A little head’s up: Many (quite many, actually) of us men and women do not engage in sexual behaviors with others with the intend of procreation in the form of begetting offspring. — javra

A little head's up: I never claimed anything to the contrary.

So a mental illness is whatever "the professionals" or "society" says it is? — Count Timothy von Icarus

To a large extent, yes. These are weighty science-based questions, and we often have to depend on medical experts. They don't always get everything right of course. But in the case of homosexuality, the medical communities and societies around the world stopped regarding it as a mental illness long ago. In the decades since, that seems to have been the right call. Do you disagree? Do you think homosexuality belongs back in the DSM?

Yea, I think you missed the whole gist of my post to you. To sum things up: (healthy) sex ain't about the begetting of chidlren.

As to the whole burgeoning homosexuality vs. naturalness issue:

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

The natural world as unnatural? Or maybe just sick and in need of the latest pharmaceuticals to clean it all up.

- I would suggest trying to find a thesis that I actually defend within the post you want to respond to, quote that thesis, and then respond to that thesis. That's a good way to interact with the ideas I am presenting. In other words: try arguing with things I've said, rather than things I've not said.

For example, look at the way I began the post:

how can you claim that "group tendencies in no way determine individual proclivities"? — Leontiskos

That's a telltale sign that I am going to argue against the thesis within quotation marks.

I already quoted you in the post I gave.

As to:

how can you claim that "group tendencies in no way determine individual proclivities"? — Leontiskos

No quibbles there. Hence the ancient Greco-Roman world, for just one example, being replete with homosexuality. ... Without it being either unnatural or indicative of insanity.

I already quoted you in the post I gave. — javra

Right, and as I already pointed out, I have no idea how your response is supposed to be a response to the quote you quoted. It's as if you were responding to a post that I never wrote, but that you instead created in your head and then imputed to me.

Right, and as I already pointed out, I have no idea how your response is supposed to be a response to the quote you quoted. It's as if you were responding to a post that I never wrote, but that you created in your head and then imputed to me. — Leontiskos

Not having read the entirety of this thread, its quite possible that i could have misinterpreted your stance. In which case, my bad.

To clarify: Do you uphold that genders are necessarily tethered to biological genitalia of the body or do you not uphold this? Thanks for the reply.

Indeed, the removal of homosexuality from the DSM is a fine example of a moral move that was not just despite, but against, conservative Cristian dogma. Of the gap between Aristotelian morality and the impoverished Christian interpretation hereabouts.

@Count Timothy von Icarus, you have more familiarity with Aristotle than I - what do you make of ? Is Bob in line with neo- Aristotelian thinking?

In which case, my bad. — javra

No worries.

The thread considers gender in terms of social roles, and one of the theses I explicitly opposed in the post you responded to is the thesis "that differences between males and females do not flow out into the social lives of human beings."

So we can infer that one of the theses I was arguing for was: <differences between males and females do flow out into the social lives of human beings>. This involves the corollary that sex bears on social roles.

So we can infer that one of the theses I was arguing for was: <differences between males and females do flow out into the social lives of human beings>. — Leontiskos

Ah. Again, my bad for my specific reply to you.

Maybe I overly conflated your views with those of @Count Timothy von Icarus, who from what I've so far read at least alluded to homosexuality being either unnatural or an illness.

It's a complex issue. In my cognitive sciences and anthropological studies of human sexuality while at college, for instance, I was taught that humanity can be divided into fifths on a sexual preference spectrum. The two extreme fifths are 100% either purely heterosexual or homosexual. The middle firth is perfectly bisexual. With in-betweens on either side. Can't find a quick reference to this, but I continue to maintain this perspective in light of both history and current human culture(s). And, as per my previous post addressing the animal kingdom for example, I find homosexuality and bisexuality to be both natural and just as potentially healthy as any heterosexuality. (utterly heterosexual though I myself am).

I do find this pertinent to the discussion. But, if it doesn't contradict your own views, once again: my apologies for my previous posts to you.

- No worries. There are many extremely antagonistic posters in this thread, so I am trying to write heavily syllogistic posts and then stick to what I've said. I will try to get back to this tomorrow.

But if the urge for men to procreate with women is found more in men, and is not merely a result of gender norms, then how can you claim that "group tendencies in no way determine individual proclivities"? If that were true then such urges would simply not be found more in men. — Leontiskos

Because, individuals can act in ways contrary to how groups as a whole behave. My species and gender determine the range and distribution of behaviors available to me as a human male. I can impregnate, but I cannot give birth. But this range is incredibly wide. It is therefore not accurate to say that my gender "determines" how I behave. If you knew only my gender, you might have ideas about how I can behave, and how I am likely to behave. But my actual behavior would be unknown to you, as gender does not determine it.

