But yes. Its what in my own terminology I'd sum up as the choice between preferring egoistic interests, what you term "pride or vanity", or else the more egoless interest of uncovering, of being aligned to, and of ultimately conforming to ever deeper truths. — javra

Yep. :up:

And part of my point is that a desire for esteem is not bad. Vanity is something like an excessive desire for esteem. As you say, moderation is involved.

To one, finally, I made speech:
"Who art thou?"
But she, like the others,
Kept cowled her face, — Stephen Crane

Wonderful!

Would you affirm the same of positions such as that of Holocaust denial — javra

Check out the link I gave in that post, where I answer this sort of question.

I'm not sure. That's what I'm attempting at the moment, though. — Moliere

Philosophy operates through persuasion; dogma operates through force; therefore dogma is incompatible with philosophy. That's why I don't think you can shut down debate "philosophically."

But a philosophy forum could be sectarian, and this could occur for understandable reasons. It might have dogmas for non-philosophical or indirectly philosophical reasons.

Note that a dogma excludes a position that is live within the Overton window. There would be no need to erect a dogma for a position that is not of this kind. (cc: @javra)

I am also strongly stating that these sorts of questions aren't really up for debate here -- but am hoping to do so in a philosophical manner. — Moliere

But that's the question, isn't it? Can excluding certain debates ever be done in a philosophical manner? Especially when the position being excluded is extremely common both historically and geographically, and is being held by people of good faith? (See also regarding @Mikie's attempt to exclude climate change denialism)

That's why, " TPF just has to be transparent about its own dogmas." Some will bristle at the word "dogma," but when you have a single position that is privileged above all others, and debating that position is disallowed, how can it be denied that what is at stake is a dogma? Dogma basically means, "You aren't allowed to argue about this position."

If TPF wants to take a non-dogmatic approach to the topic then I think that would be wonderful. I think that is what is being attempted. But if at the end of the day the policy amounts to, "You aren't allowed to argue with this substantive position," then I think a self-consciously dogmatic policy is preferable (because self-conscious policy is better than subconscious policy).

All of these insults, ad hominems, threats of banishment, etc. on their part is unnecessarily and does not further the discussion. — Bob Ross

Yes, and it also happens to be unjust.

Bob is a reasonable person. He's already gone back to his OP and made adjustments. That means this is a person thinking about what's being said and working through ideas. Talk with him, not at him. — Philosophim

:up:

clarified the TPF policy. One is not allowed to call gay people immoral or degenerate (and presumably this applies to all classes of people, not just gay people).

I think this exchange is instructive:

A tomboy girl is a masculine girl, which is bad even if they have done nothing immoral.
— Bob Ross

Jamal is being charitable. I would have banned you by now. — RogueAI

In Thomistic thought there is a distinction between something's being immoral and its being bad or evil. Everything that is immoral is bad/evil, but not everything that is bad/evil is immoral. So murder is immoral and bad/evil, but a deadly tsunami is bad/evil but not immoral. Similarly, schizophrenia—to take the common example being used within this thread—is bad/evil but it is not immoral.

I haven't read all of Bob's posts, but it seems to me that he has consistently maintained that the homosexual person is not per se immoral, but that their condition is bad (and he likens that condition to a mental illness like schizophrenia).

On the one hand Bob has tended to use "bad" rather than "evil," which in English have somewhat different connotations. That is good, and it helps avoid misunderstandings.

But the deeper issue here is that @Jamal's policy remains ambiguous. For example, consider my . If I were to argue that X is better than Y, and that the person who has X and Y both within their grasp should therefore prefer X, my utterance could be technically construed as a bannable utterance. This is because "should" is conceivably construable as a moral claim, and the logic of my claim could therefore be construed as entailing the proposition, "Bisexuals who choose to be gay are immoral" (because according to some given reasoning they should prefer to be straight).

Part of the difficulty here is the ambiguity between "should not" and "immoral," which has been the topic of hundreds of conversations on TPF. But if someone like @Jamal wants to around a central value of respecting homosexuals, then he might reasonably interpret, "The perfect bisexual should prefer a heterosexual coupling," as, "Perfect bisexuals who choose homosexuality are immoral," and ban the person in question, even if the proposition is a conclusion and not a presupposition.

This is actually why I tend to never broach these topics on TPF. Or if I do, I speak extremely precisely and carefully. There is a longstanding bias that will tend to interpret my utterances in the worst possible light, and I don't generally like to "skate uphill" to that extent while doing philosophy. The longstanding policies chill speech in this area, presumably intentionally.

