I am not saying you are American; but my entire conversation about liberalism and conservatism in this thread is in the context of American politics. I am not well versed in other countries' politics, although I have a general understanding.

I am not arguing that these four concepts cause us to be incapable of forwarding a conversation: I am noting that our disagreements are very deep. The deepness of a dispute doesn't necessitate that there is not means of resolution. What we need to do, and what I've been asking you to do, is dive into metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics (in that order) and metaethics will probably require us to dive into ontology a bit.

What are you looking for in a criteria? I am not following. Are you wanting a precise equation where someone could plug in the values for the variables and it spit out "is this nature"?

:heart:

If you ever want to have a conversation about gender theory, then just message me. When you refuse to define the key terms, it is just hard to progress the conversation.

I could see this as a plausible account, but I am not sure if the 'gentleness' of certain colors has a gravitational effect, generally, on women over men; similar to how men tend to gravitate to jobs about 'things' (e.g., engineering, architecture, etc.) and women to jobs about 'people' (e.g., nursing, therapy, etc.). I don't know the effects of the colors on us biologically as it relates to nature.

To me, it is obvious that, e.g., the Mars symbol for maleness is purely symbolic because I am confident there is nothing about the symbol that men would gravitate towards but, rather, is a construct we came up with to refer to maleness in the abstract. Color it is not so obvious to me.

All this at face value being utter doublethink.

I can hold a belief on a proposition, X, with high credence and still concede that I might be wrong: that’s all I did there. Doublethink is when one holds two contradictory or highly incoherent beliefs: that’s not the case here.

Likewise, I can be confident that X is not Y without knowing to a high degree what Y is. If you ask me: “what would a pizza-worshipper do with a cheese pizza?”; I can hold the belief that “I don’t know exactly what a pizza-worshipper would do with pizza” AND that “they wouldn’t go and throw it away in the trash and forget about it”.

Moreover, most importantly, I said that we don’t need ‘perfect and complete’ knowledge to know that one has a nature...that’s different than saying that I don’t know sufficiently that we have one. You can investigate empirically a being to decipher what their nature is.

As to the rest, I'll skip the religious fluff and stick to facts regarding what Jesus Christ himself did and said ... and facts regarding what he didn't. I admire him far too much to not do so.

My friend, we don’t have any writings from Jesus. The Gospels are written by the Apostles who are relaying what they saw and were taught by Jesus; and the church is the succession of the oral tradition going back to the Apostles and, in turn, what Jesus taught them.

If you don’t think that an apostle can get it right about homosexuality after being directly taught by Jesus, of which we don’t know exactly what Jesus taught them (as we don’t know orally what was conveyed and we have no writings from Jesus), then you have no good reasons to accept the Gospels which they wrote nor the stories they told about Jesus or what they taught their disciples in turn from what they claimed Jesus taught them.

If that's so I wouldn't put it that there is some kind of "liberal" theory of gender, for instance

I agree and am not meaning to convey that there are liberal or conservative theories of genders; but, rather, that there are gender theories compatible with liberalism and conservatism and some are prominent among each.

This is why I think diving into politics in this thread is and was a red herring: people are skipping past the philosophical and psycho-sociological discussion about gender theory to ethics—which puts the cart before the horse. Ontology is prior to ethics.

That is, there is no liberal or conservative gender so much as gender is a performance within a culture which utilizes this spectrum for self-identification

(emphasis added)

But this is the modern theory of gender. You just described gender as a social construct and social expression. This is exactly what we are disputing here.

But I don't think what I've presented falls into this category you've denoted in your first paragraph where one must either think in terms of essences where there are two genders which must adhere to such-and-such rules regarding sex and relationships OR we are left with psychologizing.

If gender is a performance within culture that is for self-identification, then gender is divorced from sex; for anyone can perform in a manner that is properly identified with such-and-such social cues and expectations and they thereby would be, in gender is just that, that given gender.

What the OP is getting at is something more subtle in metaphysics: is the ‘performance’, social expectations, and social cues identical to gender OR is gender an aspect of the real nature a being has.

But, medically speaking, all of that is wrong. There is nothing wrong with having sex of the various kinds. There is no nature to which our soul must aspire towards which a Dominican scholastic was able to perceive. The opinions of priests are often mistaken when it comes to sexual health.

We like to think now like Hume: doctors deny doing ethics when they inform you of the ‘descriptive facts’ about health because prescriptive and descriptive statements are seen as divorced from each other. However, they are giving normative claims simultaneously. When you and your doctor agree that your hand isn’t working properly, you both are implicitly conceding that there is a way it should be working: that’s a normative claim that is tied directly to a descriptive claim.

Likewise, health wise, it is obvious that many forms of sex that people engage in are unhealthy for the body. Like I stated to other people on here, anal sex does damage the anus (even granting it heals itself to some extent over time and one can do exercises to help strengthen it); and deepthroating does damage the throat’s ability to gag (which is for avoiding choking). Now, you are right that the doctor won’t purport these kinds of facts as related to anything normative; but they are closely connected to normative ones. The way the nature of a human is does dictate how that human, biologically, is supposed to function and operate: that’s a direct tying of descriptions and prescriptions.

Which is why I mentioned hedonism -- sure I can check the math, but if there is at least one other reasonable ethical stance towards this problem of ethics (the ethics of sex, gender, and boning) then we're lead right back to "Which ethic should we choose?";

Like I was trying to note to @Jamal, this is the real debate for sexuality ethics is indeed...ethics; and this isn’t incommensurable to resolve: we would need to start with metaethics, then normative ethics, then applied ethics. In order to dive into our metaethical disagreements, we will have to dive into metaphysics and ontology.

