition of bigotry:

“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.”

You are begging the question because you are presupposing that my belief that, e.g., “engaging in BDSM is sexually degenerate” is true is unreasonable and false; but that’s the whole point in contention here, and what you are doing is labeling me with a word that no one wants to be labeled with so that it is easier to evade contending with my claim.

Do you think engaging in BDSM, e.g., is not sexually degenerate? If not, then what would count as sexually degenerate under your view and would any concession of the possibility of sexual degeneracy be considered bigotry on your view?

 If I said theists are delusional and need to be cured of their magical thinking, that would be the same thing.

Firstly, I don’t think all members of the LGBTQ+ community are delusional. Secondly, you could very well make the claim that theists are delusional and I would ask you for your reasons why and contend with them without name-calling.

Notice that you haven't presented an 'argument' to refute.

This isn’t directly relevant to the OP: you ended up critiquing a claim I made to someone else on here. The natural ends of a sex organ, as a sex organ, is to procreate; which is exemplified by its shape, functions (e.g., ejaculation, erections, etc. for a penis), and its evolutionary and biological relation to the opposite (supplementary) sex organ of the opposite sex.

Your contention seems to be:

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

A function is just the modern term for design; and I understand that I didn’t make an argument for why it is wrong. I was giving you an example to demonstrate that it is bad. Badness is the privation of goodness; and goodness is the equality of a being’s essence and esse. Rightness and wrongness are about behaving in accord or disaccord with what is good (respectively). If you don’t agree with me that it is a privation of the design (or ‘function’) of the human sex organs to be put in places they are designed to go, all else being equal, then we need to hash that out first.

 if it can be done, it's natural.

Not everything that is done is natural. By ‘natural’, in natural law theory, we mean that it flows from the nature of a given being.

Agency allows beings to freely will against their nature; so it can’t be true that every act is natural.

when a man puts his penis in a woman’s mouth, is that also a violation of design according to you?

Yes.

Or using fingers for typing?

Fingers are designed to be used to press, pull, and grab things: that’s there evolutionary purpose. That’s why thumbs are so awesome.

Who decides what counts as a violation of usage and who decides what counts as design?

Not who, my friend, what. The nature of a being is ingrained in them. We can come to know that nature through introspection, science, metaphysics, etc. E.g., we can see, through studying biology and empirically living in the world, that human’s are supposed to have two arms: this is a part of what it means to be a human being as opposed to, e.g., a dolphin.

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 are just begging the question: why is it a bias and stigma? I presented non-biased, rational, and cogent reasons for, e.g., homosexuality being a privation of human nature. We haven’t dived into transgenderism as a mental illness that much yet; but the same can be done there too. Why do you so conveniently assume your opposition is operating under a bias and prejudice? What if I just assumed right back at you that you are being biased against my view and biased in favor of LGBTQ+?

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?

I am not suggesting that it is true because a lot of people believe it. I was bringing that up because you seemed to be evading the discussion by name-calling and acting like this view is niche in America. I am just noting it is not niche at all.

Saying “the penis isn’t designed for anal sex” isn’t an argument; it’s just an unsupported assertion

My friend, every claim is an assertion; and every premise of an argument is an assertion. You ask me why homosexuality is bad and I give you a cogent example: it’s fine if you don’t agree with it and we can dive in deeper, but this idea that ‘because it is an assertion it is baseless’ isn’t legitimate. Every statement is an assertion. Reason works by working finitely at an argument: it starts with first-order reasons, then second-order, etc.

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.

I wish you the best as well and I have no doubt that you are genuine and sincere in your pursuit of the truth. I think we could try to find some common ground if you would like.

Homosexuality is defective: it can be defective biologically and/or socio-psychologically. Heterosexuality is defective sometimes socio-psychologically.

Homosexuality is always defective because, at a minimum, it involves an unnatural attraction to the same sex which is a privation of their human nature (and usually of no real fault of their own); whereas heterosexuality is not per se because, at a minimum, it involves the natural attraction to the opposite sex.

Now, heterosexuality can be defective if the person is engaging in opposite-sex attraction and/or actions that are sexually degenerate; but this will always be the result of environmental or/and psychological (self) conditioning. The underlying attraction is not bad: it's the lack of disciple, lack of habit towards using that attraction properly, and (usually) uncontrollable urges towards depriving sexual acts.