To be honest, there is no obvious solution to these sorts of problems. Free speech absolutism comes with its own batch of difficulties, and I don't see @Jamal as wrong for refusing that route. As I've argued elsewhere, I think TPF just has to be transparent about its own dogmas, for that seems to be what they are. TPF is a quasi-sectarian philosophy forum, much like a <sectarian university>. It has rules that are substantive and not merely procedural. Although this is hard for secular people to accept, I think it has to be acknowledged. On a Christian forum one might be disallowed from "promoting" abortion, which means that one cannot argue in favor of abortion, either in moral or non-moral terms. On TPF one seems to be disallowed (or at least very strongly discouraged) from "promoting" traditional sexual ethics, which means that one cannot argue in favor of traditional sexual ethics, either in moral or non-moral terms.

I grant that @Jamal is attempting to avoid a sectarian forum by claiming that one can argue against Western European sexual ethics but they cannot call gay people "immoral." "Traditionalists" would agree that gay people are not necessarily immoral, but they would not agree that no homosexual person is immoral in virtue of their homosexuality.* I'm guessing that this is not a distinction that @Jamal wants to make. If he doesn't want to make that distinction, then perhaps he can see how difficult it would be for a "traditionalist" to argue that homosexuality (for example) is bad but not necessarily immoral (even despite the fact that this position relies on an extremely common distinction in moral philosophy, namely the distinction between a free act and an unfree disposition).

I want to emphasize that these are not easy things for someone like @Jamal to navigate. I don't even know what I would do if I held to Western European sexual ethics and I were in his shoes. The answer is in no way obvious, and I don't want to pretend to oversimplify the issue. In any case, I think that folks like @Bob Ross should try to understand how difficult it is for Western Europeans to countenance traditional sexual ethics, and the Western Europeans (and those who agree with them) should try hard to entertain the possibility that some people who hold to traditional sexual ethics really are acting in good faith, and are not bigots. (But in my personal opinion, I think Western Europeans need to be more open to debating their sexual ethics given the fact that their sexual ethics are geographically and historically idiosyncratic.)


* In Christian and especially Catholic moral teaching, someone cannot be held responsible or immoral for what is beyond their control. Such moral teaching therefore makes a distinction between free acts and inherited dispositions, including with respect to homosexuality. This means that (traditional) Christians do tend to see homosexuality in much the same way that they see alcoholism, and this understanding is in no way limited to Christianity. Is the alcoholic "immoral"? The answer is never "necessarily yes" or "necessarily no." This is why traditional sexual morality is effectively disallowed on TPF, for TPF effectively disallows everyone from disagreeing with the substantive position which says, "necessarily no."

Long story short, we all engage in doublethink, — javra

I think that's key. To try to separate oneself from all others is perhaps the most fundamental and insidious form of self-deception.

(This is why the Christian doctrine of Original Sin is so powerful: because it involves a universal acknowledgment of humility. No one who believes in Original Sin can separate themselves from others at this most fundamental level.)

One either prefers truth over falsity and so values the cathartic sting of bubbles getting burst whenever they so do or, else, one doesn’t, preferring instead the eternal preservation of falsehoods. In some ways it’s akin to becoming an alcoholic: it’s only when one loses all concern of becoming an alcoholic while drinking that one runs the risk of so becoming. — javra

Good, but I think motives may need to be clarified, particularly because it seems impossible to prefer falsity in itself. So I don't think anyone "prefers the eternal preservation of falsehoods," given that falsehood is not an end in itself (as truth is, at least on a classical view). The motive is rather something like pride or vanity, the desire to be right or to be seen as right (or intelligent, or powerful, or virtuous). So to oversimplify, we all desire to be esteemed and we all desire truth, but oftentimes a devotion to truth requires that we humble ourselves and abandon our desire for esteem. The question then becomes: do you care about truth more than being esteemed? That question has more teeth than a question about whether one prefers truth to falsity.

- I think your thesis is generally correct. I don't know Breaking Bad, but another example commonly given is the way that the Batman nemesis Joker has now become his own offering, with standalone Joker characters and films that have no relation to Batman. Tolkien writes well about the phenomenon. I may try to dig up some quotes.

So why then "try to eliminate" these expressions of being human? And then, if an alternative rational reason is provided, "eliminate" them how? — javra

Consider X and Y. If they are equal, then neither one is preferable. If X is better than Y, then X is preferable. If X is better according to some criterion, then X is preferable according to that criterion. If the proportion of X-outcomes and Y-outcomes is beyond our control, then it is pointless to prefer one to another even if it is better.

Is any of that objectionable?

So now let X = heterosexuality and Y = homosexuality. Does everything I just said about X and Y still hold good?

As soon as we accept the premise that X-outcomes and Y-outcomes are not beyond our control, and that X is better than Y, we have logically excluded the position which says that we cannot prefer X to Y (or that it is pointless to prefer X to Y).