More importantly, the OP is really about whether or not gender is a social construct or something else; and whether or not the Aristotelian take accounts for it. It is not a discussion itself about ethics: it is a discussion about human ontology.

If you believe that we can define sex and gender, then please define them.

You misunderstand. Perhaps I was unclear. She was through menopause a long time ago because she is 73.

Oh, nevermind then.

The criterion you claim is essential, the next sentence clearly says is not essential

This facial incoherence is due to a misunderstanding of hylomorphism. Essences, forms, being, and matter are distinct from each other.

A man that is missing limbs is simultaneously fully man in essence in virtue of their substantial form (viz., their male soul) and not fully realized as a man in existence (because the matter—their body—has not properly been realized by their soul).

How do you investigate what is essential, what is accidental and what is a defect? What are the criteria?

By investigating what constitutes the essential powers that the being has: what it is to be that thing as opposed to something else. This is a scientific, metaphysical, and empirical inquiry into ordinary objects. Think of it like this: if a, e.g., kitten develops in a perfectly healthy manner (uninhibited by its environment and what not) then what would we expect it to become independently of coincidental factors (like fur color)?

Is something that would never have four legs, in principle, be a cat? No. It is a part of what a cat is to have four legs. Could it still be a cat and be black instead of orange? Yes.

Could a specific cat be missing legs? Yes; but its essence as instantiated in its form—in it’s soul—would include the teleology of having four legs and the matter simply would not have been realized properly by the soul or it was destroyed by something else (like mutilation).

It is surely the essential nature of a homosexual that they are attracted to the same sex.

No. It is essential to what it means to be homosexual to be attracted to the same sex; but that is a reflection of what is essential to a sexual orientation which is not a substance nor a being. When I say that it is essential to hate to will the bad of something for its own sake, I am not committing myself to the idea that hate has a real essence because hate is not itself a real entity. The human that is homosexual is a substance; and that being has a human nature which precludes that sexual orientation.

, because a bosun's chair doesn't look like a chair, a human cannot sit on a doll's-house chair, and sometimes we sit on stools, branches, benches, saddles, the ground, and so on

Just because something can be sat on does not mean it has a form that includes ‘something that is sat on by a person’. A log is not a chair because its form is that of wood—of a tree—and is being technically misused (not in an immoral sense, but still a misuse) of it: it does not have an essence such that it is supposed to be sat on. It has a soul—a substantial form in virtue of which the tree is alive—and when chopped down is a dying deposit of a substance called wood which was ordered towards the good of the tree originally.

.however, his logic has been criticized on the basis of some of his "is" statements for their lack of acknowledgement that being is not a fixed state. For example, "he is a boy": if that boy gets their penis removed, wears a wig, and talks with a lisp, then many will no longer see them as such...what are they then?

This isn’t a problem for Aristotle’s thought because the essence of something is in its form. The form is the actualizing principle that makes the instantiated being (suppositum) what is it. The form is not identical to the essence: an essence is abstract whatness, whereas form is real whatness.

A boy is a boy not because we have some sort of definition that provides in the abstract the essential properties of a boy; but rather because that essence is instantiated in that boy in his form. For a human, the substantial form of their body is their soul; and the boy has a male, human soul; so this boy is fully a boy in essence (because it is in his form) in substance—even if his existence doesn’t fully reflect that. Materials beings for Aristotle are comprised of form and matter. The form is complete; the matter may not receive the form completely. A boy missing a leg is missing an essential aspect of being a human in existence (esse) in matter; but in existence his form includes it.

but what practical relevance does this have?

It clarifies the difference between an expression of gender and gender itself. Maleness (sex) and masculinity (gender) are not reducible to social expressions of them and they are intrinsic to the essence (and by proxy the form) of a man. Thusly, men cannot become women without killing them: transitioning is impossible; mimicking a gender doesn’t make you that gender; etc.

But how can you justify this perception of health? Is health then supposed to be equivalent with "well, they tell me that im a male, so it's unhealthy to wear pink or read cosmo"? 

The color pink, for example, is an expression of gender—it is not a part of gender itself. This, again, is a key mistake modern gender theory does. Now, either this expression is symbolic (e.g., the Mars symbol represents maleness), mistaken (e.g., using an umbrella in the rain is not itself representing any gender), or gravitational (e.g., being protective is masculine).

Whether or not “pink is feminine” is symbolic, mistaken, or gravitational is going to depend on if:

1. The gravitation to the color has any biological (natural) basis (then it would have a gravitational element to it);
2. The color properly represents something feminine (like the female person on bathroom doors)(then it would have an element of symbolism); or/and
3. The color pink has no connection to gender whatsoever (then it is a mistake).

I am not sure which category(ies) pinkness falls under: I’ll have to think about that more. What are your thoughts? That seems hard to tell. Like I stated many times before to people, there may be aspects of social gender expectations that are really illegitimate. Importantly, modern gender theory doesn’t allow for this because it denies the reality of gender and instead views it as purely a social construct.

I don’t see the relevance of the examples you gave here, but I will respond.

Then let's build on it. Let's say the person-in-the-psychotic-rage-from-the-unforeseen-drug-interaction isn't trying to kill you, they don't have any weapons, but are merely trying to drag you into their idling van. You resist, of course, and stab them with a pocket-knife you have and it kills them. Is that murder?

Normative ethically, the response to an evil must be proportionate; but applied ethically there is some charitable weight granted in favor of the victim. If objectively I could have shot someone once to neutralize them as a threat but instead shot them four times, then would give the subjective element of the case a charitable interpretation and lend some weight in our calculation in favor of the victim; and in this case they would not be charged with murder.

