On the Concept of Sexual Perversion
Abstract
This paper has two aims. First, to provide an account of the nature of the
debate about the concept of sexual perversion and to diagnose why little
progress has been made in resolving said debate. Second, to offer a
methodology for resolving disputes about the correct analysis of the
contents of concepts where these disputes have important social and
political ramifications. Having argued that misunderstandings and poor
methodology have led to an effective stalemate in with respect to the
concept of perversion, the paper suggests that when deciding between
competing analyses of a concept, we should consider not just facts about
our inferential and judgemental dispositions with respect to that concept,
but we should also incorporate facts about the desired social function of
the concept. This provides additional resources that allow us to make
decisions about which analysis to choose, when information about our
dispositions alone cannot determine an answer.
1. Introduction
Since Nagel’s 1969 paper “sexual perversion”1, the analytic tradition has offered a
number of accounts of sexual perversion, which are best understood as attempts to
provide an analysis of the concept <sexual perversion>. As such they attempt to tell
us in virtue of which features acts fall under the concept. While the number of these
accounts is relatively few, significantly, their differences are vast. They disagree not
just about which acts fall under the concept and why, but also about whether the
concept of sexual perversion is purely descriptive or if it includes a normative
component. By this I mean that there is disagreement about whether sexually
perverted acts ought to be subject to negative evaluation in virtue of being classified
as sexual perversions. Those who think that the concept of sexual perversion has both
1
Nagel, T, ‘Sexual Perversion’, The Journal of Philosophy, 66.1 (1969), pp. 5-17.
a descriptive and a normative component think that acts that fall under the concept are
thereby subject to negative evaluation. Talk of acts that fall under the concept of
sexual perversion thereby being subject to negative evaluation should be understood
as the claim that these acts are subject to such evaluation in virtue of falling under the
concept sexual perversion, rather than in virtue of any other property they instantiate.
Call these accounts normative accounts. Those who think that the concept of sexual
perversion has only a descriptive component think that acts that fall under the concept
are not thereby subject to negative evaluation. Call these accounts descriptive
accounts. Notice that it is consistent with holding that the concept of perversion is
descriptive, that some, or all sexually perverted acts might still turn out to be subject
to negative evaluation, but in virtue of instantiating some other property, or falling
under some other concept than <sexual perversion>. For instance, suppose that sexual
acts with goats are perverse. While any descriptive account of the concept will hold
that such acts are not thereby negatively evaluable, they might nevertheless be
negatively evaluable because, for instance, they bring harm to the goat, and harming
conscious creatures is negatively evaluable.
To see just how broad disagreement is, let us briefly survey some of the
accounts of offer. Those who embrace a broadly Nagelian perspective hold that acts
that exhibit certain communication failures are sexually perverted and thereby
negatively evaluable.2 A number of competitor views follow Nagel in holding the
concept of sexual perversion to be normative. Thus there are accounts according to
which sexually perverted acts are unnatural acts3 or acts that deprive a person of a
basic good4 or seriously sub-optimally exploit the human potential for sexual
experience5 or involve a psychological incapacity to correctly form aesthetic
judgements of a certain kind6. Though all these analyses hold that the concept of
sexual perversion is normative, it is not always clear what this amounts to. Nagel,
2
Nagel, T, ‘Sexual Perversion’, The Journal of Philosophy, 66.1 (1969), pp. 5-17 and Solomon, R,
‘Sexual Paradigms’, The Journal of Philosophy, 71.11 (1974), pp. 336-345.
3
Finnis, J, ‘The Good of Marriage and the Morality of Sexual Relations: Some Philosophical and
Historical Observations,’ American Journal of Jurisprudence 42, (1997), pp. 97-134 and George, R, P,
In Defense of Natural Law, (New York, Oxford University Press, 1999).
4
Levy, D, ‘Perversion and the Unnatural as Moral Categories’, Ethics, 90.2. (1980), pp. 191-202.
5
Levinson, J, ‘Sexual Perversity’, The Monist, 86.1 (2003), pp. 30-54.
6
William, C, ‘Perverted Attractions’, The Monist, 86.1 (2003), pp. 115-26.
Solomon and Levinson suggest that perverted acts are in some sense “suboptimal”,
but they fall short of holding that all sexually perverted acts are ethically proscribed,
and are so in virtue of being sexually perverted. These accounts are probably best
viewed as ones in which negative evaluation is construed as negative prudential
evaluation: engaging in sexually perverted acts is imprudent and hence irrational.
Though defenders of these accounts sometimes seem to want to say that there
engaging in sexual perversions is more than imprudent, but less than ethically
prohibited, but it is hard to see what this middle ground could be. This is in contrast
to Levy, Finnis and George who clearly think that the sense in which perverted acts
are negatively evaluable is the sense in which they are ethically prohibited.
Other competitor accounts reject the idea that the concept of sexual perversion
is normative. Thus one descriptive account, defended by Ruddick and Gray7, agrees
with that of Finnis and George that sexually perverted acts are unnatural sexual acts,
but rejects their claim that such acts are thereby negatively evaluable. Other
descriptive accounts, such as that of Goldman8 hold that sexual practices that deviate
from a statistical norm are sexually perverted. Finally, there are those like Priest and
Primoratz who advocate an error theoretic account of the concept of sexual
perversion.9
The methodology for evaluating these accounts has almost universally been
the same. We evaluate the success of an analysis by asking whether it has any
counterexamples. A counterexample exists when an analysis classifies an act as
falling (or failing to fall) under the concept contrary to folk intuition regarding the
classification of that act. The dialectic suggests that if an analysis misclassifies acts,
this is good reason to suppose it is false.
There are two reasons to be concerned by this methodology. First, on purely
pragmatic grounds, it fails to have brought us any closer to agreement about sexual
perversion. Rather, disputants have steadfastly defended their preferred view
7
Ruddick, S, ‘Better Sex’, in R. Baker and F. Elliston (eds.), Philosophy and Sex, (Buffalo:
Prometheus Books, 1975) and Gray, R, ‘Sex and sexual perversion’, Journal of philosophy, 75, (1978),
pp. 189-199.
8
Goldman, A, ‘Plain Sex’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 6.3 (1977), pp. 267-287.
9
Priest, G, ‘Sexual Perversion’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 75.3 (1997), pp. 360-72 and
Primoratz, I, ‘Sexual Perversion’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 34.2 (1997), pp. 245-263.
regardless of any charge that it misclassifies acts. A more substantial worry, however,
is that this methodology presupposes that the set of folk intuitions about which acts
fall under the concept is consistent, and therefore that there is at least one analysis that
will not fall foul of the charge of misclassification. If the set of folk claims is not
consistent, however, then any consistent analysis of the concept would, by the lights
of the folk, involve some misclassification. If so, any methodology that does no more
than point out, for each analysis, that that analysis misclassifies acts, would be
expected either to leave all disputants entrenched in their preferred views (since all
competitor views also misclassify acts and hence have nothing to recommend them)
or else should lead us to be eliminativists about the concept (since every analysis
involves misclassification).
