Mnementh said:
Hmm, I stay sceptical about bringing in science into moral arguments. But you're right, science can shatter beliefs. That doesn't mean our perception of right and wrong changes though. 1. You're right in a way. Majority morals consider reasons for actions and not actions alone. I personally have problems with that. You cannot really know the real reasons why people did stuff, only the fact that they did it (or not). So I think judgment should be based on actions not reasons. I think most modern laws also exclude reasons. But you're right, usually reasons are included in moral judgments. So that would count here too. 2. I disagree. People are to fast to make deviation from the normal to sicknesses. Let's take another examples. Persons who have a lot of freckles are a deviation from normal. You also can see scientific reasons for the differences (genes). So you would consider it a sickness to have lot of freckles? 4. I agree. But 'it's not a choice' is a usually a reply to defend against homophobic parents. You want too much hurt your parents, but you want to stop them hurting you by demanding to turn back to 'normal'. But I agree, it is not a good argument to be used to fight against discrimination in society. |
1. Yeah, I sometimes change my mind on whether reasons should be considered on whether an act is right or wrong. Like badgenome said, this question can be applied to different contexts, like the abortion of a female because it's a female (which by the way happens a lot in China). It does seem to be a hard question to answer, since if we allow abortion then we implicitly allow for these kinds of terrible judgements to be carried out, even if we may be morally opossed to them. I guess that's why we should make special emphasis on eliminating prejudice and stereotypes, no matter if these things are tied up intrinsically with culture.
2. Hmm that's a good point. However freckles do not harm the individuals or pose considerable risk to my knowledge. If they did, then yes, I would consider it a "sickness". When I use the word sickness here, I use it without the connotations that usually go along with it, especially when talking about the transgender issues. Research hasn't been strong enough to show that gender identification issues are (or are not) harmful, at least to my current knowledge. My position is that the research should be done. Problem is, I feel that when the time comes that LGBTA people are universally accepted, nobody will want to question what has been said time and time again as right without any hard proof. This is a real problem in the social sciences today; too many scientists are or are influenced by leftist ideologues, because in all honesty the leftist ideology seems common-sense to a lot of these people and it also feels the right way. But I don't care about feelings; I care about the truth. That's the issue as I see it.
