The culture wars appear to have landed on the desk of the American Philosophical Association. Byron forwards this post by Keith Pavlischek at First Things:
A group of unhappy professional academic philosophers have submitted a petition to the American Philosophical Association. What are they up in arms about? The opening paragraph of the petition tells it all:
"Many colleges and universities require faculty, students, and staff to follow certain 'ethical' standards which prohibit engaging in homosexual acts. Among these institutions are Azusa Pacific University, Belmont University, Bethel College, Biola University, Calvin College, Malone College, Pepperdine University, Westmont College, and Wheaton College. All of these institutions advertised in 'Jobs for Philosophers' between 2006-2009. Further, none of these institutions were listed as censured institutions."
The petition calls on the APA either to "(1) enforce its policy and prohibit institutions that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation from advertising in 'Jobs for Philosophers' or [to] (2) clearly mark institutions with these policies as institutions that violate our anti-discrimination policy." One can assume that "marking" these institutions would be to censure them.
But there is a counter-petition signed by a number of notable philosophers, including Alasdair McIntyre, Alvin Plantinga, Germain Grisez, Robert P. George, John M. Finnis, Roger Scruton, and many others. The petition argues:
"Institutions can require their faculty to agree to abide by ethical standards that forbid homosexual acts while not ipso facto discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. The conceptual distinction between a certain kind of act and a disposition to perform that kind of act is one that no philosopher would fail to acknowledge in other ethical contexts. We fail to see why it should be ignored in this one."
And then they turn the tables on the original petitioners accusing them of advocating a policy that itself would discriminate against religious institutions:
"But the policy recommended attempts to segregate and penalize religious institutions for abiding by their long-standing and coherent ethical norms. Moreover, this policy would foster an environment that would encourage discrimination against philosophers whose religious, political, or philosophical convictions lead them to disapprove of homosexual acts."
Most, if not all, of the colleges named in the first petition are religious schools. The signers of that petition are essentially demanding that these schools forfeit their religious convictions about right and wrong conduct or else be penalized by the APA.
This is illustrative of how the culture war works. The goal appears to be to intimidate by creating the expectation that one will be punished, either by law or other sanction, for saying (or even believing) that homosexual behavior is morally problematic. What will be punished next? Opposition to abortion? Euthanasia? Pederasty?
RLC
