objective morality

[Bronzeage]

Well, they think that homosexual orientation itself is the impairment in the first place, but that's a side issue. The point is, you hold that there is an objective fact of the matter as to whether homosexual orientation is an impairment. Do you think there is an objective fact of the matter as to whether gay sex is always immoral? If you think not, then is there any reason you can point out for the difference in your assessment of objectivity, or is it an intuitive assessment you cannot give a further reason for?

Well, that's a separate issue because you're talking about an action and the morality of actions is always based on subjective opinion. There's nothing about gay sex which makes it inherently immoral beyond the fact of some people not liking gay sex. If somebody holds to the position that "Sex is solely for the purpose of procreation" then gay sex would always be seen as immoral to them. That's entirely subjective, however.

No one has yet to come up with an argument against gay sex which has more substance than "gay sex is icky," and "icky" is as subjective as it gets.

 

[PyramidHead]

Well, that's a separate issue because you're talking about an action and the morality of actions is always based on subjective opinion. There's nothing about gay sex which makes it inherently immoral beyond the fact of some people not liking gay sex. If somebody holds to the position that "Sex is solely for the purpose of procreation" then gay sex would always be seen as immoral to them. That's entirely subjective, however.

No one has yet to come up with an argument against gay sex which has more substance than "gay sex is icky," and "icky" is as subjective as it gets.

Agreed. But Angra's point is that the definition of illness is also subjective; when we say that people with schizophrenia are ill because they have impaired cognitive functioning, we are essentially saying "impaired cognitive functioning is icky." There is much more consensus on that point than there is on gay sex being icky, but the foundation is no more absolute. Just as one could support calling schizophrenia an illness by saying people need to have accurate representations of reality in order to operate in day-to-day life, one could say homosexuality is an illness because it hinders the propagation of the species relative to heterosexuality. I disagree with the classification because there is an accepted definition of illness that does not encompass homosexuality, but that definition was arrived upon by consensus, not by empirical observation.

 

[dx713]

Child abuse has a victim. Pedophilia per se (i.e., being predominantly or exclusively sexually attracted to prepubescent individuals) has no victim. But if someone is a pedophile who doesn't sexually abuse children and instead just fantasizes about sex with children, watches porn involving computer-generated images of children (of his own making, if you like), etc, he still has a mental illness.

That's why I mentionned "untreated" pedophilia. I was basing my analysis on the fact that you needed treatment (or detention, but I don't believe much in preventive detention) for a pedophile not to become a criminal.
But if you mean that someone whose pedophile tendencies are manageable enough for them not to be dangerous or depressed should still be considered ill, I disagree. If they have no risk of becoming a criminal, or don't feel too bad about restraining that part of their pulsions, they don't need psychiatric treatment (of course, that's not very practical, as the how to measure such risk is still out of our grasp, but that's another debate).

But that's a side issue here. The main issue is that you're not using "subjective" in any of the ways that might be relevant when it comes to theistic metaethical arguments (i.e., any of the ways in which theists who make those arguments use it).

I'm not going to bow to the theist misuse of words.
They believe subjective assessment of morality MUST lead to absolutely relative morals. That's one of the problem of their arguments, one of their needs for a god, and I disagree, so I don't feel bound to follow their wrongly making the two words synonimous.
I believe I have sufficiently explained how I can believe they're not synonimous, how a subjective evaluation of morality can be shared through societal debate.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

No one has yet to come up with an argument against gay sex which has more substance than "gay sex is icky," and "icky" is as subjective as it gets.

Agreed. But Angra's point is that the definition of illness is also subjective; when we say that people with schizophrenia are ill because they have impaired cognitive functioning, we are essentially saying "impaired cognitive functioning is icky." There is much more consensus on that point than there is on gay sex being icky, but the foundation is no more absolute. Just as one could support calling schizophrenia an illness by saying people need to have accurate representations of reality in order to operate in day-to-day life, one could say homosexuality is an illness because it hinders the propagation of the species relative to heterosexuality. I disagree with the classification because there is an accepted definition of illness that does not encompass homosexuality, but that definition was arrived upon by consensus, not by empirical observation.

But it was a consensus which was arrived at through empirical observation. It wasn't just people randomly deciding something, it was a definition that was come up with after long experience of dealing with people with various potential things which could be classified as mental illnesses and determining what properly categorized them as distinct from other things. There's a reason that the consensus of the term is what it is.

