Under this scheme, eristic is what happens when I fail to escape from the direct engagement, i.e., in Adorno's terms, fail to move from the particular (Bob's argument) to the metacritical universal (Christian ideology). But the point of my revision is that I do actually have to engage. — Jamal

This makes sense to me, and I appreciate this idea that one must engage.

Part of the reason I want to introduce and delineate the notion of ad hominem rather than merely focusing on eristic is because ad hominem is more objectionable and identifiable than eristic. The forum is full of eristic. Avoiding eristic will avoid the fallacious kind of ad hominem, but avoiding eristic is a high bar. Kudos to those who can clear that bar, but I think the more realistic conversation centers on ad hominem rather than eristic.

This is actually a pretty common confusion in philosophy. Rather than directly confront the validity (or soundness) of a Christian's moral precepts, Nietzsche tried to expose their genesis, namely in the hatred and resentment of the slave. Rather than arguing that the plans of 19th and 20th century penal reformers were inhumane or resulted in recidivism, Foucault traced the genesis of these reforms to developing technologies of power, a result of more thorough social control even while being less brutal.

I think both these philosophers have been accused of committing ad hominem or the more general genetic fallacy. Imagine Foucault saying to a penal reformer, "your view represents the internalization of a new, more insidious form of power". To which the penal reformer might say "Ad hominem!" But of course, that's not what Foucault is doing. Genetic reasoning is not always fallacious.

I'm not saying all this to get myself off the hook. I'm saying that there is a central argument which remains to be dealt with after you remove all personal attacks and instances of ad hominem. — Jamal

I think this sort of issue is worth discussing, and I tried to raise it in my follow-up to you. Nevertheless, the problem is that it probably cannot be allowed without double standards. If Christians on TPF start pointing to genetic premises in order to try to implicate their interlocutors in immorality, it's hard to believe that they will not be censored. That is, if I do to Marxism or secularism or the trans movement or the homosexual movement or the abortion movement what Nietzsche does to Christians, I will almost certainly be banned for some sort of so-called "phobia." Double standards emerge when you have a "rule" or allowance that is so subtle and so ill-defined as to depend almost entirely on the subjectivity of the interpreter.

For example:

It isn't a psychological account. At least, it's not meant to be. If my account veered into psychology---meaning that I imputed dishonesty and hateful feelings to you and explained your attraction to Thomist Aristotelianism in those (or other psychological) terms---that's a risk which is always tempting when I'm discussing things I care about with someone whose views I find morally objectionable. But one can examine someone's personal motivations from a sociological, rather than psychological, viewpoint---as representative of an ideology's operation in society. The problem is that since the focus is in some sense on the person, it can look a lot like ad hominem. But there is a difference, which is that the ideology critique aims to explore the social function of certain beliefs expressed or implied by your interlocutor, rather than simply discrediting that interlocutor. — Jamal

If it makes sense at all, it requires a great deal of subtlety to "examine someone's personal motivations from a sociological, rather than psychological, viewpoint," given that personal motivations are intrinsically psychological.

I think my post <here> closely relates to what you are trying to do. If one were actually to prescind from psychology, then they would be saying, "This person may be engaging in good faith, but the belief they hold will end up causing negative social consequences, and therefore it must be censored/opposed/mocked/deemed beyond the pale." The problem is that you are dubbing them an evil thing even though they are not being imputed with evil intentions, and when this is combined with the move wherein one shifts from speaking to the person to speaking to the crowd, you are licensing the crowd to dismiss or censor or harm the person for extrinsic reasons. In the end you are trying to justify treating a non-evil person as if they were evil, and that is at the heart of the problem.