This paper diagnoses the source of the standstill in the debate by suggesting
that the set of claims that capture our folk intuitions is not consistent, and therefore
that this methodology is inappropriate. The inconsistency is traced to a set of three
inconsistent claims, and, I argue, the starkly different analyses on offer are the result
of disputants holdings fixed different consistent sub-sets of these claims and rejecting
the remainder.
Once we understand why the current methodology fails, it becomes possible to
develop an improved methodology that offers a genuine possibility of resolving the
dispute. To this end I develop a methodology that pays attention to the fact that in
addition to having a narrow functional role in our cognitive systems, concepts have
broader social functions. The social function of certain concepts is particularly
important both in the sense that the social function itself is important, and in the sense
that it is part of the nature of the concept that is has such a social function. For
instance, many of the concepts we find in ethics and political philosophy are like this:
concepts such as <rights> <duties> <good> <wrong> <evil> and so forth. These
socio-political concepts have important social functions. When deciding between
competing conceptual analyses we should consider not just facts about ourselves as
concept users, that is, facts about our dispositions to make judgements about what
falls under some concept, but, where the concept in question is a socio-political one,
we should ask ourselves what sort of social function is a desirable one for that concept
to play. Having ascertained that, we should choose, from competitor analyses, that
analysis that best realises that desirable social function.
The paper begins by providing a framework for thinking about concepts and
conceptual analysis. In section 3 it diagnoses the methodological problem with the
debate and offers a reconstruction of the dialectic in terms of different analyses
holding fixed different folk claims within an inconsistent set. Section 4 defends the
view that we should appeal to facts about the desirable social function of concepts to
resolve conceptual disputes, and it explicates how to proceed in resolving these
disputes. More particularly, in this section I outline how this methodology will allow
us to locate the source of various different kinds of dispute. I suggest that some of
these disputes are ones to which we can expect the methodology to offer a resolution,
while conceding that in more problematic cases we may be able to do no more than
locate the source of a fundamental normative disagreement.
2. Concepts: A Framework
It has almost become true to say that concepts are all things to all men. This paper
makes certain assumptions about concepts. It assumes that concepts are abstract
contentful entities that are the constituents of propositions, and that the content of
concepts contributes to the content of the propositions in which they are constituents.
Further, the paper assumes that the contents of concepts are explicated in terms of
something like conceptual role semantics, according to which the contents of
representations are given by the functional role those representations play in our
cognitive economy. Part of the functional role of concepts includes judgements about
which entities fall under a particular concept. Another part of the functional role
includes the inferential relations that hold between concepts.10
Specifically, content is given by the set of claims that capture the inferences
and judgements of users who have mastery of the concept.11 Leave aside for a
moment the issue of whether these are the actual inferences and judgements of users
10
See for instance Field, H, ‘Logic, Meaning and conceptual role’, Journal of Philosophy, 69, (1977),
pp. 379-408, Harman, G, ‘(Non-solipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics’, in Lepore, E, (ed), New
Directions in Semantics, (London, Academic Press, 1987) and Peacocke, C, A Theory of Concepts
(Cambridge, MIT Press, 1992).
11
This view follows roughly in the footsteps of Lewis, D, ‘Psychophysical and Theoretical
Identifications’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 50, (1972), pp. 249-58, Jackson, F, From
Metaphysics to Ethics: A Defence of Conceptual Analysis, (London, Oxford, 1998) and Smith, M, The
Moral Problem, (Oxford, Blackwell, 1994).
or the actual and counterfactual inferences and judgements. The idea is that the
content of the concept <red> is captured by the set of claims that include “red is a
colour” “red is more similar to yellow than to blue” “red objects can look other
colours in aberrant conditions” “fire engines are red”, “red often signifies danger” and
so forth. Thus claims that capture judgements about what falls under the concept will
be included in its content, but so too will claims that capture judgements about, for
instance, the appropriateness of certain responses given that one has deployed the
concept. Braddon-Mitchell calls the conditions under which we judge that a concept
applies the input conditions, and the conditions under which we judge that certain
responses are appropriate upon deploying a concept the output conditions.12 These
judgements about appropriateness of response are particularly salient in the case of
evaluative concepts. Some of the claims that capture mastery of the concept of murder
include claims about how we should respond once we see an act as falling under the
concept, such as that it is correct to express sentiments such as “that act is wrong”,
“punish the person who committed that act” and to act in ways that bring it about that
the person is punished, that deter further acts of that sort and so on.
Some of the claims that capture mastery of the concept of sexual perversion
will be ones that express claims about which acts, under what conditions, count as
sexually perverted. Other claims will be ones about the appropriate response to
deployment of the concept. These latter claims tell us whether a concept is purely
descriptive, or whether it also has a normative component, and if it has a normative
component they tell us what sort of normativity is involved: ethical or prudential.
If content is given by the set of claims that capture the inferences and
judgements of those who have mastered the concept, there will be two versions of the
account depending on whether one includes counterfactual inferences and judgements
in specifying content.
According to what are sometimes known as regularist
accounts, the content of a concept is given by claims that capture the inferences and
judgements that competent users regularly make. According to what are sometimes
known as dispositionalist accounts, the content of a concept is given by claims that
capture the inferential and judgemental dispositions of competent users. Thus what is
relevant in determining content is not just the judgements and inferences one actually
makes, but also the judgements and inferences that one would make under a range of
12
See Braddon-Mitchell, D, ‘Input and output conditions’, (forthcoming).
hypothetical circumstances. I will talk about hypothetical rather than counterfactual
circumstances in order to draw attention to the fact that when we consider such
circumstances, we are not considering what we would say in such circumstances qua
counterfactual circumstances, but rather, what we would say in such circumstances
were they to be actual. Considering a hypothetical case, in this sense, involves
considering some possible case as though it were actual.
2.1 Concepts and Conceptions
The basic idea behind the concept/conception distinction is that a conception is a
more determinate specification of a concept.13 Thus a single concept can have a
number of competing conceptions each of which make that concept determinate in
different ways. One way of thinking of essentially contested concepts 14 is in terms of
a single shared concept, and a number of competing conceptions.
Given the distinction regularists and dispositionalists draw, there is a
straightforward way to understand the relationship between concepts and conceptions.
