From my (gen-ed required) Philosophy of Sexuality class:
Premise 1: We are obligated not to racially select our friends, even if this is motivated by a preference for a certain race of friends.
Premise 2: If we are obligated not to racially select our friends, we're obligated not to racially select our romantic and sexual partners.
Conclusion A: Therefore, we're obligated not to racially select our romantic and sexual partners.
Premise 3: If we're obligated not to racially select our friends, romantic, or sexual partners, this is because race is an immutable characteristic. So, we're also obligated not to select our partners based on any other immutable characteristics. (Modified version: swap "immutable" with "non-desert based") (Modification 2: With one qualification: except in cases where doing so comes at an unreasonably extreme cost to oneself.)*
Conclusion B: Therefore, we must be all-inclusive with respect to immutable characteristics in friendship and dating.
So the implication is that we all have an obligation to become bisexual. Why? Because no one would accept "I just don't desire them as such" as a justification for why one systematically doesn't befriend black people. I'm suspicious of this argument, but I can't identify a knock-down flaw. So maybe I should just accept it? I don't want to, but if I'm being honest I can't find "the problem" yet.
Objection to Premise 3: There's cases where it's wrong to discriminate that aren't based on immutable characteristics (hair color, for example). This implies that the best explanation of what makes discrimination wrong is that it fails to track desert instead. But then, no one deserves to have ASD, and yet I don't think people would agree I am compelled to select friends from a subset of people who are violent and nonverbal due to severe ASD. Maybe this could be dealt with by modifying premise 3 to include a "reasonable burdensomeness qualification": your habits of selective association should track desert unless doing so comes at an unreasonably harsh cost to yourself. So if the boredom of befriending a nonverbal person is too intense, or if their violence is too much for you, you would be excused from the general obligation described by premise 3, but that wouldn't permit racism or ableism in general.
But now I'm puzzled, because A) I feel like I have a moral obligation not to racially discriminate in friendship, but B) I don't feel like I have an obligation not to choose not to befriend a tennis player just because I don't have the necessary desires, even though tennis players don't deserve friendship any less than black people.
Objection to Premise 2: I think romantic/sexual attraction to someone is a lot more immutable than who you're friends with, but to the extent that you can change your preferences without assuming an unreasonably harsh burden, or act despite your desires, shouldn't you? Imagine if you had a mild disgust reaction every time you thought about black people, and for that reason you decided never to befriend black people. Wouldn't it be incumbent on you to repress or replace that disgust reaction if doing so was within your power? How disgusting would black people have to be to you before it was no longer morally necessary for you to suck it up and act inclusively despite it? For whatever reason society has an unspoken agreement that racial dating preferences are okay, especially if it's within race. But maybe there's some independent reason why it's okay in certain contexts, despite being wrong in general?
*The defense of premise 3 is:
A) Since Premise 1 (it's wrong to racially select our friends) is an uncontroversial judgement, an explanation is called for.
B) The best explanation is going to be something that identifies a feature all cases of racial discrimination have in common.
C) Immutable characteristics is the feature my professor thinks most promising.
I objected to this because it seems like someone who thinks racially selecting their friends is wrong also wants to say selecting based on hairstyles or hair color is wrong, even though that could be changed.
But then, my prof replied by saying "in that case, what all the cases have in common is that discrimination is happening without a desert-based justification."
So, she proposes a modified version of premise 3: "If we're obligated not to racially select our friends, romantic, or sexual partners, this is because race is not a desert-relevant characteristic. So, we're also obligated not to select our partners based on any other desert-relevant characteristics."
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Notes -
Premise 3 is wrong.
From the perspective of woke morality, the reason why it isn't okay to discriminate on race is not that race is an unchosen characteristic which doesn't track desert. If "don't discriminate on unchosen characteristics which don't track desert" was the rule then discriminating against adults based on religion would be fine (because American society is set up so that religion is a choice), and discriminating based on looks or intelligence would be wrong. The actual rule is "don't discriminate based on attributes which track historical patterns of social oppression in ways that reinforce the oppression", or in plainer English but woke-unsympathetic language that you shouldn't use in a college essay, "don't discriminate against members of a protected group".
The problem is that this doesn't get you out of mandatory bisexuality because women and gay men are protected groups. So a straight woman who refuses to date other women is expressing internalised misogyny (and possibly lesbophobia as well), and a straight man who refuses to date other men is expressing homophobia. (When I spent more time in woke spaces, exactly this argument was made to me by a predatory arsebandit who was sexually harassing me).
So the cleaned up argument is:
Premise 1: It is wrong to discriminate in a way which reinforces historical patterns of social oppression
Premise 2: Refusing to date members of historically oppressed groups is discriminating against them in an oppression-reinforcing way
Premise 3: Women and gay men are historically oppressed groups.
Conclusion: It is wrong for a woman to refuse to date other women, or for a man to refuse to date gay men, therefore bisexuality is mandatory.
There are then two attacks you can make within the rules of woke morality, both of which are fundamentally attacks on premise 1.
The first is that sexual autonomy overrides antidiscrimination norms. To use the language of John Rawls' Theory of Justice, sexual autonomy is a basic liberty and the principle that basic liberties should be respected takes lexical priority over the principle that society should be organised to best meet the needs of its least privileged members. Read the Cliffs Notes on ToJ before making this argument in an essay.
The second is that society recognises a number of exceptions to the rule of "don't discriminate on sex" which it does not for "don't discriminate on race". The reason for this is that men and women are actually different that don't reflect desert, but do matter. So (temporarily ignoring arguments about transgenderism) essentially everyone is in favour of allowing sex-based casting of actors, sex-segregated toilets and changing rooms, and a same-sex requirement for certain types of care work. For dating, being of the appropriate sex is whatever you call the non-occupational equivalent of "bona fide occupational qualification".
There is a third argument which should be safe to make even if it is subtly non-woke, which is that heterosexual people are dating with multiple purposes, but typically "find a life partner I can have children with" is one of the main ones, and in a world where 3 cycles of IVF costs a year's average salary and isn't a guarantee of success, a same sex partner simply can't do one of the core parts of the "job". In the trans context, the standard rejoinder from wokists is that we don't insist of medical verification of fertility early in a relationship, and screening out partners who are effectively infertile due to having the wrong sexed anatomy earlier than we screen out partners who are infertile for medical reasons is discriminatory. But this is obviously silly.
You can of course make a non-woke argument that premise 1 is wrong and it is okay to discriminate in personal contexts (friends, dating partners, roommates etc.)in ways it wouldn't be in a commercial or government context. I wouldn't try that in a college essay for a woke-stupid professor.
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