From: msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris)
Subject: Re: The word "homophobic"
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 17:35:45 GMT


                                    Monday, the 14th of December, 1992

Mikhail writes:
  Cruelty is not a weapon, Mike; as I suggested above, it is rather a
  constituent part of, and raw material for, any moral system you might
  come up with.  All talk about subordination just gets us back to the
  issue of sublimation.  No, I regard cruelty, and its gregarious
  offspring, strife, as valuable in and of themselves, inasmuch as
  anything which is not the Good, the True, or the Beautiful may be
  valued at all.  That is to say, their intrinsic worth is solely in the
  realm of appearances.

Good, then I see that you concede my point, inasmuch (that is) as cruelty is
neither the Good, the True, nor the Beautiful.

  Time for another instance of trademark name-drop cum literary
  reference: Albert Camus, _Le mythe de Sisyphe_.  I do hope you take a
  breather atop that hill, now and then.

My memory has it that Camus would have us affirm both the absurdity
of our labour and the struggle to keep on keeping on, or as Beckett
puts it ``I can't go on. I'll go on.''

  Are you seriously suggesting that the deliberate ruffling of feathers
  constitutes an ethical breach, exactly insofar as it involves a
  conscious insouciance for others?

Yes, I think that's what I said, and I still do consider it accurate
I'm afraid.

                                    Mike, every time I open a water
  tap, I perpetrate conscious insouciance for others, exactly isofar as
  I elect to consume limited resources in disregard of their needs!

One does many daily things in conscious insouciance of others. But,
this is the first time I've met with the idea that turning on
the tap was equatable with deliberately ruffling someone's feathers.

                                                        More concretely,
  it may well be that the feathers of others stand in *ethical* need of
  being ruffled, precisely to the extent their (elide the b-word!)
  complacency succeeds in replacing the meaningful, invigorating conduct
  of moral discourse with the mollificative and mechanical making of
  obeisance to manners.

What scares me is that I understood that. If you'll look back at what
I said, you'll see that I worded it precisely to concede the
possibility of an *ethical* ruffling of feathers. No quarrels
from me about that. What's touching is that you would let
on here to the fact that you care.

Whether you really are playing the Socratic gadfly, on the other hand,
is an open question to me. In the case of Gene, perhaps you are aiming
at some good other than baiting him for your own entertainment. In the case
of Terrance, your exercise of cruelty seemed pretty pointlessly sophomoric.
  
Mikhail wrote:
  Bean-counter.  My soul attains its highest state of excitation through
  the action of adrenalin on my body (must have something to do with
  that pineal gland...).  You see, I told you that cruelty was possessed
  of high moral value!

I asked:
  What cruelty?
  
He responds:
  Why, the very sort that precipitates the action of adrenalin on my body.

Oh, that cruelty.
  
I explained:
         ``Bean-counter'' is another name I'm actually proud to
  own. In fact, I think it was my very first freshman physics lab in which
  I was handed 500 red kidney beans to compile length statistics on by
  measuring them (all) with a micrometer. I aced the course, but I figure
  I ended up a general-relativity theorist because of it.
  
Mikhail asked:
  Is this coming from the same fellow who likes to deride others for
  their simple-minded notions of causality?

Shameless, am I not?
  
I wrote: 
  You yourself seem rather fixated on this bourgeois usage of ``r*d**m*d''.
  
Mikhail responds:
  Allow me this minor indulgence of imitating my deconstructionist
  enemies by placing the term _sous rature_.

Consider it as being blotted out from the memory of man.
  
I said:
  Regarding ``good'' again, as in calling me ``good bougeois liberal'',
  Mikhail asks:
    Have you considered broadening your outlook?

And I responded: 
  Have you considered that my outlook might be good?
  
Mikhail writes:
  That's just what's being questioned here, Mike.  Still, feel free to
  ignore my vile jests forthwith.

Were you jesting? But you know I always take you seriously, Mikhail.
  
I said:
  It is because I regard the moral condemnation of homosexual intercourse
  *per se* as intuitively unacceptable that I am interested in finding
  out what are the first principles you base your condemnation of it
  on.

Mikhail writes:
  Again, our beef seems to be over fundamental issues.  Assuming, that
  is, that your moral philosophy is founded in something more solid than
  your intuitive judgment of (un)acceptability.

I thought I told you my moral judgment was based on the harm that
actions cause to others and to one's self. Homosexual intercourse
seems to me to do no essential harm either to one's self or
to another, and it also seems to me to be as good a platform as
much heterosexual sex upon which to occasion positive good for
another as well as for one's self, so I see no *natural* argument
condemning it, given what I understand to be the essential freedom of
human nature.
  
