tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post319838434549354353..comments2024-03-28T08:57:53.180+00:00Comments on Darwinian Conservatism by Larry Arnhart: The Biology of Thomistic Natural Law: ST, I-II, q. 94, a. 2Larry Arnharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14619785331100785170noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-181273174779486662011-06-29T17:26:23.472+01:002011-06-29T17:26:23.472+01:00It depends on what you mean by "a natural tem...It depends on what you mean by "a natural temperament." It seems clear that natural selection put a sexual attraction of males for females and females for males in order to get them together to reproduce. So "natural inclination" could be interpreted to mean the inclination designed by natural selection. Perhaps homosexual desire is also designed by natural selection. This would require an interesting story because it is on the surface so incredibly disadvantageous from an evolutionary point of view. But I have heard it suggested that evolution might select for homosexuality in order that ones sibling's children won't have to compete with ones children. That would mean that homosexual sexual attraction has the function to not produce children. This is problematic because I can not think of any other biological item that has one function in some people but the opposite in others. For example, it would be like saying that the heart has the function to pump blood in some people and the function to not pump blood in others. <br />On the other hand, homosexual attraction might be a malfunction like a deformed heart. It is possible that some time after the sex of a fertilized egg is determined, evolution kicks off a process to ensure that the object of sexual attraction is the opposite sex. However, in some people this process malfunctions and hooks people up with the evolutionarily wrong object, or fails to kick off at all. This is what Aquinas would mean by "contrary to nature" meaning opposed to the way natural selection has designed things to go. It should not surprise us that there are people whose sexual attraction is not working as designed. Every other biological item can have this-- deformed hearts, blindness, deafness, deformed limbs, etc. (what Millikan calls abNormal conditions)--all of these are "contrary to nature." So we should expect there to be people whose sexual attraction is not functioning as designed. I am not saying this is the case, as I mentioned there might be a reason evolution would select for homosexuality. We just need to know more about the process by which the object of sexual attraction is determined.JS123https://www.blogger.com/profile/11448253975439749555noreply@blogger.com