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 -
This whole thing is a dumpster fire as far as I'm concerned. I can formulate arguments against any part of this, but I don't want to go on a 4,000 word rant. For starters the premises are all non-self-evident and IMO highly objectionable, and I consider it intellectually dishonest to smuggle contentious arguments into your axioms. But whatever, premises are premises. If I was in the class, I'd ask the professor how far she's willing to go with Conclusion B. Are we obligated to date Down Syndrome folks? People born without limbs? Ugly people? Ugly people with Down Syndrome born without limbs? Has your professor personally randomized her dating experience so as to include all of these categories?
Also, Premise 1 is ambiguous. What does 'discrimination' exactly mean, in this context? If there's a black person that I don't want to be friends with, how can one say that their race is the reason for the preference? Maybe they have other negative characteristics that I don't like: they're stupid, or uneducated, or mean, or aggressively racist, or they have bad hygiene and smell. Am I required to be friends with them? If so, why? Do you think it's honest to pretend to like someone that you really dislike? How would you feel if you learned that all of your 'friends' actually detested you but were forcing themselves to interact with you in order to satisfy some sort of racial quota? Is that a world you'd want to live in?
I'd also love to hear her take on how Premise 2 interacts with her presumably very tolerant view towards kink/sexual orientation. I assume there's a very strong theme of 'everyone should be able to live their sexual truth without shame' or whatever. Well, what if your sexual attraction is towards your own race? Why is that forbidden? This all sounds very much like an ironic inversion of the 50's sexual-taboo worldview that modern notions of liberation were specifically designed to rebel against.
I could go on. Feel free to ask if you want more. Again, this class sounds like an absolute dumpster fire. If it was me, I'd get as far away from both it and the institution as quickly as I could. If you don't mind saying, what college to you go to?
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