So for example, if we accept that there are bisexual people who can choose between a heterosexual monogamous relationship and a homosexual monogamous relationship, then we must recognize that it is eminently rational for such people to discern whether X and Y are equal or unequal. Similarly, if we recognize that LGBT-identification has risen substantially in line with changing social norms, then it becomes very hard to claim that the proportion of X-outcomes and Y-outcomes is altogether beyond our control.

At this point, if we accept that there are bisexual people who can choose, and that social norms have a strong effect on how much sexual orientation identification occurs within the society, doesn't it follow that we would be interested in objectively assessing the relative value of homosexual and heterosexual arrangements? If we are interested in the health and happiness of the society itself, would we not be interested in such a thing?

"you know the day destroys the night, night divides the day" — javra

Yes, or the Wood Brothers' song "Keep me around":

Try asking the Dark where the Light comes from — Wood Brothers, Keep me around

Inquiries into falsity can shed light on truth, but they always fall short because falsity is something less than truth. The Darkness does not comprehend the Light. If Augustine is right then falsity is a sort of absence or privation. The Parmenidean paradox regarding falsity is also relevant here.

I don’t know if Haack wrote about it to any significant extent (it wasn’t present in what I’ve so far read of her writings), but the issue of self-deception is a very complex and problematic topic in philosophy. For example, one form of self-deception occurs when one lies to oneself and maybe others (e.g., “I didn’t do it”) while being momentarily aware that this is a lie (e.g., knowing full well that one did do it) only to at a future juncture come to believe this very lie as being a full-blown truth. I’d label the issue as one regarding the philosophy of mind. The SEP has a dedicated entry to the issue of self-deception here. — javra

In the epistemological context she is concerned with, self-deception represents the mirror opposite of the act of knowledge, in much the same way that falsity represents the mirror opposite of truth. So it is broader than a lie of the practical reason. The idea is that there are cases where one can be self-deceived even within their speculative reason, and that this will shed light on truth and knowledge (by shedding light on falsity).

This tracks a more classical approach where the intellect is naturally oriented to truth, and the primary difficulties lie in intellectual impediments (such as self-deception).

None of this is happening in a vacuum. The Heritage scandal comes on the heels of
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/14/private-chat-among-young-gop-club-members-00592146
"‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat" — RogueAI

Okay, this is a good point. I don't follow politics too closely. I was surprised to see conservatives defending Tucker's platforming of Fuentes and I have been trying to understand it. But this is a noteworthy antecedent.

And MAGA darling (before he turned on Trump) Elon Musk's Ai turning into "Mechahitler", and Trump's dinner with Kanye and Fuentes and Trump's use of Naziesque language (https://www.npr.org/2023/11/17/1213746885/trump-vermin-hitler-immigration-authoritarian-republican-primary) and "good people on both sides" after the Charlottesville rally, etc. — RogueAI

Well this strikes me as leftist propaganda. Most of this has been explicitly clarified or corrected.

For example, even left-leaning Politifact published a transcript that shows what Trump actually said. It is a shopworn misrepresentation to claim that Trump somehow gave an endorsement to neo-Nazis.

I heard Penner to be saying that Kierkegaard was not imagining that his rivals were outside the Christian community. So, if he did understand that they were outside, he would have responded differently. — Paine

Okay. My sense is that Penner thinks Kierkegaard was correct as seeing them as within the Christian community, and therefore he does not see Kierkegaard as being "fooled."

What one does see in the writings of the Enlightenment is an attempt to separate the "Natural" from what has been imposed upon it, whether through human or divine authority. I am not sure that would have even been an idea for Aristotle. — Paine

A fair point, but that seems a bit of a different subject than rights per se. Natural rights preceded the Enlightenment, and some forms persisted through the Enlightenment, no?

Kierkegaard claims that views of "nature" have been changed because of "Christianity." Such a view both affirms and questions the separations drawn in the City of God by Augustine. — Paine

Okay. I admit I am not familiar with this thesis of Kierkegaard's, except in vague outline.

Stop posturing Leon. — Jamal

I am not posturing. Stop insulting me.

Blah blah blah blah-blah bl-ba-blah blah. — Harry Hindu

A TPF search for "blah blah" yields 608 results.

I never read the guy's posts, but his quality seems to have been consistent for quite a long time.

To exclude or demean others is to abandon reasoned inquiry for dogma or prejudice. You are lucky you are still here. — Jamal

If we are not allowed to question the sexual ethics of Western Europe, then we will not question the sexual ethics of Western Europe. But that sort of a rule should be made explicit. I don't see how those who question the sexual ethics of Western Europe can simply be threatened or banned for "abandoning reason." There are lots of people from other regions of the world on TPF.