In essence, we can say that the content of concepts is given by a regularist account,
and the content of conceptions is given by a dispositionalist account. The idea is that
the content of some concept C is given by the set of claims that capture the regular
inferences and judgements of competent content possessors. This set of claims will
almost certainly fail to determine, for every possible case, (and probably also for
some unfamiliar actual cases) whether the concept should be deployed. There are two
reasons for this. It could be that, with respect to some entity,15 the set of claims that
captures the content underdetermines whether that entity falls under the concept by
failing to yield enough information to make a judgement. Or it could be that the set of
claims yields no determinate answer as to whether some entity falls under the
concept, because the set of claims is internally inconsistent and according to one
claim the entity does fall under the concept, and according to another it does not.
13
For uses of the concept/conception distinction see Rawls, J, A Theory of Justice, (Harvard, Harvard
University Press 1971), Dworkin, R, Taking Rights Seriously: New Impression with a Reply to Critics,
(Duckworth, Oxford, 1978) and Lukes, S, Power: A Radical View, (London, Macmillan, 1974).
14
As first described by Gallie, W.B, ‘Essentially Contested Concepts’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society, 56, (1956), pp. 167-198.
15
Where entity is understood in the broadest sense to include anything that exists: objects, events,
actions or properties.
It would be natural to then individuate concepts by the set of claims that
specifies the content of a concept. Thus x and y share the same concept just in case for
each of them, the set of claims that constitutes the content of that concept is the same.
Since the set of claims that individuate concepts can fail to determinately specify, for
some entities, whether those entities fall under that concept, two individuals can share
the same concept but be disposed to make different judgements in circumstances
(actual or hypothetical) they have not encountered. Thus those individuals can come
to realise that they disagree about whether certain entities fall under that concept. It
seems natural to say that these individuals share a concept, but have a different
conception.
The content of a conception is given by the set of claims that makes
determinate the content of a concept. The process of determining a conception is one
in which we consider our inferential and judgemental dispositions with respect to a
wide range of hypothetical cases. The content of the conception is the set of claims
that captures the actual and hypothetical inferences and judgements of competent
concept possessors.
As we noted earlier, one reason why the set of claims that specify the content
of a concept might fail to determine whether the concept should be deployed on some
occasion, is because there is some tension between the claims in the set. But we might
also get tensions arising as a result of our dispositions in hypothetical circumstances.
Since conceptions make concepts determinate, inconsistent claims cannot be part of
the content of a conception. Thus if we discover some tension we engage in what has
become known as equilibration across both actual and hypothetical cases by engaging
in meta-reflection on our inconsistent dispositions. The idea is that this metareflection will result in us changing our dispositions with respect to some of the
circumstances until the tension is resolved and we reach reflective equilibrium.
The possibility of discovering tension in the set of claims that specifies the
content of the concept explains why in some cases conceptions are revisionary. Such
conceptions modify or reject some of the claims in the inconsistent set that constitutes
the content of the concept, rather than simply making that concept more determinate
across a range of hitherto unconsidered hypothetical cases. In what follows I argue
that the different analyses of sexual perversion are analyses of different revisionary
conceptions.
3. A Perverted Debate
Almost all of the disputants in this debate argue for their preferred view by appealing
to folk intuitions about a particular act or class of acts, and noting that competitor
analyses misclassify those acts as falling, or failing to fall, under the concept of sexual
perversion. This suggests that disputants accept some tacit premise, according to
which if an analysis misclassifies acts in this way then this is good reason to reject it.
Ironically though, while disputants charge competitor views with misclassification
and suggest that because of this competitors should be rejected, each seems unmoved
when the very same charge is made against their own view. Perhaps sometimes
disputants are not attempting to show that, by the lights of the folk, a competitor view
misclassifies some act, but rather, are attempting to show that a competitor analysis
has surprising consequences regarding the classification of acts in the hope that the
defender of the competitor analysis will come to see these surprising consequences as
misclassifications by her own lights. This charitable interpretation can explain only
some small part of the dialectic, because in most cases the classificatory consequences
that are being pointed out could not possibly be thought of as surprising. 16 But even in
cases where it might be a plausible interpretation, we are faced with the striking fact
that those who endorse the relevant competitor analysis tend to accept the
“surprising” consequence as a feature of their view, rather than being motivated to
change their view.
So either disputants are irrationally recalcitrant, or, more likely, the mere fact
that a view misclassifies (by the lights of the folk) certain acts cannot be good
grounds to reject it. Thus despite the fact that a good deal of the methodology we find
seems to presuppose that misclassification provides grounds for rejecting a view
(disputants do little more than point out that competitor views misclassify acts) this is
inconsistent with the overall dialectic we discover (disputants are unmoved by the
discovery that their view misclassifies acts).
The most plausible diagnosis is that although the methodology of discovering
putative counterexamples seems appealing, it is inappropriate. To see why, suppose
that there is tension between the claims that capture the inferences and judgements we
16
It can hardy be thought of as a surprising consequence of the view that only potentially reproductive
sex is not perverted, and therefore that a whole set of sexual behaviours turn out to be perverted that we
would otherwise not classify this way.
regularly make with respect to the concept of sexual perversion. This is not an
implausible assumption even absent evidence about the source of the tension, for folk
classifications are notoriously inconsistent, and our intuitions about what counts as
perverted and why are complex and easily unsettled. If there is a tension between
some of the claims that capture our inferences and judgements, then there is an
internal tension in the content of the concept of sexual perversion. Different
revisionary conceptions will make consistent and determinate that concept in different
ways, by rejecting different claims in the inconsistent set. Hence different conceptions
will depart from our folk intuitions in different ways.
We can then see each
competitor analysis as an analysis of a distinct conception, and hence as offering us
different ways of resolving the initial tension.
The methodology of counterexample seems appealing because from the
perspective of any particular disputant who has elected to reject this, rather than that
claim, competitor analyses seem deeply counterintuitive. For the competitor has
elected to reject a claim that the disputant takes to be essential. Thus from the point of
view of a particular disputant, pointing out that a competitor view has such a
consequence seems, psychologically, like a devastating objection. Yet when a
competitor points out that the disputant’s own view misclassifies acts this seems far
less counterintuitive to the disputant, for of course, it reflects the fact that her own
intuitions earlier led her to reject that folk claim as inessential, in favour of preserving
some other more, by her own lights, essential folk claims in the inconsistent set. In
essence then, what counts as deeply counterintuitive by the lights of one disputant
will count as a minor drawback by the lights of another, thus explaining why each
disputant finds her own counterexamples moving, but is unmoved by others’
counterexamples.
Clearly though, when the content of a concept is specified by a set of
inconsistent claims, it makes no sense to suppose that showing that a particular
analysis of that concept misclassifies acts by the lights of the folk gives us reason to
reject that analysis. For that supposition would entail that eliminativism was true,
since every analysis will be revisionary and hence will misclassify some acts.
Eliminativism might be correct, but it should not simply fall out of an overly
simplistic methodology.
