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[Sep. 13th, 2006|08:59 pm] |
I just realized an innate, wonderful deeper truth about our universe.
The perfect amount of time to microwave any food to bring it to an edible state is always a multiple of 30 seconds. |
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| friends only 2 |
[Nov. 22nd, 2005|09:31 pm] |
11/22: A lot of things worth reading in this journal have become friends only. This applies to every entry in the past as well. This is due to security and possible employment issues. A friend recently got suspended for 4 days from work because a jealous "friend" reported him to Human Resources / Security due to a post in his journal. It's better to be safe than sorry.
All of the personal posts will now be friends only. If you want to be added to my Friends List, either comment here, e-mail me at sam.burkett@gmail.com, or IM me at SorintheSeeker and I'll add you. This sucks because I know a lot of people that read this are not on my friend list and they can't read it anymore without registering and being added to my Friends List. It's not worth taking the risk though. Comment or e-mail me, don't be shy, and I'll add you. Thanks!
-Sam |
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| essay |
[Jan. 29th, 2005|01:54 am] |
Brian Mellen
Ethics
11/7/03
Seeing Through a Glass, Darkly
Philosopher of freedom, John Locke, once expounded off the Latin term tabula rasa in his works by saying that “no man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience." We are born with a blank slate and can not know who we are beyond life’s encounters. Through our experiences we become who we are. Taking a moral issue for instance, if I were a liar I would be a liar not because I was born that way, but instead because of what I experienced up to that point in life. My experiences lead me to choose to be liar or act on my desire to bend the truth. Furthermore, my experiences explain the rationale for my actions, but do not necessarily justify them. This means that even if I had parents who had a negative effect on me throughout my life and these negative experiences led me to choose to lie, my actions are still morally impermissible regardless of misfortune. Homosexuality, also a moral issue, should also be thought of in the same way. Homosexuality is caused by life experiences, but even though these experiences explain why someone is homosexual, they do not justify homosexuality.
Homosexuality is a choice. If it were not a choice then why is it that the phrase “sexual preference” includes the word “preference” meaning “something so chosen?” Since homosexuality has been determined to be a choice and not something a person is born with, it is therefore reasonable for the Government not to legalize gay marriage because it is immoral. If it were the case that people are born gay and could not help being immoral, it would be discriminating to not let homosexuals marry just as it was discriminating to deny blacks certain rights because of the skin color they were born with during slavery. This is not the case. Homosexuality is not comparable to race because being gay is a choice and what skin color a person is born with is not. Same-sex marriages should not be legally recognized because the Government should uphold the practice of legal moralism to protect traditional family values.
In order to move onto the idea of legal moralism, first homosexuality must be proven immoral. Taking a religious stance, the Bible says in Lev. 18:22, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” This verse can be applied to woman on woman relationships as well. God created sex as a means for a man and woman who love each other to express that love as well as a means to reproduce. Since being gay is between couples of the same sex, this already goes against God’s intention that we use sex as a reproductive means. Homosexuality is wrong because it goes against God’s wishes. Since religion and faith are not very popular ways of proving something wrong in Ethics, religion will not be the primary evidence of the immorality of homosexuality.
Homosexuality is ultimately wrong because it goes against the ideas of natural law theory and Kant’s categorical imperative. Natural law theory defines the good as that “which furthers human nature or is fitting for it” and the bad as “that which frustrates or violates or is inconsistent with human nature” (MacKinnon 200). Heterosexuality is consistent with human nature because sex is designed for unity and procreation. Being gay is inconsistent with human nature. Homosexuals may meet the unity requisite, but will never reproduce. Because reproduction was not designed for people of the same-sex, homosexual couples can not reproduce and therefore what they do is unnatural. The act of sodomy is morally impermissible because it works “against our species’ inclinations and aspects of our common human nature” which is in this case reproduction (MacKinnon 202).
Building off this, the immorality of homosexuality can also be proven through Kant’s categorical imperative while tying into natural law theory. The categorical imperative defines morality as to “act only on that maxim that you can will as a universal law” (MacKinnon 70). So if I was to will homosexuality as universal law, then human reproduction could potentially cease to exist. This is self-contradictory because sex is naturally designed for procreation and if only people of the same sex engaged in it, it would be impossible to procreate conflicting with the whole idea of sex as a reproductive means all together. This contradiction is caused by the fact homosexuality is not natural. One might ask why this is a problem? Why should we think that just because homosexuality does not hold up to the categorical imperative it is morally wrong? The answer is because we should have the motive to do what is right. The end does not justify the means. Just because being homosexual might make a person happy through pleasure does not mean his/her actions are moral. We should do what is right even if doing what is right makes us less happy. For instance, I may be in a tight situation in which lying would most definitely get me out of trouble. Is it not more morally permissible to instead tell the truth and face the consequences even though my punishment or responsibilities might make me less happy? Of course the latter is the more moral.