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. 

With all due respect, my friend, I think you are not appreciating what I am saying: I already addressed and anticipated this rejoinder. Even if the consequences of not murdering the violinist were the most grave and insufferable that a human can conceive of, it is still immoral to murder; so it is immoral to do so.

Even if everyone else was perpetually hooked up to this terrifying scientific experiment, it would not make it permissible to murder someone. What you are arguing is that ‘murder is wrong’ and simultaneously ‘but if the consequences of doing the right thing are too grave, then murder is not wrong’.

Is your position still that it's immoral for any one of those people to unhook themselves and end all the suffering? 

So this depends on if the killing is directly intentional. I am assuming here, for the sake of my point, that unplugging is an directly intentional act to kill the other people hooked up. If so, then that’s murder and is immoral.

Homosexuality is always defective because, at a minimum, it involves an unnatural attraction — Bob Ross

Nature, it seems is unnatural.

Scientists observe same-sex sexual behavior in animals in different degrees and forms among different species and clades. A 2019 paper states that it has been observed in over 1,500 species.[4] Although same-sex interactions involving genital contact have been reported in many animal species, they are routinely manifested in only a few, including humans.[5] Other than humans, the only known species to exhibit exclusive homosexual orientation is the domesticated sheep (Ovis aries), involving about 10% of males.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals

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.

I appreciate that, and I do not hate you either.

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.

It seems like you are conceding you have name-called but that you are engaging with the discussion simultaneously: as of now, I agree with that. My complaint was twofold: you don’t usually engage with me on the topic-at-hand and you name-call. Either way, I appreciate you responding and engaging with the discussion: that is what really matters and is respectable.

They are not; they are an ought imposed by you over and above the is of how things are

I forgot that you are a moral non-naturalist: this OP is presupposing a form of moral naturalism. I don’t accept Hume’s guillotine. We can discuss that if you want, but I do need to address:

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

Moral naturalism shouldn’t be objectionable to you in a way where one resorts to name-calling and censorship. All the above amounts to is you being compelled by moral non-naturalism to reject moral naturalism, which is perfectly fine and we can have a robust conversation about it.

The US has an infatuation with free speech not found elsewher

I think all countries would be better off mirroring American values. Free speech is essential to exercising our minds properly which the nation-state should be facilitating; and it allows for healthy dissent against the government.

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

Capitalism and corportism is what causes the rich controlling the media and manipulating the masses—not free speech. Even in a heavily censored and rich-controlled media, as we have seen in America, people are able to voice their beliefs without fear of governmental backlash; and people prevail against social backlash for exercising free speech—they get fed up with liberal censorship.

As a philosopher, I am surprised you reject american-style free speech: I would have imagined you to support the free exercise of our intellect to help further ideas and shape people’s views with critical thinking.

Do you think that the forums should drop the rule agains posting bigotry and racism?

Firstly, I cannot emphasize enough that this thread is not an example of either of those. Secondly, I would say that the rules should allow for a free marketplace of ideas and the free conversing and exchange of them (intellectually). The purpose behind free speech in America is not to have absolute free speech (like some conservatives think): it’s to allow us to freely exercise our mind’s natural ends through intellectual pursuits.

With that in mind, the rules should ban the exercise of speech that is not aimed at the exercise of the intellect (through free exchange of ideas) and are harmful. This would include exercises of speech like obvious trolling, bullying, inciting of violence, etc.

This thread is obviously only attempting to defend and discuss an alternative view of gender theory as well as, it developing into a discussion of, defending conservative views that relate to the philosophical position at hand.

The categories you gave don’t cleanly fit into this dichotomy. For example, take racism: what if someone wanted to have an intellectual discussion about race realism vs. anti-realism? That’s technically a differentiation based off of race, which meets the modern definition of racism; but it would be an intellectual pursuit. What if, on the other hand, someone opened up a thread to just bash a particular race? That seems inappropriate, as it is not ordered towards intellectual exchange of ideas.

Read the OP again: does it resemble more the attempt at an intellectual exchange of ideas or a bashing of liberals?

I even updated it to change the semantics to help further the discussion (while retaining the original content in strikeout)!