So, to be clear, you are partially arguing against a straw man of my position here. Nothing about the Aristotelian thought I gave necessitates that Chinese-style authoritarianism is the best political structure; or that we should force homosexuals not to have sex. In fact, I think that would be immoral to do. — Bob Ross

I didn't mean to imply that you wanted an authoritarian state. But now I'm wondering: would you like to see changes in the sexual behaviour of people? If so, how should that be achieved? When you state that certain sexual behaviours are immoral, do you propose to do anything about it or would you like anyone else to do something about it? I assume that all else being equal you would prefer to live in a society in which the sexual activities you think are immoral are at the very least stigmatized, no? This is enough to count as the "authorities" I mentioned, suitably reworded if you like. I could have written:

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

MacIntyre accepts the vast majority of my view. He’s an Aristotelian too and a Christian; so I don’t understand why you would think that he would think I am not following a tradition when I am using Aristo-Thomism. Aristo-thomism is a long-standing tradition in the Latin, Dominican Scholastics. — Bob Ross

To me, you don't seem very close to MacIntyre. As far as I know he didn't address homosexuality or transgenderism, so all we have to go on are his philosophy and his Catholicism. We have to extrapolate, but where is the warrant for extrapolating to "MacIntyre accepts the vast majority of my view"? I guess because you characterize the vast majority of your view as the Thomist Aristotelianism that you share with MacIntyre. But I'm interested in the particular views you're expressing here, like your views on homosexuality and the extremely controversial---among Thomist Aristotelians and Catholics as much as among others---view that oral sex between a married man and woman is immoral. Neither of us can be sure what MacIntyre thought about those issues.

I am not ad hoc rationalizing a feeling of disgust for homosexuals; I am not prejudiced towards homosexuals; — Bob Ross

I wonder if you can meet me half way and admit that the following comments might suggest otherwise?

Wouldn’t you agree that being homosexual or transgender is a result of socio-psychological disorders or/and biological developmental issues? Do you really believe that a perfectly healthy (psychologically and biologically) human that grows up on an environment perfectly conducive to human flourishing would end up with the desire to have sex with the same sex? Do you think a part of our biological programming is to insert a sex organ into an organ designed to defecate? — Bob Ross

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) — Bob Ross

Because from my point of view, pathologizing a way of life or sexual identity that causes no demonstrable harm is a form of prejudice. Asserting a concept of naturalness so as to exclude a segment of the population for behaviour that causes no demonstrable harm is a form of prejudice, while there are other reasonable and intuitive concepts of naturalness (and telos and so on) which could accommodate those people. And disclaiming prejudice in this case is equivalent to someone in the early 20th century saying "I am not prejudiced against Africans; I just think that since they do not have the benefit of civilization they need to submit to British rule, for their own good." (I'm not saying you're racist or believe British colonialism was great)

If it makes sense at all, it requires a great deal of subtlety to "examine someone's personal motivations from a sociological, rather than psychological, viewpoint," given that personal motivations are intrinsically psychological. — Leontiskos

I'm all about the subtlety. Subtlety is my middle name. But I don't think it's all that hard. It just means I take my interlocutor to stand as representative of an ideology's appeal. In doing so I run the risk of obliterating their unique qualities in my rush to put them into my box of bigots. But I don't think this is devastating to the project. And if my interlocutor's argument is clearly off-the-shelf rather than bespoke, the ideology critique gets to take a short cut.

Once again I say I might go back at some point and reply to some of your interesting criticisms.

prescind — Leontiskos

Your favourite word of the week.

I'm all about the subtlety. Subtlety is my middle name. But I don't think it's all that hard. It just means I take my interlocutor to stand as representative of an ideology's appeal. In doing so I run the risk of obliterating their unique qualities in my rush to put them into my box of bigots. But I don't think this is devastating to the project. — Jamal

What is "the project"? Because my point would be that "the project" has shifted from philosophy to a form of activism which opposes an ideology. It would seem that the project of TPF is to engage in good faith discussion and argument with individuals in order to try to grow in knowledge, skill, comradery, etc. If someone wants to oppose an ideology, then they can of course do so via that project of engaging individuals in dialogue. But if someone wants to oppose ideology in a way that avoids engaging individuals in dialogue, then I would argue that they have moved on to a rather different project. This would seem to be eristic in a broad sense insofar it is an attempt to "win" a social or cultural issue without having to go through the hard work of engaging real individuals in argument.