 

[PyramidHead]

Agreed. But Angra's point is that the definition of illness is also subjective; when we say that people with schizophrenia are ill because they have impaired cognitive functioning, we are essentially saying "impaired cognitive functioning is icky." There is much more consensus on that point than there is on gay sex being icky, but the foundation is no more absolute. Just as one could support calling schizophrenia an illness by saying people need to have accurate representations of reality in order to operate in day-to-day life, one could say homosexuality is an illness because it hinders the propagation of the species relative to heterosexuality. I disagree with the classification because there is an accepted definition of illness that does not encompass homosexuality, but that definition was arrived upon by consensus, not by empirical observation.

But it was a consensus which was arrived at through empirical observation. It wasn't just people randomly deciding something, it was a definition that was come up with after long experience of dealing with people with various potential things which could be classified as mental illnesses and determining what properly categorized them as distinct from other things. There's a reason that the consensus of the term is what it is.

I know, but no matter how closely held or reasonable the consensus may be, it can't be found in the external world. When somebody has schizophrenia, their brain looks different and they behave different. That's the part we can observe. From that alone, we can't conclude if it's an illness or not. We have to add another layer, which is our (shared) subjective preference for non-schizophrenic behavior. We may have good reasons to prefer it over the alternative, but they are all instrumental to some desire on our part... social stability, a relatively predictable mental life, or close correspondence with what most people can see and hear. If we didn't have that preference, we would be very different beings, and we might not be around to talk about it. But that doesn't make it any less subjective. I'm not saying mental illness is a completely random label, just that it's in the same camp as morally wrong: it's only there because humans invented it to serve a preference most of us have.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I know, but no matter how closely held or reasonable the consensus may be, it can't be found in the external world. When somebody has schizophrenia, their brain looks different and they behave different. That's the part we can observe. From that alone, we can't conclude if it's an illness or not. We have to add another layer, which is our (shared) subjective preference for non-schizophrenic behavior. We may have good reasons to prefer it over the alternative, but they are all instrumental to some desire on our part... social stability, a relatively predictable mental life, or close correspondence with what most people can see and hear. If we didn't have that preference, we would be very different beings, and we might not be around to talk about it. But that doesn't make it any less subjective. I'm not saying mental illness is a completely random label, just that it's in the same camp as morally wrong: it's only there because humans invented it to serve a preference most of us have.

But there's a difference between the usage of the word "objective" as pertains to objective morality and as pertains to whether something objectively fits within the definition of a word. By the same logic as above, you could say that it's only a subjective opinion that a Honda Civic is a car, since it's just a word we invented based on a subjective consensus and there's no reason that it couldn't only apply to things made in one country. The thing is, however, that this isn't the case. The word has a meaning that we've given it and some things objectively fit that definition and other things do not.

The same is true for mental illness. It is a term which has a meaning and part of that meaning is the requirement that the thing being categorized within it causes impairment and/or suffering. Homosexuality is not something that fits within the definition of the term. Sure, if it meant something else, then homosexuality could fit within the definition the same way that you could say that breakfast cereal is a mental illness by defining mental illness as "things you eat in the morning". Going by the definition of what mental illness actually means, however, homosexuality is only as much of a mental illness as breakfast cereal is.

 

[PyramidHead]

I know, but no matter how closely held or reasonable the consensus may be, it can't be found in the external world. When somebody has schizophrenia, their brain looks different and they behave different. That's the part we can observe. From that alone, we can't conclude if it's an illness or not. We have to add another layer, which is our (shared) subjective preference for non-schizophrenic behavior. We may have good reasons to prefer it over the alternative, but they are all instrumental to some desire on our part... social stability, a relatively predictable mental life, or close correspondence with what most people can see and hear. If we didn't have that preference, we would be very different beings, and we might not be around to talk about it. But that doesn't make it any less subjective. I'm not saying mental illness is a completely random label, just that it's in the same camp as morally wrong: it's only there because humans invented it to serve a preference most of us have.

But there's a difference between the usage of the word "objective" as pertains to objective morality and as pertains to whether something objectively fits within the definition of a word. By the same logic as above, you could say that it's only a subjective opinion that a Honda Civic is a car, since it's just a word we invented based on a subjective consensus and there's no reason that it couldn't only apply to things made in one country. The thing is, however, that this isn't the case. The word has a meaning that we've given it and some things objectively fit that definition and other things do not.

