Talk:Philosophy of sex

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[edit] Invite to sexual ethics

sexual ethics was redirected to sexual norms which I didn't feel was appropriate, so I was bold and made a new page. Perhaps someone here would be interested in editing that page since currently it's wildly POV(mine)? I really don't know much about the topic and need some help. Vesperal 21:45, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Redirect to sexology?

It seems we could delete this page; it contains nothing useful, and should just be redirected to Sexology. Ja? --ScottMorrison 08:06, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hmm. There should be more that can be said here, but not my area - perhaps someone in the philosophy project can help? Banno 08:25, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

I'm glad someone brought up the point: HOW do I help delete this? There is no such discipline that is not already covered in general ethics or theology. I can only think this is a sad subcategory of philosophy of biology, but not so. Sex in the manner suggested is the realm of sociology and biology, the special sciences. Not philosophy. This is an invented topic, please delete. Amicuspublilius 04:29, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Nah... as inadequate as the page is now, this really is a field in philosophy; and something different from ethics, theology or philosophy of biology. I can't guarantee I'll ever get around to it myself, but there really is room for a good article under this topic. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 04:45, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. Philosophy of sex spans ethics, philosophy of science/biology, issues of identity, social philosophy, epistemology, ontology, and so on. Further, there are notable philosophers (and we're not just talking 20th/21st century here) who entered into a dialog regarding sex and sexuality, and not always from an ethical standpoint (a notable case was Voltaire's love=sex equation; Nietzsche's gender relations, Foucault's and Judith Butler's work, some feminist philosophy, and so on are also appropriate for this page). Redirecting to sexology would be like redirecting philosophy of science to science. Just because there is a scientific field that covers the same issues doesn't make the case for pointing a philosophy article to that page. I'd be happy to do some work on this article in what little spare time I have at the moment. -Seth Mahoney 17:02, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Your comparison between science and philosophy of science is ill-founded. Are you supposing that the enterprise of sex itself has an epistemology of its own? If the study of sex does, then it cannot fall under philosophy of science or a special science itself. Alas, sex is studied as any other behavior, and falls squarely 'under' philosophy of science. It has no epistemological consequences unique to it, and perhaps the only exit route I see is to spice in theology, stating that sex is by its nature different from any other act. Sadly, this is not analytic.

In any case this entire metadiscussion is a red herring. The subject is redundant to sexology, and thank you for the link! Completely redundant. Amicuspublilius 19:03, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

But I think redirect is too nice. Simply delete, because I doubt we'll ever find someone searching for "philosophy of sex." It's such a non-topic. Amicuspublilius 19:05, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Amicuspublilius, that you are unfamiliar with this (minor) branch of philosophy, but you are simply and plainly wrong to imagine it is the same thing as sexology. For the same reason that Philosophy of biology has an article that is not part of the Biology article, Philosophy of sex has an article (albeit stubby) that is distinct from Sexology.

As an illustration, a google search for "philosophy of sex" produces 24k hits. The first of these is to a university course on the topic. The second is to the entry in the "internet encyclopedia of philosophy". If this were not a separate conceptual topic, there would not be university courses and encyclopedia entries on it. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:21, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Lulu and Seth are correct, this is an article worth keeping. Put it up for W:AFD if you like, but my guess is it will be a waist of time. Banno 20:02, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

The articles recently added cite legitimate philosophers (e.g. Kant and Aquinas), but cite works which deal with ethics in general. The articles that have "sex" in the title all have "and love" or else are works by philosophers of questionable credentials. Obviously I cannot dissuade a body of people from accepting an invented subcategory of ethics, and I defer to vox popularum on the matter.

Yet please do not take what I say to be authoritative and add a section "history of the philosophy of sex" stating that the study of the philosophy of sex has been "relegated" to the study of ethics. This is obviously a reference to what I have said, and ought to be deleted. This is not only inventing a discpline out of thin air, but inventing a history for the subject based upon my objections. My two cents have been voiced, and I wash my hands of the matter. I will have nothing to do with such misinformation being disseminated. Amicuspublilius 18:52, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Whoa! You certainly have some ego. -Seth Mahoney 19:08, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

It is not WP that invented the field! See the above links to university courses and to other encyclopedias. The field is pretty widely recognized throughout academic departments (as a minor specialty, admittedly). In disciplinary terms, philosophy of sex is about the same age as bioethics. Really, read the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry that is linked to in the WP article (and which we may get the source text for soon). It's true that Kant or Aquinas did not think of themselves as writing in a subfield that had not yet been defined as such... for that matter, they also did not know of the future explicit fields of epistemology or ethics either. But those works are recognized in the specialty as important antecedents. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:18, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I just had a look at your user and talk pages, and its a shame we've gotten off on the wrong foot (and oh, have we ever, but hey, maybe that can be corrected). Especially as regards your demand for citation ("Cite! Cite! Cite!"), I'm with you 100%. Eh, maybe at some point in the future we'll end up working together, instead of against one-another, getting the sourcing of some of these articles up to par. -Seth Mahoney 19:17, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Likely to get "athena birthed fully grown"

I wrote to my old friend Alan Soble (whom I hadn't chatted with for years, so this was a good excuse) about using his excellent article over at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy as a source text for the WP article. He was tentatively positive about that idea, but thought he might have something else more recent to use instead; I'll know in a few days. Obviously, if we use anything of Soble's, we'll need him to release it as PD or GFDL, but I've mentioned that to him. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 20:15, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Lulu, you unapologetic name-dropper; Brilliant! Banno 20:52, 4 October 2005 (UTC)