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Is the question of whether homosexuality is "a choice" at all morally relevant? Does it bear, e.g., on whether homosexual lifestyles are morally permissible, or whether gay marriage should be ...
August 14, 2010
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While reading through some questions in the religious section, I came across Peter Smith saying [http://www.askphilosophers.org/question/2250/], "What is it with the obsession of (much) contemporary organized religions with matters of ...
August 12, 2010
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If we consider the norm to be defined as what the majority of people do, can homosexuality be considered normal since it defines behavior that is clearly not what most ...
June 29, 2010
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Is the lack of consent the only argument against pedophilia? I ask because it doesn't seem like a very good argument against pedophilia. On this logic, feeding a child would ...
June 17, 2010
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Are there any moral arguments against non-coercive incest between adults?
June 14, 2010
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Why have philosophers presented themselves as asexual in their writings? Derrida asks this question in 'Derrida', but I have not seen it answered anywhere.
June 14, 2010
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Doesn't the fact that prostitution is illegal imply that pleasure is not a considered a legitimate and significant moral good? Prostitutes are said to be people who provide nothing of ...
June 3, 2010
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Is prostitution immoral? Can we not think of it as a kind of industry where service (i.e., sex) is given and received while both parties involved benefit?
May 26, 2010
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How would Kant resolve the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy?
April 29, 2010
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I am of legal age for sexual experiences and my partner is also. My question pertains to the rightness or wrongness of consensually losing my virginity to my partner after ...
February 25, 2010
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Although the question of whether homosexuality is a choice may thus well be taken to have moral significance, and although it has been linked to the issue of the legality of gay marriage, it is not clear to me that the issues are indeed related. The issues might be taken to be related in the following way. If marriage is supposed to reflect the 'natural' suitability of the partners in question, then, if homosexuality were indeed a choice, homosexuality would not be a 'natural' condition, and, consequently, homosexual unions would not be natural, and should not therefore be permitted. (By parity of reasoning, if homosexuality were a natural condition, then homosexuals could marry.) To my mind, however, the conception of the institution of marriage presupposed here is mistaken. The legality of homosexual marriage should, to my mind, turn on only on the question of whether the people in question are qualified to enter into the contract recognized as marriage by the state. Insofar as the parties in question have attained the 'age of consent'--the appropriate age to enter into such a contract--they should have the right to so contract. (By contrast, two underage homosexuals or heterosexuals, or one homosexual or heterosexual of legal age and another who is underage, or a person of legal age, regardless of his or her sexual orientation, and some animal, may not legally enter into such a contract.) Since, to my mind, the question of the permissibility of gay marriage is a question of whether gay people may legally into a state-sanctioned marriage contract, the only relevant question, to my mind, is whether the parties in question are indeed fit to contract. It's irrelevant, on this view, whether the identity of the parties in question is natural or artificial--that is, a matter of artifice, or choice.
Just how we end up being sexually attracted to the people we're attracted to is not easy to say. What seems pretty clear is that it's not in any ordinary sense a choice,
Of course, having predilections is one thing; that may not be a choice. Acting on them is another; that usually is a choice. If a case could be made that it's wrong for homosexual people to act on their attractions, then the fact that their orientation is not a matter of choice wouldn't simply excuse them. In fact, however, the arguments I've seen are pathetically bad. A bit more carefully, there are of course lots of situations that call for not acting on our attractions. But that said, the idea that there's some special problem about homosexual attraction is a lot harder to defend than some people seem to have thought.