Normatively ethically, idealistically, shooting someone three extra times than was necessary is murder or manslaughter; but applied ethically we would not necessarily deem it as either. To contrast, imagine I shoot that person once, the threat is obviously neutralized, and I take my sweet time and end up shooting them three more times out of retribution, pride, or retaliation. Depending on how disconnected the three extra shots are, we may not be able to use the charitable interpretation of the subjective element of the event to acquit them of murder. Whereas imagine I shoot the person four times very quickly out of panic to neutralize the legitimate threat but, realistically with 20/20 hindsight vision, I could have only shot them once. That’s clearly going to be a case where I am acquitted because of a charitable weight given to me as the victim.

In your example, stabbing them, normatively ethically speaking, must be a proportionate and least harmful means of neutralizing the threat to not be murder relative to the objective and subjective elements of the case (e.g., I might only be aware of stabbing them as a viable means although objectively I could have just punched them in the face); otherwise, I am intending to kill them—not to neutralize the threat.

Now let's say the person-in-the-psychotic-rage-from-the-unforeseen-drug-interaction isn't attacking you at all, but they are screaming death threats at you, and in your personal space, and a good Samaritan comes up behind the psychotic and puts them in a chokehold, but he does it wrong and the psychotic dies.

This would be an example, all else being equal, where technically objectively the good Samaritan committed manslaughter (because they unintentionally killed them out of negligence); but, again, we must weigh in the subjective elements of the situation. It may not outweigh the manslaughter charge in this case, since it seems like they really did something incredibly disproportionate, but it will still be relevant for sentencing.

We have to realize that perfect justice operates no where like man’s justice. We don’t know for sure what someone intends, knows, etc. or what exactly happened. We use evidence based reasoning under the court of law to try to resemble justice.

You rely on these notions of "nature" extensively. They are however meaningless devoid of an explanation of what "our true human nature" which awaits to be fulfilled in fact is. So please explain what in your opinion this ultimate nature of humanity whose fulfillment we ought to strive for is. This being quite pivotal to the subject matter at hand

We don’t need to have perfect and complete knowledge of the nature of a being to have good reasons to believe they have a nature.

Essence realism accounts for the self-unity of substances, the similarity of different instantiations of substance (viz., different supposita), avoids meteorological nihilism, and avoids positing that a members of a causal series can exhibit a property that no member itself can provide innately.

No apostle was Jesus. Period

Jesus instituted the church, His bride, with the apostles which is guided by the Holy Spirit. He gave them the power to bind, loose, speak, and forgive on His behalf. If an apostle condemns something, as a direct disciple of Jesus which was ordained as the first bishops by Jesus Himself with said powers, then it is dogma. If you reject this, then the vast majority of Christianity is lost.

Moreover, Jesus didn’t address every ethical point of contention nor did the apostles write everything that He said down; so we don’t know nor is it important if Jesus Himself explicitly condemned it.

Even more importantly, the Old Law was not abolished with the New Law: Jesus was the New Law embodied which fulfilled the Old Law. In the Old Law, there are aspects that were temporary (like allowing divorce) and one’s that were not (which are still in effect today like the banning of bestiality, homosexuality, etc.).

The Bible and the church could not be more clear that homosexuality is immoral.

Here’s a reference just in case you want to check it out: https://www.catholic.com/audio/cot/jesus-said-nothing-about-homosexuality-rebutted & https://www.catholic.com/tract/early-teachings-on-homosexuality.

Jesus condemned galore

No He didn’t and even if He did I don’t see the relevance at all: we are discussing the morality behind homosexuality.

Jesus condemned galore. It's he who stated that the camel (a beast of burden) will have an easier time than the fat rich guy when it comes to entering the kingdom of god (the needle's eye)

Galore is not the same as being greedy and selfish. Jesus doesn’t mind if everyone had an overabundance of wealth; what He does mind is someone that is super wealthy and does not to help those in need.

 And yes, this lack of condemnation by he upon which all of Christianity is pivoted on is not only indicative but immensely informative.

The church has always condemned homosexuality all the way back to the apostles and the Old Law. There was never a pivot.

It isn't a chair because you can't sit on it. What is your definition of a chair? If you can't give one because you think it requires essentialism, then I think we need to hash that out first and come back to this.

Funny that you keep repeating this "obstinate belief", when even the toy definition you took it from says more than that:
 obstinate or unreasonable attachment to a belief, opinion, or faction, in particular prejudice against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group.

I would say that your insistence that trans is a mental illness, based only on your personal philosophizing, against the entirely of mainstream medical opinion, who I must presume is collectively vastly more qualified than you to make this judgement, is plenty obstinate.

The definition you cited requires it to be “obstinate or unreasonable” which is a loose way of saying what I was saying. Being prejudiced does not necessitate that one is being bigoted, even if I were to grant you that I am prejudiced (which I am not).

Secondly, the DSM-V used to consider transgenderism gender dysphoria: they only removed that in recent years to fit liberal agenda. This was a consensus amongst experts.

I apologize: I can’t remember if I responded to your first point in this reply.

But now I'm wondering: would you like to see changes in the sexual behaviour of people?

Well, of course. I think we are all sinners, there’s plenty of different sins, each person has a different hand of cards from the deck, and we all must strive to live as good (ethical) lives as possible. There is such a thing, in traditional thought, albeit non-existent in progressive thought (usually), as immoral sexual acts that are consensual between parties and acts against oneself.