  Sexuality is complementary to mortality; see my synopsis of Bataille
  elsewhere.  As for mortality becoming an engineering question in the
  near future, keep dreaming.  Even if that should come to pass, there
  is no reason to suppose that the fundamental nature of human beings is
  invulnerable to change.  Free will is, of course, a prerequisite for
  all moral discourse, which I neglected to articulate.

Free will is also, I would say, an essential characteristic of human
nature, perhaps *the* essential characteristic, distinguishing the
primary way in which men differ from animals and algorithmic computer
programs and zenigmatically conscious rocks.

Yet I remarked another freedom, which wasn't just the freedom
to choose between good and evil, but the freedom to choose among
many good paths.

(I'm not holding my breath for nanotechnological cell repair. But
it might well be reasonable for my grandkids to. And did you mean
your penultimate sentence above to be exactly that? It'd sound
more incisive if ``invulnerable'' were changed to ``vulnerable'', is
all.)
  
  Mike, please read my responses to Luke and others.  I have no time to
  repeat the same simple points over and over.  Believe it or not, --
  and I really don't care whether you, or anyone else who happens to
  read these lines, will take my word for it, -- the kinds of technical
  distinctions I make are incontrovertible, and largely uncontroversial
  in present-day moral philosophy.  (The way I apply them is another
  matter; but that, I suspect, is due mostly to political exigencies.)
  Once again, the moral aspect of an agent's sexuality is constituted by
  the intrinsic moral nature of his sexual acts; the latter in turn is
  determined by the breakdown into morally praiseworthy, morally
  neutral, or morally blameworthy, according as the generative capacity
  is exercised, deliberately avoided, or necessarily excluded by the act
  itself, never mind any of its contingent consequences.

I have no doubt now that your *logic* is incontrovertible. It just sounds
to me like: ``(1) One is under a moral imperative to diddlyfarb. 
(2) Most people don't diddlyfarb most of the time. (3) So, let
us distinguish between ordinary non-diddlyfarbing and special
(or ``necessary'') non-diddlyfarbing, and only morally condemn
the special kind. (4) Special non-diddlyfarbing shall henceforth be
defined to mean homosexual intercourse. (5) Ergo, homosexual intercourse
is morally condemnable.'' I have no problem seeing that (5) follows.
My problem is mainly that (4) is not in any way a *natural* definition,
it is contrived precisely to yield you (5), and not to condemn anything
you don't want to condemn along the way. The most natural consequence of (1)
and (2) to me might be only to condemn the deliberate choice never to
diddlyfarb. Either that, or to condemn all individual deliberately
non-generative sex.

A diagram might be helpful. We have to consider:

A). Heterosexual intercourse
B). Heterosexual contracepted intercourse
C). Heterosexual non-vaginal sex
D). Homosexual sex
E). Celibacy
F). Masturbation

In terms of *generation*, only A) does the trick, with the possible
inclusion of B), given the slight imperfection of birth control. That is,
of course, if you still mean to consider only single sexual encounters.
If you are rather meaning a lifetime of behaviour (which I think
was the Greek way, and certainly much the wiser course with respect to
the question of generation), then I can see grouping
the first three together *within the institution of marriage
and under the commitment of having children*. The first three might
all be considered activities that advance a baby-making union (that is,
it being always understood here that making babies is your commandment).
But you seem to want to draw the line between C) and D) for single
sexual acts without reference to whether there's a commitment ever
to make babies. I mean fine, you can do that, and make your logic
right by definition, but what reference to reality does it make? Again, you 
carve off F) because you *define* ``sexual'' as requiring at least two
participants.  Yet you lumped deliberate celibacy with homosexual sex for
its failure to honour the generative capacity. Now, I see only two definitions
of ``sexual'' that I would think are natural. The first (I prefer) would
refer to any use or deliberate non-use of the sexual organs, i.e. would
include behaviours A) through F). The second would be to do as K.J. Dover
does and divide acts into sexual and parasexual on something like your
generative basis (i.e. to say we have the organs *for* generation---
something I have indicated is not at all clear to me---and those behaviours
are sexual which are at least possibly generative, or A) and possibly
B) only). I see no natural way, though to include homosexual sex as
sexual, but to exclude masturbation as not sexual.

I said:
  I think that the only necessity relevant for deciding whether
  any sexual act is covered by a moral standard which
  takes generation as an imperative is the causal necessity appealed
  to by the human beings making the choice not to generate. In
  this sense, I fail to see the essential difference between choosing
  to have homosexual intercourse and choosing to engage in heterosexual
  oral sex.  Both deny the generative capacity to the same degree
  of *necessity*.
  