In the case of the concept of sexual perversion, it is plausible to suppose that
there is such a tension, and that it issues from an inconsistency in the following three
claims:
1. No act is correctly positively or negatively evaluated in virtue of having
the property of naturalness or in virtue of failing to have that property.
2. An act is sexually perverted just in case it is an unnatural sexual act.
3. Sexually perverted acts are correctly negatively evaluated in virtue of
being sexually perverted.
The motivation for accepting (2) and (3) fairly plausibly issues from the set of claims
that captures the judgements and inferences of competent users. The motivation for
accepting (1) is somewhat broader. It is in part supported by a claim that captures the
fact that we tend to withhold judging that some act is right or wrong in virtue of being
unnatural. In addition, there are some philosophical reasons to endorse (1). (1) is
ambiguous between a weak and a strong claim. The weak claim is that actually, no act
is correctly positively or negatively evaluated in virtue of having, or failing to have,
the property of naturalness. The strong claim is that necessarily, no act is correctly
positively or negatively evaluated in virtue of having, or failing to have, the property
of naturalness. The stronger entails the weaker. One motivation for accepting the
strong claim is the view that there can be no connection between a purely descriptive
claim about whether an act is natural or not, and a normative claim about whether the
act is positively or negatively evaluable. Those who are suspicious of the strong claim
might still accept the weak claim on the grounds that the actual property of
naturalness turns out not to be the kind of property whose lack of instantiation by
some act entails that the act is negatively evaluable. Either way there is motivation for
(1).
We can now see the dispute as resulting from disputants holding fixed a
different consistent sub-set of these claims. Nagel and Solomon accept (1) and (3), but
reject (2), the claim that sexual perversions are unnatural sexual acts. 17 It is worth
noting that it might be claimed that Nagel should be seen as arguing that the three
claims are consistent, and offering an analysis of “unnaturalness” in terms of his
17
Nagel, T, ‘Sexual Perversion’, The Journal of Philosophy, 66.1 (1969), pp. 5-17 and Solomon, R,
‘Sexual Paradigms’, The Journal of Philosophy, 71.11 (1974), pp. 336-345.
account of multi-level awareness. Although there are places at which this seems to be
the suggestion, he never makes the case that it is because sexual perversions are
unnatural in the way he claims, that they ought to be negatively evaluated. So I set
aside this interpretation. Goldman and Ruddick hold fixed (1) and (2) and reject (3).18
Some, like Gray hold (2) fixed, but remain agnostic about (3) in virtue of being
unsure whether or not to reject (1).19 Baltzly, Finnis and George reject (1) and accept
(2) and Finnis and George go on to accept (3), while Baltzly leaves it open whether
(3) is true.20 Finally, Priest and Primoratz think that all three claims are essential to
the concept of perversion, and thus conclude that the concept is inconsistent, and
should be rejected.21
Identifying these inconsistent claims is important. First, we can see just what
disputants are really disagreeing about beyond merely the fact that they are offering
different analyses. We can also see why the analyses are so very different: for
depending on which of the three claims one rejects, the resulting sort of analysis one
will offer will be radically different to an analysis that rejects a different claim.
Second, by identifying the inconsistency we provide ourselves with good grounds for
rejecting the hitherto widely accepted methodology of counterexample, and that opens
the way to embrace a different methodology that has a chance of resolving the debate.
4. A new methodology
Can we make headway? One pessimistic response is “no”. One reason to suspect that
this is the correct answer is if we thought that sexual perversion is an essentially
contested concept in something like Gallie’s strong sense. I say something like
Gallie’s sense since it is part of Gallie’s account that essentially contested concepts
are not only evaluative, but positively evaluative and I do not intend to include this in
18
Goldman, A, ‘Plain Sex’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 6.3 (1977), pp. 267-287 and Ruddick, S,
‘Better Sex’, in R. Baker and F. Elliston (eds.), Philosophy and Sex, (Buffalo: Prometheus Books,
1975).
19
Gray, R, ‘Sex and sexual perversion’, Journal of philosophy, 75, (1978), pp. 189-199.
20
Baltzly, D, ‘Peripatetic Perversions: A Neo-Aristotelean Account of the Nature of Sexual
Perversion’, The Monist, 85.1 (2003), pp. 3-29; Finnis, J, ‘The Good of Marriage and the Morality of
Sexual Relations: Some Philosophical and Historical Observations,’ American Journal of
Jurisprudence 42, (1997), pp. 97-134 and George, R, P, In Defense of Natural Law, (New York,
Oxford University Press, 1999).
21
Priest, G, ‘Sexual Perversion’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 75.3 (1997), pp. 360-72 and
Primoratz, I, ‘Sexual Perversion’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 34.2 (1997), pp. 245-263.
the idea of a contested concept. While Gallie does not think it is irrational for a party
to prefer the conception they do, he thinks that there could be no argument that
should, rationally, move that party to embrace an alternative conception. Thus there
can be no hope that any rational process will result in convergence on a single
conception, and hence the debate would be irresolvable.
This is overly pessimistic. It is not clear that being an essentially contested
concept entails that no rational argument could resolve the dispute in favour of one
conception over another. We might invoke a more sophisticated methodology. That
methodology might begin with disputants pointing out counterexamples in much the
same way the old methodology did. However, a disputant should not think that by
pointing out apparent instances of misclassification by a competitor analysis, he is
trying to directly change the view of the defender of that analysis by bringing her to
see that, by her own lights, her view misclassifies acts. Rather, a disputant should
view the offer of a counterexample as pointing out that, by his own lights, the
competitor view misclassifies acts. In doing so he is thereby providing information to
other disputants not just about which conception he endorses, but more importantly,
he is providing information about how he weighted the initial set of inconsistent
claims. The idea is that one’s own final judgement as to the correct conception (and
hence the correct analysis) ought to be sensitive not just to facts about one’s own
dispositions regarding the weightings of the various claims, as evidenced by one’s
dispositions to deploy the concept in a range of actual and hypothetical situations, but
in addition ought to be sensitive to the judgements of others. Thus disputants should
engage in further equilibration in the light of evidence about the results of others’
equilibrative processes. So for instance, given that I come to know that other
disputants weight a particular claim quite highly, that I weighted considerably less,
my view as to the weighting of that claim may change, and that will be reflected in a
new equilibrative process over my dispositions to make inferences and judgements
across a range of circumstances. The hope is that as each party re-equilibrates after
considering the positions of all of the other parties, they will ultimately converge on
the same conception.
While this methodology offers hope for resolving the dispute, it is not clear
that it must lead to convergence, or indeed, that it must result in disputants altering
their position at all.22 Moreover, we might feel that there is something unsatisfying in
resolving a dispute about a concept whose deployment within a community has such
obvious social, political and institutional ramifications, by doing no more than
reflecting on our own, and others’ inferential and judgemental dispositions.
