Two Books and Freedom of the Will

Josh Claybourn had a post last week concerning the causes of homosexuality which sparked a number of comments, a few of which were insightful, and some of which were clearly attempts to enforce a politically correct orthodoxy.

Although the issue is usually conceived as either “environment” or “genetics,” one of the buried issue is determinism. An important question is whether homosexual orientation is a matter of choice, a matter outside the realm of choice, or something in-between. The “genetic” argument stands in for the idea that homosexuality is not a matter of any choice. Gay proponents of this position will usually advocate for it on the basis of their own experience - they knew they were gay from the beginning, just as heterosexuals knew they were heterosexual from the first flush of sexual awareness. The environmental argument points to the cultural aspect of homosexuality. Different cultures held different attitudes toward homosexuality. Ancient Greece and the Zulu warrior culture encouraged various forms of homosexuality. Likewise, the percentage of homosexuals in the population varies depending on the level of education. Since presumably population genetics isn’t materially affected by education, this data would suggest a heavy cultural component, which implies choice and determinism.

For me the issue is validating a realm of choice for humans. There are certainly “hard wired” biological imperatives, but the idea that something as nuanced as sexual orientation is hard wired strikes me as unlikely as the idea that the Irish are genetically predisposed to eat potatoes. It also strikes me as philosophically dangerous to posit that humans are robotic slaves of their genes on that level because the there is no neat dividing line between the idea that homosexuality is genetic and the idea that criminality or intelligence are genetically predestined.

However, even if sexual orientation has a genetic basis, the idea that a single gene, or set of genes, “causes” same-sex attraction is probably wrong. Richard Posner in his book Sex and Reason had this unflattering conjecture as to the link between a genetic proclivity for homosexuality and homosexual orientation:

Withal the genetic explanation of male homosexuality has a definite plausibility, as well as the support of the twin studies. The hostile or distant father and the effeminate or “sissified” child, form a characteristic though not universal dyad in the personal history of male homosexuals. In a noteworthy study Richard Green, rather than relying on the recollections of adult homosexuals...followed over a period of fifteen years a group of boys who had at an early age exhibited pronounced gender nonconformity, and a control group who had not. Three-fourths of the “sissies” grew up to be homosexual or bisexual, compared to only one out of the fifty six boys in the control group. The explanation? Suppose that because of some congenital hormonal abnormality a small percentage of male children are born somewhat deficient in characteristic male attributes such as boldness and aggressiveness (or they may simply be small and weak), and the deficiency will make them when mature relatively unattractive to women, although as yet no one is aware of this. The father is repelled by the boy’s effeminacy, his “sissiness,” and the boy reacts to this refection by transferring his affections to and seeking a role model in, his mother... At all events he increasingly sees himself ain other than typically male terms. At puberty he finds himself indeed unattractive to girls and this reinforces his aversion to modeling himself on his father. Eventually, he discovers that men are his preferred sex object.”

Posner’s conjecture is obviously politically incorrect in its bold assumption that there is behavior that most fathers would view as “normal.” On the other hand, it seems to fit the facts better than the simple gene=homosexual attraction theory. It is simply obvious from the historical evidence that people are more malleable with respect to their sexual orientation than a simple genetic model allows. Further, it is consistent with my observation of several gay classmates who were pegged as “gay” by fellow classmates as far back as seventh or eighth grade because of their mannerisms. I might accept the idea that a gene could cause homosexual orientation but the idea that a gene could cause culturally sensitive effeminate behavior strikes me as absurd beyond discussion.

Interestingly, the experience of one of those individuals would seem to validate the deterministic model. That person concluded that he was gay on the eve of his marriage. I am told that if he could have avoided that conclusion he would have. This psychological experience would suggest that sexual orientation is not a matter of free choice.

That could be. On the other hand, I have just picked up Rationality in Action by John B. Searles. Searles is a well-known philosopher of the mind. I am only into the first chapter but it appears that Searles disputes the classic model of rationality where rational decision are motivated by beliefs and desires. Irrational decisions - such as heroin usage - may be motivated by a belief or desire - such as the overpowering desire to take heroin. For the rest, Searles writes:

We presuppose that there is a gap between the “causes” of the action in the form of belief and desires and the “effect” in the form of the action. This gap has a traditional name. It is called the “freedom of the will.”

Interestingly, for Searles the “freedom of the will” is seen in akrasia, or the weakness of the will, where the mind knows what to do, but the person is not able to will conduct consistent with that knowledge. [Parenthetically, St. Augustine seems to have suffered from a major case of akrasia.] In short, homosexuality may have a genetic component, but not in the simplistic way which is customarily understood, and the homosexual’s feeling his orientation is compelled, may itself validate freedom of the will.

There are no conclusions in this post, just preliminary thoughts at constructing a defense of human rationality in a culture that is uncomfortable with the idea of individual responsibility.