I want people to know there's no room here for that kind of crap any more. — Jamal

"That kind of crap" needs to be defined. What did he do? What are we not allowed to do?

After @Lionino's banning and the sudden closing of the "Bannings" thread, I PMed a mod. This is part of that exchange:

Lionino was banned because of the application of a concept, and the application of that concept was being discussed. The relevance should be obvious.

"At the same time, I don't expect a forum to be perfectly objective, and TPF is better than most. What is needed though, is a clear line so that the bias has a measure of transparency" (https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/945638).

I.e.: "Racism" and "Homophobia" must be defined if Lionino's banning is to make sense. — Leontiskos

If TPF has a rule against something, then they should say what the rule means. My interaction with the mod ended with something like, "Lionino was banned for breaking a rule, and we refuse to say what it means to break that rule." The mod suggested that I make a feedback thread inquiring into what it means to break that rule.

Again, TPF can have a bias, but that bias needs to be transparent. In ' thread we saw users and mods making odd claims to the effect that every form of critique of the homosexual movement must be "bigotry" or "bad faith." That could be a possible candidate for what the rule means: "Anyone who says that homosexuality is in any way inferior to heterosexuality will be deemed a 'bigot' and will be banned." That seems like it would be a poor rule, but at least it would provide this vague notion of "homophobia" with a bit of clarity. The same holds with "transphobia" and all the rest of the "phobia" pathologizations.

What does the rule mean? How does one break it? How does one avoid breaking it? If these questions continue to be avoided then there is a fairly severe problem regarding impartiality.

(I think TPF needs to be more transparent. It needs to say, "We are a philosophy forum where certain topics are allowed and certain topics are not allowed; where certain positions are allowed and certain positions are not allowed. The topics that are not allowed to be discussed are A, B, and C. The positions that are not allowed to be taken are X, Y, and Z.)

Did Kevin Roberts resign? I'm not seeing that. — RogueAI

Ah, I was misinformed. It was his chief of staff who ended up resigning, Ryan Neuhaus. Roberts has apologized but says he wants to stay at Heritage.

Tucker and Trump are bro's. — RogueAI

No, not true. Tucker's anti-Israel shift seems to have changed that.

Sure, but what are Vance and Trump saying about this latest Heritage scandal or about Tucker hosting Nick Fuentes? Nothing. — RogueAI

So Vance repudiates Fuentes directly, Trump claims not to know him, and you still manage to claim that they are pro-Fuentes. You seem to be a man who has already decided on his conclusion, and is now in search of evidence to back it. Good luck with your post hoc search.

I mean, Trump and Tucker hate each other; Vance and Fuentes hate each other; Fuentes hates Trump; and Trump probably does not even remember who Fuentes is. So it would be odd to see the Tucker-Fuentes alliance as MAGA-backed. <Here> is Vance on Fuentes.

All hypericin is doing is ad hoc defining and redefining bigotry because they want it to be bigoted because they view the position that transgenderism is a mental illness as too extreme. — Bob Ross

I think that's right. The label "bigot" is being used as a means to the end of a particular form of censorship, without any regard for whether the labeling is true or false. Whether or not it is true that you are a bigot, it's expedient to say that you are.

That said, @hypericin is at least willing to consider his own view and attempt to provide reasons for that view. That's to his credit, and it is something that few others in this thread have managed.

Trump has dinner with Nick Fuentes and there's not a peep of protest from MAGA world. They like it. That's a feature, not a bug. — RogueAI

And yet the president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, just resigned over his support for Tucker's interview of Fuentes. This bodes ill for your theory. Now that Republicans are learning who Fuentes is, we are seeing lots of opposition.

...In other words, it is definitional, not substantive. — hypericin

I've already answered this <here>, namely the definitional/tautological notion.

No. A widespread view about schizophrenia is that it is an organic brain disorder, not caused by bad parenting as was once widely believed. But, this still a substantive claim. — hypericin

So your claim is that, "Schizophrenia is an organic brain disorder," is a substantive claim (because "organic brain disorder" is not contained in the definition of Schizophrenia). And you simultaneously claim that, "Schizophrenia is a mental illness," is not a substantive claim (because "mental illness" is contained in the definition of Schizophrenia).

Here's the problem: How can a claim which depends on a substantive claim be non-substantive? For example:

1. Schizophrenia is an organic brain disorder
2. Schizophrenia is [insert other relevant predicates here]
3. (1 ^ 2) → Schizophrenia is a mental illness
4. Therefore, Schizophrenia is a mental illness

Yet if (4) is a conclusion that depends in part on conjunct (1), and conjunct (1) is substantive, then (4) must also be substantive. If (1) is required to know (4), and (1) is not "definitional," then (4) cannot be "definitional." You are involved in logical errors.