This leads me to suggest a different way of resolving the dispute. The problem
with many ways of resolving conceptual disputes, including the methodology just
discussed, is that they try to resolve the conflict purely by thinking about content. The
idea is that the debate can be resolved as long as one analysis better captures the
content of our concept, or better captures the content of the concept of our more
rational selves, or better captures the content of our more rational, more fully
informed selves… or some such. These ways of resolving the dispute do not go
beyond thinking about content, to consider any pragmatic basis for choosing between
different conceptions.
If we can only appeal to these “conceptual” resources, then we may find
ourselves having no grounds to choose between competing conceptions. I want to
suggest that for at least some concepts, we should, in addition, consider the social
function of that concept. Within ethics and political philosophy talk of social and
institutional roles or functions is common. For instance, part of the debate about
different theories of rights is a debate about the social function of rights, and part of
the debate about different theories of punishment is a debate about the social function
of punishment. Notice that there is a difference between the question “what is the
social function of x?” and the question “what is the social function of the concept of
<x>?”. Answers to these two questions can and do come apart. For instance, the
question, “what is the social function of criminals?”, will almost certainly have a
different answer to the question, “what is the social function of the concept
22
It will lead to no change at all if disputants have differently distributed the same set of weightings in
such a way that each claim in the set is equally weighted once one sums the weightings of all the
disputants. As for instance where X, Y and Z are disputants and A, B and C are claims weighted by
each party.
A
B
C
X
50
40
10
Y
40
10
50
Z
10
50
40
<criminal>?”. Likewise think about the social function of marriage and the social
function of the concept of marriage.
To ask about the social function of a concept is to go well beyond asking
about the appropriate inferences and judgements individual agents disposed to make
regarding that concept. This is not to suggest that a social function is to be specified
only at the level of society and institution. The social function of the concept of
personal identity includes the function of organising future directed self-concern and
anticipation of future experiences, both of which occur at both a personal and societal
level. It also includes institutional facts such as the manner in which societies
organise property rights of individuals over time, the way in which persons are held
responsible for acts in the past, the way in which compensation is given to individuals
for past actions, the ways in which societies organise, sanction, and support certain
person-directed practices, such as the provision, or not, of medical treatment and so
forth. 23
My claim is that it is possible (at least in many cases) to choose one
conception as the correct one, not in the sense that that choice better captures our
purely concept related judgements, but in the sense that the choice reflects our
pragmatic commitments regarding the social function of the concept in question.
Which social function? One possibility is that we are interested in the actual social
function a concept has. Then we would attempt to determine the actual social function
of the concept of sexual perversion, and we would choose the conception, if there is
one, that best realises that function.24 This, however, seems unappealing. It might turn
out that the actual social function of a concept is undesirable. Suppose it turned out
the social function of the concept <criminal> is to organise social practices and
institutions in such a way as to stigmatise poverty, preserve the power of a
socioeconomically advantaged white majority, and to marginalise and disempower
certain ethnic groups. Then we may not want to choose a conception of <criminal>
that best realises that social function.
23
See Braddon-Mitchell, D. and West, C, ‘Temporal Phase Pluralism’, Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research 62.1 (2001), pp. 59-83 for more about the personal identity role.
24
Simply reflecting on what we think is the social function of a concept might be misleading, so the
issue might in part devolve into empirical investigation. Then we might choose the conception which
best supports the social function discovered empirically.
This suggests we should consider which social function we desire a concept to
have, and embrace whichever conception best realises that social function. To
determine which social function is desirable we could consult both our own and
others’ dispositions to make judgements about social functions. We might worry,
though, that our current selves might be blinkered by a range of factors: our current
selves might have irrational likes and dislikes (they might be racist, or sexist, or
homophobic) or they might be labouring under a shortage of information. Hence we
might say that a social function is desirable if it is the one that, by our current selves’
lights, would be seen as desirable by a more rational, fully informed future self. Then
we defer to the judgements of our future selves with respect to the desirability of a
social function, and hence ultimately to the conception we choose.
Given this methodology, there are two reasons to be an error theorist about a
concept. The first is if we come to believe, after appropriate equilibration and
discussion, that our judgements and inferences are captured by inconsistent claims all
of which we deem necessary to the concept. That is, we believe that the concept is
internally inconsistent, and thus that nothing could fall under that concept. This is
Priest’s view about the concept of perversion. The second reason one might become
an error theorist is by coming to believe that there is no conception that plays a
desirable social function and thus no conception ought to be adopted or deployed.
Whether this genuinely counts as error theoretic in the required sense seems
controversial. It turns out that there are coherent conceptions. Moreover, it turns out
that certain acts fall under those conceptions. So this is not a case where we have a
perfectly good concept, but it simply fails to have an extension in the actual world.
We might be tempted to say that here we have no error theory at all. Rather, there are
perfectly good conceptions, but for purely pragmatic reasons we judge that it would
be best not to deploy those conceptions. We get somewhat closer to a traditional error
theory if we suppose that it is in some way part of the nature of the concept in
question that its deployment realises certain desirable social functions. This is not
implausible: it would be a peculiar conception of <rights> according to which
deployment of the concept under any of its conceptions could completely fail to
realise any of the desirable social functions we associate with the having of rights. If,
then, realisation of some appropriate social function is an essential feature of the
content of a concept, then the discovery that no conception realises such a social
function will, in a straightforward way, be the discovery that we should be error
theorists about that concept, not merely that we should, pragmatically, choose not to
deploy the concept.
Accounts of the social function of the concept of sexual perversion with which
we are most familiar begin with Foucault. Foucault25 famously argues that societies
create the concept of sexuality, and with it sexual perversion, in order to create and
support power hierarchies that measure and regulate the population. Sexuality is made
an object of scientific investigation, which purports to reveal objective truths but
instead renders certain normative claims as scientific facts, thus not only supporting a
particular power structure, but in addition pushing individuals to internalise these
norms and to self-regulate their activity. Prior to this “medicalisation”, or, perhaps
better, “scientificalisation” of sex, authorities such as church and state aimed to
regulate sexual behaviour through the dual controls of repression, on the one hand,
and the provision of the confessional, on the other. The authority gains power by
repressing discourse about sex and then offering itself as the only outlet for discourse.
It labels certain acts as perversions, and then offers itself as the sole provider of
penance for those who engage in those acts.
Whether Foucault’s analysis is in the vicinity of a correct account of the actual
social function of the concepts of sexuality and sexual perversion need not concern
us. It does at least point towards some of the possible social functions of the concept.