Looks like this thread is revealing itself as the Conservative Christian echo chamber that it at first pretended not to be. No doubt it will go for another forty pages of theological babble.

No need for others to provide the walls. But it remains a puzzle as to why such stuff is permitted in a philosophy forum. — Banno

It very quickly produced a heated philosophical debate, and I've been enjoying posts by you and others which oppose the OP's bigotry and religious dogmatism. So I'm going to let it stand.

And as @Count Timothy von Icarus points out, the discussion is the perfect specimen of the degenerate state of moral discourse described in the first chapters of After Virtue, in which (in my loose interpretation) Christian conservatives rely anachronistically on concepts that no longer have any shared social basis, and the liberals, leftists, and moderate conservatives (if they still exist) are largely emotive in their opposition.

Well, that's MacIntryre's view. Me, I'm definitely not on the fence. I'll make a post about it, maybe.

Me, I'm definitely not on the fence. I'll make a post about it, maybe. — Jamal

Please do.

Please do. — Tom Storm

Weirdly, I've decided to start out by criticizing Banno:

It yet again shows the poverty of neo-Aristotelian ideas of essence — Banno

I disagree with this. I think what the Christian conservative use of neo-Aristotelian ideas of essence shows is that teleological frameworks are powerful and thus open to abuse. It's what makes them philosophically substantive, in contrast to the emotivism criticized by MacIntyre.

Emotivism is the doctrine that all evaluative judgments and more specifically all moral judgments are nothing but expressions of preference, expressions of attitude or feeling, insofar as they are moral or evaluative in character. — MacIntyre, After Virtue

MacIntyre argues that all modern moral philosophies that drop teleology have ended up here, without always knowing it. And the problem is that emotivism cannot provide any rational justification for moral claims, expressing only preferences. It is not open to abuse because it makes no substantive claims that can be abused.

The notion of essence in neo-Aristotelianism, on the other hand, makes meaty claims about human nature and flourishing, so it gives us a framework for rational moral debate, one that unfortunately can be weaponized by bad actors. You might say that it is neo-Aristotelianism's richness that is the problem.

The solution, arguably, is not to discard neo-Aristotelian ideas of essence, but to show how it can be used well, setting out a more humane, and more inclusive teleology—like one that shows how the telos of a human being is fulfilled in relationships of love and mutual flourishing, which can take many forms. I want to say that abandoning the concept of human nature and purpose because it's open to misuse is to surrender the very ground on which we can build a progressive vision of the good life.

No doubt there are other options, which you find preferable.

I guess I should get around to criticizing Bob, who after all is the proper target for those who wish to defend marginalized people from reactionaries, but it's a thankless and tedious task.

Maybe I overly conflated your views with those of Count Timothy von Icarus, who from what I've so far read at least alluded to homosexuality being either unnatural or an illness — javra

What exactly left that impression? The only two things I have tried to clarify here are that:

A. The "natural" of the natural law is very different from the "natural" of contemporary "naturalism" and so one must take time unpacking its distinct metaphysics and anthropology; and,

B. What defines a "mental illness" versus "bigotry," etc. cannot be reducible to mere current opinion, which is constantly changing, and does not always seem to track particularly well with "the good life" and "being a good person" (for we often fetishize certain vices).

The fact that people seem to be reading this as "you mentioned both homosexuality (an abnormal, as in, relatively rare, tendency in sexual desire) and pedophilia (another abnormal tendency in sexual desire)," therefore you are slandering homosexuals (presumably because pedophiles really do deserve to be shamed and attacked for their particular desires or called "ill") is ironic, since it's exactly what they themselves point out as a sort of bigotry (it being important to note here that most people who sexually abuse children are not pedophiles per se, and that many pedophiles do not sexually abuse any children in their lifetimes, although the word is unhelpfully extended to both groups, but I speak here of the "illness" by which adults have a strong and/or exclusive sexual attraction to children regardless of their acts).

But, presumably many people do think in the case of those with something like an exclusive and "inborn, innate" attraction to children or adolescents that they should in fact go their whole lives without ever giving into such desires, regardless of if they were "born that way" or that such desires and interactions are "natural" in the sense that they are ubiquitous in human societies and can be found in brutes. And presumably, people who think that those with these desires ought never fulfill them would also agree that if they could be "cured" of them, they should be (hence our society's acceptance of "chemical castration" in these cases, etc.). And while people might try to justify this wholly in terms of the ethics of liberalism, focusing solely on "consent" (an issue muddied by the idea that children and adolescents can consent to attempts to change their sex or prevent puberty), I think that, on some consideration, it will be clear that it is not good for the adults involved either. An attraction to a "particular age" is necessarily an attraction to a person qua body, not a person qua soul. You can even consider this with someone like Jeffery Epstein, who was not a "pedophile" in the medical sense (his victims would have been eligible for marriage in almost all societies in human history), and yet surely it would have been better for him to be ordered towards a fulfilling marriage or the celibate life rather than towards coercing adolescents into sex.

