From: robj@netcom.com (Rob Jellinghaus)
Subject: Re: Morally good necessary possible sometimes possible reproductiveness
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Distribution: net
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 18:27:18 GMT

In article <1992Dec21.065346.18751@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:
>In article <1992Dec21.074709.26608@netcom.com> 
>robj@netcom.com (Rob Jellinghaus) writes:
>>This debate is not purely theoretical.  If it were, I would not be
>>reading it and participating in it from alt.politics.homosexuality.
>>I happen to be interested in disseminating accurate information about
>>homosexuality to as wide an audience as possible.  This conversation
>>with you is part of that.
>
>I have no interest in discussing your notion of theoretical purity,
>beyond establishing whether you assent to my dismissal of popular
>consensus, which is a necessary condition for making any meaningful
>progress in this conversation.

And I have repeatedly asserted that I do not believe you will alter
your position regardless of what happens in our discussion.  Let me
be perfectly clear:  I believe you are as fixed in your beliefs as
Clayton Cramer is in his.  I do not believe you will alter your
position one iota, no matter what arguments anyone musters against
you.  I believe you will continue to post your position essentially
unaltered for years to come, as long as you have access to the net.

Thus, I am attempting to uncover your assumptions and arguments, in
order to present my opposing position.  I do this hoping that our
audience will determine for itself which of us is correct, since I
know you will not admit defeat.

>MZ:
>>>In any case, if you sincerely believe that
>>>popular consensus regards homosexual sex as morally unimpeachable, you
>>>are utterly out of touch with social reality.
>
>RJ:
>>Oh, I'm under no such illusions.
>
>I am gratified to hear this.  Shall we then dismiss popular consensus
>as irrelevant, because irrational?

Not at all.  Popular consensus can change over time as a result of
ongoing dialogue and access to accurate information.  I am working
to bring about just such a change.

>To reiterate some of my assumptions, I take it that rational discourse,
>in particular rational moral discourse, is both possible and desirable,
>and so take human freedom of choice and rationality as its logical
>prerequisites.  I take it that absolute moral principles bind all
>rational agents in accordance with their fundamental nature, and
>regardless of their particular goals or circumstances.  I take it that
>rationality, sexuality, and mortality belong to the fundamental nature
>of human beings, and accordingly are possessed of a moral dimension.
>The rest is commentary.

Your definitions of "absolute moral principles", "fundamental nature",
and "rational agents" are at issue here.  I assert you have chosen
definitions for these terms that you can use to support your philo-
sophical argument against homosexuality.  I do not believe that your
definitions are acceptable.

>Regarding your distinction of victimhood, I maintain that it begs the
>question. ....

And I maintain otherwise.  Your parable seems to have no bearing on my
question.  Where are the victims of homosexuality?  Who is harmed by
mutually consensual homosexual behavior?  Is it your claim that
fundamentalists are harmed because such behavior is against their
religion?  Your example of a Christian thief robbing a rich man to
help the rich man get into heaven has no obvious relevance to the
question I asked.  Can you elucidate?

>On my own view, borne out by my argument that homosexual sex is a grave
>transgression against the moral nature of man, all participants therein
>are victims of their akrastic inability to control their passions.

This you have repeatedly stated, and I do not doubt you will continue
to so state as long as you have net access.  Once again, I assert that
your definition of "moral nature of man" is specifically chosen to
exclude homosexuality, and that other definitions are both possible,
philosophically consistent, and more socially worthwhile.

Unfortunately I am not a philosopher, and do not have the time to
expend doing research to battle you on your own philosophical turf.
I'm spending at least an hour a day on these conversations as is,
and you by your own admission have spent years carefully crafting
these anti-gay arguments.  I will simply note that unless all the
philosophers in the world agree with every point you have made,
there are clearly lots of differing philosophical positions, and
there are many grounds on which to choose between them.  

>MZ:
>>>Of course, everything depends on your definition of
>>>well-being.  I note in passing that the one homosexual I knew best,
>>>loathed his not altogether freely chosen lifestyle so much, that he
>>>drank himself to death.
>
>RJ:
>>You are utterly out of touch with social reality if you think this had
>>nothing to do with the amount of bigotry directed against those with
>>his "lifestyle".
>
>You are utterly full of shit, if you think you can tell me something
>about the pitiful situation of my best friend, without bothering to
>inquire about his circumstances.

What were his circumstances?  And no, I do not believe that I am
necessarily full of shit.  You describe him as hating his "lifestyle".
Why did he hate it?  As I and many others have pointed out repeatedly,
there is nothing about being homosexual that _a priori_ implies an
unhappy life.  In my experience, the most common contributing causes
of suicide among gays is despair at feeling inferior and stigmatized.
Statistics on teen suicide support this claim.  I do not know how much
of your friend's sad condition was due to causes such as this, but I
do not doubt these issues played a part.  Am I wrong?

Pardon my candor, but if this man really was your best friend, and if
you shared your opinions with him as you have with us on the net, I
can believe you might have convinced him that his basic sexual
inclination was fundamentally at odds with basic human nature, and
that behaving according to his basic instincts would be a morally
wrong thing to do.  This is after all what you have been saying here.
If you did so convince him, then I _definitely_ believe this played a
part in his despair.

>>One cannot necessarily show premisses to be in error, since they are
>>initial assumptions.  If you would simply and plainly state your
>>premises, we might be able to discuss things more easily.
>
>See above.

I do not consider your above presentation to be sufficiently plain.
You have simply referred to "fundamental nature", "absolute moral
standards", and suchlike, as though mentioning a term defined it.
I reiterate:  your definitions for those terms have been chosen to
support your argument, and other definitions are both possible and
preferable.

>>the debate will never make
>>any progress towards changing your mind.
>
>Can you entertain the thought that this impasse may be due to the fact
>that my opponents have a hard time accepting that I am right?

I certainly can.  I do not believe that is the case, any more than
I believe Clayton Cramer is right simply because his opponents have
failed to get him to admit he is wrong.

>You will never convict me of bigotry, since should you ever
>prove that my beliefs are irrational, I would immediately abandon them.
>Surely a commitment to revise irrational beliefs is a necessary
>condition of rationality, just as irrationality is a necessary condition
>of bigotry.

Such a commitment is necessary but not sufficient.  I believe that you
hold irrational beliefs which you claim are rational, and no amount of
argument will persuade you to admit otherwise.  In this case, your
commitment to change should you be proven wrong is irrelevant, since
you will never admit to being wrong.

-- 
Rob Jellinghaus    |  "Next time you see a lie being spread or a bad 
robj@netcom.com    |   decision being made out of sheer ignorance,
robj@xanadu.com    |   pause, and think of hypertext."
uunet!netcom!robj  |       -- K. Eric Drexler, _Engines of Creation_
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