Your favourite word of the week. — Jamal

I use it often. :grin:

---

Because from my point of view, pathologizing a way of life or sexual identity that causes no demonstrable harm is a form of prejudice. — Jamal

To call something unhealthy when it is not unhealthy requires an error, and in any given case that error could be due to prejudice. But Bob's whole position revolves around his argument that the things in question are unhealthy. It would be prejudice to simply assume that Bob is lying when he claims that such-and-such is unhealthy.

It would really make as much sense for Bob to say to you, "Whitewashing a way of life or sexual identity that causes demonstrable harm is a form of prejudice." If he did this to show that you are prejudiced, he would obviously be begging the question. So why do it to him?

If one wants to say that Bob is prejudiced, then they should have to provide some real evidence for that position. They should have to present a coherent argument showing why he is prejudiced, and the argument cannot simply be argumentum ad populum. If one wants to truly avoid begging the question, then they need to provide arguments for their claims. If they think some comment is "suggestive" of prejudice, then they must actually say why they think that. The danger is the scenario where any argument against some position is considered "suggestive" of prejudice, such that one has not only chilled speech about that issue but frozen it entirely.

Asserting a concept of naturalness so as to exclude a segment of the population for behaviour that causes no demonstrable harm is a form of prejudice... — Jamal

This too begs the question. If one is going to effectively say, "You're just using this concept of naturalness because you are prejudiced against the groups in question," then they surely must have some grounds for why such a claim is supposed to be true. Bob is not "guilty until proven innocent."

If one actually <looks into> the argumentation in question they will find that it has a long history, and is applied in other areas than sexual morality.

In fact, I haven't received a single private message complaining about this discussion. — Jamal

You will ruin the pretence of victimhood saying things like that.

In fact, I haven't received a single private message complaining about this discussion. — Jamal

Thanks for the clarification. Anyone who read this post of yours may have genuinely thought otherwise:

My thoughts are that all you're doing is cloaking bigotry with philosophy to give it the appearance of intellectual depth, as part of a hateful and destructive reactionary political and religious movement.

Thanks to Banno and @Tom Storm for alerting me to this. — Jamal

@Jamal, let me offer a simple and recent example of how the LGBT lobby can lead to harm for LGBT individuals, especially when all contrary views are shut down a priori.

In 2022 there was an outbreak of the Monkeypox virus. It disproportionately affected gay men. Now when a potentially serious virus disproportionately affects some group, it is ethically requisite that that group be notified of their increased risk. This didn't happen with Monkeypox. In fact the general strategy was to claim that Monkeypox did not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, and that those who pointed to the fact that Monkeypox disproportionately affects gay men must be intent on "stigmatizing homosexuality."

Such false propaganda from the LGBT lobby can lead to real, demonstrable harm for individuals. Sacrificing truth-discussions in order to try to avoid giving offense does have consequences. The propaganda may have succeeded in making gay men may feel safer, and it may have succeeded in avoiding even the slightest impression of stigma, but it at the same time increased their risk of contracting a potentially severe virus.

The more general point is that homosexual sex involves various risks that coitus does not, and the LGBT activist will very often try to minimize these risks in the name of "compassion" and "equality."* This is but one example of the way that quickly imputing bad intentions to one's enemies and good intentions to one's friends can go awry. Things are not so black-and-white.


* Note that the move <Heterosexuals and homosexuals are equal, therefore Monkeypox does not disproportionately affect homosexuals> is prejudice in the truest and most incontrovertible sense.

...historically in the West negative attitudes towards homosexuality predominated prior to Christianity. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That does not match my understanding.

Latin culture worship the phallus, denigrating the passive participant in intercourse. It wasn't being homosexual that was mocked, but being penetrated. The dogma that same sex acts were sinful in themselves enters from Leviticus. It was Christianity that invented the notion of such acts being "against nature"

Thanks to Banno and Tom Storm for alerting me to this. — Jamal

They alerted me not intentionally but just by quoting things I hadn't seen in their posts.