The same is true for mental illness. It is a term which has a meaning and part of that meaning is the requirement that the thing being categorized within it causes impairment and/or suffering. Homosexuality is not something that fits within the definition of the term. Sure, if it meant something else, then homosexuality could fit within the definition the same way that you could say that breakfast cereal is a mental illness by defining mental illness as "things you eat in the morning". Going by the definition of what mental illness actually means, however, homosexuality is only as much of a mental illness as breakfast cereal is.

We're in total agreement on this much. Given a certain definition of a word, which will always be determined by consensus in the end, certain things fit and others don't. The problem is that certain definitions contain "shoulds." The definition of a car doesn't tell you whether you should drive it. The definition of "illness" seems to include the implication that you shouldn't have one, or if you do you should get it fixed. That part is subjective, even if the definition itself (and what qualifies as an example of whatever it's defining) is cut-and-dry.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

We're in total agreement on this much. Given a certain definition of a word, which will always be determined by consensus in the end, certain things fit and others don't. The problem is that certain definitions contain "shoulds." The definition of a car doesn't tell you whether you should drive it. The definition of "illness" seems to include the implication that you shouldn't have one, or if you do you should get it fixed. That part is subjective, even if the definition itself (and what qualifies as an example of whatever it's defining) is cut-and-dry.

True, no definition is all-encompassing and there will always be instances where it's iffy as to whether a certain thing belongs in a category or not. For instance, there are some vehicles where people could argue about whether they should properly be called a car or a truck.

Similarly, there are a large number of potential mental illnesses where there is a legitimate argument about whether or not they should be classified as such. For instance, you could argue either way about something like a pedophile who also has a low sex drive so he never acts upon his desires or is put out at all by not being able to act upon them or a sociopath who has no problem maintaining a friendly and personable demeanour.

Homosexuality, however, isn't one of those cases. There's nothing about it which causes impairment or suffering in and of the trait itself. The societal attitudes towards homosexuals could lead to things which could be classified as mental illnesses, but it's no more valid to classify it as a mental illness itself because of that than it is to call being black a mental illness.

 

[Bronzeage]

No one has yet to come up with an argument against gay sex which has more substance than "gay sex is icky," and "icky" is as subjective as it gets.

Agreed. But Angra's point is that the definition of illness is also subjective; when we say that people with schizophrenia are ill because they have impaired cognitive functioning, we are essentially saying "impaired cognitive functioning is icky." There is much more consensus on that point than there is on gay sex being icky, but the foundation is no more absolute. Just as one could support calling schizophrenia an illness by saying people need to have accurate representations of reality in order to operate in day-to-day life, one could say homosexuality is an illness because it hinders the propagation of the species relative to heterosexuality. I disagree with the classification because there is an accepted definition of illness that does not encompass homosexuality, but that definition was arrived upon by consensus, not by empirical observation.

The thread started as a discussion of objective morality and I think my opinion that no such thing exists has been made clear. If not, I'll be happy to go over it again for anyone who missed it the first time.

Now is the time to tell the parable of the ice water monkeys.

Take a large cage, which houses seven monkeys. The ceiling of the cage is fairly high and no monkey can reach it. A large bunch of bananas is suspended from the ceiling. The monkeys would like to grab the bananas, but the are out of reach. Now, place several sturdy crates in the cage. The smartest monkey will stack the crates and soon the bananas are in reach. This is when all seven monkeys are sprayed with ice cold water. After a few times, any monkey who moves a crate to the center of the cage will be attacked by the other monkeys. At this point, one monkey is removed and a new monkey is introduced to the group. He wills see the bananas and the crates. As soon as he pushes a crate to under the bananas, the other monkeys beat the hell out of him. This process of replacing one monkey at a time continues, and each time, all six monkeys attack the newcomer when he moves the crate. Eventually, none of the monkeys in the cage have ever been hosed with ice water, but they continued to attack anyone who moves a crate under the bananas. The reason they do this is tradition.

Humans have been living and working together for very long time, and when something is done, generation after generation, it becomes a tradition. Tradition is as powerful and perhaps as authoritative than any command from God. We hold onto traditions long after they have outlived their usefulness.

Semitic cultures have a well known taboo against eating pork. The reason for this is very simple. Pigs compete with humans for food. In an arid land, it is detrimental to the general population to raise grain and feed it to a pig. Only the very rich could afford to eat a pig and in times when grain surpluses were rare, it meant a person would go hungry. This is no longer true, but the pork proscription remains for many people.

