86
votes
Accepted
Is it rational for heterosexuals to be proud that they were born heterosexual?
I would say it is perfectly fine. However, the "pride" that the members of the LGBTQ+ community want to express is not "pride" in its usual meaning. They are not "proud", ...
- 716
44
votes
Accepted
Should we teach abstinence (along with condoms and contraceptions) to adolescents as a preventative measure of unwanted pregnancy?
We should (and do) "teach abstinence" in the sense of talking about the consequences and risks of sex, teaching them about STDs, and recommending that kids wait until adulthood.
But when ...
- 13.8k
39
votes
What is a ‘woman'?
'Woman' and 'man' are social categories founded on innate biological differences, but which extend far beyond such to imply numerous social and psychological features: social roles, habituated ...
- 24.2k
32
votes
Should we teach abstinence (along with condoms and contraceptions) to adolescents as a preventative measure of unwanted pregnancy?
Your last paragraph contains the heart of your problem.
otherwise radical inclusion of ideas like pre-marital sex, dating, condoms etc. can cause a very deep shock and trauma.
In reverse order, the ...
- 2,446
24
votes
What is a ‘woman'?
There are some good responses to a fair philosophical question, and I'll add a few thoughts.
First, philosophy often recognizes two broad types of definitions (SEP): real and lexical. Lexical ...
- 35.6k
21
votes
Is this a fallacy: "A woman is an adult who identifies as female in gender"?
A woman is an adult that identifies as female in gender.
A fallacy is an argument that is specious but persuasive. You have presented no substantial argument which often takes the form of first ...
- 35.6k
17
votes
Is this a fallacy: "A woman is an adult who identifies as female in gender"?
"A woman is anyone who identifies as a woman" is a definition, not an argument (it defines what "woman" means). So it cannot be fallacious. But it's circular*, which means it's not ...
- 13.8k
14
votes
Is this a fallacy: "A woman is an adult who identifies as female in gender"?
It isn't an argument, so cannot be a fallacy.
It is merely a definition.
A definition can be useful or not. It can be a prescriptive definition or a descriptive definition. Prescriptive definitions ...
- 413
14
votes
Is it rational for heterosexuals to be proud that they were born heterosexual?
Pride is an emotion. It is irrational to expect rationality from emotions.
- 1,372
13
votes
Is it rational for heterosexuals to be proud that they were born heterosexual?
Being proud of your sexual orientation or gender only works when the opposite is expected. Pride started at a time where LGBT+ people were expected to feel shame. Starting as a kid from parents, ...
- 139
12
votes
Is it rational for heterosexuals to be proud that they were born heterosexual?
The simple answer, or rather response, to your question is that such words are being used simply as a slogan, a political statement.
There is utterly no connection to philosophy, or any philosophical ...
- 368
10
votes
Is this a fallacy: "A woman is an adult who identifies as female in gender"?
The following definition is not circular:
A woman is somebody who says they are a woman.
This definition proposes a test, "do they say they are a woman?", to determine if somebody is a ...
- 1,292
9
votes
Should we teach abstinence (along with condoms and contraceptions) to adolescents as a preventative measure of unwanted pregnancy?
I mean the obvious elephant in the room is that sex is a natural process and that having sex is a completely natural thing and that your body might even gear you towards having sex and reward you with ...
- 8,140
8
votes
What is a ‘woman'?
"Woman" is a category which is historically based on the reproductive function of a human.
Categories of real-life observables are often correlated with measurable properties (such as ...
8
votes
How mature must one be to be able to have sex?
There are many factors to take into account, one of the most important of which is the idea of informed consent. If someone is unable to make an informed judgement about the consequences of their ...
- 26.4k
8
votes
Should we teach abstinence (along with condoms and contraceptions) to adolescents as a preventative measure of unwanted pregnancy?
In addition to the excellent answers already given, you may not be aware that in many places "abstinence education" is a euphemism for an educational course that is ideologically associated ...
- 189
7
votes
Platonic love and "sapiosexuality"
They are definitionally incompatible.
Platonic love is a kind of love in which sexual desires are not present or have been suppressed.
X-sexuality is sexual desire for X.
Hence sapiosexuals, if such ...
- 8,413
7
votes
What does it mean to say "homosexuality is normal"?
Normality or normativity has two senses when applied to homosexuality. One is a biological sense, and the other is a cultural sense. In socially liberal societies, to say that homosexuality is normal ...
- 35.6k
7
votes
What is a ‘woman'?
If woman means female human being, then the semantic heavy work is carried by the meaning of "female". Biologists seem to be able to neatly categorize an immense variety of life forms as ...
- 765
7
votes
Is exclusivity optimal from a utilitarian perspective? What's wrong with being non-exclusive?
I am answering the first version of this question.
Nothing is inherently wrong under a utilitarian framework. Utilitarian judgments are contingent judgments.
You have omitted in the utilitarian ...
- 5,804
6
votes
Accepted
In philosophy, why are feminism and transsexuality so controversial?
Actually, there is a lot of work done on the philosophy of gender that doesn't have a political focus and doesn't devolve into meaningless political debate. This is mostly in actual academic ...
- 484
6
votes
How mature must one be to be able to have sex?
People misunderstand the age of consent. In the UK less than 5% of rapes reported to police result in a conviction. And that's now, in modern times. Age of consent means below that age all that has to ...
- 23.8k
6
votes
Should we teach abstinence (along with condoms and contraceptions) to adolescents as a preventative measure of unwanted pregnancy?
no, because everyone already knows they can choose to not have sex.
That's like teaching people to stay at home instead of driving somewhere because driving is dangerous. People want to drive, and ...
- 199
6
votes
Is it rational for heterosexuals to be proud that they were born heterosexual?
A similar issue arose a few years ago when the president of Smith College used the phrase "all lives matter" in a public speech. Some students subsequently protested, arguing that the phrase ...
- 299
5
votes
Can the sexual double standard be justified according to this logic/reasoning?
The reasoning is a non sequitur: virginity is only losely correlated to fertility, and somewhat negatively.
Your reasoning for considering virginity desirable is that a woman who never had sex is not ...
- 7,590
5
votes
What is a ‘woman'?
Why I think this is a great question
Even after Matt Walsh insulted everyone who could not answer this question in his documentary "What Is a Woman?", and specifically accused someone of ...
- 199
5
votes
Should we teach abstinence (along with condoms and contraceptions) to adolescents as a preventative measure of unwanted pregnancy?
The question is, do you want to prevent unwanted pregnancies, or do you want the young people to abstain from pre-marital sex altogether?
These are different goals, and while successfully teaching ...
- 322
5
votes
Accepted
On atheism, is it possible to establish that certain things have natural purposes, and that any deviation from those purposes is immoral or evil?
If a philosophical framework can't objectively say, with relative ease, "This cat is injured," or, "This cat is ill," or even, "This is a cat"
What philosophical ...
- 18.9k
5
votes
Is gender identical to sex?
Gender with any meaning beyond grammar (e.g. le chat court partout comme un fou: sous la chaise belle, sur le canapé grand...) is a neologism adopted by some academics and activists in the late 60s ...
- 8,413
4
votes
Is there such a thing as sexual morality?
"there is no morality special to sex"
By the same reasoning there would be no morality special to murder, you just have to get busy on the particulars (war? self defence? etc). That is, it'...
- 23.8k
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