- Understood. :up:

Are you saying that heterosexuals ought to, or at least may, realise their real nature, whereas homosexuals ought not realise their really defective nature?

A defect is a privation of the full nature that a being has. A homosexual and heterosexual, e.g., male both have the same, full nature of maleness (which is in their substantial form); but, in matter, the homosexual has some sort of privation that is inhibited the full realization of that form materially. In contrast, your question presupposes that there is such a thing as a real ‘defective nature’ in the sense of a defective form; and that is not possible (under my view at least).

By analogy, a person born without their limbs still have the full nature of a human (in virtue of their form) but it was not realized properly in matter—the matter that received it did not receive it properly. This can be caused by all sorts of external factors; like if, e.g., the mother was a drug addict and that messed up the development process.

Are you saying that the menopause is a defect, or old age is a defect?

No. Menopause is natural for women, but, although I am no doctor, I am fairly confident that women usually get it in their 40s. I was assuming, and this just an assumption, that something happened to your wife for her to be completely through menopause at 25...that seems young to me. However, this is an aspect of her and your personal life: I don’t want to be disrespectful and you don’t need to share with me about it.

My problem is you make these declarations of what is a defect and what is a real nature but you never tell me how you tell what's what, so that I can do the same

The methodological approach is to empirically investigate what is essential to a given thing, such that it would no longer be that thing without it, and that would be a part of its nature. E.g., you are no longer talking about a human, in nature, if you are talking about a being that doesn’t include rationality. This doesn’t mean every human has to be capable of exercising proper intellect; but what this is essential to the human nature.

The essence of a chair is something which can be sat on. Hence you can have two chairs that are arranged in completely exclusive ways and still be both chairs; and they could be made out of completely different materials and still be chairs. Their form of a chair is still there—embodied in its power to be sat on. It is about looking at the teleology in a thing.

With all due respect, you didn’t address the OP in any substantial sense. Here’s the comment you are referring to: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/1020464

You derailed the conversation into a discussion about liberal agendas instead of my views on gender and sex. Sure, I used the phrase ‘liberal agenda’ in the OP, to be fair, but that wasn’t a key aspect of the discussion. Your direct contention was just a vague agreement with me:

I fully agree with the notion that you can't totally separate gender from sex

That was it.

EDIT: I am not arguing that you, specifically, tried to get me censored or acted in bad faith.

This is just false: @Jamal told me that they were alerted to this from at least two people and the implication obviously was that it was not like they were alerting them because it was such a great, positive post:

Thanks to Banno and @Tom Storm for alerting me to this. — Jamal

EDIT:
That in conjunction with, for example, the fact that Banno explicitly told me they would censor this if they could:

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. — Banno

And clearly tried at times to imply to the moderators to ban 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.

That wasn't clear from what I have already said?

Meaning is found in use, so there is always some ambiguity. But here we can be pretty explicit.

An example of a biological appraisal: This body has two X chromosomes. A biological fact, normatively neutral.

An example of a gendered appraisal: Having two X chromosomes counts as being a woman. A social fact, and normatively loaded.

The failure of your essentialism is that it mistakes having two X chromosomes for taking on the feminine role. It tries to introduce the normative stuff at the level of biology.

(I added the italicised "your" because there are variants of essentialism that do not promulgate the incoherence seen in your account)

This is just false: Jamal told me that they were alerted to this from at least two people and the implication obviously was that it was not like they were alerting them because it was such a great, positive post: — Bob Ross

You misunderstood. Reading their posts, in which they quoted comments of yours I hadn't seen before, alerted me to your comments.

- It seems to me that there was indeed a desire to have the thread shut down. But it has stayed open, and I appreciate that. Hopefully it can continue with rational discussions and substantive arguments about the positions in question. Hopefully aggressive language and insinuations which draw us away from rational discourse can be avoided.