The proscription against homosexuality is a little murkier. It may have been considered that sexual relationships between men would interfere with the formation of tribal alliances through marriage. However, there's no real reason why a homosexual man can't marry a woman for the purpose of having children. It's probably more complicated than that, but certainly no better reason that, "that's the way we've always done it."

 

[apeman]

You've explained whyit's logical to assume things about your creator. You haven't provided a good reason to believe He exists.

This world is orderly, it is governed by the laws of nature which I guess you think "emanate" from it.

No, laws are invented by humans trying to understand nature, to predict it.
Laws don't 'emanate.'
I don't think of laws as radiations...I'm not even sure what word you meant to use there.

It is only mind that has the capacity to act with a degree of freedom from the world in which it exists....God (if there is one) must have done this for a reason...maybe He wants company , I don't know.

Yeah, there's your presupposition. Minds have a trait, therefore god done made it that way? that's not a logical conclusion.

An example of an objective moral truth is that you should not harm another for fun...the morality exists in the words "for fun".

I didn't ask for an example, i asked how you determine that this moral truth is an objective moral. How do you detect the permanent morals that God has embedded in his creation? What makes you call this an objective moral?

- - - Updated - - -

At least the God theory is backed up by the fact that order requires intention....

Please so that it's a fact that all order requires intention.
Not just some order.
Show that order depends on will.

You are a materialist, you look at the world and think that it has the capacity to mindlessly cause itself and you to be. I am an idealist, I look at the world and think it is necessarily caused by mind because I am mind and I know what mind does. From those premises we build our whole world view, mine necessarily leads to God, yours to...to what exactly? What usefulness comes out of your presupposition?

My idea is in line with Occam's view , that if the simpler argument is , at least, equal to the more complex argument (in terms of explanation), then stick with the simpler argument until you have good reason for not doing so. It is a fact that the idea that only thought exists is simpler than materialism, and explains everything .

You know whether a moral is objectively good or bad based on whether you are trying to harm another merely for your own benefit.

Order requires will , we know this from our own experience...we can't form order without trying to, we can't do it mindlessly.For you to show otherwise, or that the world is not ordered, is impossible. You are working from a presupposition that you have zero evidence for , whereas my supposition is based on direct experience.

 

[apeman]

If you believe in God it is necessary that you also believe in what He stands for. Even if He hasn't spoken directly to you, you can try to comprehend what his morals would be because such a Being would be perfect.

Obviously His morals would be the highest morals. We can consider what these higher morals would be and try to act on them (and often fail because we're pretty fucked up).

Morals in the world previously dominated by Christianity consist of a relatively small list of things not to do...if the driving motive is to do those "forbidden" things then that can be considered morally wrong.If the aim of any act is to deliberately harm another in order to benefit the self at his expense, then that can be considered immoral.

With your example , if you are putting the welfare of your kids above his kids (knowingly) then that would be immoral because you would be doing it for selfish reasons (your relationship with your kids).

If I believe God is necessary, why does it follow that I would have any idea what He stands for(other than ending sentences with a preposition)? Without some sort of real direction from God, how can I know what perfection might be? I still have to take your word for all of this, because you've somehow obtained the important information. Now I am faced with a dilemma. Should I wait for God to talk to me, or listen to some human, whose logical process seems deeply flawed?

Now, it's become selfish to value my relationship with my children, who I am pretty sure I am expected to keep alive for a certain number of years. If I allow them to starve in order to obtain my spiritual purity, there has to be some sort of catch.

You have something in common with God , you have a mind. Having a mind means that you are able (with effort) to think of what a God would want should He exist. It may be the case that your ideas about what He wants are wrong, but long term belief in the truth of certain morals lead to an increase in our knowledge of their objectivity (or not).

 

[Bronzeage]

...

You know whether a moral is objectively good or bad based on whether you are trying to harm another merely for your own benefit.

Order requires will , we know this from our own experience...we can't form order without trying to, we can't do it mindlessly.For you to show otherwise, or that the world is not ordered, is impossible. You are working from a presupposition that you have zero evidence for , whereas my supposition is based on direct experience.

Is it morally good to deny vaccines to your child, based on a belief the vaccines are harmful in someway? If this results in the child contracting polio or measles, does the objective moral good the parent was trying to accomplish make a bit of difference when they are accused of being a negligent, or malignant parent?