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 

Categorically, either ontologically there are real essences to things or there are not: those are exhaustive. The other options you gave aren’t about ontology: they are epistemic. Kant famously denied knowing anything about the things-in-themselves: he was an agnostic on the true debate between nominalists and realists to the strongest extent of thinking we can’t ever know; and shifted the focus to the a prior modes by which we cognize reality.

imposes a nature as much as it shows a nature.

Are you taking a Kantian approach here?

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

I haven’t heard anything from you that is something that falsifies my view. I am more than happy to entertain it if you provide some.

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?

Two main reasons I reject PWT:

1. Under this view, possibly necessary → necessary → existence. This exposes the fatal flow in thinking of these modalities in terms of conceivable worlds.

2. It conflates conceivability with modality. Something is not merely possible because I can conceive of it in a possible world. In fact, no human can know exactly what is possible and what isn’t. This is why I prefer to use the modalities in a stricter, negative sense of evaluating it relative to whether or not it ‘violates the mode of thought’. For example, X is possible under M IFF under interpretation M X does not violate the laws therein. Viz., it is logically possible IFF it doesn’t violate the theory of logic being used; it is metaphysically possible IFF it doesn’t violate the theory of metaphysics being used; it is actual possible IFF it doesn’t violate the theory of nature (the universe) being used. This protects us from falling into the trap of conflating conceivability with possibility, necessity, contingency, etc.

 It's you and I who decide what is legitimate, not biology.

I don’t think moral non-naturalism works as it appeals to an unknown, incoherent source of morality (such as Moorean thought) and essentially is just moral anti-realism with the false veil of objectivity (no offense!).

Goodness, under the Aristotelian view, is the equality of a being’s essence and esse; which is identical, given the form vs. being distinction, to being as convertible with goodness—as the more being a thing has the more realized it is at what it is.

So the way reality is, in form—in essence, does dictate how things ought to be.

E.g., a good farmer is not hypothetically good at farming; nor is he subjectively (non-objectively) good at farming: he actually is good at farming. He is objectively good at farming because he embodies the essence of farming in virtue and deed. His being is realizing the essence of farming properly.

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

This is interesting, but I didn’t quite follow: can you elaborate on it more?

You apparently want sex to count as gender, failing to notice the very many differences between our uses of the two terms.

Ok, so, in good faith, I altered the OP to make a conceptual but not real distinction between gender and sex to account for this and help avoid other confusions other people have been having. Please take a quick look at the OP and let me know what you think: I kept the old text in strikeout and the new in bold. The semantics don’t really matter that much to the underlying content I am conveying. The point is that gender is not a social construct.

 No it isn't - it's against what was presumed to count as natural, but which doesn't.

This begs the question: I am saying it really “counts as” a part of their nature because they really have a nature. You are denying they really have a nature and your rebuttle here is to presuppose that they don’t really have a nature and that I am just “counting it as” a nature when it isn’t. That’s the whole point in contention, though.

Probably not. There's no marriage in heaven, so I would presume there's no genders.

Agents can do things that go against their nature. This is an age-old liberal point that is false. Just because animals have the agency to go against their nature it doesn't mean that it is in their nature to do it. You would have to commit yourself to the absurd view that everything a natural organism does is natural.

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

I'm not. You completely missed the point. There can be misuses of language by a large number of people that simply repeat what they hear rather than integrating what they hear with the rest of what they know (that if Socialists are "liberals", then what does that make Libertarians?). Both sides are liberal on some issues (social vs economic). It is only Libertarians that are liberal on all issues, so why call either side "liberal" when we have group that fits the term better than either the left or the right?

With all due respect, my friend, I think you are not appreciating what I am saying: I already addressed and anticipated this rejoinder. Even if the consequences of not murdering the violinist were the most grave and insufferable that a human can conceive of, it is still immoral to murder; so it is immoral to do so. — Bob Ross

It's not murder. Innocent people sometimes can be justifiably killed. In the violinist analogy, if you remove the tubes from yourself that are keeping the violinist alive, you are not actively killing him, you are failing to render aid. You do not have a moral duty to render aid to people that are hooked up to you without your consent.

Homosexuality is defective: it can be defective biologically and/or socio-psychologically. Heterosexuality is defective sometimes socio-psychologically.