With all due respect, you didn’t address the OP in any substantial sense. — Bob Ross

Are you kidding me? What i said wasnt true and i will not acknowledge / you didnt address it enough is awful forum etiquette. You said nobody was addressing the OP, which is a complete lie. It's pretty clear from interactions with you that talking to you isn't worth it. Have fun with "the liberals trying to cancel you", as you seem to be framing it.

Just to be clear, if this were my forum, I'd have removed this thread and blocked Bob and Leon.

But this is not my forum. And I have no desire for it to be my forum. This thread is interesting because some folk here have such ratshit ideas; explaining why they are ratshit provides some amusement. Were this my forum, it would be much less entertaining.

To misquote Groucho, I'd not join any forum that would have me as a moderator.

The pretence of victimhood is a cheap rhetorical move.

In some ways then it feels like the most appropriate place to start is to ask -- where should we start in relation to thinking about sex, gender, and the various identifications and actions that result?

I agree with you that it is important to begin with an exposition of the fundamental concepts at play; but I would say that this is best exemplified by giving definitions and descriptions of the key concepts involved (like ‘sex’, ‘gender’, etc.).

I've stated before that I'm basically an Epicurean on such things.

I believe you're a Christian on such things.

I am specifically Aristo-Thomistic. Not all Christians are Thomists, as it is not necessary to be Christian nor is it necessary to be Orthodox (Catholic) nor (Roman) Catholic.

Metaethically, Aristo-Thomism is a form of moral naturalism; normative ethically, it is a form of natural law theory; and applied ethically it is conservative.

I have ideas about what "Christian" entails because of my own upbringing, especially with respect to the "conservative" brand of Christianity.

This all by way of leading to the place I think we could begin: What is the difference between liberal and conservative Christianity in the USA?

I think this is more of a historical question that I am no expert, I confess, to answer; but here’s my thoughts. I conservatism is the default for Christianity, as this is embodied, quite obviously, in roman and orthodox catholicism which have apostolic succession and adhere, to sufficient degrees, to the church traditions. This view is inevitably conservative. E.g., women cannot lead in the church, wives submit and respect your husbands, husbands love your wives like Christ loves the church, homosexuality is immoral, etc.

Liberalism comes in with more progressive or/and non-traditional forms of Christianity—i.e., from the protestant reformation. Many protestants are not liberals, of course, but liberalism can only coexist with Christianity in an interpretation of Christianity that believes in sola scriptura, sola fide, sola gratia, solus Christus, and Soli Deo Gloria (viz., ‘the five solas’). In protestantism, each individual is their own church and church authority is not regarded very highly or, sometimes, not regarded at all.

A liberal Christian, I submit to you, reads the Bible for themselves, allows themselves as the final arbiter of interpretation, and interprets the Bible under the purview of ‘loving one another’ to the point of ‘love’ being ‘willing the happiness of all’. This is not the traditional view of love for Christianity, but irregardless of whether it is accurate or not that is my experience of liberal Christians I speak to. They truly, in their hearts, love Jesus and want to love everyone; but they understand of what love is is very different than traditional thought.

I think both liberals and conservatives really want, in America, to make all people’s lives better; but they just have wildly different understanding of (1) what makes a person’s life better and (2) how to go about doing that.

With that being said, I do think there are plenty of liberals that are truly Christian: they accept, in their hearts and minds, the Nicene Creed and do really love Jesus, have and continue to repent for their sins, and are doing the best relative to what they know how to do. I don’t want to bash liberals here.

:up:

I apologize if I misunderstood, but you have to be able to appreciate from my perspective why that still reads as you being messaged about it. People don't usually at people to thank them for 'bringing this to their attention' if those people didn't notify them of it.

With that being said, I am interested in furthering our discussion (and I will respond to your other posts here in a bit); and so I am more than happy to concede that, in granting your word to me, I misread the quote and people did not message you about this. Perhaps it was just a big misunderstanding.