You are mixed up. It is contrary to widespread view, and clearly substantive. That is what makes it capable of being a bigoted claim, where "Schizophrenics are mentally ill" is not. — hypericin

Is it not you who are mixed up? If I say that your notion of "substantive" is nothing other than, "contrary to the widespread view," and that this is why Ross's view is "substantive," then it makes no sense to object by saying that Ross' view is contrary to the widespread view and substantive. That claim does not function as an objection to what I've said. It agrees with what I've said.

I would suggest looking into what you mean by "definitional" (as I think it is nothing more than that which represents the widespread view). The claim that some predicates of Schizophrenia are rock-bottom "definitional" while others are not is tendentious given that the definition of Schizophrenia has changed over time.

But, by arguing that the claim is bigoted, I'm arguing that it is noxious. — hypericin

Okay, well that's a new claim on your part. Why is it noxious?

Especially so, made in the current fraught political environment for trans people. — hypericin

To be clear, what claim of his are you talking about? There are a lot of different topics in this thread. I had been under the impression that you were speaking to the homosexual question.

And, practically speaking, this class of claims are almost never true. — hypericin

Which class of claims?

Again, lets test your counterarguments in the context of another claim.

"Black people are less intelligent on average than white people. This cannot be said to be a bigoted without providing factual evidence to the contrary, to do so would just be begging the question. Moreover, it is not particularly obstinate, by my [made up] definition, and it cannot be bigoted by your definition, otherwise 'People with Downs Syndrome are less intelligent on average' would be bigoted".

Does this sound good to you? If not, how does it differ? — hypericin

I have addressed this issue in some detail towards the end of the thread, "Beyond the Pale."

First, let's get clear on what bigotry actually means:

the fact of having and expressing strong, unreasonable beliefs and disliking other people who have different beliefs or a different way of life — Bigotry | Cambridge Dictionary

obstinate or intolerant devotion to one's own opinions and prejudices — Bigotry | Merriam Webster Dictionary

Whether any claim, "X is Y," is obstinate, intolerant, based on "dislike of other people who have different beliefs or a different way of life," etc., depends on the context. Again, bigotry is a of behavior or belief. To give an example, Daryl Davis is a famous black man who convinced dozens to leave and denounce the KKK, simply by interacting with them and showing them that their views were mistaken. Davis convinced some and failed to convince others. The ones he convinced were, in some relevant sense, not bigots. They were not obstinate given that they changed their belief when presented with evidence to the contrary.

If you were right and everyone who says, "Black people are less intelligent on average than white people," is inherently a bigot, then it makes no sense that Davis convinced some and failed to convince others. The fact of the matter is that some of those whom Davis encountered held that belief in a mode that involves bigotry, and some did not. Or if someone wants to insist on a particular definition, they must at least admit that some whom Davis encountered were more bigoted than others, despite holding the same material proposition.

-

Edit:

It is contrary to widespread view, and clearly substantive. That is what makes it capable of being a bigoted claim, where "Schizophrenics are mentally ill" is not. — hypericin

Is the "that" its being contrary to the widespread view, or its being non-definitional, or both? On any case, this is mistaken. One can make bigoted claims that are both in line with the widespread view, and that are "definitional."

For example, consider the slur in the Jim Crow South, "Black people are niggers." This claim was in line with the widespread view and it was being used definitionally, yet it was at the same time bigoted. Given that cultural assumptions and the definitions of words that cultures coin can themselves be reflective of bigotry, your necessary conditions for bigotry are mistaken. The definitions that humans rely upon can be false, even at a cultural or widespread level.

You're making MacIntyre's strong point that our frameworks are incommensurable. — Jamal

I think there are two problems with this. First, as MacIntyre's views matured he began to from his strong incommensurability thesis. Indeed, precisely as he started to understand the differing views in question did he begin to move away from that thesis.

Second, assertions of incommensurability are dangerous, and here's why:

• 1. If my view is incommensurable with someone else's, then I need not argue with or engage them.
• 2. If my view is incommensurable with someone else's, then I need not understand their view.
• 3. If my view is incommensurable with someone else's, then it is only a matter of power.
• 4. If my view is incommensurable with someone else's, then ad hominem is the only recourse I have.
• 5. If my view is incommensurable with someone else's, then I am justified in coercive, non-philosophical behavior, such as name-calling or censorship.

This is not to say that there are no incommensurable views, but rather to point up how one will be rewarded for thinking their interlocutor's views are incommensurable with their own, regardless of whether they actually are. There is a great temptation to simply dub someone's views "incommensurable" as a way to get what one wants. Indeed, within this thread we have seen the , the name-calling, and the favoring of censorship, and I'm afraid that a claim of incommensurability functions as little more than an excuse for those sorts of moves.

