I am not sure why so many intelligent people have the urge to share so many of their half-baked ideas on the Web. Professor Katz of Washington University’s physics department apparently believes that the world wants or needs his half-baked ideas about matters far outside his expertise because he is a “public intellectual” (Jeff Stepp, “Should Wash. U. tolerate homophobic professors?,” Student Life, Sept. 26). Ordinarily, I am content to shrug my shoulders at such vanity or delusion or whatever it is. But I am not content to shrug at the defense of homophobia that Katz has posted.
Jeff Stepp has already raised some intelligent questions about Katz’s essay, but he focused on whether it is appropriate for a Washington University professor to post such an essay on Washington University’s Web site. I am writing with a different concern. I want to show that all of Katz’ reasons for saying that homosexual behavior is morally wrong are terrible.
Among his “arguments” Katz highlights what he considers a “logical explanation” for “rationalists,” but he begins by referring to two other reasons why many people oppose homosexual behavior. He might not endorse these as reasons why homosexual behavior is morally wrong, as he seems to fancy himself a “rationalist.” On the other hand, he might endorse them, as he begins his essay by promising multiple “arguments” why homosexual behavior is morally wrong and it is hard to find multiple reasons if one does not take the initial two seriously. Either way, I want to make explicit why they are not good reasons.
The first is that some texts traditionally deemed holy condemn homosexual behavior. If one takes one of these texts to be the infallible word of some omnipotent, omniscient deity, then this is a reason to think that homosexual behavior is wrong. But there is no good reason to take one of these holy texts to be infallible in every particular. The Hebrew Bible to which Katz points, for example, claims that the world was created in six days. Indeed, it gives two contradictory accounts of the creation! One can hardly take this to be the literal truth. One might try to suppose that although the text’s descriptions are suspect, its prescriptions are beyond reproach. But this runs into difficulty, as well. Leviticus prescribes animal sacrifices as repentance for sin. Are we who do not make such amends for our mistakes morally wrong? Anyone who wants to point to Leviticus’ condemnation of homosexual behavior should carefully read all of that book’s prescriptions before concluding that Leviticus provides an unproblematic reason for concluding that homosexual behavior is morally wrong.
More generally, no one doubts that many traditional societies have decreed that homosexual behavior is morally wrong. The question is whether they had any good reason for doing so.
The second reason that Katz invokes without explicitly endorsing is “the revulsion that most people feel.” I will admit to feeling disgust at the thought of some sexual behaviors. I can hardly think of coprophilia, for example, without shuddering. But that’s me, and I am disgusted by lots of things, including, for example, the song “Sunshine on my Shoulders.” Do I think that these things are morally wrong? That is another question altogether, and especially because disgust is culturally variable, one should be careful not to infer judgments about morality from feelings of disgust.
Having introduced two bad reasons without fully endorsing them, Katz turns to his central concern, “the logical explanation” why so many people condemn homosexual behavior: “Recent medical history provides a convincing argument.” He notes that AIDS became an epidemic largely due to the transmission of HIV through unprotected anal sex, especially among male homosexuals. He then makes an inference: “The religious believer may see the hand of God, but both he and the rationalist must see a fact of Nature [sic].” What fact of nature is evident in the origins of the AIDS epidemic? Katz explains, “The human body was not designed to share hypodermic needles, it was not designed to be promiscuous, and it was not designed to engage in homosexual acts.”
Now, first of all, this is a strange thing to be calling a fact of nature. (Is it significant that Katz has capitalized the word ‘nature’?) The religious who believe in a divine designer might think that the human body was designed. But why must the “rationalist” think that? Evolution does not design anything, at least as long as we are checking our metaphors at the door.
Second, who cares what the human body is-Katz says ‘was’-“designed for?” The relevant question is this: what uses of the human body are morally wrong? Katz’s reference to design is relevant only if he is assuming that it is morally wrong to do something for which the human body was not “designed.” But is this a plausible assumption? Consider Katz’s claim that “the human body was not designed to share hypodermic needles.” If that’s the case, why think that the human body is designed to be punctured by hypodermic needles at all? Why think that it is designed to be subject to massive doses of radiation?
I presume that Katz would not like to infer that modern medicine’s use of invasive technologies is morally wrong. Consequently, I suspect that Katz does not really mean to talk about design at all. I suspect he means that the human body is such that some behaviors are conducive to its survival whereas others subject it to significant risk of death. Now, there is no denying that. Nor is there any denying that in a world with HIV infection, unprotected anal sex is extremely risky behavior. But can we infer from this that homosexual behavior is morally wrong?
We cannot, for two reasons. First, this inference, too, uses a general assumption that is quite dubious. Why think that extremely risky behavior is morally wrong? Consider Katz’s own example of motorcycling without a helmet on an icy road. This is imprudent, yes. But is it morally wrong? Or consider any number of “extreme sports.” Are these risky endeavors morally wrong just because they put one’s life and limb at risk?
Second, Katz’s reasoning does not even show that homosexual behavior is extremely risky. He notes that unprotected anal sex in a world with HIV is extremely imprudent. But that’s a very different thing, again for two reasons. First, there are many homosexual behaviors that are not unprotected anal sex, and there are many acts of unprotected anal sex that are not homosexual. Second, there was a world without HIV infection. Does Katz really mean to imply that homosexual behavior was morally acceptable until about 1980, when HIV infection first made unprotected anal sex extremely risky? It would be a strange “fact of Nature [sic]” if the evolution of a particular virus could render innocuous behavior morally wrong.
These are not good reasons to think that homosexual behavior is morally wrong. No one who wishes to be known as a public intellectual should be proud to be a homophobe on the basis of these reasons. Moreover, Katz’ essay reveals more than intellectual failings. One needs to have good reasons to proclaim that some class of behaviors morally wrong. To take this stance condemns people who would, for many reasons, like to engage in those behaviors, and it is morally wrong to condemn people without good reason.
Eric is an associate professor of philosophy.