Buretsu said:
ReiverCorrupter said:
WOW, gender is an immutable facet of people's beings? Try telling that to transgender people. So when a person gets sexual reassignment surgery they become a different person? An interesting theory of identity, to say the least. I guess in your scenario it's not the homosexuality that you prevent, but the existence of the homosexual person. So what if someone suffers a brain injury that causes them to change their sexuality? Did they die and an entirely new person come into life to replace them?
With transgender people, as I understand it to be, the issue they have is that their physical body isn't in line with their gender, and it's the body that changes, not the gender. Nice try, though.
Ah, so you're a substance dualist. It's starting to make sense now. It think that all human psychological dispositions ultimately reduce to activity in the brain, and that once technology advances to a certain point we will be able to modify the brain so as to modify people's behaviors. What is the alternative? An immortal immutable non-physical soul that interferes with the brain? LMFAO.
Buretsu said:
Oh, and nice one suggesting that someone can hit their head hard enough and suddenly become "the gay".
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2058921/Chris-Birch-stroke-Rugby-player-wakes-gay-freak-gym-accident.html
Maybe he was lying and just using it as an excuse to come out of the closet, but ultimately that's a question to be determined by scientific inquiry.
You're obviously ignorant of the substantial amount of cases in which people who have sustained brain trauma have undergone radical changes in their personality.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=brain+trauma+personality+changes&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ei=-V_BT_-RJMidiQLanp35Bw&ved=0CCMQgQMwAA
Buretsu said:
Exactly. And, therefore, one shouldn't let society dictate what qualities a child being born should possess.
So your point is that bigotry is the only reason why society would want to change an inherent trait, because in order to want to change something, you must deem it or its consequences bad, and the ONLY POSSIBLE reason why society or any individual would want to deem an inherent trait bad is if it hates the people who possess the trait.
Buretsu said:
A person who is born into a famine so that they will be starving for the rest of their lives has the same inherent ability to be happy as a person who isn't (i.e. it's not their fault that there's a famine). So is it bigoted to not want to bring that person into the world? Does one thereby hate starving people?
And now you're just being silly. In this case, one wouldn't want to bring ANY child into such a world, there wouldn't be a discriminatory bias against homosexuality or other inherent factors. And 'hunger' isn't an unchangeable factor.
I know it seems silly, but I've committed you to saying that there are some instances where someone wouldn't want to bring a child into the world but would not be bigoted for doing so, as long as they are not doing it based upon an 'inherent' attribute of the person.
So by that reasoning, we shouldn't even prevent Tay-Sachs (a genetic disorder that usually kills children by age 4 or 5) because that would mean that you hate the guts of children with Tay-Sachs. Keep in mind that if you admit that we should prevent Tay-Sachs, then you must explain how we can do so without being bigoted towards children with Tay-Sachs. You cannot appeal that Tay-Sachs is so degenerative that there really is no chance for them to live a fulfilling life because that would
also be blaming the victim. Sure, it isn't society's fault that the child has Tay-Sachs, but it isn't the child's fault either. Nor is the child a bad person for having Tay-Sachs. And by your own reasoning you cannot appeal to the negative consequences of Tay-Sachs because that would be a form of bigotry.
In essence, you've committed yourself to denying that any sort of genetic abnormality should be prevented.
Buretsu said:
Depression doesn't mean they're incapable of happiness, it's just a harder state to obtain, requiring either counseling or an appropriate course of medicines. Are you trying to say that people with depression can't operate in modern society?
Now is someone a bigot for treating themselves for depression? Should they just accept the way they are and reject medication? How about a blind person who elects for a surgery that will allow them to see? Are they bigots? You seem to be committed to the stance that someone cannot reject just a part of themselves without rejecting themselves as a whole.
Or perhaps this ties into your substance dualist theory insomuch as you're really concerned with what traits are inherent to the spooky non-physical substrate that determines people's identity. If that's the case then I'd like 1) proof that such a thing exists, 2) why some qualities are inherent to it while others are not, and 3) how we can empirically verify #2.