By analogy, there was real world event where two men consented for one of them to eat the other. If consenting—in a proper way free of duress and inhibitory conditions—eliminates the possibility of an act being harmful or, perhaps, simply is morally permissible in virtue of it being consensual; then there’s nothing wrong with what happened.

However, when we view ethics in a naturalistic way (metaethically), it becomes clear this is immoral because it deprives the one killed of their nature completely (by there non-existence) and so all ‘the good’ for them is lost and the action is contrary to every natural end of them—existence being the most fundamental good and prerequisite for all other goods. I would be interested to know what ethical theory you are operating under—metaethically, normative ethically, and applied ethically—to evaluate this example to compare.

If so, how should that be achieved? 

I think socially we should have norms that incentivize the good and dis-incentivize the bad and of which cultivate a nation-soul centered around the virtues and human flourishing.

A key tenant of Christian thought is love of perfect goodness (God) and of the ordering of things relative to Him—to the point of loving your enemies and wanting their good even as they nail you to a cross. I think society legally and socially should reflect this. This is where the idea of responding to evil with only proportionate and without retaliation comes from: if you love your enemy, you seek not to destroy or annihilate them but to stop them from doing evil and to change their ways.

When you state that certain sexual behaviours are immoral, do you propose to do anything about it or would you like anyone else to do something about it?

The response to evil needs to be proportionate (out of love not for the evil but the person who mistakenly embodies it) and centered towards what is good for all (including the person committing the evil). Hence, justice proper is restorative and not retributive; and not all immoral acts deserve physical force to stop.

In cases of injustice (viz., immoral acts against a person), physical force as a means to enforcing morality is reserved for immoralities that are, in their gravity (either to the other person afflicted or an act against oneself), detrimental enough to the good of the victim that it is proportionate to do so. Proportionality is key here. E.g., a person that is inflicting themselves with self-hate (which causes them to be down in the weather a bit) is not something which would warrant physical force (because it would be disproportionate as a remedy to the situation); but if they are trying to commit suicide (even consensually and in a state where they are not ‘out of their mind’) then it is justified to use force to save them. E.g., stopping a murder by physical force is proportionate but stopping someone from being mean to someone else on purpose does not warrant such force.

Also, the penal system, applied ethically, is supposed to mimick providing a remedy to restore the dignity of the one offended and the will of the (repentant) criminal (although I grant this is not at all what happens in American prison systems at all). Consequently, self-inflicted sins require a different approach because the one offended and the offender are the same. In short, it wouldn’t make sense to imprison or criminally charge someone for doing evil against themselves; instead, it would require rehabilitation.

There’s also a practical aspect, applied ethically, to this too that cannot be ignored. I am weary of the government; and so I am not interested in trying to setup cameras everywhere like in China to stop people from doing every immoral deed. There has to be checks and balances here.

The question becomes: “where does homosexuality and transgenderism fall in terms of the gravity of the act?”.

In short, transgenderism would be viewed, in my view, as I’ve unapologetically said many times in this thread, as a mental illness and be treated like one. The context matters: sometimes a schizophrenic is posing too much of a risk to themselves and the public so they get sent to a rehab center; sometimes they are stable enough to live productive lives in society. I think if a transgender is posing a significant risk to themselves then, similarly, we have a duty to help them by protecting themselves from themselves and rehabilitate them. If they are not posing a significant risk and can live a productive life in society (which many can and do), then that shouldn’t happen. Where the analogy breaks, is that schizophrenia causes a risk by way of hallucinations which is different than a person having gender dysphoria; so the schizophrenic would need to be on medication (most likely) to not pose a significant risk to others (depending on how bad it is); whereas that’s not the immediate case with gender dysphoria. The biggest risk it to themselves, like a chronically depressed or suicidal person. Because of this, the approach is a bit different: I think we would have no right to force them to take any medication unless it something proven to be analogous to the schizophrenic example of taking meds to not hallucinate; and we would take the approach of having governmental and societal institutions and programs that help consenting transgenders get better (like alcoholics anonymous).

For homosexuality, it is not a mental illness by any stretch of the imagination: it’s a pyscho-sociological (at worst) or pyscho-physiological (at best) phenomenon. The harm they, as consenting adults, are doing to each other I would view analogous, although not quite the same, as heterosexual couples that perform effectively the same sexual acts: physical force or punishment isn’t a proportionate response and it wouldn’t make sense to do so. Instead, there should be programs for helping homosexuals with their sexual orientation issue and for helping all couples with their sexual vices that are voluntary. Socially, we should love those who are sinful—which is all of us—and try to live by example so that people can see that what they are doing is evil and everyone should be readily willing to help them be better (and quick to judge nor to condemn).

I think a lot of liberals think that being against homosexuality and the like has to lead to homophobia; but that’s just not the case.

I assume that all else being equal you would prefer to live in a society in which the sexual activities you think are immoral are at the very least stigmatized, no?

It depends on what you mean by stigmatized. I would say that the family and friends should love them (in the eudaimonic sense) and be kind to them and live by example to try and help them onto a better path. We are all sinners; and we should live by example proportionately to what we know about the good.

Like I said, if the person is posing a significant risk to themselves or others then physical force may be a reasonable response (for their own good and the good of others).

3. It leads to a more humane society: no loving couples are stigmatized (privation of goodness, mental illness, etc) because of their private consensual acts.

But, again, ‘humane’ here is begging the question. Also, ‘loving’ is being used incoherently here: you can’t harm someone with love (which goes back to our differences in our understandings of love and harm).

Ultimately, I think liberalism and conservatism in America boil down to four concepts at play that are really influencing the differences between the two. That is, love, harm, freedom, and goodness. We are not using these concepts the same at all.