These include, but are not limited to, the following sorts of functions: picking out a
certain sub-set of sexual acts, the existence of which has a scientifically interesting
explanation; picking out a certain sub-set of sexual acts that are more risqué, or have
associate with them a certain frisson; organising sexual behaviours in a way that
supports certain actual power structures; organising sexual behaviours in a way that
supports certain desirable power structures; organising sexual behaviours in a way
that supports successful reproduction and child reading in stable family structures;
organising sexual behaviour in a prudentially maximising manner; organising sexual
behaviour in a way that supports healthy psychological relationships; organising
sexual behaviour in a way that minimises ethically wrong sexual acts.
Even a cursory examination of these functions suggests that the analyses we
have encountered so far are likely to realise some, but not others, of those functions. I
have suggested that, roughly, we should choose the conception that best realises some
25
Foucault, M, The Will to Knowledge, The History of Sexuality Volume 1, Hurley, R, trans. (Great
Britain, Penguin Books, 1978).
appropriate desirable social function. This suggestion, however, raises the spectre of
two problems: the first is that there might not be agreement about which social
functions are desirable, the second is that it might turn out that multiple conceptions
realise one and the same desirable social function. Let us consider the first of these
problems first.
4.1 Agreeing on the social function of a concept
Here is the worry. It is plausible that those with very different views about which acts
are perverted and why, will in turn have very different views about the desirable
social function of the concept of perversion. We might expect conservatives to think
that the desirable social function of the concept of perversion includes preserving the
traditional nuclear family and labelling and condemning unnatural sexual acts that
they see as degrading to the human person and generally limiting, as far as possible,
sexual acts to those between married heterosexual couples. Liberals, on the other
hand, might be expected to have a much narrower notion of the social function of the
concept, since they are likely to think that we ought not label or condemn a whole
range of sexual acts that take place between consenting adults whether married,
heterosexual, or not. So conservatives and liberals may not, even after ideal refection,
agree about which social function is desirable, and in that case they could not come to
agree about which conception of the concept is the right one.
There is clearly something right about this worry. There are some kinds of
disagreement that the methodology I am defending will not resolve. Realistically,
when we are talking about making decisions about the content of concepts, and in
particular concepts whose deployment has normative ramifications, we can only
expect to resolve a certain amount and type of disagreement. Resolving normative
disagreements is notoriously difficult. Those who suspect that upon ideal reflection,
there will be convergence regarding which social function is desirable, as, for instance
Smith optimistically suggests,26 should think that the methodology I offer will
ultimately resolve these sorts of disputes. Others, however, as more pessimistic,
holding that there may well be normative disagreements that remain after ideal
26
Smith, M, The Moral Problem (Oxford, Blackwell, 1994).
reflection and hence that these may well be rationally intractable.27 This paper does
not offer an account of how to resolve fundamental normative disagreement, or what
to say if some such disputes are intractable. Nevertheless, even if the methodology I
propose cannot yield perfect agreement, it offers important resources in determining
where disagreement lies. As we will see, once we have sorted out which conception
different parties are using, disagreements will fall into two distinct kinds: normative
and empirical, where, in turn, the normative or empirical disagreement can be located
either as internal to the concept of perversion itself, or as external to the concept. It
seems to me that prior to doing this work, there can be little hope of resolving
fundamental normative disputes even if these prove to be tractable, so this work is
worthwhile.
To see what I mean by this distinction, let us focus on four very roughly
explicated social functions that are plausible contenders to be the social function of
the concept of perversion. Groups towards whom terms with negative connotations
are directed will often co-opt the term and use it of themselves or their behaviour in a
way designed to remove the stigma from the term. Thus we sometimes find ‘sexually
perverted’ used not as a term of disapproval, but to describe risqué, unusual, or
naughty sexual acts that carry a sense of frisson and illicitness and to that end are
more enjoyable and desirable. The first social function then—what I’ll call the
illicitness function—is to pick out those sexual acts that have associated with them a
sense of illicitness and excitement. The second social function—the religious
function—is to pick out those acts that God thinks are wrong, or that offend God. The
third function—the naturalness function—is to pick out those acts that are unnatural
and undermine the family and social order. The fourth function—the psychological
function—is to pick out those acts that are psychologically imprudent because they
are likely to lead to a less flourishing life.
Plausibly, there might be quite a lot of overlap between the sets of acts
classified as perverted according to each different conception that captures one of
these social functions. Indeed, it is easy to imagine that prior to giving any
contemplation to social functions, the advocates of such conceptions might all have
classified a core set of paradigm cases as perversions, appearing to disagree only
about how to extend the concept to cover less paradigm cases. Yet while proponents
27
Robinson, D, ‘Failing to Agree or Failing to Disagree? : Personal Identity Quasi-Relativism’,
Monist, 87, (2004), pp. 512 – 536.
of such conceptions would largely have agreed about the extension of ‘sexual
perversion’, they might have been perplexed to find themselves radically disagreeing
about a range of other matters, including whether perversions are ethically or
prudentially proscribed and if so why. We can diagnose that disagreement as arising
from each party endorsing different conceptions each of which play a very different
social function indeed.
But beyond diagnosing the source of this dispute, once parties discover that
they disagree about the desirable social function of a concept is there any way to
resolve their dispute? There are two different ways someone might think about a
dispute of this form. She might hold that there is one, and only one, desirable social
function, the one she prefers. Or she might hold that there are multiple desirable
social functions. In the second case there is a further question, namely whether what
realises each of those desirable social functions has an equal claim to be considered to
be the concept of sexual perversion, or whether the realiser of only one of those roles
has that claim. Before I turn to consider this second case, let us first turn to consider a
case in which parties hold that there is one, and only one, desirable social function to
be realised by the concept of perversion.
In such a circumstance the possibility presents itself that some parties will
agree about which social function is the univocal desirable one, while others will
disagree. Let us consider the former, easier case first. Notice that even if parties agree
about which social function is the univocal desirable one, this does not entail that they
will agree about which acts ought to be classified as perversions. For there is scope
either for empirical disagreement, or for what I earlier called normative disagreement
that is external to the concept. So, for instance, parties might agree that the desirable
function of the concept of perversion is to pick out acts that offend God, but might
disagree about which acts offend God. Parties might agree that the desirable social
function is to pick out those acts liable to diminish human flourishing, but disagree
about what sorts of acts those are. These are empirical disagreements, and therefore
ones that can be fairly straightforwardly resolved given access to the relevant facts.
But disputes such as these might sometimes present themselves as being otherwise.
For two parties might have very firm views about what sorts of acts are likely to
diminish human flourishing. If one party is certain that unnatural sexual acts diminish
human flourishing, and another party is certain that interactively sub-optimal sexual
acts diminish human flourishing, then the strength of their respective empirical beliefs
can make it appear that each disagrees about the correct conception of perversion.
Only careful interrogation of their responses to hypothetical situations will show us
that they agree about the correct conception—each would come to think that the same
set of acts is perverse if they came to agree on the empirical facts about human
flourishing—but vigorously disagree about the empirical facts. It is important to
diagnose these sorts of cases where disputes that are empirical can present as
conceptual.