This was almost explicit in one of your , where you basically said, "Because this is an interminable debate I am going to resort to something that I wouldn't usually engage in, namely something that borders on eristic." And note that in your very first substantive post to Bob you had already determined that the debate was interminable. If one wants to dub their interlocutor's views incommensurable, then I think they have to demonstrate a knowledge of the view in question and explain why it is incommensurable. If one does not do that it is too easy to dub something "incommensurable" even before it is understood or assessed. This is especially true on issues that are emotionally fraught.

Of course there are some difficulties in this thread, such as the difficulty that @Bob Ross' views tend to be a bit original and therefore idiosyncratic. It is understandable that one may prefer to save their labored dialogues for an interlocutor whose arguments are very common or well-represented. Bob is no plagiarist. Some of his premises are idiosyncratic and some are not, but he writes his arguments himself.

I’m not kidding or exaggerating even a little bit. — Millard J Melnyk

Does it follow that your OP and all of the posts you have written within this thread are irrational?

Thanks for the link to "Judith Butler on Gender Performativity." Most illuminating (in a dark sort of way, if you know what I mean). — Gregory of the Beard of Ockham

You're welcome. I think it provides the sort of argumentation and rationale that @Bob Ross was after in the OP.

Yes, words change over time. As our understanding of mental health changes, so do the meanings of the relevant words. This does not mean that merely defining a word as it is used today is a substantive claim. It is definitional. Whereas, the claim "schizophrenia is not a mental illness" would be substantive. Accepting it would require a significant revision of our understanding of schizophrenia, and so to the meaning of the term. — hypericin

So you are now advancing the claim that, "Schizophrenia is a mental illness" is not a substantive claim, but, "Schizophrenia is not a mental illness" is a substantive claim. It seems that all you mean by "substantive" is, "contrary to the current widespread view."

@Bob Ross is presumably quite aware that the idea is contrary to the current widespread view, so there's no trouble there. And of course "bigotry" does not mean, "contrary to the current widespread view," so this notion of "substantive" doesn't seem to take us anywhere.

Indeed, the only philosophical significance of something being contrary to the current widespread view is that it has the burden of proof within that cultural context.

Amusing that you think you can know that. I will try to define only rhetorical bigotry, the relevant form here:

The ascription of negative qualities onto a population based on their group identity, which are not intrinsic to that group's membership criteria. — hypericin

Is this taken from some source or are you coming up with it yourself?

The problem with this definition is that it hearkens back to the same we've already been over. Your charge amounts to something like, "Ross has falsely ascribed negative qualities to a group." That's the question at stake. What is needed are arguments pro and contra. It does no good to simply claim that Ross has uttered a falsehood if you have no argument to back up your claim. Besides, this is not the definition of bigotry.

It is just historical reality that exactly these claims were leveled against homosexuals, that they were immoral and mentally ill. And which were used to justify repression, including forced institutionalization. Do you think those claims were merely the result of the inquiry of curious minds? Or were they both reflections of social prejudices and tools used to legitimatize repression? — hypericin

If someone uses a shovel to smash in a man's face, should we outlaw shovels?

The underlying problem is that you are imputing bad motives without good evidence. You must argue your case, not merely assert it.

Following up on this, two resources are the Girgis/George/Anderson document, “What is Marriage,” as well as Peter Simpson’s article, “Legalizing Same Sex Marriage.” The first document is helpful in many ways, but I think Simpson's piece is more incisive, not to mention shorter.

I would depart from Simpson’s conclusions by claiming that political forms should favor the ideal in one way or another, and that because of this his conclusions are premature. For example, I do not think that a contraceptive mentality departs from the ideal of marriage to the same extent that a homosexual mentality does, and therefore I see Simpson’s equating of these two possibilities as flawed. Indeed, Aquinas explicitly opposes Simpson's thesis in this matter.

But again, I see the objection from infertile couples as failing to recognize the difference between an exception and a rule. An infertile opposite-sex couple is an exception; whereas an infertile same-sex couple is a necessity. It is in no way out of the ordinary for law to track natural exceptions with legal exceptions.

Of course, that the LGBT advocate cannot see this is due to their post hoc rationalization, and Simpson’s conclusions may well be vindicated within a culture that is steeped in these forms of post hoc rationalization. He is surely right that if we make the novel definition of marriage coherent we will learn how significantly we have departed from the historical tradition.

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

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

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

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

- 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.

- Understood. :up:

@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.

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

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.

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.

No one -- absolutely no one -- thinks about Aristotle while fucking. — Moliere

As in, yet again, here we are, in the same dumb bullshit I've always dealt with because Christians really care a lot about how others fuck -- not because they're fucking, but because others fuck wrong. — Moliere

This is the sort of hyperbolic, elevated, aggressive, intentionally insulting language that intentionally makes these issues impossible to discuss rationally.