This is not a chair. Just because someone advertises it as a chair or calls it a chair does not make it a chair. It does not have the form of a chair. That's like me outlining the form of a human and then you send a picture of a cow because someone advertised the cow as a human.

First off, teleology and essences are no more empirically observable than is efficient causality, which is zilch. So one does not empirically investigate them: they instead get investigated metaphysically.

The investigation of the essences of things is empirical: we do not know of the nature of chairness a priori. Now, you are right that teleology itself is a matter of metaphysics; but the empirical world and metaphysics goes hand-in-hand.

Secondly, and more to the point: This quote from you would entail that a human infant is not human—not until it gains rationality to some meaningful extent. It would also entail the same for those with very severe mental retardation, or mental handicaps, or however you’d like it best expressed. Also those in a coma. And the list continues. All of which is … patently wrong.

It doesn’t entail any of that. I was careful to note that all humans in virtue of having a complete substantial human form are fully human in essence. Essence determines what a thing is—not how that essence is realized in existence.

So, for example, a cognitively disabled person still has rationality as an aspect of their nature because it is an aspect of their substantial form even though it was not realized in matter appropriately. This is the age old real metaphysical distinction between essence and esse.

A bench is not a chair. (both can be sat on)

This is a fair objection to raise: I was too loose with my characterization. Technically a chair is something which for one person to sit on and a bench is for multiple people to sit on. This is a real distinction, not merely nominal, between the natures of both.

To not mention beds and tree trumps, etc.

A bed is for lying down. A person that buys a bed to use as a chair is misusing a bed.

Personally, I’d very, very greatly dislike having sex with another man. It would be as unnatural for me as it would be utterly unnatural for a non-bisexual homosexual male to in any way like having sex with a woman. But!: These two facts in no way make either homosexuality or heterosexuality unnatural relative to Nature itself.

Correct, but I never argued this. It is unnatural because it misuses our natural organs and disorders the mind and body.

Nor does the aforementioned in any way make either homosexuality or heterosexuality intrinsically unethical—this irrespective of the mores of a society--this such as via relation to the Good per se, which ought to be pursued by all (or at least so some of us uphold). 

True, but natural law theory would entail that it is immoral.

 In contrast, it can be readily construed unethical, i.e. unaligned with the Good, to condemn a loving couple who has sex that leads to no harm but instead much psychological good for both—this either by accusing them or their sexual activity of being in any way degenerate or else by acting upon this condemnation.

Loving someone is not ‘willing the good of someone for its own sake whereby what is good for them is to be happy’: that’s a liberal and very modern view that ignores the reality of essences. Loving someone is ‘willing the good of someone for its own sake whereby what is good for them is to realize their nature’.

Nothing about two consenting, superficially (hedonistically) happy homosexuals having sex is loving, harmless, nor good for them; because it goes contrary to their nature. Again, notice the tension between libertarian, hedonic liberalism and communal, aristotelian conservatism—that’s what is really at play here.

Jesus Christ sure as hell didn't--and he lived in a time of what by comparison were massive amounts of homosexual behavior in the societies that surrounded him.

Jesus didn’t come to condemn: He came to save. This is no way suggests that Jesus condoned homosexuality and, in fact, the apostles were very clear about it being immoral. https://www.gotquestions.org/New-Testament-homosexuality.html

Your comments are not always helpful is what I am saying. Calling the most prominent opposition to your liberal views 'people with ratshit ideas' is not helpful (even if it is true).

Why are you refusing to define what you mean by 'sex' and 'gender'? Do you believe you already have and I missed it? I am trying to forward this conversation.

 I'm saying that the concepts and arguments you use are not neutral philosophical tools, but are tools of power, formed by historical social conflict.
…
To me it's like saying "but what if racism is actually true?" Well, no: here is why we have racism [insert genealogical account here], and here is why the racists are making these arguments now. (I'm not saying you're a racist or resemble a racist).

To me this is just a red herring. I understand this is exactly what Foucault wants us to think; but it evades a discussion about the truth of the matter.

To take your example, imagine someone is a race realist. Would I be contending with their view by avoiding a discussion about what race realism means to them and why they believe it in exchange for a historical exposition of the genesis of why they (or the group of people who believe it) developed the theory?

I see it as having its place, but the more important aspect is to converse about the ideas—not why a person developed them.

With that said, I think we would have a more fruitful discussion if you responded to my points on natural law theory and provided what ethical realist theory you are operating under so we can compare.

I characterized your ideas as conservative, but not so that I can accuse you of things you haven't expressed: we only have to look at your words to see evidence of bigotry, as several others have pointed out independently.
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I wonder if you can meet me half way and admit that the following comments might suggest otherwise?

What you believe bigotry is? I would say it is an obstinate attachment to an unreasonable belief; so the material aspect of the act cannot itself prove bigotry: you would have to demonstrate that I am holding onto a belief (1) stubbornly (2) despite having reasonable counter-evidence. E.g., a person who is a racist is not necessarily a bigot: little old grandma with her KKK robe and stubborn insistence on racism, as exemplified by her unwillingness to listen to anyone who tries to have a rational conversation with her, is a bigot. Bigots are people that hold onto a belief so steadfastly that they are close-minded to an extreme point of rejecting reasonable counter-evidence (or even being willing to engage with people in good faith on the topic).