But my only point here is that many of the arguments in this thread are defective. Something being "natural" in the modern sense of the term doesn't mean it is good or just, nor does a desire being "inborn" mean it is good and just (for as pointed out, envy, greed, lust, wrath, etc. are all "natural" and "inborn" in this sense). Nor is appealing to the rapidly shifting consensus of society or experts a particularly strong argument. These all seem to be appeals that are beside the point. Likewise, even if homosexuality were "unnatural" in the modern sense (and it isn't), that would be a terrible argument in favor of it being a vice. Nor do I think attempts to ground such an assertion in some sort of Darwinian account of the advantages of heterosexual vagina intercourse makes much sense. Presumably, any sort of natural law account of why homosexuality is not ideal has to ground such an account in a robust anthropology.

Do you disagree? — RogueAI

Absolutely. For one, this would imply that homosexuality really was a form of mental illness right up until it wasn't, and that it could easily become so again. And presumably, on any realist account of science, what is "science-based" is not, "whatever experts currently believe," but rather something like "what is really the case," or "what ideal inquiry would reveal."

As to the DSM, no, I wouldn't think so.

But, to speak more broadly, I also don't think the DSM is at all helpful for describing "mental" or "spiritual" health in a general sense. Consider that fornication is considered "normal" unless one is a "sex addict," or that greed would essentially be left out as an "illness." So the entire paradigm of medicalized "medical illness" also seems like a bit of a red herring to me. That's yet another reason why I would not say that spiritual and mental health are reducible to "what experts currently say."

So is a thing unnatural because it is not "oriented to God", as you seemed to first say, or because it is contrary to a things internal order... Or are these, for you, the same? — Banno

They are the same, although this is true for man as a rational being in a fuller sense.

Good points, and it's worth pointing out that the status of homosexuality in "thick" teleological accounts varies a bit across traditions. This is why I have tended to point towards lust and fornication in general, since these are more widely accepted as vices and the reasons why seem fairly straightforward (of course, some traditions are skeptical of sex in general), and so they are better entry points for understanding if and why such a tradition might consider homosexuality a sort of "vice."

The particular justification of homosexuality as a vice in the Christian and Islamic traditions is sort of obscured by the fact that, since there was no such thing as a "gay marriage" an easy justification was that any such relationships necessarily fell outside the covenetal relationship in which sex was appropriate. And likewise, since most people married regardless of "desire" such relations also generally involved adultery.

Sexual sins are in some respects unique in these traditions because of their particular anthropology which sees man as the image bearer of God, which then gives human procreation and generation a unique role in the cosmos and history (Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body in Simple Language is quite good here). So, even when homosexuality was not remotely on people's radar, there was still the idea that heterosexual intercourse ought to be solely oriented towards procreation (whether this is an error is another question), hence "missionary position," etc. Indeed, Saint Paul's comments on heterosexual marriage can (although they need not be) read somewhat ambivalently (personally, given his context, where there was such a huge focus on childbearing, I think he is more offering a justification of the desirability if the celibate life for those who are oriented towards it).

Hence, a coherent Christian, Jewish, or Muslim justification of why homosexuality is a vice per se (as opposed to the general way in which all lust, fornication, adultery, etc. is a vice) needs to be built on a more complete understanding of the role of sexuality and marriage. It will suffice to say that this is already and extremely fraught topic though, even as respects heterosexual relations and marriage. It is, I would say, probably one of the worst topics to look at if one is trying to understand the basics of natural law for this reason.

But if the urge for men to procreate with women is found more in men, and is not merely a result of gender norms, then how can you claim that "group tendencies in no way determine individual proclivities"? — Leontiskos

Because, individuals can act in ways contrary to how groups as a whole behave. — hypericin

But that looks to be an invalid argument:

1. "Individuals can act in ways contrary to how groups as a whole behave."
2. Therefore, "Group tendencies in no way determine individual proclivities"

One can think of a "group tendency" in terms of a raw statistic (mere correlation) or else in terms of a causally grounded statistic (a causal correlation).

