PHI 1102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Human Sexuality

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHI 1102
• Professor: Andrew Sneddon

Document Summary

For i(cid:374)sta(cid:374)(cid:272)e, all of (cid:373)edi(cid:272)i(cid:374)e (cid:449)ould turn out to be unnatural and hence immoral by this standard. Surely this is false: other definitio(cid:374)s are hopelessly ad ho(cid:272): they use rigged defi(cid:374)itio(cid:374)s of (cid:862)(cid:374)atural(cid:863) a(cid:374)d (cid:862)u(cid:374)(cid:374)atural(cid:863) tht apply o(cid:374)ly to (cid:449)hate(cid:448)er so(cid:373)eo(cid:374)e is (cid:449)orried a(cid:271)out (e. g. , ge(cid:374)eti(cid:272) engineering, homosexuality, and so on). This amounts to an unexplained claim that these things are immoral: the function of some body part is whatever activity it does that accounts for its persistence in a population. Because of what the structure does it is passed on. It is accountable for the persistence of this part in the natural world: lebon introduces another idea happiness- use of body parts for natural functions makes us happy and using them unnaturally makes us unhappy. So connecting this to homosexuality, this makes them unhappy. For this reason, it is moral problematic and we should prevent people from becoming homosexuals to maintain happiness: consider a different example.