Mikhail responded:
  Bullshit.  For one thing, only one of them allows the participants to
  deliberately switch to a potentially generative venue, *within* the
  sexual union.  Thus the degree of necessity differs, for even a barren
  heterosexual couple will still possess the sexual equipment inherently
  compatible with reproductive ends.

Nonsense. There's nothing preventing a homosexual couple exactly
in the middle of lovemaking to choose to go off and have generative
sex. Nothing *essentially* excludes this. They haven't cut off their
equipment, denied its existence, or otherwise failed to thank God
for the gift. They've just put it to a pleasurable use, just like
a contraceptive heterosexual couple, and they can at any time choose,
just like the heterosexual couple, to do something different.
  
  I trust you will do the right thing, whatever it might be; in any
  case, you would only need to put your scientific career on hold for a
  couple of decades, or so.

Well, I don't know about the right thing, but, I'll hope to
manage the good thing.
  
  You choose your behavior, which underlies, but does not constitute,
  your fundamental identity, whether sexual or personal.  Try as you
  might, you could no more choose to be a woman, than you could choose
  to be me.

But, again, I do choose my behaviour. I certainly cannot choose
to be a woman or you, but perhaps you can say why I should not choose
to behave like a woman or you?
  
MZ:
  That's a red herring, though certainly also a _Roter Fadian_, if you
  know your Freud.  Incidentally, I find the term `Holocaust' to be
  rather inappropriate, for reasons of etymology.  Finally, I would
  prefer not to contribute to the fulfillment of Godwin's Law.

I'm afraid I don't know my Freud. As I've remarked before though, I have
listened to Bruno Bettelheim complaining about `Holocaust' for the same reason
of etymology---he considered it impious to mix the sacred up with the most
evil of human works. Personally, I like Elie Wiesel's coinage for exactly
this reason. It is because ``Where was God?'' is the most natural
question in the world to ask. I also liked Bettelheim's answer to the
old man in the audience who asked it: ``Where was man?'', but I found
this second question could not fully assuage the rebel's anger aroused
by God's essential silence to the first.
  
I said:
  (Though I would prefer to command affirmation of the ``common world''
  ---meaning the total legacy of culture, including children---instead of
  just children.)
  
Mikhail responded:
  I believe that the morally relevant world is no more common than Aristotle.

I believe the usage comes from Hannah Arendt. And I do think you
are making a mistake to insist on generation. For what it is worth,
while I do not buy protestations of overpopulation, I do not believe
that anyone should choose to have a child, who doesn't *want* that
child, and I believe that forcing, or strongly urging, the generation
of possibly unwanted children is a mistake.
  
I asked:
  Then who is it exactly who has this right in one's person?
  Do you mean one's parents? Or God?
  
Mikhail responded:
  Why, of course a Platonic universal, "one over many".

Why, of course not. Unless you want to launch into your
special definition here for this ``right'' in one's person?
  
Mikhail wrote:
  On the contrary, if sexuality is possessed of moral value, then any
  instance of willful deviation of one's sexuality from its moral ends
  (that is, the moral ends of the agent in his sexuality) may be counted
  as immoral, especially if this deviation involves a fundamental
  incompatibility of the participants and their moral ends.

I responded, where he has now commented it:
    At first you seem to say that all the deliberately non-generative
    sex that my wife and I have had, and will continue to have, is
  							     ^^
  I say "may be", e.g. as done by the Catholic doctrine.
    immoral. Then there's the ``especially'' meant to catch homosexual
    sex. Is there another reason for ``especially''?

  To distinguish my doctrine from that of Aquinas.

Then, either you do condemn all of the *deliberately* non-generative
sex my wife and I have had, or this ``may be'' condemns not
homosexual intercourse in the same way---i.e., insofar as
the homosexual intercourse may fit within a whole, otherwise
generative life.
  
I had asked:
  Are you meaning morally repugnant or is it rather aesthetically repugnant?
  
Mikhail responded (*):
  What's the difference?
  
I wrote:
                                             But, lest you are too
  quick to lump me with the Stagirite, let me say that I believe
  there's a unification theory. I just don't think it comes from
  getting all New-Age weepy and mystical, or that speculations on
  aesthetics immediately export into ethical commandments.

Mikhail asks:
  Who said anything about immediacy?

You did. (cf. (*) above) Again, there may well be an underlying unity,
but, it doesn't mean that moral repugnance and aesthetic repugnance
are the same thing.