 I guess because you characterize the vast majority of your view as the Thomist Aristotelianism that you share with MacIntyre. But I'm interested in the particular views you're expressing here, like your views on homosexuality and the extremely controversial---among Thomist Aristotelians and Catholics as much as among others---view that oral sex between a married man and woman is immoral

Catholicism teaches that oral sex, as opposed to oral foreplay, is immoral: that’s something that MacIntyre would have probably accepted as a Catholic. However, it was not infallible teaching (viz., extraordinary magisterial teaching or ordinary and universal magisterial teaching) as far as I know; so maybe he didn’t agree with it.

Catholicism’s basis for it being immoral is natural law theory and is heavily influenced by the Dominican, Latin tradition in the west; so I do think my view is basically the predominant metaphysics of Catholicism (although it is not taught as the official metaphysic—because, for good reason, they keep the metaphysical commitments of the faithful to purposefully vague ones). The reason it is immoral is because the sex is not ordered towards unified and procreative sex.

If you are asking about oral foreplay, that is technically not forbidden in Catholicism (I agree); so my natural law theory is a bit stronger.

Because from my point of view, pathologizing a way of life or sexual identity that causes no demonstrable harm is a form of prejudice

I understand where you are coming from, but this is because you are viewing ‘harm’ in a liberal way. I think two gay men that have consensual sex are harming themselves and each other.

Harm for liberalism is more like “goes against happiness”; for conservatism it is more like “goes against nature”. In more cryptic terminology, liberalism is about hedonic happiness; conservatism is about eudaimonic happiness.

This is why I was saying your original critique begged the question. You used all the concepts in liberal ways that I am going to reject. For example, for you it is not incoherent with the concept of love to support someone in their transitioning to the opposite sex; in conservative, traditional thought this is incoherent. To love something is to ‘will the good of it for its own sake’ and ‘the good’ is metaethically referring to the realization of the nature of that thing. So, I ask you: what do you mean by ‘love’? What do you mean by ‘harm’?

:fire:

What definitions are you using, Banno? Do you a definition of sex and gender that you have in mind when using those terms?

Aristo-Thomism is the predominant view for roman catholicism; so at a minimum you are saying the latin, Dominican scholastics is ratshit. Nothing you have critiqued of mine really varies from standard Aristo-Thomism. Likewise, most of the broader points I am making are accepted by traditional Christianity (viz., orthodox and roman Catholicism).

Christianity, even for protestantism, is a version of essence realism, of the immorality of homosexuality, moral naturalism, etc.

CC: @Philosophim

Banno, your comments are just getting mean and are not helping further the discussion. I am continually making an effort to further our discussion by trying to get you to tell me what you think sex and gender are; and so far all you have done is give two examples without definitions and stated that giving a definition presupposes essence realism.

To be clear, I am not putting on a performative act: I will concede points if I am convinced.

But this is not my forum. And I have no desire for it to be my forum. This thread is interesting because some folk here have such ratshit ideas; explaining why they are ratshit provides some amusement. Were this my forum, it would be much less entertaining. — Banno

To be clear, you are implying that traditional Christianity (viz., roman and orthodox catholicism) are ratshit.

Not a worry: I wish you the best!

If this is true, then you are denying that we can have definitions of things; which is completely different than being an essence anti-realist.

That wasn't clear from what I have already said?

No. I have no clue what you specifically believe sex and gender are.

An example of a biological appraisal: This body has two X chromosomes. A biological fact, normatively neutral.

An example of a gendered appraisal: Having two X chromosomes counts as being a woman. A social fact, and normatively loaded.

The failure of essentialism is that it mistakes having two X chromosomes for taking on the feminine role. It tries to introduce the normative stuff at the level of biology.

Banno, my dear friend, you didn’t answer my question. I want to know what you mean by sex and gender: I want definitions (and they don’t have to be brutally precise: I just want to get an idea what you mean). What you gave here are descriptions of aspects of sex and gender—not what they are themselves.

I apologize if I've offended you; but what I was meaning by 'no one contended with the OP' was that no one attempted to dive into my gender theory. All you said was that you agree to some extent with me and suggested I avoid the rhetoric 'liberal agenda'. I don't see that as contending with my gender theory; and my main focus with saying 'no one was contending' was to emphasize people other than you that were interacting with me. I was not directing that claim at you.

Just to demonstrate to you that I am operating in good faith and am solely interested in forwarding the discussion about gender theory, I am more than happy to concede that you directly contended with the OP insofar as you agreed partially with it and suggested I avoid rhetoric like 'liberal agenda'.

I apologize if I misunderstood, but you have to be able to appreciate from my perspective why that still reads as you being messaged about it. People don't usually at people to thank them for 'bringing this to their attention' if those people didn't notify them of it.

With that being said, I am interested in furthering our discussion (and I will respond to your other posts here in a bit); and so I am more than happy to concede that, in granting your word to me, I misread the quote and people did not message you about this. Perhaps it was just a big misunderstanding.

:up:

In some ways then it feels like the most appropriate place to start is to ask -- where should we start in relation to thinking about sex, gender, and the various identifications and actions that result?

I agree with you that it is important to begin with an exposition of the fundamental concepts at play; but I would say that this is best exemplified by giving definitions and descriptions of the key concepts involved (like ‘sex’, ‘gender’, etc.).

I've stated before that I'm basically an Epicurean on such things.

I believe you're a Christian on such things.

I am specifically Aristo-Thomistic. Not all Christians are Thomists, as it is not necessary to be Christian nor is it necessary to be Orthodox (Catholic) nor (Roman) Catholic.

Metaethically, Aristo-Thomism is a form of moral naturalism; normative ethically, it is a form of natural law theory; and applied ethically it is conservative.

I have ideas about what "Christian" entails because of my own upbringing, especially with respect to the "conservative" brand of Christianity.