There is also another source of disagreement between parties who agree about
the desirable social function of a concept that can lead them to disagree about which
acts ought be classified as perversions. These are cases where the parties disagree
about a normative matter that is external to the concept in question. In this sense a
normative disagreement is external to a particular concept C if both parties agree
about the desirable social function of C, but disagree about the normative function of
some concept C* that is implicated in explicating the social function of C. So for
instance, parties might agree that the desirable social function of the concept of
perversion is to pick out unnatural acts that are deleterious to the family. But they
might disagree about what sorts of social groupings ought to count as being a family.
While this might, in some cases, be viewed as a further conceptual dispute about the
correct extension of ‘family,’ more plausibly this is a normative disagreement as to
which social groupings ought to count as being families, where this involves being a
particular kind of social group that we want to protect and nurture. Where there is
normative disagreement about which groups are families, there will accordingly be
disagreement about which acts ought be classified as perversions. But that will not be
due to any disagreement about perversion as such. It will be due to a normative
dispute external to the concept in question. It is also important to diagnose these sorts
of disputes. Such disputes may be less easily resolved than those arising from an
empirical disagreement, insofar as they require resolution of a further normative issue
pertaining to the nature of the family. But resolution can certainly only occur once we
correctly locate the source of the disagreement which is not, in this case, a
disagreement about perversion at all.
We have the left the hardest case for last. This is a case where after ideal
reflection parties disagree about which social function is the desirable one for some
concept to play. The first thing to say is that it is difficult to know whether we should
say that such parties disagree about which conception is correct, or simply deploy
different concepts. In favour of the latter view is the thought that it is part of the
regularist view that the content of a concept is given by claims that capture the
inferences and judgements that competent users regularly make. If part of one party’s
judging that act A is a perversion involves judging that it is an offence to God but not
that it is unnatural or antithetical to the family, and part of a different party’s judging
that A is a perversion involves judging that it is unnatural and antithetical to the
family but not that it is offensive to God, then we might be inclined to say that these
parties are straightforwardly employing different concepts. To put it another way, we
might think that the social function of a concept like perversion is an essential feature
of the concept, and that any disagreement, after ideal reflection, about the desirable
social function of the concept reveals that the parties involved are employing different
concepts rather than different conceptions.
To my mind little of practical import hangs on whether we say that such
parties are deploying different concepts or are disagreeing about the correct
conception of a single concept. To be sure, in most cases we will think there is an
important difference between these two circumstances. If parties deploy different
concepts, then they might simply be talking past one another and not, in some sense,
disagreeing at all. If they disagree about the correct conception there is
straightforward genuine disagreement. But in fact this apparent difference disappears
in these circumstances. If the parties are deploying different, though related, concepts,
then we have a situation in which one party claims that a certain class of acts, C, are
pervertedG that is, offensive to God, while another party claims that a class of acts C*,
are pervertedU that is, are unnatural and antithetical to the family. These two claims
are not straightforwardly inconsistent, so there is not necessarily any disagreement
between the parties. There might be what we could think of as minor disagreements,
where one party disagrees with the other about what should be said even by that other
party’s lights. So, for instance, we could ask the party who thinks that certain acts are
pervertedG whether there are acts that are pervertedU and if so, whether the class of
such acts is C*. If they think not, then they disagree with the other party even by the
other party’s own lights. More importantly though, there is a straightforward sense in
which these parties disagree even if we take them to be deploying different concepts
rather than different conceptions. For by stipulation we are considering cases where
each party thinks there is only one desirable social function for the concept of
perversion to play but disagree about which function that is. Thus the party who
thinks that perverted acts are those that are offensive to God, also thinks that the
social function of picking out acts that are unnatural is not a desirable social function
and vice versa. So whether we think each party is deploying a different concept or
defending a different conception, there is a fundamental normative disagreement
between them, a disagreement about the desirability of a range of social functions.
It is very unclear how to resolve such normative disagreements if they remain
after ideal reflection, and I have nothing more to add. If there is a good account of
how to resole normative disputes, then that account can be plugged in at this point. If
not, then I am in the same boat as everyone else. In that case, where parties to the
dispute about perversion fall into this category it may be very difficult to come to any
resolution. That is not to say that discovering that the dispute is of this kind is not
instructive. In these circumstances disputants disagree about which acts are perverted
and why, but their disagreement is much deeper than merely a conceptual or an
empirical disagreement, or a normative disagreement about a related concept. Rather,
these parties fundamentally disagree about normative claims that are core to the
concept of perversion but which go well beyond that concept. This methodology
offers us little in the way of hope of resolving these fundamental normative
disagreements once we have appropriately located them. That task is left to a more
general account of how we should resolve disagreements about normative claims once
ideal reflection has failed. Having said that though, we have seen that there are a
number of sorts of disagreement that we an not only diagnose but resolve using this
methodology.
Let us turn now to the second way in which a party might view the candidate
social functions. One might hold that there are multiple desirable social functions.
Suppose a party holds this view, and in addition holds that what realises each of those
desirable social functions has an equal claim to be considered to be the concept of
sexual perversion. Perhaps such a person has cast aside the view that there is a
univocal correct conception of the concept. In that case she thinks that there are a
number of equally good conceptions, and therefore must think that any dispute
between parties deploying different conception is a strictly no fault dispute.
Alternatively, she might endorse the idea that there is a single correct conception for
each concept, and therefore have come to the view that there is a cluster of related
concepts, perversion1 perversion2 peversion3, each one of which realises a different
desirable social function. All parties who share either of these two views will be
happy to deploy a range of related concepts or conceptions, each of which realises a
different desirable social function, and where it simply happens that all of those
distinct concepts or conceptions have, unfortunately, been expressed by the same
phrase ‘sexual perversion’. Any disputes between such parties must then be the result
of different parties employing different conceptions at cross purposes, or to be the
result of some empirical disagreement about how to attain the desirable social
functions, or to be a disagreement about a normative matter that is external to the
concept. Once again, diagnosing that parties fall into this category, and diagnosing the
source of any disagreements as misunderstanding, empirically located, or externally
normative will be vital in resolving what should be, in these cases, more often than
not easily resolvable disagreements.
The other possibility is that we have parties who agree that there are multiple
desirable social functions, but hold that the realiser of only one of those functions has
a claim to be the concept of sexual perversion. Such parties might, then, disagree
about which of the realisers of those multiple functions is the concept of sexual
perversion. In this case we have a purely conceptual dispute. Both parties agree about
all the facts, as it were: they agree about which social functions are desirable, and
agree that ideally there is some concept that realises each of those functions. They
merely disagree about which of these concepts is the concept of sexual perversion. In
a way this is closer to a mere terminological dispute: which of the concepts
corresponding to the social functions ought we to call <sexual perversion>. Nothing
of import hangs on this dispute; it is a mere matter of labelling. So what can appear to
be a genuine dispute is really not at all. Once again then, any disagreement must be
either empirical in nature, or the result of normative disagreement external to the
concept. Here too then, we can expect a good deal of disagreement to be resolvable.