Look, I didn't want to say it out loud, but I have you on ignore. I have for a long time. I had to take you off ignore to read your post, and it was the same sort of emotional post I've come to expect from you. Only a tiny minority of conversations I've ever had with you have gone anywhere. It honestly seems to me that the reasoning you consistently employ, in thread after thread, is purely emotional. That's why I don't usually engage you anymore. <This post> was the breaking point for me, four months ago. @Jamal read my dismissal as uniquely related to this thread and this topic, but it's not. I find Moliere's posts to lack cogency in general. I should have anticipated the way this would be construed as having to do with the topic at hand rather than Moliere in particular.

But it's worth noting that I highlighted what @Moliere said, claimed it is irrational, claimed that it will fall under its own weight, and decided not to engage further. This is much more charitable than trying to undermine @Moliere's claim through a sort of genetic ad hominem (which is precisely why I wanted to avoid delving into the fact that I have @Moliere on ignore, the leveraging of which is in itself is a mild form of (arguably non-fallacious) ad hominem).

It looks entirely irrelevant to the point at hand. — Moliere

Well you've moved from "no difference in the world" to 's "no relevant difference," and I'm guessing that, at least on your pen, this idea of "no relevant difference" is an unfalsifiable claim. If it's not then you would need to spell out what it means.

It's a bit crazy that @Jamal accuses me of being engaged in "bullshit eristic" because he thought that I failed to interpret "no difference in the world" as "no relevant difference." This is wrong on so many levels. If someone wants to say "no relevant difference," then they obviously do not want to say, "no difference in the world." Further, hyperbolic speech on emotionally fraught issues is itself irresponsible. But beyond all that, my response in no way requires ignoring the hyperbolic nature of @Moliere's speech. @Moliere's claim looks to be clearly wrong even when interpreted hyperbolically.

The way that members are being treated in this thread is exhausting, and would not fly in any other thread. ...And it is moderators who are behind much of it. :yikes:

Leon, you go on about true philosophical engagement but this exchange between yourself and Moliere demonstrates perfectly that it must be bullshit. You know very well that Moliere meant there is no relevant difference, and yet you chose to pretend you didn't know it. It's eristic, clear as day. — Jamal

No, this isn't true at all, and I think it shows up your own biases. You are again much too quick to jump to incriminations due to the emotional volatility of this issue.

Here is the proposition that Moliere (and you?) claim is true: <There is no relevant difference between an organ that is inherently sterile and an organ that is accidentally sterile (or sterile through some impediment)>.

The most obvious reason this proposition is false is because an organ that is inherently sterile is relevantly different from an organ that is sterile through some impediment. If you are a doctor and a woman comes to you saying, "I am having vaginal sex and I haven't been able to get pregnant, can you help me?," and a man comes saying, "I am having anal sex and I haven't been able to get pregnant, can you help me?," then you would try to help the woman but not the man. This is because conceiving new life in one's womb is metaphysically possible and even normal, whereas conceiving new life in one's anus is not metaphysically possible. This dovetails with the epistemic point I made, "The other issue here is that sterility is not only difficult to identify with certainty [...] but that there are tons of cases where supposedly 'sterile' couples eventually do conceive."

The other case is where the natural sterility is not due to a treatable impediment and we know this with perfect certainty. I think this case is still wrong, and easily known to be wrong. But offers no argument for his position. He only offers an abrupt, Monty Python-style contradiction, and that in response to a substantial post that I wrote out. In this case you would have to specify what counts or does not count as "relevant," for that is in no way obvious, and a simple contradiction doesn't constructively further the conversation in any way.

- Nowhere. I am happy to ignore someone who takes your position. I think its sheer lack of rationality will sort itself out, and I think the presence of that irrational claim in a public setting supports the position I've laid out.

If I am wrong then it is only to my detriment to ignore such a powerfully rational claim, but I'll take my chances.

(And note that it is possible to simply ignore positions or claims with which one disagrees.)

There is not any difference in the world -- only in the philosopher's mind. — Moliere

You are claiming that there is no difference between a womb that cannot conceive and an anus that cannot conceive. That there "is not any difference in the world" between the not-being-able-to-conceive of the two particular organs in question.

I need not argue against such a position. I need only describe it to show its rational poverty.

This is what I mean by arguments from procreation being too weak. They have not traditionally been thought to preclude sterile heterosexual couples from marrying. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Okay, but I would encourage people to actually look at an argument from a philosopher who has written on this topic either formally or informally. I just don't know any arguments that fall into the problem you've identified. Else, maybe try to formulate the argument that you are arguing against?