Your claim is at least arguable on the former case, in the event that you define "determine" in a particular way. But my point is that we are in the latter case and not the former case with certain behaviors, such as fertilizing ova and becoming pregnant:

My species and gender determine the range and distribution of behaviors available to me as a human male. I can impregnate, but I cannot give birth. — hypericin

So we have a group tendency: males tend to fertilize ova. With regard to your thesis the question arises: does this group tendency determine individual proclivities, or not? Does the fact that males have a power mean that individual males will tend to exercise that power? The answer is actually "yes," and the instinctual drive to procreate is built in to such an answer. For Aristotle the fact that a species has a power to do X and a strong drive to do X means that the individual members of the species will in fact do X, and yet this does not mean that the act is infrustrable (i.e. it does not mean that every individual necessarily does X).

Maybe I overly conflated your views with those of Count Timothy von Icarus, who from what I've so far read at least alluded to homosexuality being either unnatural or an illness — javra


What exactly left that impression? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I’ll acknowledge that it might be due to an improper reading in-between the lines of the posts I’ve so far read from you, this given my own biases picked up from lifelong experiences. I take it you lean heavily toward the Christian conceptualizations of God. Historically, a great portion of Christendom has repeatedly labeled homosexuality to be both unnatural (un-God-given) and a mental insanity. Maybe more importantly as applies to my biases, having grown up in a generally Orthodox Christian community, I have been repeatedly bombarded by these very same dogmas: homosexuality is both unnatural due to being contrary to God’s will and a mental insanity that needs to be purged from humanity. Nor did you take time in what I’ve so far read to explicitly claim that homosexuality is, to you, both natural and sane; this so as to distance yourself from what I continue to take to be the significant if not majority opinion—sometimes far more explicit and sometimes more hidden—of today’s Christian populaces, at least those dwelling in the West.

Having acknowledged my biases, and in light of you not taking this stance, I’ll apologize to you as well.

But, presumably many people do think in the case of those with something like an exclusive and "inborn, innate" attraction to children or adolescents that they should in fact go their whole lives without ever giving into such desires, regardless of if they were "born that way" or that such desires and interactions are "natural" in the sense that they are ubiquitous in human societies and can be found in brutes. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As regards biology, as far as I know, there is no evidence to indicate that pedophilia is inborn at birth. Furthermore, the molestation (which often enough equates to rape) of children is immensely harmful, if not physically then psychologically. While, on the other hand, there is evidence to indicate that homosexuality is inborn at birth. This such that those homosexuals which are in no way bisexually disposed cannot be altered into holding heterosexual drives no matter the culture or any imaginable attempt (such as that of “conversion therapy”, aka "sexual orientation change efforts" – which, btw, is commonly acknowledged today to be very harmful). And, there is no harm that results from consensually homosexual activities.

Having said that, as I’ve previously mentioned, to consider that which is natural to be that which is inborn—this as per the Latin “natura” which itself derives from Latin “nascor” and which back then fluidly applied to what the Greeks specified as the Logos at large, both in terms of the physical and of the spiritual—gets very complex. So reducing the notion of "nature" thus interpreted to the one simple term of “inborn” does not do the notion justice.

And as Count Timothy von Icarus points out, the discussion is the perfect specimen of the degenerate state of moral discourse described in the first chapters of After Virtue, in which (in my loose interpretation) Christian conservatives rely anachronistically on concepts that no longer have any shared social basis, and the liberals, leftists, and moderate conservatives (if they still exist) are largely emotive in their opposition. — Jamal

I actually think Simone de Beauvoir is perceptive in her general technological diagnosis, and that the whole phenomenon of contemporary sexual ethics has to do with technology rather than (traditional) religion. In a historical sense, cultural attitudes towards things like fornication, homosexuality, sodomy, masturbation, etc., are quite stable. Some cultures were more lenient towards such acts than others, but they were never viewed as positive goods, on a par with coitus within a stable relationship or relationships (note that the polygamy question is less clear). For example, in Roman society fornication of various forms was quite common and acceptable, but it was also understood as a sort of concession to the overwhelming sexual drive. There was a clear line of demarcation between the husband's procreative role vis-a-vis his wife and society, and his sexual acts outside of that context (which were often intentionally sterile). Women's sexual acts were generally more restricted given the uniquely female consequence of pregnancy.

