Reevaluating Swinburne: Neuro-interventions and the Morality of Homosexuality (Andrew Vierra)

In a recent presentation at the Society for Christian Philosophers, Richard Swinburne (Oxford) argued that homosexuality—i.e. exclusive, erotic, attraction to members of the same-sex—is a disability that ought to be eliminated. Towards this end, he suggested that we should “encourage research into how the orientation can be cured” (see the full paper here). Not surprisingly, Swinburne has met harsh criticisms from philosophers, the mainstream media, and even the Society for Christian Philosophers.

One of these criticisms, raised by Rob Hughes, a young moral, political, and legal philosopher teaching in the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, targets what Hughes takes to be Swinburne’s “false and unjustified empirical assertion” that sexual orientation is or could be “to a considerable extent reversible.” Hughes claims that there is no credible evidence (at least that Swinburne cites) that suggests that sexual orientation can be changed. Indeed, to the contrary, available evidence suggests that attempting to change one’s sexual orientation through so-called conversion therapies can actually be harmful. Hughes concludes that Swinburne’s argument is unsound.

I share Hughes’ conviction that something is wrong with Swinburne’s argument, but I don’t believe it is this premise, and I think his objection misses Swinburne’s larger conceptual point. Hughes is correct that given the current state of the relevant sciences, conversion therapies cannot reorient sexual orientations. But, as Swinburne points out, “medicine has made great strides in recent years. Diseases of mind or body hitherto believed incurable have proved curable; it would be odd if sexual orientation was the only incurable condition.”   

Though I don’t believe that being gay is a disease, I agree with Swinburne that one day sexual orientation may be reversible. Indeed, as Brian Earp and I have argued elsewhere, “based on current scientific research, it is not unlikely that medical researchers – in the not-too-distant future – will know enough about the genetic, epigenetic, neurochemical and other brain level factors that are involved in shaping sexual orientation that these variables could in fact be successfully modified.”

And here is the important point. If such neuro-interventions become available, Hughes’ objection will no longer be sound, and what happens then?  

I think a more promising approach is to object to the far weaker premise that homosexuality is a disability. If homosexuality is not a disability, and it is not morally wrong to have sex with members of the same sex, then it is not clear why we ought to invest in research on conversion therapy or encourage the use of such therapies if they become available. Without this weaker premise, Swinburne’s argument is not successful.

Comments

[Angra Mainyu]

Andrew (if I may),

Swinburne claims that homosexuality is a disability, but doesn't claim that homosexual sex is immoral because of it. Rather, he claims homosexual sex is immoral because God forbids it. He further claims that assuming that (contrary to his assessment) people aren't more likely to become homosexual because of what others do (i.e., social acceptability, etc.), then he's mistaken about God's reasons to ban homosexual sex, but it's still immoral because God bans it - and he believes his assessment that God bans it is proper. This is speculative, but I think he'd probably say that even granting homosexuality is not a disability, he has independent reasons to think God forbids homosexual sex; that would be in line with his assessment on the matter of the causes of homosexuality.

That aside, his claim that homosexuality is a disability is based on the claim that homosexual people "cannot beget children through a loving act with a person to whom they have a unique lifelong commitment."
The "loving act" here has to be a sexual act, ruling out other loving acts. It's a weird argument, but by "disability" he seems to mean something like "illness" (in his book "Revelation..." that's more clear), so someone might just say on intuitive grounds that it's an disease. That raises the issue: how does one go about telling whether something is an disease?

In any case, I think another reply to Swinburne is that even granting it's a disability/disease, his moral assessments based on that are unwarranted (leaving aside the God claims, he makes some moral assessments on the matter), and he has no good reason to think God forbids homosexual behavior (though of course Christians, Muslims, etc., won't be persuaded).

[Andrew Vierra]

Thank you for your post Angra,

I completely agree. But my suspicion is that the moral claim is the motivation for the disability claim (even if he does not explicitly state that). We gays have always known that we cannot (yet) make children with our significant others, but we were only considered to be disabled when society was more homophobic.

That is to say, I think it is tricky to separate the moral claim from the disability claim.

You are definitely correct that there are other weak points in the argument. I tried not to really get into them because critiquing (say) moral realism is beyond the scope of this blog =). I would like to follow up on his essay in another venue. His argument is interesting and, in my opinion, definitely worth further engaging with.