The general question here is to ask whether there is a real distinction to be made between, say, anal sex and coitus, even when one of the partners engaged in the coitus is naturally sterile. I think there is a very obvious distinction to be made. The position which wants to say, "If marriage cannot be between people of the same sex, then marriage cannot be between any sterile couple," is basing itself on the reasoning which says that there is no real distinction to be made between those two acts. I don't think any of that makes sense. There is a difference between an organ that is inherently sterile and an organ that is accidentally sterile (or sterile through some impediment).

The other issue here is that the arguments around marriage are generally political arguments and not moral arguments (in the sense of being restricted to individual morality). The reason societies throughout history have recognized marriage between couples of the opposite sex but not the same sex really is based on the procreative nature of opposite-sex unions. That sterile couples were not barred from marriage does not mean that marriage is unrelated to procreation. A sterile person is precisely an exception to the rule that people are not sterile, and a sterile opposite-sex union is an exception to the rule that opposite-sex unions are not sterile. A sterile same-sex union is not at all an exception; it is a metaphysical necessity. The modal reasoning is unable to take exceptional cases into account; the essentialist reasoning is not. ...The other issue here is that sterility is not only difficult to identify with certainty, involves an invasion of privacy, and is costly to verify, but that there are tons of cases where supposedly "sterile" couples eventually do conceive.

With that said, it is surely true that the intentional sterility of our culture mitigates the force of arguments connecting marriage to procreation, as I alluded to <here>.

(I'm a bit short on time, which is one reason why I don't want to open up this can of worms at the moment.)

- I can see that you will just continue to offer the challenge, "If you can't show that it is tout court inferior...," each time refusing to say what the hell it would mean for something to be "tout court inferior." It's like saying, "I will graciously acknowledge that if you can falsify X then your claim will be valid. Also, I have devised X in such a way that it is unfalsifiable by its very definition. So good luck with that!" I can see that you have no argument beyond an unfalsifiable condition and a mere shifting of the burden of proof.

I think we're done, no?

- I did. It looks like an ox. Now challenge yourself in the same way you just challenged me.

It simply aint going to fly. — Janus

Yes, disproving an unfalsifiable claim does not generally fly. So your unfalsifiable claim is secure. It will not be disproved. When you make "overall inferiority" into a square circle you guarantee that no one will be able to show that anything is (or isn't, by the way) "overall inferior," but you do so at the cost of rational coherence.

Since we are being pedantic, let's amend the supposition: — hypericin

By all means feel free to amend the argument if you think it can be improved. I was simply using your own language as a starting point.

Supposition: It is bigotry to substantively call an entire class of people mentally ill.

"Schizophrenics are mentally ill" is not a substantive claim, it proceeds from the definition of "schizophrenic". To know the word is to know that "mental illness" and "schizophrenia" stand in a genus - species relationship. It offers nothing new to the competent language user.

This is not at all the case with "Ali Chinese are mentally disabled" or "all trans people are mentally ill". — hypericin

Let's look at how you hope your new supposition changes the conclusion:

1a. Supposition: It is bigotry to substantively call an entire class of people mentally ill
2a. Mental illnesses non-substantively call an entire class of people mentally ill
3a. Therefore, it does not follow that anyone who believes in mental illness is a bigot

I see what you are trying to do, but I don't think your distinction between substantive and non-substantive holds up. Here's why:

To know the word is to know that "mental illness" and "schizophrenia" stand in a genus - species relationship. It offers nothing new to the competent language user. — hypericin

"Schizophrenia is a mental illness," is not a tautology. Things such as schizophrenia are added and removed from the list of mental illnesses, and therefore such predication cannot be tautologous. For example, one of the newest mental illnesses in the DSM-5-TR is prolonged grief disorder. It was added in 2022. In 2021 it was not considered a mental illness. This is one sure reason why we know that, "X is a mental illness," is not a tautological ("non-substantive") claim.

I do not accept this definition. I can make any number of claims that are clearly identifiable as bigoted, without requiring a personalized, subjective assessment of just how obstinate I am in my beliefs. — hypericin

Then feel free to provide your own definition. I was just taking a common one. My points will hold with any genuine definition of "bigotry."

As others here have pointed out, this post takes part in the ignoble philosophical tradition of providing intellectual scaffolding for state-sponsored bigotry. — hypericin

But this begs the question at hand, namely the question of whether it is bigotry. That's the very thing you've been failing to demonstrate, and three people have now pointed out the fallacious quality of your arguments for that conclusion.

The crux here is that you want to maintain that it is correct for you to call "bigotry" anything you think is really bad. The problem is that that's not what "bigotry" means. Not everything that you think is really bad is bigotry. "This is really bad, therefore it is bigotry," is an invalid inference.