The technology which most changed human social life in these areas was the birth control pill, which allowed women to engage in intercourse with a much smaller chance of becoming pregnant. When combined with the feminist movement, this led to a societal reconceiving of the sexual act. Sterile (or quasi-sterile) sexual acts were now available to both sexes, and insofar as the number of sterile sexual acts asymptotically approaches 100%, the sexual act itself becomes viewed as unconnected to procreation, sex (i.e. male/female distinctions), and in various senses, even biology. One can see the way in which many things logically follow at this point, such as abortion on demand, a separation of sex and gender, an indifference to one's sexed nature, an equality between heterosexual and homosexual sexual acts, a collapse of the traditional concepts of marriage and family, a slow collapse of monogamy itself, and ultimately dangerously low birth rates. It is the technology that makes all the difference, and it would be irrational for cultures—past or present—which lack Western sexual technologies to try to adopt contemporary Western sexual ethics.

MacIntyre argues that all modern moral philosophies that drop teleology have ended up here, without always knowing it. And the problem is that emotivism cannot provide any rational justification for moral claims, expressing only preferences. It is not open to abuse because it makes no substantive claims that can be abused.

The notion of essence in neo-Aristotelianism, on the other hand, makes meaty claims about human nature and flourishing, so it gives us a framework for rational moral debate, one that unfortunately can be weaponized by bad actors. You might say that it is neo-Aristotelianism's richness that is the problem.

The solution, arguably, is not to discard neo-Aristotelian ideas of essence, but to show how it can be used well, setting out a more humane, and more inclusive teleology—like one that shows how the telos of a human being is fulfilled in relationships of love and mutual flourishing, which can take many forms. I want to say that abandoning the concept of human nature and purpose because it's open to misuse is to surrender the very ground on which we can build a progressive vision of the good life. — Jamal

I think this is insightful. :up:
There are Aristotelian progressives, such as Michael Sandel of Harvard, who go the exact route that you prescribe here.

You stated:

Calling an entire class of people mentally ill couldn't be more bigoted. Try applying that to any other group.

I responded by pointing out that this line of thinking would entail that every classification of a mental illness is bigoted:

Hypericin, my friend, if that is true, then the acknowledgement of any mental illness is bigotry; for every recognition of a mental illness in principle applies to an entire class of people affected. Is that really what you believe?

Which you now responded with:

This is childish sophistry

What is sophistical about the argument I made? Hypericin, this is not a ‘gotcha’ moment: I think we both understand that what you said is not coherent and was a consequence of the way you feel about a person’s rejection of gender theory. Clearly, it is not bigoted to believe that some condition is a mental illness.

Whereas you, on the basis of a very dubious metaphysics

This is question begging; and I would like to note, despite we wanting to converse with you, that you have never once attempted to address the metaphysical claims in the OP.

are diagnosing a group which is not definitionally ill

Are you implying that you think that transgenderism definitionally entails that it is not a mental illness? If so, then what about the definition of transgenderism necessitates that it is not a mental illness?

As mental illness is universally undesirable, you are saying that membership in this group entails being innately less than the general population. That is just bigotry

I never once said that a transgender person is less than human or the “general population”: you are arguing against a straw man here. Likewise, even if I grant your claim, that’s not what bigotry is. Bigotry is an obstinate and stubborn attachment to an unreasonable position.

With all that aside, I would love to discuss with you the OP if you would like to have a productive conversation about gender theory and the alternative Aristotelian one I gave.

No I wouldn't. No one uses the term 'natural' to refer to every act of any organism. That would collapse the distinction, in that context of its usage, into triviality; and there's no need to cite the Bible for this. An atheist can accept that the natural vs. non-natural distinction is here referring to what is in the real nature of a thing; and so behavior contrary to it is unnatural.

I'm not saying you're a Nazi, I'm saying you're going down an intellectual path of dehumanizing that the Nazi intelegentsia went down to rationalize their actions and support of the regime. If a group of people is naturally defective and deviant, that's just a stone's throw away from subhuman, and once they're subhuman...

My friend, it isn’t a stone throw away; and this is why this is really just a straw man to justify one’s own ideas without contending with their opposition. This same argument applies to all defects which we normally would recognize and try to cure without accepting Nazism; for example, if what counts an idea as a ‘stone throw away’ from Nazism is that the idea implies that ‘a group of people are naturally defective’ in some way, then every person that holds that people with physical deformities is a ‘stone throw away’ from Nazism. What is happening here, with all due respect, is your are inadvertently attacking an obvious straw man.

I'm a consequentialist, so if the fate of the world was at stake and we all die if I unhook myself,

Ok, that makes more sense: you do not believe that “the ends do not justify the means”.

What equation are you using as a consequentialist to evaluate the (im)permissibility of killing the violinist?

So, if closing a wound that's keeping the violinist alive is morally permissible, how could it be impermissible to remove the tubes from my body that are keeping him alive?