Buretsu said:
Isn't it pretty simple, though? It's wrong to reject a child based on inherent factors. You yourself are saying that there's good to be found in everything, with the example of the gifted manic-depressive. You're kind of arguing my point, here. What if your son would be gay, and he'd grow up to become a doctor and find the cure for cancer? You can't focus on a single aspect of someone's being and reject them accordingly, while ignoring everything else.
Perhaps the selective embryo example is weighing you down intellectually. How about a gene doping process where one changes the genetic structure of the embryo instead of just rejecting it.
Oh, but by your reasoning there is some sort of underlying metaphysical substrate that determines a person's identity and that this substrate intrinsically possesses certain qualities (e.g. gender, race, etc.). So perhaps even when you've just made a genetic modification to change one of these traits you've somehow destroyed the person's soul. Then again, I'm not sure how the metaphysical substrate attaches itself to the embryo. Descartes thought the soul interacted with the brain through the pineal gland, but there is no such thing in an embryo. Then again, Catholics think that the soul is born at conception, though I have no idea how this is supposed to work. Perhaps we should just have faith.
Buretsu said:
And you consider this a bad thing, that they're opposed to rejecting a child based on something like blindness or deafness? Perhaps you're unaware that neither of these prevent a person from living a long, fulfilling, successful life? That, indeed, the blind and the deaf have performed great works over the course of history. Again, you work to argue my point for me.
Would you willingly let someone blind you? It seems that if you refuse it means that you must think blindness is bad, and therefore must hate blind people. If not wanting your child to be blind makes you a bigot,
no matter what the reason, then not wanting to be blind yourself must make you a bigot
no matter what the reason. After all, there's no reason why you couldn't live a long fulfilling life if you were blind.
Now, if you were making the argument that parents have no right to control their children's traits because it violates their children's free will or power for self-determination, then you'd have the makings of a convincing argument. But unfortunately you keep making this strange appeal to bigotry because you seem to think that bigotry is the only form of evil.
Buretsu said:
Another question, how do you define 'hatred'? Is it an emotion or a more general disposition? Certainly hatred is at least an emotive state. So are you saying that it would be physically impossible for a person both to chose an embryo without those traits and not feel hatred when confronted with gay people or fat people? That would be an interesting argument.
How would an emotion translate into a physical impossibility? I hate someone, therefore I can't touch my toes? I'm in love with her, so I can't walk? That would be a completely nonsensical argument, so I don't know why you're trying to assign such a thing to me. Seems to be a disingenuous thing to do...
You missed my point entirely. I was really asking you if you think that emotion of hatred was a necessary precondition for bigotry. And, yes it is an absurd argument. My point is that it seems psychologically possible for a person to both not want their child to be gay and to not feel the actual emotion of hatred when they encounter or think about gay people. If that is possible but those people are still considered bigots, then you seem committed to the view that hatred is actually irrelevant to bigotry. Now if, on the other hand, you think that it is physiologically impossible for someone to both not want their child to be gay and not feel hatred towards gays, I would like to see some scientific evidence to back up this claim.
Buretsu said:
And I'm saying that one can't be implicitly or unconsciously prejudiced. We're not born hating others, that's an entirely learned behavior.
Lol. You do realize that there are TONS of learned unconscious behaviors and predispositions. My point was that unconscious prejudices are phenomenologically and cognitively different from outright hatred, which is an overt emotional state. Nor am I saying that unconscious prejudices are morally acceptable, though I do think overt hatred is more worthy of condemnation.
Buretsu said:
But you are saying that homosexuality is bad. You're just attempting to justify it, saying that you only think its bad because of potential others thinking that it's bad. You're failing to see that by basing your opinion of someone by another's standards, you're just adopting those standards for yourself.
It seems clear to me now that we're just going to go around in circles. The first rule of argumentation is that you argue against what your opponent says, not what you perceive him to think. I'm going to try to state this as plainly and clearly as possible: in the example I gave the parents do NOT have a negative opinion of their child, but have a negative opinion of SOCIETY.
Let's take another example: Say I have a positive opinion of the theory of evolution, but I'm in a room full of crazy Christian fundamentalists who I know will beat the crap out of me if I say I believe in evolution. So I don't say I believe in evolution. By your reasoning, I must hate the theory of evolution because of the idiots who would oppress me if I defended it.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this conclusion is just downright absurd.