Homosexuality is always defective because, at a minimum, it involves an unnatural attraction to the same sex which is a privation of their human nature (and usually of no real fault of their own); whereas heterosexuality is not per se because, at a minimum, it involves the natural attraction to the opposite sex.

Now, heterosexuality can be defective if the person is engaging in opposite-sex attraction and/or actions that are sexually degenerate; but this will always be the result of environmental or/and psychological (self) conditioning. The underlying attraction is not bad: it's the lack of disciple, lack of habit towards using that attraction properly, and (usually) uncontrollable urges towards depriving sexual acts. — Bob Ross

This sounds like the kind of thinking that "smart" and "learned" Germans engaged in to rationalize going along with the Holocaust: Jews and queers are just naturally defective. They're a bunch of deviants, abominations of nature. At the very least, they should be removed from the normies of society, lest their deviancy spread.

Not everything that is done is natural. By ‘natural’, in natural law theory, we mean that it flows from the nature of a given being.

Agency allows beings to freely will against their nature; so it can’t be true that every act is natural. — Bob Ross

This makes no sense. Determinism can be the case and everything you do is by the will of your own nature - which includes your past experiences and learned behaviors. Determinism does not mean that you are forced to make decisions you don't want to. It means that you will always make the same decision given the same information/choices, and that it will be a natural choice - one that you want given the options you have at any given moment. We can only ever do what is natural for each of us.

What is "degenerate" is subjective. Many species have repurposed their physiology for different purposes, like our hands from climbing to tool-making. Would you say that tool-making is an unnatural use of the hands, or an ostrich's use of their wings in mating practices unnatural?

This makes no sense

My response was using a leeway conception of freedom.

Would you say that tool-making is an unnatural use of the hands

What unnatural usages of hands? Can you give an example?

 or an ostrich's use of their wings in mating practices unnatural?

Wings aren’t just for flying: they can be for steering, mating rituals, etc.; just like lips can be for kissing as well as speaking.

Some species may have aspects of their nature that are just the residual affects of evolution; and so they may not have as much of a use, although they would still be designed that way, comparatively. E.g., an ostrich’s wings aren’t quite as useful as a normal bird’s wings. You are confusing utility with teleology: there is nothing random about evolution.

@Banno, this the kinds of baseless hate I get on here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/1021010 . Now RogueAI, instead of dealing with my response, is trying to paint me as a Nazi now (apparently).

I do not condone Nazism: period. Wanting to help people who have illnesses and deprivations of their nature, out of love and compassion, is not the same as trying to exterminate people on the basis of sexual orientation, transgenderism, etc. I am not advocating to send people to camps; or to forceably inject them with experimental drugs or something. This is all just a convenient way for RogueAI to evade a discussion with my views by labeling me as an extremist.

This is no different than how a person can argue that we should try to find a cure and help schizophrenics without committing them to the view that schizophrenics should be sent to concentration camps. This should be painfully obvious to everyone.

It's not murder. Innocent people sometimes can be justifiably killed. In the violinist analogy, if you remove the tubes from yourself that are keeping the violinist alive, you are not actively killing him, you are failing to render aid. You do not have a moral duty to render aid to people that are hooked up to you without your consent.

I agree that innocent people can be justifiably killed; but only when it is indirectly intentional (in some cases). You are (directly) intending to kill them by pulling the plug knowing that they will die and that this is a means towards your end of detaching your body. You are not failing to render aid: that would be an inaction (e.g., not helping someone that is drowning) or an act that fails to achieve its end (e.g., you are trying to help the drowning person but they end up drowning anyways)—neither are the case in this case. You are acting by pulling the plug: that’s an action. You might argue that this action is justified, but then you are committed to the view that directly intentionally killing an innocent person is not always murder.

Let’s make it even more explicit what I am arguing. Imagine to pull the plug you had to walk over to the other person and put a bullet in their head to kill them off before pulling it. Would you find that morally permissible? Is it distinct from merely pulling the plug under your view?

You are confusing utility with teleology: there is nothing random about evolution. — Bob Ross

I never said, or implied, there was.

