From: gsmith@polyhymnia.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de (Gene W. Smith)
Subject: Morally good necessary possible sometimes possible reproductiveness
Keywords: Revised Standard Version
Organization: IWR, University of Heidelberg, Germany
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 92 15:44:21 GMT


In article <1992Dec11.165618.18412@husc3.harvard.edu>
zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:
>In article <1992Dec11.183617.20888@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de>
>gsmith@lauren.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de (Gene W. Smith) writes:

>Mr Smith, I am 34 years old, stand 6' in my slippers, weigh 188lbs, and
>bench press 310lbs.  

At your age you should have learned to act less like a pimply-faced
geek.  

Well, all good things come to an end, and I am going to a math
conference and Christmas vacation.  But if anybody else wants to play,
we now have a new and even more incoherent revised standard version of
Mikhail's "argument" to play with, due to the efforts of yours truly.

It begans thusly:

$We start with the argument that the morally relevant function of sex
$is reproductive.  This means that the *moral* essence of sex is
$reproductive that is, it is necessarily the case that all morally
$praiseworthy sex is reproductive, i.e. sex is reproductive in all
$deontically desirable possible worlds.  The only morally good sex is
$that which involves its essence.  Therefore, the only morally good sex
$is that which is reproductive.

Mikhail now wants to say:

$However, it is OK to have sex in such a way that sex is not
$reproductive, just so long as it still remains the case that sex is
$possibly reproductive.  However, it is bad to have sex which is
$necessarily not reproductive, i.e. not reproductive in any possible
$world, because the desirable sex is reproductive in all possible
$worlds, and also the only good sex is that which is reproductive in
$the actual world.

The above appalling balderdash is what Mikhail has annotated and
approved.  About it he now says:

>I have you exactly where I wanted you, Mr Smith.  It is painfully
>obvious that your knowledge of modal logic is far inferior to my grasp
>of category theory.

Uh huh.  We take note of the fact that so far, MZ hasn't demonstrated
this superior knowledge in any way.  Certainly claiming the above as
his "argument" doesn't.  Hoo boy.

The revised standard version now continues like this:

$Men and women differ in all morally relevant possible worlds, since it
$is necessarily the case that a man has an XY genotype and a woman has
$an XX genotype. This is in fact analytically true.

$Since having the same genotype entails not being reproductive in any
$possible world, it is morally bad for two people with the same
$genotype to have sex, since their sex is not reproductive in any
$possible world, whereas in fact morally praiseworthy sex *is*
$reproductive in the actual world, whilst morally permissible sex is
$possibly reproductive between the same partners, i.e. reproductive in
$some possible world.

$It is all right to for one person to have sex with another so long as
$they have been to a doctor and made sure that they have opposite
$genotypes.  This is true even if the woman is sterile or the man
$infertile, because in some possible world the woman would not be
$sterile or the man would not be infertile.  However, it should be kept
$in mind that, in the vast majority of cases, the phenotype corresponds
$to the genotype.

$However, in no possible world could someone who is somatically a woman
$but with an XY genotype have an XX genotype, and so in fact she is
$actually a man, and heterosexual sex with her is really homosexual,
$whereas lesbian sex with her is heterosexual and in fact entirely free
$from blame.

$Moreover, it is always fine to have sex using birth control devices,
$because in some possible world you might not be using birth control
$devices.  This situation, where a certain form of sex is reproductive
$in some possible world, but not in this one, is morally neutral, or
$permissible, because it does not contradict the fact that morally
$permissible sex is reproductive in some possible world, whereas if the
$sex is not reproductive in any possible world it would contradict the
$fact that morally permissible sex ought to be reproductive in some
$possible world, and therefore be bad.

$Because homosexual sex is not reproductive in all possible worlds,
$whereas morally desirable sex in fact is reproductive in all morally
$desirable possible worlds, homosexual sex is a grave moral
$transgression, nearly as bad as murder, and explaining the depravity
$of their ways to homosexuals is therefore a highly moral act.

About the process which lead to the creation of the revised standard
version of the Mikhail Argument, MZ says the following:

>I would call this "negative dialectics", the art of elenctically
>eliciting the truth from an obstreperous, obstinate nitwit, -- but,
>alas, the term is already taken.

Finally MZ realizes he is a niwit!  Now to get him to realize that
what I have elenctically elicited is raving nonsense...

>This is fun!  Are you as clueless when you argue about mathematics?
>Oh yes, you are, -- there is this tiny matter of your idiotic claim
>of the ontological priority of the cardinal numbers, in a structure
>built on the backbone of the ordinals.  Sayonara, nitwit!

Look, Pinhead, I did not say cardinal numbers were "ontologically
prior", I said they were conceptually simpler.  And set theory is not
"built on the backbone" of ordinal numbers, or these would not be
defined as sets.

What a maroon!

Well, and what of the famous argument?  Since I am going away, I won't
poke any holes in it.  I think these are obvious enough now to
everyone, and in fact I've succeeded in doing what I wanted to do,
which was to clarify MZ's "argument" enough so that its problems are
transparent.  In this I have succeeded so well that in fact we can now
see it has become raving lunacy.  However, if anyone wants to
continue, there are a few issues I should bring up for Mikhail's
benefit.

Things are, shall we say, a little confused.  Is morally desirable sex
that which is reproductive in this world, or that which is
reproductive in all morally desirable possible worlds?  MZ says both.
What does reproductive and essentially reproductive mean?  Is it
permissible to have sex when reproduction isn't possible, as he says,
and does that still mean that it is possible in some possible world?

It looks like this is one of those cases where we need to distinguish
what is possible from what is possibly possible, and so say that in
some possible world the sex possibly is reproductive.

We are in fact getting into a problem because Mikhail has screwed up
by saying sex is essentially reproductive.  In fact, we can't say all
sex acts must be reproductive, or the argument breaks down.  Mikhail
tries to save this by introducing deontic logic, but this doesn't
work.  We can't say that in all possible worlds, some sex acts are
reproductive, because in some possible world a disease may have come
along and made this false, say by entirely eliminating one sex.

Moreover, as we have already mentioned, we the interest is not in
whether a sex act leads to children, but whether it is possible that
it does.  Hence the significant thing here is whether, in all possible
worlds, some possible world exists in which some sex act exists which
is possibly reproductive.  That is, he *should* say that sex is
necessarily possibly sometimes possibly reproductive, so that sex is
essentially possibly sometimes possibly reproductive.

This now connects with your standard Catholic argument.  The idea here
is that God made sex, and that its necessary possible sometimes
possible reproductiveness is the point of sex.  Therefore, sex should
always be done such a way that it is possibly possibly reproductive,
or He will be upset.

This doesn't work for Mikhail, and in any case he doesn't want to say
that all sex acts should be possibly possibly reproductive.  It is
permissible if, between the partners, there exist some sex act which
is possibly possibly reproductive, even if the particular one being
done isn't it.  Now, on the theistic theory, God might well get even
more peeved at this, because here are two people who could be doing
possibly possible reproductive sex, and they aren't.  But MZ says that
this is OK, whereas if no sex acts are possibly possibly reproductive
between two partners, the sex acts are morally bad (even if they are
identical.)

If you figure out how this all makes sense, I suggest you get Mikhail
to pay you $1000.  You'll have earned it.  Good luck, and Merry
Christmas!


-- 
     Gene Ward Smith/Brahms Gang/IWR/Ruprecht-Karls University 
               gsmith@kalliope.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de
Xref: sparky talk.philosophy.misc:3041 rec.arts.books:22858 alt.politics.homosexuality:8223