To conclude then, I have argued that the methodology defended here will
allow us to resolve some disputes and, at the very least, to locate others. Where we
can come to agree about the desirable social function or functions, the only remaining
source of dispute must either be empirical, or disagreement about a normative matter
external to the concept in question. Determining which of these is the case will allow
disputes more readily to be resolved amongst those with a shared background view
about the sorts of normative claims that are central to the concept in question. Those
who cannot come to agree about the desirable social function of a concept even after
ideal reflection are those who, ultimately, fundamentally disagree about a range of
normative claims that far outstrip claims about perversion. It is not surprising that a
methodology for resolving conceptual disputes does not have the resources to resolve
disputes between disputants with so little in the way of a shared normative outlook on
the world. Here we really do find insoluble, fundamental normative disagreement.
4.2 Multiple conceptions, one social function
The second broad class of worry that I previously alluded to arises where parties
agree about which social function is the desirable one, but think that multiple
conceptions realise that single function. The worry in this case is that we seem to have
no grounds for preferring one, rather than another conception.
Suppose we think that there is only one desirable social function, F, to be
realised by the concept of perversion, but there are multiple conceptions that realise
that function. If one of those conceptions realises that function better than the others,
then, other things being equal, we have reason to prefer that conception. The “other
things beings equal” points to the fact that deploying a particular conception might
have social costs as well as benefits. So, to be more precise, we should choose the
conception that has the greatest net social function benefit, where we determine the
net social function benefit by subtracting the disutility of the social costs, from the
utility of the social benefits of realising F.28
But suppose that multiple conceptions realise F equally well, and that the very
unlikely event arises where each has the same net social function benefit. It might be
that some conceptions are such that if both are deployed within a community, one or
both of them fails to realise the relevant desirable social function, or realises that
28
Notice that choosing the conception that has the greatest net social function benefit is not necessarily
to choose the conception that has the greatest net social benefit simpliciter, where this latter is
construed as the conception with the greatest net social utility regardless of the degree to which it
realises F. If one ought choose the conception that has the greatest net social utility, then it might turn
out that one chooses a particular conception of sexual perversion not because it realises any appropriate
desirable social function, but rather, because overall, deployment of that concept creates utility.
Perhaps, for instance, deploying a particular conception has peculiar downstream effects that mean that
more food crops are planted than cash crops, and it turns out that this maximises social utility. Then
deploying that conception is more net beneficial, but not because of anything one could plausibly think
has anything to do with sexual perversion. This is not a good reason to endorse a particular analysis:
the social goods that result from deploying the relevant conception have to be related in some
appropriate way to the social function we desire that concept to have. So it is important to distinguish
between net social function benefits and net social benefits or net social utilities, and to realise that it is
only the first of these that will guide us in choosing between competitor analyses.
function to a lesser degree than either would have, had the other not been deployed. 29
Let us say that C and C* are co-deployable iff there is greater net social function
benefit in deploying C and C*, than in deploying either C or C* alone. Codeployability is consistent with it being the case that jointly deploying C and C*
results in each realising F less than if each were deployed singly, so long as their joint
deployment still creates greater net social function benefit than either would singly
have produced.
If C and C* are equally beneficial but are not co-deployable, then a decision
must be made regarding which to adopt. Since each realises F equally well, and since
our dispositional and inferential judgements do not lead us to converge on one, rather
than the other, that decision will presumably result from a combination of extraneous
political and social factors, such as perhaps the relative sizes of the groups in the
community deploying one or the other conception, and perhaps also ultimately to
stipulation and fiat. Little more can be said about this process, except that likely it will
be the result of very contingent factors that vary from case to case.
If C and C* are co-deployable we have reason to accept both: after all, we
have no reason to prefer C to C* or vice versa, and accepting both has net benefit over
accepting neither. Yet C and C* might be inconsistent, in the sense that not only
might they yield different hypothetical judgements, but they might also yield different
actual world judgements. I want to suggest that we should deploy both C and C*
under these very rare conditions. If they are co-deployable, then the social benefits of
deploying both must outweigh the cost of any disagreement that results from their
joint deployment. Of course, the disagreement is not removed, and, under these
conditions, in some sense the debate is not resolved. Given all that we have said about
the various equalities between C and C*, individual disputants might come to see the
disagreement as a no fault disagreement. Or they might not. Nothing I have said tells
us anything about how individual disputants will view the dispute, or about how, on a
case-by-case basis, disagreement will be mediated. It tells us that because we have no
pragmatic or conceptually based basis on which to choose C over C*, and because
29
One reason for this is that different conceptions are associated with distinct inferential and
judgemental dispositions. Thus two conceptions might differ with respect to their judgements about
hypothetical cases, or with respect to their judgements about actual cases. If they differ to a sufficient
degree about actual cases, then the deployment of one conception could “cancel out” the effects of the
deployment of the other conception such that each sub-optimally realises the relevant social function,
or only one realises that function.
they are co-deployable, a society has reason to deploy both. Nevertheless, since most
methodologies for dealing with essentially contested concepts cannot guarantee that
all disputes can be resolved in the sense of yielding a unique correct analysis, this
does not render this methodology worse off than most others, particularly in light of
the fact that it is extremely unlikely that there are actually conceptions like C and C*
that are both equally net socially functionally beneficial and co-deployable.
5. Conclusion
This paper does not offer an account of which social function is the one we ought to
desire to be realised by the concept of sexual perversion and thus does not offer an
account of which conception best realises that function. It does not attempt,
ultimately, to arbitrate the dispute at a first-order level. Rather, the paper is an attempt
first, to understand the nature of the debate so far, and to diagnose why it is that so
little progress has been made in resolving the issues and, second, to offer a new
methodology for resolving issues that are, on the one hand, firmly issues about our
concepts and their uses, and, on the other hand, issues that have important social and
political ramifications. The hope is that by incorporating facts about the social
function of our concepts into what are usually “conceptual” decisions about the
correct content of our concepts, we can make genuine progress in resolving at least
some of these kinds of disputes. Much more work needs to be done, in the light of the
methodology suggested, to determine which social functions are desirable ones for a
concept of sexual perversion to play, and which conceptions play those roles.
Furthermore, if we are to have any chance of resolving disputes between those who
after ideal reflection disagree about the desirable social function of a concept, we
must have a way of arbitrating these fundamentally normative disputes. Each of these
two
tasks
devolve
to
philosophers,
sociologists
and
political
scientists.
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