 

[Bronzeage]

[



You have something in common with God , you have a mind. Having a mind means that you are able (with effort) to think of what a God would want should He exist. It may be the case that your ideas about what He wants are wrong, but long term belief in the truth of certain morals lead to an increase in our knowledge of their objectivity (or not).

To sum up, "I may be wrong, but if I believe something is true for long enough, I will learn more about it, but maybe not."

To my mind, this does not make a bit of sense.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Well, they think that homosexual orientation itself is the impairment in the first place, but that's a side issue. The point is, you hold that there is an objective fact of the matter as to whether homosexual orientation is an impairment. Do you think there is an objective fact of the matter as to whether gay sex is always immoral? If you think not, then is there any reason you can point out for the difference in your assessment of objectivity, or is it an intuitive assessment you cannot give a further reason for?

Well, that's a separate issue because you're talking about an action and the morality of actions is always based on subjective opinion. There's nothing about gay sex which makes it inherently immoral beyond the fact of some people not liking gay sex. If somebody holds to the position that "Sex is solely for the purpose of procreation" then gay sex would always be seen as immoral to them. That's entirely subjective, however.

1. Why do you believe that whether gay sex is immoral is a subjective matter?
2. Why do you believe that the morality of actions is always based on subjective opinion?
3. Why do you not believe that whether homosexuality is a subjective matter?
4. Why do you not believe that whether conditions are mental illness is an issue whose answer is always based on subjective opinion?

In other words, I'm not asking about gay sex in particular. That was an example. I'd like to know why you make a difference between whether actions are immoral, whether a person is a good person, etc., on one hand, and whether a condition is a mental illness, whether a person is mentally ill, on the other, objectivity-wise.

If you do not know why you make that distinction but feels intuitive to you, I would ask you to please say so. Else, I would ask why you make that distinction, objectivity-wise.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

That's why I mentionned "untreated" pedophilia. I was basing my analysis on the fact that you needed treatment (or detention, but I don't believe much in preventive detention) for a pedophile not to become a criminal.

I know. It's because of your reply that I presented an example of someone who is mentally ill - he's a pedophile - but has no victims.

But if you mean that someone whose pedophile tendencies are manageable enough for them not to be dangerous or depressed should still be considered ill, I disagree. If they have no risk of becoming a criminal, or don't feel too bad about restraining that part of their pulsions, they don't need psychiatric treatment (of course, that's not very practical, as the how to measure such risk is still out of our grasp, but that's another debate).

Whether they need psychiatric treatment depends on the goal (needed for what?).
If there were a treatment that would cure them, then they would need it if they wanted to be cured (assuming no other way of getting cured). If there is no treatment that can cure them or change their condition in any way they want, or if there is but they do not want to be cured or otherwise changed, then they need no treatement for achieving any of their goals. But they're still ill. The fact that it's a mental illness is not the point, either.

Moreover, in this context, they may not need treatment to achieve any goal the government may have, either.

But that's not the point. For example, if a person is blind on the left eye, but there is no treatment to cure them, or there is one but they do not want to be cured, etc., then they need no treatement for achieving any of their goals (assuming no other related goals). And it may very well be that the government also has no goal that requires treating them. But that does not change the fact that they're ill.

My point in this context was that the pedophile was ill regardless of whether he needs treatment, just as the left-eye blind person is also ill, regardless of whether she needs treatment - even if she does not feel depressed for not having a functional left eye.

I'm not going to bow to the theist misuse of words.

First, if the theist is using "objective" in the usual sense of the words (some theists do), he's not misuisng it.

Second, if someone makes an argument defining words in a non-standard fashion, and you reply in a way that uses the same words differently, you're failing to engage their argument.

I believe I have sufficiently explained how I can believe they're not synonimous, how a subjective evaluation of morality can be shared through societal debate.

But your usage does not seem to match colloquial usage; for example, your usage of "subjective morality" seems to imply that whether or not some morals are reasonable is an objective matter (apparently, in a society-independent way), and also that society-relative morality is objective.

The best guess I can come up with is that you're proposing culture-relativism with considerable constraints due to some human universal morality that makes up part though not all of the culture-based morality - a moderate relativism. But that's still not subjectivism, in the colloquial sense, and I get
the impression it's not in apeman's.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Agreed. But Angra's point is that the definition of illness is also subjective; when we say that people with schizophrenia are ill because they have impaired cognitive functioning, we are essentially saying "impaired cognitive functioning is icky."

