I was ambiguous because while gay sex and Christian fundamentalism does come to mind so does the entire gamut of pleasurable activities that people object to as wrong or impure. Sex with multiple partners, sex outside of marriage, polygamy, BDSM, homosexuality, paedophilic and ephebophilic fantasy, etc. And it isn’t just Christian fundamentalists doing the condemning either.
Isn’t it just an example of how different beliefs about reality lead to different moral opinions about specific actions?
I don’t know. While the justification given for the opposition to homosexuality is biblical I’m not confident the given justification is the motivation behind the conservative Christian opposition. To me, at least, the Haidt’s concept of moral purity is what is really at work. And this helps explain the revulsion toward a wide range of sexual activities (which may or may not be discussed in the Bible) from people who may or may not have read the Bible.
If you could get a Christian fundamentalist to imagine a world where Jesus was just a charismatic preacher and sexual orientation was caused by genes and hormones, wouldn’t she say that gay sex was OK in that world?
In addition to the above, it seems to me that for many, even most people, religion, morality and sex are all tangled up in the same memetic mess and that such people may not even have a proper map-territory conceptualization of the world. And this entangled collection of memes may not be the direct output of their psychology but I’m not sure any value system is, it is certainly the case that their psychology is extremely amenable to this collection of memes. And it seems very plausible to me that some people have psychologies more amenable to and comfortable with these memes than other people.
And an interesting feature of these oppositions to desires is that they are, at least in part, cultural. It turns out you can turn down or even switch off the disgust instinct to at least some sexual behavior if you raise them right, teach them tolerance and have admirable television characters with these desires.
I’m not sure the case is any different with disagreements in normative theory. Some minds are more amenable to consequentialism, others deontology, others virtue ethics, others are just confused. But there is no reason to think such minds begin like this or are stuck like this. There is no reason to think these theories would be resistant to cultural evolution either (indeed, I’m nearly certain they have been subject to cultural evolution which is why you don’t see consequentialists or liberty-minded deontologists until the Scottish Enlightenment).
Of course, the cultural evolution involved in the increasing acceptance of homosexuality has been very visible and very rapid. A concerted and widespread effort to spread memes conducive to pushing the fat guy onto the tracks probably would change the way people answered that question: but obviously the incentives for spreading that set of memes just aren’t there in the way they are with acceptance of homosexuality. And of course the reason there are no incentives is that consequentialists tend to get along with deontologists just fine and no one gets hurt enough to try and change things.
I was ambiguous because while gay sex and Christian fundamentalism does come to mind so does the entire gamut of pleasurable activities that people object to as wrong or impure. Sex with multiple partners, sex outside of marriage, polygamy, BDSM, homosexuality, paedophilic and ephebophilic fantasy, etc. And it isn’t just Christian fundamentalists doing the condemning either.
I don’t know. While the justification given for the opposition to homosexuality is biblical I’m not confident the given justification is the motivation behind the conservative Christian opposition. To me, at least, the Haidt’s concept of moral purity is what is really at work. And this helps explain the revulsion toward a wide range of sexual activities (which may or may not be discussed in the Bible) from people who may or may not have read the Bible.
In addition to the above, it seems to me that for many, even most people, religion, morality and sex are all tangled up in the same memetic mess and that such people may not even have a proper map-territory conceptualization of the world. And this entangled collection of memes may not be the direct output of their psychology but I’m not sure any value system is, it is certainly the case that their psychology is extremely amenable to this collection of memes. And it seems very plausible to me that some people have psychologies more amenable to and comfortable with these memes than other people.
And an interesting feature of these oppositions to desires is that they are, at least in part, cultural. It turns out you can turn down or even switch off the disgust instinct to at least some sexual behavior if you raise them right, teach them tolerance and have admirable television characters with these desires.
I’m not sure the case is any different with disagreements in normative theory. Some minds are more amenable to consequentialism, others deontology, others virtue ethics, others are just confused. But there is no reason to think such minds begin like this or are stuck like this. There is no reason to think these theories would be resistant to cultural evolution either (indeed, I’m nearly certain they have been subject to cultural evolution which is why you don’t see consequentialists or liberty-minded deontologists until the Scottish Enlightenment).
Of course, the cultural evolution involved in the increasing acceptance of homosexuality has been very visible and very rapid. A concerted and widespread effort to spread memes conducive to pushing the fat guy onto the tracks probably would change the way people answered that question: but obviously the incentives for spreading that set of memes just aren’t there in the way they are with acceptance of homosexuality. And of course the reason there are no incentives is that consequentialists tend to get along with deontologists just fine and no one gets hurt enough to try and change things.
That make sense?
Yes! This is very enlightening; thank you for your thoughtful response. I am convinced, for now. :-)