Michael Levin: Homosexuality, Abnormality, and Civil Rights (1996)
- Homosexuality (HS) is abnormal
- Normal means using something in accordance with its function
- A thing's function is what it has been selected for (and what explains its existence)
- Thus HS is abnormal because sexual desire (or sex organs) were not
selected for HS desire/use
- Similarly, necrophilia is a perversion as it deflects the sex
drive from type of targets that resulted in the sex drive
being selected for
- Problems:
- Other uses of sex organs in ways not selected for are also abnormal and
perversions?
- It need not be wrong or bad to use something in ways it was not selected for
(e.g., nose to hold glasses)
- Levin does not argue that because HS is abnormal it is wrong/bad
- He is aware of the above gap between being abnormal and being immoral.
- Levin argues that because HS is abnormal it is likely to be less
satisfying than heterosexuality (HTS)
- For unlike behavior selected for (e.g., HTS), non-selected for
behaviors (HS or using one's nose to hold one's glasses) are not
likely to be reinforced by being made enjoyable
- "Evolution makes us like what makes us fit." (Fitness = whatever helps us survive and propagate)
- E.g., organisms seek food, but also enjoy it as those that do are more
likely to a better job of seeking food which makes them more likely to
survive
- HS tendencies like promiscuity and compulsiveness about sex suggest
levels of emotional satisfaction below heterosexuals (he claims that the
homosexual life is one of misery)
- Worries
- Is the lower emotional satisfaction (less happiness) of HS (if true) due to
fact that their sexual orientation is innately less satisfying or to fact society
makes their lives miserable?
- If it is true that HS are more promiscuous is this due to an innate feature of
HS or to our society making HS relationships difficult
- Is Levin claiming that HS orgasm less enjoyable?
- HS is probably genetic
- Grants that evidence suggests HS orientation is genetic (innate, not
environmental) and hence immutable
- Being genetic does not show that HS is normal (selected for) as not
all genetic traits serve adaptive functions (e.g. hair color)
- That HS is genetic does not show that it is wrong to discriminate
against HS
- For one thing, even if the orientation can't be helped, acting on those
sex drives can be
- Also, discrimination based on things people can't help is
commonplace and it is often permissible
- E.g., picking friends, mates, or shortstops, firing workers for
bad tempers, forbidding blind from driving, military height
rules
- Levin argues that the immutability of race and sex are also not good
reasons to prevent discrimination on their basis
- Levin allows that rewards/punishments should not be based on things
people can't help
- They should only be based on voluntary acts people are responsible
for
- But he argues that jobs and associations are not punishments/rewards
- Discrimination on grounds of race, sex, or sexual orientation can be
rational and have predictive utility
- Examples
- Businessman who thinks blacks tend to not be punctual and has found
that a blanket whites only policy is cheaper than reliability tests for
all job applicants: Maximizes profits by using race as a proxy for
punctuality
- This type of discrimination is not irrational
- Employer who thinks men should be the family breadwinners and
thus hires men over equally qualified women
- Landlords who refuses to rent to gays because he think gays are
relatively promiscuous, fears gay tenants will attract numerous
strangers who will be careless with property and threaten security
- Not irrational discrimination
- That such discrimination isn't "arbitrary" or "totally irrational" doesn't
show it is permissible or not wrong for other reasons
- Equal rights or civil rights for HS?
- Equal rights for HS would ban public discrimination
- E.g., prohibitions on HS marriage, refusing to allow military
service
- Civil rights would ban private discrimination
- Prevent landlords, private employers from discriminating
- Curtail lots of other liberties (associations at golf courses, private clubs)
- Stronger law
- Levin rejects civil rights (entirely?) as they conflict with rights of free
association
- Assumption that the only time restrictions on individual liberty is permissible is to keep individuals from harming others
- And one does not harm people by refusing to hire or associate with
them
- To harm someone you must make them worse off, but if you don't hire someone she/he is no worse off that before
- Even non-rational discrimination against gays is permissible
- Non-rational, visceral, or emotional discrimination against gays is
permissible
- For people have rights to avoid those things they find disgusting
- Analogy aversion to HS and aversion to bad smells:
- Flatulence in company is strongly sanctioned simply because people
do not like it, and voluntariness is irrelevant
- Analogy breaks down if aversion to HS is learned and can be
unlearned (doubt can get over one's aversion to bad smells)
- Suggests that a basic/innate aversion to HS might well be genetic;
- Like an innate aversion to bad smells; both conferred fitness
- Rejects the idea that instinctual preferences should be judged in light of
reason and values
- Instead thinks life is better if such preferences are satisfied,
- At least when pursing these preferences doesn't frustrate the like
aspiration of others
- Strong aversion to HS need not involve hatred
- One can dislike and want to avoid w/o a desire to harm
- CONCLUSION
- Yes HS will be worse off if others permitted to avoid them
- And it is true that in cosmic sense nothing wrong with HS
- And they don't chose their desires
- But a society that respects the diversity of tastes lets people shun
what repels them
- Tolerance includes tolerating fences