That's not my point - well, the point is Bomb#20's, since he made it first, but it's not that point.
I made no claim that the definition of illness is subjective. Rather, the point is that the two appear relevantly similar, and I'm asking those who say one is objective (not the definition, though, but the matters at hand), but the other isn't, to explain why they make that difference, or say it's intuitive but they have no explanation if that is the case.
I hold that there is an objective fact of the matter as to whether someone (a specific person) has schizophrenia, and also as to whether schizophrenia is a mental illness.

There is much more consensus on that point than there is on gay sex being icky, but the foundation is no more absolute.

There is more consensus in the case of schizophrenia and in present-day America, but on the other hand, the degree of consensus regarding mental illnesses is sometimes (depending on social group) much less than the consensus regarding moral issues - or the consensus on mental illness shifts more.

For example, there is much more consensus on the point that it's immoral for a human to torture other humans for fun, than on whether homosexuality is a mental illness, in today's America.
There is a lot of consensus today on whether homosexuality is a mental illness, among psychiatrists and psychologists in America - the vast majority agree it's not. A few decades ago, there was at some time much less consensus among psychologists and psychiatrists on the matter. And further back, the mainstream consensus among that group was that homosexuality actually was a mental illness. But agreement that it's immoral for a human (an adult human, if you like) to torture other humans for fun seems considerable more stable.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Agreed. But Angra's point is that the definition of illness is also subjective; when we say that people with schizophrenia are ill because they have impaired cognitive functioning, we are essentially saying "impaired cognitive functioning is icky." There is much more consensus on that point than there is on gay sex being icky, but the foundation is no more absolute. Just as one could support calling schizophrenia an illness by saying people need to have accurate representations of reality in order to operate in day-to-day life, one could say homosexuality is an illness because it hinders the propagation of the species relative to heterosexuality. I disagree with the classification because there is an accepted definition of illness that does not encompass homosexuality, but that definition was arrived upon by consensus, not by empirical observation.

But it was a consensus which was arrived at through empirical observation. It wasn't just people randomly deciding something, it was a definition that was come up with after long experience of dealing with people with various potential things which could be classified as mental illnesses and determining what properly categorized them as distinct from other things. There's a reason that the consensus of the term is what it is.

1. Actually, an operational definition of "mental illness" is only arrived upon after studying many mental illnesses, and working on such a definition. But that means they had a previous, already existent concept of mental illness. That is the concept I'm using, by the way. Whether the definition matches it is not the issue. Would you agree that, say, schizophrenia is a mental illness by the already existent concept, and that that was an objective matter?

2. Long before there was any definition of mental illness, there was a concept of mental illness, and more generally, a concept of illness that was applied to mental illnesses too. Even centuries ago, people would have been able to tell that someone was mentally ill, in many cases because it's obvious.
Would you agree that schizophrenia was an illness by the usual, intuitive concept of illness, before any definitions were given? Would you agree that whether psychosis was an illness was an objective matter, say, 300 years ago, and by the usual concept of "illness"? (even if they didn't know about schizophrenia in particular).

3. The definition of "mental illness" that you provide contains the condition that it causes an impairment. Do you agree that there is objective impairment? Has someone given a definition of impairment, to use in the context of te "mental illness" definition? Or is it used intuitively? If it's used intuitively, do you agree that giving a definition is not required for objectivity, given that there is an objective fact of the matter as to whether, say, psychopathy causes an impairment?

4. Moreover, if we go by the definition given in Wikipedia, one of the disjunctive conditions for mental illness is that it causes "an impaired ability to function in ordinary life (disability), and which is not developmentally or socially normative."
Does homosexuality cause said impaired ability?
Well, some people would say that it does, because it impairs the ability to enjoy romantic relations with to the opposite sex, and/or not to be sexually attracted to the same sex.
But you say it does not cause such impaired ability, right? (unless you reject the Wikipedia definition; if so, please provide a link to your definition of "mental illness" of choice)
So, you implicitly accept that there is an objective fact of the matter as to whether the ability to enjoy romantic relations with to the opposite sex, and/or not to be sexually attracted to the same sex, are abilities whose impairment impairs the ability "to function in ordinary life", and you hold that they are not.
Yet, you do not make that assessment based on a definition of "impaired ability to function in ordinary life", or a similar term, right? You make your intuitive assessment, right? (else, please define "impaired ability", "impairment", or similar terms, and of course I will just make the same argument using whatever terms you define.). Other people deny it. But you do not reject objectivity on the matter, right? So, why do you reject objectivity on the moral issue?