This all by way of leading to the place I think we could begin: What is the difference between liberal and conservative Christianity in the USA?

I think this is more of a historical question that I am no expert, I confess, to answer; but here’s my thoughts. I conservatism is the default for Christianity, as this is embodied, quite obviously, in roman and orthodox catholicism which have apostolic succession and adhere, to sufficient degrees, to the church traditions. This view is inevitably conservative. E.g., women cannot lead in the church, wives submit and respect your husbands, husbands love your wives like Christ loves the church, homosexuality is immoral, etc.

Liberalism comes in with more progressive or/and non-traditional forms of Christianity—i.e., from the protestant reformation. Many protestants are not liberals, of course, but liberalism can only coexist with Christianity in an interpretation of Christianity that believes in sola scriptura, sola fide, sola gratia, solus Christus, and Soli Deo Gloria (viz., ‘the five solas’). In protestantism, each individual is their own church and church authority is not regarded very highly or, sometimes, not regarded at all.

A liberal Christian, I submit to you, reads the Bible for themselves, allows themselves as the final arbiter of interpretation, and interprets the Bible under the purview of ‘loving one another’ to the point of ‘love’ being ‘willing the happiness of all’. This is not the traditional view of love for Christianity, but irregardless of whether it is accurate or not that is my experience of liberal Christians I speak to. They truly, in their hearts, love Jesus and want to love everyone; but they understand of what love is is very different than traditional thought.

I think both liberals and conservatives really want, in America, to make all people’s lives better; but they just have wildly different understanding of (1) what makes a person’s life better and (2) how to go about doing that.

With that being said, I do think there are plenty of liberals that are truly Christian: they accept, in their hearts and minds, the Nicene Creed and do really love Jesus, have and continue to repent for their sins, and are doing the best relative to what they know how to do. I don’t want to bash liberals here.

This is just false: @Jamal told me that they were alerted to this from at least two people and the implication obviously was that it was not like they were alerting them because it was such a great, positive post:

Thanks to Banno and @Tom Storm for alerting me to this. — Jamal

EDIT:
That in conjunction with, for example, the fact that Banno explicitly told me they would censor this if they could:

I did no such thing. However to be clear, if it were in my power I would delete the thread as failing, under the mentioned guidelines. But it's not my call. — Banno

And clearly tried at times to imply to the moderators to ban it:

Looks like this thread is revealing itself as the Conservative Christian echo chamber that it at first pretended not to be. No doubt it will go for another forty pages of theological babble.

No need for others to provide the walls. But it remains a puzzle as to why such stuff is permitted in a philosophy forum.

With all due respect, you didn’t address the OP in any substantial sense. Here’s the comment you are referring to: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/1020464

You derailed the conversation into a discussion about liberal agendas instead of my views on gender and sex. Sure, I used the phrase ‘liberal agenda’ in the OP, to be fair, but that wasn’t a key aspect of the discussion. Your direct contention was just a vague agreement with me:

I fully agree with the notion that you can't totally separate gender from sex

That was it.

EDIT: I am not arguing that you, specifically, tried to get me censored or acted in bad faith.

Are you saying that heterosexuals ought to, or at least may, realise their real nature, whereas homosexuals ought not realise their really defective nature?

A defect is a privation of the full nature that a being has. A homosexual and heterosexual, e.g., male both have the same, full nature of maleness (which is in their substantial form); but, in matter, the homosexual has some sort of privation that is inhibited the full realization of that form materially. In contrast, your question presupposes that there is such a thing as a real ‘defective nature’ in the sense of a defective form; and that is not possible (under my view at least).

By analogy, a person born without their limbs still have the full nature of a human (in virtue of their form) but it was not realized properly in matter—the matter that received it did not receive it properly. This can be caused by all sorts of external factors; like if, e.g., the mother was a drug addict and that messed up the development process.

Are you saying that the menopause is a defect, or old age is a defect?

No. Menopause is natural for women, but, although I am no doctor, I am fairly confident that women usually get it in their 40s. I was assuming, and this just an assumption, that something happened to your wife for her to be completely through menopause at 25...that seems young to me. However, this is an aspect of her and your personal life: I don’t want to be disrespectful and you don’t need to share with me about it.

My problem is you make these declarations of what is a defect and what is a real nature but you never tell me how you tell what's what, so that I can do the same

The methodological approach is to empirically investigate what is essential to a given thing, such that it would no longer be that thing without it, and that would be a part of its nature. E.g., you are no longer talking about a human, in nature, if you are talking about a being that doesn’t include rationality. This doesn’t mean every human has to be capable of exercising proper intellect; but what this is essential to the human nature.

The essence of a chair is something which can be sat on. Hence you can have two chairs that are arranged in completely exclusive ways and still be both chairs; and they could be made out of completely different materials and still be chairs. Their form of a chair is still there—embodied in its power to be sat on. It is about looking at the teleology in a thing.

My problem with this is that I don't think, e.g., Nietzsche is validly critiquing Christianity by giving a psychoanalytic of the development of humanity over time. He never gives any coherent reasons that God doesn't exist, that morality doesn't exist without God existing, that morality is just socio-psychological, etc. Instead, you actively presupposes it throughout his works. His geneology of morals is a good read, but it doesn't even attempt to do ethics.

You can reduce ethics to pyscho-sociological inquiry unless you are a moral anti-realist. Are you a moral anti-realist?

This is a significant issue because you are not providing an alternative ethical theory to contend with nor are you contending with Aristo-Thomism by giving a genesis to Thomistic or modern conservative thought. It could be simultaneously true that natural law theory is true and humans discovered it with evil motives.