You are acting by pulling the plug: that’s an action. — Bob Ross

It's an action, but it's not an action taken against them. I am allowed to remove tubes that were put into me without my consent. Suppose instead of tubes connected to me, the violinist was being kept alive from blood running from an open wound on my side into him. Closing my wound would be an action but is your position that closing my own wound would be morally impermissible if it results in the violinist's death?

You might argue that this action is justified, but then you are committed to the view that directly intentionally killing an innocent person is not always murder. — Bob Ross

I'm OK with that. If a psychotic innocent person is trying to kill me, and I directly intentionally kill them in self defense, it's not murder, right?

Let’s make it even more explicit what I am arguing. Imagine to pull the plug you had to walk over to the other person and put a bullet in their head to kill them off before pulling it. — Bob Ross

I would prefer to unplug them and let them die naturally of whatever was killing them before they were hooked up to me, but if shooting them is the only way to do it, it's morally permissible.

Even if it really is degenerate? This is the basic, colloquial definition of bigotry:

“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.”

You are begging the question because you are presupposing that my belief that, e.g., “engaging in BDSM is sexually degenerate” is true is unreasonable and false; but that’s the whole point in contention here, and what you are doing is labeling me with a word that no one wants to be labeled with so that it is easier to evade contending with my claim.

Do you think engaging in BDSM, e.g., is not sexually degenerate? If not, then what would count as sexually degenerate under your view and would any concession of the possibility of sexual degeneracy be considered bigotry on your view? — Bob Ross

Yep, great points. 's claim that anyone who calls someone "degenerate" must be a bigot is false. The irony is that it is often the people using the word "bigot" who are involved in bigotry. For example, it is bigotry to try to vilify anyone who thinks coitus is procreatively superior to other sexual acts with the slur "bigot" or "homophobe." Similarly, it is bigotry to obstinately persist in the claim that religion or faith must be irrational while continually failing to produce arguments for one's claim (link). "Bigotry" is thus becoming a meaningless word - a mere token in service of shibboleths.

The point <here> about "material positions" is very much bound up with bigotry. Those who answer SQ1 affirmatively are very often involved in bigotry, though not always.

...so that it is easier to evade contending with my claim. — Bob Ross

Too many people on TPF focus primarily on ways to avoid contending with positions that they dislike.

---

In the violinist analogy, if you remove the tubes from yourself that are keeping the violinist alive, you are not actively killing him, you are failing to render aid. — RogueAI

The reason such fantastical analogies are pointless is because the only people who think the analogies are analogous are the ones who already believed the conclusion that the analogy is supposed to support. They don't convince anyone; they just confirm some in their own beliefs. The reason the purported analogy is disanalogous is because it depends on coercion, which is not present in pregnancy (except in cases of rape, which are relatively rare).

---

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). — Banno

This is yet another failure to engage in .

The reason the purported analogy is disanalogous is because it depends on coercion, which is not present in pregnancy (except in cases of rape, which are relatively rare). — Leontiskos

But in cases of rape, what say you about abortion? Would you force the 12 year old raped girl to have the rapists baby? Even if it's her dad or older brother or uncle who raped her?

Same question to you, Bob.

Let's stay on topic for a moment in a thread that seems to move quickly from topic to topic.* Is an analogy valid if it is disanalogous in 95% of the cases it is meant to address?

* Some folk are very concerned to keep certain threads "on topic" while being very concerned to keep threads such as this one off topic.

Let's stay on topic for a moment in a thread that seems to move quickly from topic to topic.* Is an analogy valid if it is disanalogous in 95% of the cases it is meant to address? — Leontiskos

Thomson's violinist analogy was specifically about abortion in cases of rape, so it's not disanalogous to the 95% of abortions. It wasn't meant to address those.

But Bob and I have been going back and forth on it for awhile now, and it's his thread, so obviously he sees it as "on topic". So, what say you about the 12 year old pregnant raped girl?

Thomson's violinist analogy was specifically about abortion in cases of rape, so it's not disanalogous to the 95% of abortions. It wasn't meant to address those. — RogueAI

Okay, supposing for the sake of argument that that is true, then the analogy is only analogous to 2-3% of abortions. My point is that an analogy that is only analogous to 2-3% of abortions cannot be a valid analogy with respect to abortion (generally). Why is an analogy that is only analogous to 2-3% of abortions continually trotted out as a good analogy vis-a-vis abortion?

