From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc,rec.arts.books,alt.politics.homosexuality
Subject: Re: Morally good necessary possible sometimes possible reproductiveness
Date: 18 Dec 92 02:33:28 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Dec17.213330.18648
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <MATT.92Dec17123819@physics2.berkeley.edu>
matt@physics.berkeley.edu writes:

>In article <1992Dec17.193101.3978@cbnewsj.cb.att.com>
>ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) writes:

ECL:
>>As far as I could tell from the articles on my system, your syllogism
>>went as follows:
>>	Given, 1) Only potentially productive unions are moral.
>>	And given, 2) The union of two males is not potentially productive.
>>	Therefore, 3) The union of two males is not moral.
>
>>If #1 was somehow the conclusion (derived principle?) of some other chain
>>of reasoning, that chain is no longer on my system.

That is no excuse for assuming that (1) is a premiss.  In fact, I start
with the assumption that rational investigation of human moral ends is
both desirable and possible.  Both freedom of will and rationality are
prerequisites for such investigation; empirical observation suffices to
establish the fundamental relevance of human mortality and sexuality
(cf. my discussion of Bataille).  The hypothesis that the *moral* end of
human sexiality is reproduction, is confirmed by exhaustion of
alternatives, -- what else could it be?

MA:
>I think most people haven't focused on this rather glaring omission,
>since Zeleny has yet to provide a coherent definition of what
>"potentially productive" even means.  Once he shows that this concept
>makes sense, then he can begin to argue why it is morally significant.

On the contrary, I have provided a precise modal definition of potential
reproductiveness, as arising from the compatibility of genotypes with
the possibility of reproduction.  Recall that I regard masculine and
feminine gender as necessarily correlated with genotypes XY and XX,
respectively; also recall that Kripkean metaphysics regards his
particular genotype as an essential property of each man.

MA:
>Me, I think the whole discussion is silly anyway.  Most of the things
>that I do, in bed and otherwise, have no connection with reproduction
>at all; should I give up eating cheesecake, reading netnews, and
>calculating Feynman integrals just because none of those things can
>lead to making more babies?

This is a frivolous objection.  Each type of activities has its moral
end; however it does not follow that there is a unique moral end for all
types of activities.  Your fallacy is commonly known as an illegal
quantifier switch, though I am sure that someone with more classical
erudition could come up with a nice Latin description...

MA:
>(Well, maybe I should give up reading netnews, but that's not the
>reason...)

>--
>Matthew Austern                   Just keep yelling until you attract a
>(510) 644-2618                    crowd, then a constituency, a movement, a
>austern@lbl.bitnet                faction, an army!  If you don't have any
>matt@physics.berkeley.edu         solutions, become a part of the problem!

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l'esprit des hommes."
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc,sci.philosophy.tech