Buretsu said:
In fact, many things can be intrinsically good, but extrinsically bad in certain circumstances. Saving someone's life could be considered an intrinsically good action, but saving Hitler's life right in the middle of WWII would have some very bad consequences.
I'm tempted to call Godwin's Law and end it here, but I choose not to. I would say that, again, you're not making an accurate comparison. Why are you choosing not to save Hitler's life? Is it because of who he is, i.e. he's German, or is it because of his actions, i.e. the things he chooses to do?
Lol, you can just replace it with Mao Zedong if you want, the exact person is irrelevant. (Also, you should be aware that extreme examples are the norm when discussing thought experiments in normative ethics because it pushes people's intuitions to the limit (e.g. the trolley experiment).)
In this particular instance, the hypothetical person would believe in an absolute moral imperative to save someone's life if one has the capacity to do so. Hence, that saving someone's life is always an intrinsic good, even if it has really bad consequences. Now, since you seem unfamiliar with philosophical discussion, I should stress the point that whether we accept the hypothetical person's value system is irrelevant: the example is merely meant to show the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic.
For another example we can take the typical extreme case of the deontological prohibition against lying. Hardcore deontologists believe that lying is intrinsically wrong in every circumstance, no matter what the result. Even if the Stazi come to your door and ask if your Western-sympathizing journalist friend is hiding at your house, you must still tell them the truth. Some hardcore deontologists would likely reject the idea of extrinsic value, and hence that there is nothing wrong with a person who tells the truth and gets their friend killed. Most people find this to be unintuitive.
Buretsu said:
At any rate, I don't see how you're blaming the victim if you openly acknowledge that it's society's fault. Now, there are plenty of other reasons for saying that what the parents are doing is morally wrong aside from appealing to bigotry, especially in the examples you just mentioned.
No, in this example, there are no reasons other than bigotry.
LOL! So you don't think that parents have a moral obligation to treat their children as an ends rather than means? So there's nothing objectionable about a parent exploiting a child as long as they aren't doing it for bigoted reasons? LMFAO.
Buretsu said:
Then that's not the same thing. In this case, the medicine is good, it's the usage of such that is bad.
Lulz. So why is the medicine good if not because of the way it is used? It has to be used in order for it to be have positive consequences, just as it has to be used in order for it to have negative consequences. FYI, the vast majority of moral theorists would say that the medicine itself is neither good nor bad, rather it is the action of using the medicine that can be good or bad. What would determine whether said action is good or bad are its consequences, (there can be no categorical imperative that one ought to inject people with a certain medicine). Hence, the mere act of injecting someone with something in general is neutral (as long as it is consensual, of course).
Buretsu said:
Buretsu said:
And I'm saying that you're wrong, that no matter the reasoning that gets applied, not wanting your child to be gay is bigoted.
Ah, so bigotry is independent of the reasoning behind actions (aka motivations, intentions and mental states)? Now THAT, my friend, is an interesting conclusion. I can't say I agree with it. I think bigotry is necessarily tied to how people see other people, but maybe that's just a personal quirk.
Yes, it is tied to how people see other people, in this case, it's tied to how people see something about another person that causes them irrational dislike of the other person. Like if someone sees a homosexual individual, and sees them as a bad person solely because of their sexuality and regardless of other factors. Reasoning is just something that gets applied after the fact with the intent to justify the way of thinking.
And there's the rub of it. You've really just been wasting our time. You've essentially just stated that
it doesn't matter if the arguments they give are valid or invalid, you think that it is just a psychological fact that they must be bigots, no matter what they say. You seem to also have projected this bigotry upon me (regardless of the fact that I believe that said parents would be acting immorally for other reasons). This explains all of your pseudo-arguments and question begging; you don't really need to thoroughly analyze the arguments I gave; they must be automatically incorrect. It's clear that your primary reasoning for thinking that people must be bigots in the given examples is your gut emotional response to their position and that you've simply come up with half-baked arguments in order to make your position seem legitimate.
See, it isn't very nice when someone uses an argument
ad hominem against you, now is it? Perhaps you should reflect upon your own feeling of complete moral superiority before you go around accusing other people of being bigots.
Especially if you're going to go around and tell parents how to raise their children.