Okay, supposing for the sake of argument that that is true, then the analogy is only analogous to 2-3% of abortions. My point is that an analogy that is only analogous to 2-3% of abortions cannot be a valid analogy with respect to abortion (generally). Why is an analogy that is only analogous to 2-3% of abortions continually trotted out as a good analogy vis-a-vis abortion? — Leontiskos

Because it establishes a moral principle: even if we concede the fetus is a person, abortion can still be permissible.

Why are you pussyfooting around my example of the 12 year old raped girl? You and Bob love to extol manly virtues. Stop being a coward and answer my question about whether she should be allowed an abortion or not.

Because it establishes a moral principle: even if we concede the fetus is a person, abortion can still be permissible. — RogueAI

Okay, and that's a reasonable answer. :up:

Why are you pussyfooting around my example of the 12 year old raped girl? — RogueAI

Because you keep changing the subject to avoid answering difficult questions. For example, you didn't even manage to "pussyfoot" around <my last response to you>. You just ignored it altogether. It is not philosophically upright to ignore every response that is difficult and insist that that your interlocutor must now address some new topic that you've thought of.

Beyond that, you are engaged in emotive jumps. The proper tangent is not, "Is abortion permissible in cases of rape," but rather, "Does Thomson's analogy succeed in defending abortion in cases of rape?" Certainly Thomson's analogy is analogous to cases of rape such that my "coercion" objection fails in the case of rape. If I wanted to assess the analogy-argument with respect to the case of rape, I would need to see the actual text of Thomson's argument. Do you have that?

Because you keep changing the subject to avoid answering difficult questions. For example, you didn't even manage to "pussyfoot" around <my last response to you>. You just ignored it altogether. It is not philosophically upright to ignore every response that is difficult and insist that that your interlocutor must now address some new topic that you've thought of. — Leontiskos

I didn't want to spend an hour writing a response to it. I'm backing out of the homosexuals-are-deviants arguments you and Bob are making. You two sound like you're trying to justify treating them as subhuman. We've all seen where that can go. I've said my piece.

Beyond that, you are engaged in emotive jumps. The proper tangent is not, "Is abortion permissible in cases of rape," but rather, "Does Thomson's analogy succeed in defending abortion in cases of rape?" Certainly Thomson's analogy is analogous to cases of rape such that my "coercion" objection fails in the case of rape. If I wanted to assess the analogy-argument with respect to the case of rape, I would need to see the actual text of Thomson's argument. Do you have that? — Leontiskos

https://media.lanecc.edu/users/borrowdalej/phl205_s17/violinist.html

Calling people degenerate is bigotry.

Even if it really is degenerate? This is the basic, colloquial definition of bigotry:

“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.” — Bob Ross

As I said, I was going to leave you with the last word on this, but I wanted to correct something. You are right. I misspoke - my sentence above is wrong. One can presumably use “degenerate” to accurately describe some people’s activities.

Of course, I would not include gay people or most sexual acts, like fellatio, as you do. Calling gay people and their preferences morally corrupt or less than human, which “degeneracy” implies, would qualify as bigotry.

Do you think engaging in BDSM, e.g., is not sexually degenerate? If not, then what would count as sexually degenerate under your view and would any concession of the possibility of sexual degeneracy be considered bigotry on your view? — Bob Ross

I’m not someone who reaches for “degenerate” as a descriptive term in most serious discussions. What consenting adults do is not my business. One might be able to apply the term upon the actions and lives of Trump or Epstein.

I'd like to start a thread on disagreement.

You are right. I misspoke - my sentence above is wrong. One can presumably use “degenerate” to accurately describe some people’s activities.

No worries! This is what I was trying to get you to see, because all you are doing is begging the question with:

Of course, I would not include gay people or most sexual acts, like fellatio, as you do. Your bar for degeneracy is low. Calling gay people and their preferences morally corrupt or less than human, which “degeneracy” implies, would qualify as bigotry.

Firstly, as I noted to you in a DM, I understand that the term ‘degenerate’ is provocative but it is not bigoted. I usually avoid using it, especially with people from the LGBTQ+ community, because it is provocative; but I do think it is degenerate, bad (as a sexual orientation), and immoral (as an act). I would like to note that I did not use that term in the OP: I used it in a side conversation with a fellow in the thread (about a loosely related but not identical topic).