5. Cancer is an illness, right? Do you agree there is objective illness? Do you think it's because there is some definition of illness? If so, what's the definition? If not, then why would definitions be needed for there to be objectivity?

 

[Angra Mainyu]

The same is true for mental illness. It is a term which has a meaning and part of that meaning is the requirement that the thing being categorized within it causes impairment and/or suffering. Homosexuality is not something that fits within the definition of the term. Sure, if it meant something else, then homosexuality could fit within the definition the same way that you could say that breakfast cereal is a mental illness by defining mental illness as "things you eat in the morning". Going by the definition of what mental illness actually means, however, homosexuality is only as much of a mental illness as breakfast cereal is.

6. What definition are you using? Is it the one from Wikipedia?
If so, it talks about an impaired ability to function in ordinary life.

But then, someone might say that homosexuality is an illness, because it impairs the ability to enjoy a romantic relationship with people of the oposite sex, and that's one of the abilities that count. How do you know otherwise? By your own intuitive assessment? If so, then what's the problem in the moral case?

7. No definition of "impairment", or "ordinary life" are given.

8. As I said earlier, the concept of mental illness predates the definition. But by the intuitive concept, schizophrenia was already a mental illness.

9. Let's consider illness, not just mental illness. Do you accept that there is objective illness?
If so, do you still think (after reading my posts) that a definition is required for objectivity?
If you do, what's the definition of "illness"?

Homosexuality, however, isn't one of those cases. There's nothing about it which causes impairment or suffering in and of the trait itself.

Isn't there?

Homosexuality impairs an ability to enjoy romantic relationships with people of the opposite sex, or even prevents the development of such ability completely. That's not the point. The point is whether that's an impairment that would make homosexuality a mental illness. And that is not something that you can get explicitly from the definition - definition which came after a preexisting concept anyway.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

We're in total agreement on this much. Given a certain definition of a word, which will always be determined by consensus in the end, certain things fit and others don't. The problem is that certain definitions contain "shoulds." The definition of a car doesn't tell you whether you should drive it. The definition of "illness" seems to include the implication that you shouldn't have one, or if you do you should get it fixed. That part is subjective, even if the definition itself (and what qualifies as an example of whatever it's defining) is cut-and-dry.

Is that a moral "should"?
If so (but it doesn't look like it, unless you're suggesting people morally ought to get all of their illnesses fixed), then what's the problem with such definitions?
We might replace "should" with terms like "immoral", etc.

Is that an all-things-considered means-ends "should" (i.e., all of a person's values considered) ? (assuming there is such overall thing, rather than different parts of the brain pulling in different directions, in which case I would ask what "should" you mean here, because I'm running out of options).
If so, I don't think either "illness", or "immoral" contain that sort of "should". A psychopath simply might not care about morality, or might care a lot more about other things.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Well, that's a separate issue because you're talking about an action and the morality of actions is always based on subjective opinion. There's nothing about gay sex which makes it inherently immoral beyond the fact of some people not liking gay sex. If somebody holds to the position that "Sex is solely for the purpose of procreation" then gay sex would always be seen as immoral to them. That's entirely subjective, however.

1. Why do you believe that whether gay sex is immoral is a subjective matter?
2. Why do you believe that the morality of actions is always based on subjective opinion?
3. Why do you not believe that whether homosexuality is a subjective matter?
4. Why do you not believe that whether conditions are mental illness is an issue whose answer is always based on subjective opinion?

In other words, I'm not asking about gay sex in particular. That was an example. I'd like to know why you make a difference between whether actions are immoral, whether a person is a good person, etc., on one hand, and whether a condition is a mental illness, whether a person is mentally ill, on the other, objectivity-wise.

If you do not know why you make that distinction but feels intuitive to you, I would ask you to please say so. Else, I would ask why you make that distinction, objectivity-wise.

Because the two things are completely different and unrelated matters.

The only thing that people have against gay sex is not liking gay sex. There's nothing about it which makes it a negative in and of itself. Attitudes about it are entirely based on subjective opinions.

Mental illness, on the other hand, is a term with a definition and things either fit that definition or don't fit that definition. You can go on about homosexuality and breakfast cereals being mental illnesses all you want, but all you're doing is using words wrong.