Swinburne and his "disability" claim

This piece, entitled "Homophobia and the Limits of Scientific Philosophy" by Martin Pleitz is a fine paper on Swinburne's "disability" claim.

It's relevant, because if Swinburne had stuck to a claim about the immorality of homosexuality, none of this controversy would have happened. My sense of the sociology of the profession is that a great number of philosophers would a) have never heard of it, or b) if they did hear of it they would have shrugged it off as "dog bites man" level stuff, or c) they would have thought that there are resources within Christian moral philosophy to combat the claim, and if pressed, would have expressed solidarity with those using those resources to combat Swinburne's claim. 

But, once it became known that "disability" language was being used, then anger and obscenity were among the reactions. FWIW, I'm in favor of obscenity directed at people using "disability" in the manner in which Swinburne uses it. But if in addition you want a cold dissection of the claim, Pleitz's paper is a good start: 

Some excerpts from Pleitz's paper:

Abstract: To criticize Richard Swinburne’s recent argument for the thesis that homosexuality is a disability that should be prevented and cured, I show that it rests on implausible premises about the concepts of love and of disability, and that the endorsement of its conclusion would lead to grave consequences for homosexuals. I conclude that Swinburne in his argument against homosexuality has moved beyond the limits of scientific philosophy, and into the realm of homophobia.

1 Introduction
Richard Swinburne argues for the thesis that homosexuality is a disability that should be prevented and cured where possible (R 303ff.). The purpose of my talk is to criticize this argument against homosexuality. After giving you an outline of Swinburne’s argument, I will criticize its premises, concentrating on the concepts of love and disability (section 2). In a second step, I will outline some negative consequences for homosexuals living in Western societies that would emerge if the conclusion was widely accepted (section 3). After this discussion of homosexuality, I will change the stance and apply the sociological concept of homophobia to Swinburne’s text (section 4). 

My presentation will be different in character from the other contributions at this conference. At Münstersche Vorlesungen, we usually try to offer internal and mostly constructive criticism to our guest philosopher. My criticism of Swinburne’s arguments will be neither internal nor constructive. I will rely on considerations external to Swinburne’s philosophy, e.g. on different concepts of love and disability and on the sociological concept of homophobia. And my criticism will not be constructive in spirit because I do not intend to help Swinburne improve his argument against homosexuality.

Comments

[Jeremy Pierce]

Given that the dominant view among philosophers writing about disability today is that disabilities are mere differences and not better or worse, I find this explanation strange. Unless they don't really believe that.

[John Protevi]

Why do you find it strange? A commitment to the difference view would easily motivate hostility to Swinburne's notion that disabilities are to be cured.