Because you are coming at this from the perspective of consequentialism; which makes no regard for evaluating the permissibility of an act but, instead, looks at the consequences and circumstances to determine what to do. In consequentialism, all acts are inherently neutral.

In my view, I am evaluating the intrinsic rightness or wrongness of the act itself first; and then looking to the circumstances if permissible. The difference here is that I am noting an important distinction, completely missing in consequentialistic thought, between something being directly and indirectly intentional.

Ah, but this violates (3). But your position cannot be that abortion is impermissible if the life of the mother is at stake. 

This just begged the question. You just said:

1. Abortion is permissible if the mother’s life is at risk.
2. This mother’s life is at risk.
C: It is permissible for the mother to abort.

As I said before, murder is intrinsically wrong—which isn’t true in your consequentialistic view and necessarily so due to the nature of that family of normative ethical theories—and the ends do not justify the means; consequently, a mother cannot murder someone to save her own life.

In fact, this is standard in society other than with abortion. If my life is on the line, no matter how grave, and I murder someone to save myself I will, in fact, get charged with murder and condemned for it. Consequentialism is not compatible with the modern justice system.

An innocent person in a psychotic rage from an unforeseen drug interaction is certainly "unworthy to be killed", but it's not murder if they get killed in self defense.

There’s two ways to think about self-defense as permissible:

A) What is directly intended is not killing the person but, rather, neutralizing them as a threat (which is distinct from murder); or

B) It is not the killing of an innocent person.

Now, you bring up a good point in this example that this perpetrator is not culpable themselves for the attack (e.g., perhaps they are hallucinating and relative to their perspective they are stopping something grave from happening [although it isn’t really happening that way]); and so they are innocent intuitively. I was challenging the idea that they are to be see as innocent; but we can also go the A route and note that this ‘innocent person’ is a threat to this victim (of no fault of their own) objectively; and so the victim is justified in directly intending to neutralize the threat—even if that has a side effect of killing them.

I do think that is a really good example you gave their that challenges my idea of innocence.

Suppose you've been kidnapped and while you're locked in the dungeon, you've rigged up a booby trap to kill the kidnapper. A heavy weight will fall on him

RogueAI, you are missing the point my friend! Killing the baby in this case is indirectly intentional which, therefore, cannot be murder. Whether or not this is permissible is evaluating fundamentally differently than abortion, with the principle of double effect. In this example you gave, we are evaluating if it is permissible to bring about a bad side effect of killing the baby; whereas in abortion we are evaluating if it is permissible to bring use the death of the baby as a means towards our end.

Well, I don't want to go off topic, but it seems somewhat relevant insomuch as an attraction to children (or animals, and other such orientations) are considered to be "bad for people" such that they ought never act on their desires and should move to purge themselves of them.

Now, consider this in comparison to those ascetics who feel this way about all sexual desire. If we are of the opinion that the ascetics are wrong, but also that some sexual desires ought never be pursued, then we are somewhere in the middle and we have some range in mind for what constitutes "proper" or "good" sexual desire and conduct.

As regards biology, as far as I know, there is no evidence to indicate that pedophilia is inborn at birth. — javra

Well, that is very much how people describe it, they "just knew," from an early age. And they have the same sorts of aggregate differences in brain behavior that one finds with homosexuality, etc., although this is hardly surprising. No strong genetic correlates have been identified that I am aware of, but it's also an area that has garnered less attention in research.

Perhaps this is just an "angle" for advocacy, but AFAIK, research suggests that some people do experience such a strong orientation.

, on the other hand, there is evidence to indicate that homosexuality is inborn at birth. — javra

Right, but it's very much the same sort of evidence. This is exactly what "MAP" advocacy groups point to.

This such that those homosexuals which are in no way bisexually disposed cannot be altered into holding heterosexual drives no matter the culture or any imaginable attempt (such as that of “conversion therapy”, aka "sexual orientation change efforts" – which, btw, is commonly acknowledged today to be very harmful). — javra

Right, but this is equally true for pedophilia. There is not a reliable "cure" for it. Although, people do relate being "cured" of it, this is true for homosexuals as well (and I see no reason to believe that all people who express having undergone such a reorientation are necessarily somehow lying or self-deceiving).

And, there is no harm that results from consensually homosexual activities — javra

I would disagree with this. Grave harm often follows, and from "consensual" heterosexual relationships as well. These are often some of the experiences people regret most in life. Wouldn't the point instead be that homosexual relationships are not "necessarily harmful?"

And this I think is a large difficulty for any sort of natural law explanation that tries to argue that homosexuality is a vice per se. However, it seems easy to point out at least one way in which such relationships may be less than ideal, in that they cannot produce children. Yet this doesn't seem to me to offer the sort of clear moral linkage we might expect.