Critics may bring up a valid point. Why should we care if something is unnatural? Surely the reasoning behind why homosexuality is wrong can not solely rely on the fact that if everyone were homosexual the human race would die out? Using my Kantian argument specifically, the worry about human beings ceasing to exist is minor. Kantian logic is concerned with the means more so then the end. It just so happens that in order to fully apply the categorical imperative we must bring up the fact that gay couples can not reproduce to establish the contradiction that a Kantian looks for in order to determine if something is morally permissible or not. A Kantian is not concerned with the result but instead if the means in itself are intrinsically good. Besides, it is an absurd notion to think of homosexuality causing the extinction of the human race because we know perfectly well that the homosexual population is a minority and has been a minority throughout history. Never at anytime have gays dominated the world so much that the human population has declined as a result of it and I do not expect this will ever happen. However, homosexuality being inconsistent with human nature is a concern because the effect of legalizing gay marriages will have a negative effect on traditional family values. The unnatural can disturb the natural and this is precisely where the nature law theory and Kantian Ethics tie in directly to why the Government should not legalize gay marriage.
Gay marriage should not be legalized by the Government because the Government should practice legal moralism to preserve the traditional family. Legal moralism is “the idea that the law may rightly act to prevent people from doing what is immoral just because it is immoral” (MacKinnon 223). For example, legal moralism is mostly applied to victimless crimes or harmless immoralities such as laws like the restrictions we have on tobacco. Gay marriage fits in this category because no one is directly harmed by it but someone may instead be indirectly harmed.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines a traditional marriage as “the legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife” so, in effect, the Government should put into effect legal moralism to maintain the idea of marriage. It is realized that success or failure for a particular issue to pass the categorical imperative is not reason enough to legalize or illegalize it by the Government. For example, lying fails the test the categorical imperative puts forth, but has not been illegalized. I realize lying under oath is illegal, but this is a much more specific form of lying. Lying will generally not land you into trouble with the law. However, what is cause for concern in terms of homosexual marriage is the effect a same-sex union might have on their kids, if they so acquire children through a means other than the traditional way (i.e. adoption, artificial insemination etc.). The sheer unnaturalness of a gay marriage will definitely have an effect on the children. For one, the child will either be fatherless or motherless. We already know that single parent families are known to have more problems with their kids because of the absence of another parent than do families with two parents. The effect of same-sex parents on their children will likely be similar to that of the effect of single parent families on their children because both families are either motherless or fatherless. Furthermore, since children have a tendency to follow in their parents’ footsteps, there is a likely chance that the children will end up being gay as well. Promoting immorality in this case is something the Government should not do and legalizing gay marriage would do just that. In addition, gay marriage is a threat to traditional family values and is cause for concern by the Government. The Government should preserve traditional family values for the children’s sake.
Many will disagree with my assertion that being gay is a choice. How can it be a choice if they resist it some may say? Yes there is resistance. This resistance does not prove that people are born gay. It is the result of life’s experiences that cause a person to choose to be gay and resistance is that person’s conscience telling them that what they want to do is wrong. If only they would listen to their conscience. Another big point critics of my argument may try to bring up is that not giving same-sex couples the same rights as married couples is discrimination. There is a huge distinction to make here. It is discrimination, but against an immoral act and not discrimination directed at the people who are homosexuals. Marriage has been long defined as a union between a man and women, long before homosexuality was spoken openly about and long before the vast majority of people realized its existence. There is a reason why it defined in this way. This is because this is human nature and anything contrary does not have to be followed because it is unnatural and is therefore an immoral act. The act of homosexuality is the victim here and not homosexuals. However, there are instances in which homosexual people are actually discriminated against in society. Since this paper is about gay marriage specifically, other issues that are inherent with discussions of homosexuality will not be discussed in great detail as a result.
Gay marriage should not be legalized by the Government so as to preserve traditional family values while using legal moralism. It is important that the Government help maintain family values because it will not only be beneficial to society, but because it is intrinsically good in itself. We see through a glass, darkly meaning many people have the issue of homosexuality distorted in their mind. Clarity is needed to point out that people can disagree with homosexuality without looking down on homosexuals. It is okay and good practice to hate the sin and not the sinner. However, no one has to accept homosexuality as morally permissible or accepted as a social norm. Tolerance is key to ethical situations such as this. Tolerance does not demand acceptance.
Works Cited
The Bible.
MacKinnon, Barbara. Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues. United
States: Thomson Wadsworth, 2004.
“Marriage, Preference.” The American Heritage Dictionary. 06 Nov. 2003. http://www.dictionary.com. |
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