Here are a couple of literary examples of what I mean:

  The Master spoke of the Succession Dance as being perfect beauty
  and at the same time perfect goodness; but of the War Dance as being
  perfect beauty, but not perfect goodness. [_The Analects_, III.25, tr.
                                            by Arthur Waley]

           The Lover tells of the Rose in his Heart

  All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,
  The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart,
  The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould,
  Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.

  The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told;
  I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart,
  With the earth and the sky and the water, re-made, like a casket of gold
  For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.
                                       W.B. Yeats

The Yeats poem I think is particularly telling. ``The wrong of
unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told.'' If we were
to follow that aesthetic impulse, what would we not do to the
crying baby? In my experience there is no noise more intrinsically
upsetting than that of a crying child, not chalk squeaking on a
blackboard, nor the harsh clamoring for attention of a television set.
But the television set I'd turn off, kill in other words. Why not do
the same to the baby? That is, if there is no separate ethical judgment
to be made?

I do not deny that you can unify Beauty and the Good. I just deny
that you can do so all the way along each of the paths.

Regarding the unity of the Good, Beauty, and Truth, I said:
  But this was exactly my point. They are three independent quests,
  a Platonic unity a possibility only at a supra- (as distinct
  from infra-) rational endpoint.
  
Mikhail responds:
  I see either no ground, or no need for this distinction, depending on
  what you mean by it.  Please elaborate, so that I may destroy it
  conclusively.

You're misreading Plato. He says no to rock & roll because
it is going to excite the infrarational passions. The Good, on
the other hand (and presumably Beauty, which you are
wanting to unify with it) lies beyond reason itself, meaning it
is not rational in and of itself, but you have to go through
reason, exhausting reason, to get to to it.
  
  What is "Elevating the wrong category of judgment"?  In any event, how
  does your point vitiate my implied Platonic assertion?

It doesn't vitiate it. It just challenges you to tell where the unity
is. ``Elevating the wrong category of judgment'' means doing to the baby
what you might ethically do to the TV set.
  
Regarding the Nazis' notion of racial purity, Mikhail responds:  
  Well, it is a stupid aesthetic concept, and _ipso facto_, a stupid
  ethical concept.  You are playing in my hands.

Why stupid? Picasso sticking to blue or rose was stupid? Aristotle's
unities were stupid?
  
I asked:
  Can I take it then that we are agreed that aesthetics and ethics are
  distinct, except for the possibility of this Platonic unification?
  
Mikhail responds:
  Of course not!  Where did you get any inkling of this agreement?

I grant the possibility of the Platonic unification, I grant the
possibility that the correct ethics and aesthetics are interleaved
such as to allow no conflict. Do you not yet concede that
aesthetic judgments, if made without reference to ethical concern,
can be in conflict with ethical judgments?
  
Mikhail writes:
  Mike, I am just not terribly interested in condemning acts that do not
  involve other people.  As Baudelaire observed, the most annoying thing
  about love, is that it is a crime, which always requires an
  accomplice.  If you insist, yes, masturbation is wrong, precisely to
  the extent that any waste of time may be wrong.  Still, it beats
  watching television, -- for its nature is not nearly as stultifying.
  With bestiality and necrophilia, things are a bit worse, as both acts
  involve a certain degree of attachment to unworthy objects.  But
  homosexuality, which involves willing participation of another human
  being in an essentially barren sexual activity, seems to me very
  nearly exemplary of sexual perversion, second only to erotic murder in
  its blameworthiness.

Well, your last flourish maybe earns some of Gene's outrage, but,
as I've already mentioned above, you've condemned priestly celibacy
for the same sexual-ethical reason you condemned homosexual intercourse.
And yet priestly celibacy surely invloves no more people than masturbation.
And not just as a possible waste of time, but because of an essential
denial of generative capacity. Why doesn't masturbation fall under
the same proscription? You can't say well, the masturbator fully
intends to engage in generative intercourse at another time, because
you have restricted your attention to individual acts, and, after all,
the person engaged in homosexual intercourse might want to make exactly the
same plea.
  
  Define sublimation.

Are you saying that for sex to be moral it must be an act of worship,
a subordination of the will to some externally prescribed and
circumscribed necessity? That if there isn't this homage (and the
consequent transport or sublimation into some divinely gifted mania)
to Nature, or Nature's God, intended, the sexual act isn't moral?
Is your condemnation over some kind of impiety, in other words?

I'm going to go off to Indianapolis on Wednesday and will be back
early next week, so I'd appreciate getting an email copy of any
reply.
  
                    Mike Morris
            (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)
  
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books