To see why, consider the case of someone who is paralyzed from the waist down. No doubt, it is "ideal" that they be cured and be able to walk. However, it hardly follows from this that using a wheelchair is "wrong" because being able to walk might in some way be a fuller realization of human life and capabilities. Thus, a natural law theory really needs to show that it is, all else equal, better for homosexuals to be celibate (this is of course, excluding any criticisms of fornication, lust, etc. in general). This is where I find traditional explanations to often be lacking because they don't really countenance the idea of a monogamous homosexual relationship.

For instance, from a Patristic or Thomistic perspective, being "intrinsically disordered" doesn't mean "horrific" or "evil in every respect." The idea is more that the powers of the soul are directed contrary to their purpose/fullest fulfillment. In this context, the real issue is the special sacramental meaning of procreation (it's interesting to note here that this philosophy was largely developed by people who had chosen to eschew their desires and live as celibates, even though many had previously engaged in sexual relations).

I would imagine then that they would say that the wheelchair analogy breaks down because the wheelchair is a sort of remedy that compensates for absence, whereas the procreative focus of marriage is a sort of signification of divine mysteries (sacramental) but not an essential part of "the good life" (for many saints were celibates, and the Blessed Virgin was of course, "ever-virgin"). Hence, as respects many types of relationships, the point would be that, even if an act brings pleasure, affection, and mutual support, it can still involve a love that is ultimately misdirected. This is essentially the same rationale used against masturbation, fornication, and adultery (of course, there is a sort of stigma issue in these texts too. Saint John of the Ladder finds masturbation too depraved to even mention, an idea that had long currency until fairly recently, resulting in some rather funny letters written by Wagner to Nietzsche's doctor over the fear that he was engaged in "self-abuse.")

But of course, such an explanation is deeply tied to the idea that the sexes are revelatory of God, e.g., Genesis 27:

So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

I do not know if the conclusion can be justified outside this understanding. And what is interesting here is that in similar Western Pagan and Eastern traditions, the move is generally not towards saying "all sorts of sexual relations are beneficial," but more often towards seeing them as unnecessary, or even as pernicious distractions. Hence, the justification of marriage here is more about its positive sacramental significance.

However, and here is the tricky part from a Christian perspective that wants to argue that homosexuality is a vice per se, Saint Paul seems to allow for concessions to human frailty as at least part of the justification for sex (e.g., I Corinthians 7):

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.

And the traditional response here goes back to the particular function of marriage and procreation as a sacrament and a sort of transfiguring divine pedagogy (which is also the argument against contraception). However, there is a question about pastoral responses here (and birth control is a great example here too) where it seems that the standard is unlikely to be met by many (and yet the ideal is that all can attain to "sainthood").

But at this point, aren't we relying on more theological points? It's hard for me to see how this can be a purely philosophical argument. The procreative function of romantic relationships is too weak to justify a claim that homosexuality is a vice per se. To be sure, it might be better if, if one wanted, one could have children with one's spouse, but it hardly follows from this that it is somehow wrong to marry some who is sterile when one could marry someone who is fertile, etc.

There's a difference between how you're treating homosexuals and how we treat schizophrenics.

I didn’t say that they should be equivocated: it was an analogy meant to elucidate the fact that believing there is something bad (or even wrong) with the condition of transgenderism, homosexuality, etc. does not entail that one wants to persecute them for it or doing Nazi atrocities to them. People keep associated me unjustly and disingenuiously with Nazism for merely thinking that it would ideally be good to find a cure for these kinds of conditions analogous to finding a cure for schizophrenia.

I don't think a schizophrenic is "degenerate" for having schizophrenia.

Again, my friend, why do you all quote me out of context? It is like you all want to invent ways to cancel me since you cannot find a way to do it with my what I actually said in the OP or with my responses. I am here for a good-faith conversation to discover the truth about gender theory.

To be clear, I made one comment to a fellow that a part of the liberal agenda is to support (1) sexual degeneracy, (2) homosexuality, and (3) transgenderism. In that comment, I was not referring to 2 or 3 as sexually degenerate, but other acts, broadly speaking, like BDSM. I then clarified to someone that, in truth, I do think that the acts involved in 2 and 3 are sexually degenerate (although I understand that is a provocative term to use that I wouldn’t use when talking to a member of the LGBTQ+).

The condition is separate from the acts. Homosexuality as a sexual orientation is not a behavior; gender dysphoria is not a behavior. A person that engages in homosexual or transgender acts (like anal sex or sissification for example) are engaging in degenerate acts in the sense of “having lost the physical, mental, or moral qualities considered normal and desirable; showing evidence of decline”. Obviously, this is not an argument against gender theory; and has nothing directly to do with the OP.

