Posted by:
Gay Philosopher
(
)
Date: March 24, 2015 12:59AM
Hi PhELPs,
Is free will at odds with the "choice" to be gay?
No.
We don't choose our desires. Do you? One moment, you desire to watch YouTube. Another moment, you desire to listen to a different album. Another moment, you desire to go to the bathroom. Another moment, you desire to sleep. Another moment, you desire to read RfM.
You desire lots of things at different times. The philosophy of desire is a fascinating topic, but for now, let me just say that, to borrow from social psychologist Jon Haight, desire is like an elephant, and you--and the rest of us--are like a very small rider on top fo the elephant trying to goad the elephant into going in the direction that we want. The elephant has a mind of its own. What generally winds up happening is that instead of trying to get the elephant to go here, we wind up trying to prevent the elephant from going there, and there, and there.
With regard to free will, it's not so much that we choose option A, or B, or C, among a plethora of options. Instead, we rule out all but one option. We say no. Expressing one's freedom of the will seems to be about saying no to all impulses but one, and choosing the one. We don't choose our desire. But we do--to some extent--choose what to focus on, and what to act on (if anything).
It's true that I didn't choose to be gay. The probabilities were fixed by the time that I was born, thanks to genes and, especially, neonatal development. These factors are activated by experiences, but they're not shaped by them. That is to say, by no means do I believe that any type of environmental conditioning could somehow guide an individual who was otherwise destined for homosexuality into heterosexuality. I believe that one's genome and, more than anything, one's neonatal development fully determine one's sexual orientation for life: gay, straight, bisexual, asexual, etc.
Of course, you can choose to not express your sexual orientation, but not acting on the desire doesn't in any way attenuate the desire.
I believe that we do have freedom of the will, but the degree of that freedom varies from individual to individual, and it's not very great, in any case. Physics shows us that determinism is false, if for no other reason than because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
If you're interested in the problem of free will, I recommend _A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will_ by Robert Cane.
Best,
Steve