I mean degenerate in the sense of ~“having lost the physical, mental, or moral qualities considered normal and desirable; showing evidence of decline.” This is standardly true for homosexuality if one believes it is bad and immoral. This does not mean that human beings that have homosexual tendencies are ‘less than human’ in their dignity or that we should persecute them. In fact, this is why I keep using schizophrenia as an analogy: we would never say that schizophrenics have less than human dignity because they are inflicted with a condition that deprives them of realizing aspects of their human nature. Human dignity is grounded in the human nature someone has, which is grounded in their substantial form—their soul, and not how realized they are at that nature. Every human is fully a human; even if they are missing limbs, are disabled, have diseases, are ill, have mental issues, etc. because they fully have the form of a human.

Like I said before, you are presupposing that it is true that homosexual acts are not ‘morally corrupt’; and then based off of that saying it is not degenerate. I understand from your view that makes sense, but in mine it doesn’t because it is immoral (viz., ‘morally corrupt’). What we would need to discuss is why.

I’m not someone who reaches for “degenerate” as a descriptive term in most serious discussions. What consenting adults do is not my business. One might be able to apply the term upon the actions and lives of Trump or Epstein.

I wasn’t using it as a descriptive term in any heavy sense on here either. Somehow someone saw one post I made to one person about an unrelated topic and now we are going down a rabbit hole about ‘degeneracy’. The OP is about gender theory, and makes no reference to degeneracy.

I don’t accept Hume’s guillotine. — Bob Ross

Why am I not surprised. I suppose you have your "reasons", the upshot being that your attitudes amount to natural law. Now a "bigot" is someone "obstinately attached to a belief or opinion" - like someone who would reject a rule of logic in order to insist that homosexuality was degenerate. Hmm.

All this by way of saying, if you do not understand the difference between something being the case and something's being an attitude, then there's not much point in doing ethics with you. Physics is not ethics.

I think all countries would be better off mirroring American values. — Bob Ross

Parochial chauvinism. The US is in a right mess because it has rejected its own values. At the very least, even you must be able to see that that those values are in, shall we say, a state of flux.

Free speech is always tempered. Your rejection of Hume's Law in order to maintain belief in your immoral comments is symptomatic of "obstinately attached to a belief or opinion". The parochial attitude you are displaying in the post to which I am replying reinforces that assessment.

This thread is obviously only attempting to defend and discuss an alternative view of gender theory — Bob Ross

It's more an attempt to close down gender theory as a topic for discussion by pretending that gender is sexuality. A failure to acknowledge the distinction between biological sexuality and social gender is a closing of one's mind. Your post is a set piece, intended to justify forcing obligations on to others - for them not to express who they are, be it homosexual, trans, drag and so on. It's an attempt to justify conformity. The pretence of encouraging freedom is a shame.

Categorically, either ontologically there are real essences to things or there are not — Bob Ross

Repeating the Aristotelian view is not arguing for it. You continue to frame the issue as ontological. That's part of your error.

With regard to possible worlds, your (1) is blatantly incorrect; the outermost mode determines the overall mode, so it would be possibly necessary → possibly; and there is no link from there to existence. Nor is there a conflation of conceivability with modality. Possible because it is so brief, the reasons given here appear muddled. If you are going to reject an accepted part of modern logic, then you ought provide good, clear reasons.

I don’t think moral non-naturalism works as it appeals to an unknown, incoherent source of morality (such as Moorean thought) and essentially is just moral anti-realism with the false veil of objectivity (no offense!). — Bob Ross

How odd. So instead you take your own attitudes as being necessarily universal. I guess that has the advantage of simplicity, and saves you time and effort.

can you elaborate on it more? — Bob Ross

I already have, in the post I already linked.

Gender and sex are not really distinct, but are virtually (conceptually) distinct; analogous to how the trilaterally and triangularity are virtually but not really distinct in a triangle. — Bob Ross

What a terrible argument. A woman wearing a dress is not like a triangle's having three sides. There are no triangles that do not have three sides, but there are women in trousers.

:up:

...baseless... — Bob Ross

It's not baseless. You would oblige others to express only your attitudes. Have a think about why folk might draw this sort of comparison, even if unjustly.