You lose me at essence realism

This is the root of our disagreement. You are a nominalist, which has deeper issues. We can discuss those if you would like; but without the basis of essence realism the whole gender theory I gave is useless.

 And, really, if you're not going to be the one doing the act why do you care?

The OP is about gender theory and if it is true. You are making an ethical claim that “if it only harms the individuals consenting to it, then one should mind their own business”; but this isn’t a thread about the ethics of LGBTQ+ behavior: it is a discussion about an aristotelian alternative to modern gender theory.

To answer your question, your ethical claim here presupposes a flawed understanding of harm, rightness, wrongness, badness, and goodness. In fact, I do not know how you can be a moral realist, truly, if you don’t accept moral naturalism. @Banno thinks one can be a non-naturalist, but it doesn’t work at all. Ironically, it collapses into moral cognitivism without an objective basis.

The evidence on mental health towards homosexuals indicates that any sort of conversion program only results in harm. But letting people have sex how they want to doesn't result in harm.

First of all, it obviously harms them to engage in these activities. E.g., anal sex, contrary to popular liberal studies and stats, does harm the anus over time—period. Likewise, ethically, it disorders the soul and body and inhibits the person from living their best life. In your view, which is very liberal, harm is something like ‘immediate physical damage’.

From a hedonist's perspective its your category that designates natural sex that's the sin because it results in harm, whereas the reverse does not.

Heterosexual acts is natural; but even that has to be ordered properly for the good of the people having it. The idea that pleasure (or avoiding pain) is the highest form of good for humans is simply not true; and homosexual acts are not natural just because people do it.

I agree.

I take it that you now accept that your account derives an ought from an is, which is progress, of a sort.

My friend, I never denied this. In fact, I explicitly stated I am a moral naturalist.

Take a look at my present thread

I will take a look when I have time; but, again, just citing a source isn’t an argument. You have to present something to the discussion yourself. Why do you think Hume’s Guillotine is a law of logic? That’s a super niche and widely unrecognized view (which doesn’t mean it is wrong, although I find it improbable).

Yes, the actual world is a possible world. No, existence in the actual world does not entail existence in every possible world.

I didn’t argue this. I argue that a necessary being, by definition, exists in all possible worlds; so it must exist in the real world. You denied this. Do you agree with me that if X is a necessary being then it exists in the real world because it must exist in all possible worlds and the real world is a possible world? If so, then it does follow that if X is a necessary being in a possible world then X exists in all possible worlds and therefore exists in the real world. That’s my point.

No. You just moved your goal post. You still want gender to be "an epistemic symbolism of society’s understanding of the ontological reality of sex and its tendencies", and so grounded in your "ontological reality" and not in social reality. You still want trousers to be like the three sides of a triangle, the "symbol of an ontological reality".

What contention are you giving to what I said? I converted the terms to your terms so we can avoid semantics for now: please give an account of what is wrong with the conceptual analysis I gave so we can further this discussion.

There is no real basis in sex is my point of view

If you believe this, then, yes, there would be no such thing as sexual degeneracy or degeneracy of any kind. There would be no such thing as a man, woman, human, dog, cat, etc. … there would be just labels we give things. We wouldn’t be able to have doctors because there is no human nature to study to determine what is healthy; there would be no female vs. male sports because there is not real difference between them; there would be no real shared nature between two chairs or two humans; etc.

Is a false dichotomy. On the basis of queer history -- the lived experience of peopled is recorded in their histories. It's not a personality archetype, and it's not ahistorical. It's rather a third thing.

It’s a history of individual expressions; which are personality types. You describing, by your own admission, a person that lacks a real nature which is expressing their own subjectivity through their queerness. That’s a history of a personality expressing its subjectivity.

love is not a perversion.

What is love under your view?

In liberal thought, love is totally different conceptually than in conservative thought. Love, traditionally, is to will the good of another for its own sake; and the good is relative to its nature. You don’t believe in real natures: so what is love?

I'm not an essentialist, and I tend to see notions of 'male' and 'female' as evolving and changing over time.

To find common ground, we would need to discuss nominalism vs. essence realism. This is the basis for the gender theory I gave.

What matters most is recognising that trans people are here to stay. We need to learn how to live with this reality, not suppress it or label it deviant, just as much of the world has come to accept homosexuality as part of the spectrum of normal human experience.

You can be loving and kind to people while also recognizing that they have an illness that, if you truly love them, you would make reasonable efforts to cure.