I apologize if I've offended you; but what I was meaning by 'no one contended with the OP' was that no one attempted to dive into my gender theory. All you said was that you agree to some extent with me and suggested I avoid the rhetoric 'liberal agenda'. I don't see that as contending with my gender theory; and my main focus with saying 'no one was contending' was to emphasize people other than you that were interacting with me. I was not directing that claim at you.

Just to demonstrate to you that I am operating in good faith and am solely interested in forwarding the discussion about gender theory, I am more than happy to concede that you directly contended with the OP insofar as you agreed partially with it and suggested I avoid rhetoric like 'liberal agenda'.

That wasn't clear from what I have already said?

No. I have no clue what you specifically believe sex and gender are.

An example of a biological appraisal: This body has two X chromosomes. A biological fact, normatively neutral.

An example of a gendered appraisal: Having two X chromosomes counts as being a woman. A social fact, and normatively loaded.

The failure of essentialism is that it mistakes having two X chromosomes for taking on the feminine role. It tries to introduce the normative stuff at the level of biology.

Banno, my dear friend, you didn’t answer my question. I want to know what you mean by sex and gender: I want definitions (and they don’t have to be brutally precise: I just want to get an idea what you mean). What you gave here are descriptions of aspects of sex and gender—not what they are themselves.

I apologize if I misunderstood, but you have to be able to appreciate from my perspective why that still reads as you being messaged about it. People don't usually at people to thank them for 'bringing this to their attention' if those people didn't notify them of it. — Bob Ross

I can see how it was misunderstood, but I've said I wasn't messaged, so that's that. If you're going to apologize do it without backtracking.

It's perfectly natural to post a message in a discussion to say, e.g., "thanks for alerting me to the existence of that book," in response to a post that mentioned a book but which wasn't directed at anyone in particular. I meant it in that sense.

This thread is interesting because some folk here have such ratshit ideas; explaining why they are ratshit provides some amusement. Were this my forum, it would be much less entertaining. — Banno

That's what free speech is really about. "The freedom to espouse ideas that I personally think are horrid, stupid, crazy, etc." Why? Because not speaking about it doesn't make it go away. People won't stop trying to push for something, they'll just push for it quietly, underhandedly, or with deception.

Further, you don't have a chance of persuading others that you think that idea is crazy if its simply asserted as crazy through forced silence. A person may believe in a 'crazy' idea because they haven't been exposed to any of the information you know.

Finally, and I am sure there are more reasons, but forced silence breeds resentment. A person forced to silence often doesn't feel like their idea is wrong, but that people are evil and controlling because your idea is right, but they're afraid of you winning. This breeds evil. The world does so much better when people are not afraid to speak their mind and talk with one another. Understanding another's idea doesn't mean agreement.

This is just false: Jamal told me that they were alerted to this from at least two people and the implication obviously was that it was not like they were alerting them because it was such a great, positive post — Bob Ross

Based on what jamal said, they were probably alerting him based on perceived rule violations, even though Jamal clearly decided you didn't. I wish you well in trying to sharpen your discussion/rhetorical skills in getting your points across, even though i might not read your OP again.

I don't have enough time to read this entire discussion to figure out the source of our conflicts. I haven't even read everything in the discussion I created.

Banno, my dear friend, you didn’t answer my question. — Bob Ross

Yes, I have.

You expect me to provide you with essences of sex and gender, failing to see that this very question is dependent on your essentialist framing of the issue.

The meaning of a term is seen in its use, not some abstract expression of essence. I've done what I can for you; its up to you to do the rest.

If this is true, then you are denying that we can have definitions of things; which is completely different than being an essence anti-realist.

...you don't have a chance of persuading others... — Philosophim

No one should be under the illusion that Bob or Leon will change their minds as a result of the discussion here. Our posts are a performance, to an audience. Eventually, as the ineptitude of the response becomes unavoidable, a thread like this becomes too much like kicking a pup. Then it's time to go back to expounding Gillian Russell's text.

Not a worry: I wish you the best!