Likewise, you are trying to give a genesis of conservatives as a group and then trying to lump me in that general depiction. You simply don't have any reasons to believe I am bigoted, prejudiced, etc. even IF you had good reasons to believe there are a lot of bigoted, prejudiced conservatives out there. You are conversing with me and my ideas here: not on a debate stage where you address the crowd and make general remarks.

Let's just move forward. You say I am failing to recognize the difference between sex and gender: what is sex and what is gender under your view?

"Schizophrenics are mentally ill" is not a substantive claim, it proceeds from the definition of "schizophrenic". To know the word is to know that "mental illness" and "schizophrenia" stand in a genus - species relationship. It offers nothing new to the competent language user. — hypericin

Now you are claiming that a unsubstantive claim is one that is contained, deductively, in the definition of something; and this kind of claim is not bigoted.

1. That is not what bigotry refers to. It is an obstinate attachment to an unreasonable belief.

2. Definitions are subjective. By your logic, when transgenderism was considered, by definition, to be a mental illness called general dysphoria it would not have been bigoted for me to believe it. However, since they changed to definition to fit liberal agendas I am not somehow a bigot for using a different definition. Bigotry requires that I am holding on to my belief that transgenderism is a mental illness stubbornly, which means I am being closed-minded and acting in bad faith. You haven't demonstrated any of that.

3. If society decided to redefine schizophrenia so that it is not by definition a mental illness for suit a political agenda; then you, by your logic, would bigoted if you still believed it was.

The OP isn't about drag shows and that only came up because people were derailing the conversation to try yo get me to say something that is homophobic, bigoted, etc.

Like I said:

1. We have solid evidence that multiple people notified Jamal about the thread in hopes of getting it banned and some were actively suggesting, like Banno, to censor it.

2. No one contended directly with the OP: it is about gender theory—not ethics about sexuality.

3. RogueAI was trying to bait me into agreeing with Nazism to illegitimatize my position.

4. Multiple people decided I was a bigot for thinking that transgenderism is a mental illness and continued to push that claim even after being corrected on the definition of bigotry.

5. They continued to mischaracterize my views even after I clarified them. For example, most initial responders made claims that I support forced experimentation (or 'curing') of homosexuals and transgender.

This is only important insofar as it demonstrates that at least some of the leftists on here are not being intellectual virtuous; which I think everyone should be exhibiting—especially on a philosophy forum.

With that being said, the discussion has started to tame itself and is now getting more charitable and closer to actually discussing the OP; so I have high hopes that I will be able to have productive conversations with people who are sticking with the thread.

Yes, absolutely. Where would you like to start?

Yes, I am also responsible for allowing an evil to happen; but what I am saying is it is permissible under certain conditions. It is permissible, likewise, God to allow evil; but it never permissible for Him to do evil. That's what they were missing. It seems like under your view it is not permissible for God to allow evil—why?

I responded to this:

What a terrible argument. A woman wearing a dress is not like a triangle's having three sides. There are no triangles that do not have three sides, but there are women in trousers.

With:

I don’t think you are appreciate fully what I said. When a woman wears a dress it isn’t itself a part of their gender: it is the symbol which represents their expression of their sex (i.e., the symbol that represents their gender). You can separate the dress-wearing from femaleness, but you can’t separate the feminine expression of femaleness that it represents from the sex (femaleness) that it represents. That’s the part that is virtually distinct.

You responded with:

Muddled. You are here confusing the biological category with its social expression. Here's an idea: lets' seperate the biological category from its social expression - to make this clear, we cpoudl call the former "sex", and the latter "gender"... that will avoid the circularity of “Feminine expression is inseparable from femaleness → therefore feminine expression must reflect biological sex.”

I responded with:

CC: @RogueAI, @hypericin, @unenlightened, @Tom Storm, @Leontiskos, @Moliere

Let’s go with your semantics to demonstrate my point, because semantics here doesn’t matter (philosophically). The social expression, the gender, of sex is not itself ontologically tied to sex: it is an epistemic symbolism of society’s understanding of the ontological reality of sex and its tendencies. Gender, in this sense, is just society’s beliefs about sex and its tendencies.

A natural tendency of the particular sex that has a procreative nature (like male and female as opposed to an asexual being) would not be identical to the social expressions: it would be the ontologically upshot of the sex. Society could get its symbols completely wrong about those tendencies and natural behaviors of the given sex and this would have no affect on the reality of those tendencies and would just mean that this particular society got it all wrong. These tendencies, grounded in sex, are what would be called masculinity for males and femininity for females for humans. Someone can mimick each to their liking, but they have a real basis in sex and its natural tendencies.

The sex, as you call it, and the tendencies due to that sex are virtually but not really distinct. If you have a being, no matter how imperfectly instantiated, that is of sex M then they will have tendencies T<M> which will naturally flow, no matter how inhibited or malnourished, from that type of being M. You cannot have a man, in nature, in form, who doesn’t have masculinity flowing from that nature (no matter how imperfectly: yes, this includes super-feminine men!); just as trilaterality and triangularity cannot be found in existence separate from one another.

Can we agree on this (notwithstanding the semantic disputes)???

To which you killed the conversation with:

No. You just moved your goal post. You still want gender to be "an epistemic symbolism of society’s understanding of the ontological reality of sex and its tendencies", and so grounded in your "ontological reality" and not in social reality. You still want trousers to be like the three sides of a triangle, the "symbol of an ontological reality".

I tried to reformulate it to your schema to further the convo and you never contended with it in any substantial sense. The above is the track record: these are the facts of our discourse on the actual OP. The rest is loosely related.