The Meaning and Status of Gay and Lesbian Political Philosophy

Abstract

I WILL DISCUSS THE STATUS and meaning (as goal or intent) of gay and lesbian political philosophy from four perspectives to respond to my critic. First, I answer the objection that gay and lesbian theory is merely the attempt to analyze a situation of social inequality by members of an interest group expressing a subjective preference for change. Second, I deal with a standard sociobiological counterargument to the objection of my critic and show its inadequacy from empirical analysis and contemporary political realities. Third, I demonstrate how current lesbian and gay identity theory, resurgent in a conceptualizaton of a third sex/gender, is an inadequate response from a theoretical point of view to the kinds of claims my critic makes. I conclude by formulating what I think is the status and goal of lesbian and gay political philosophy. My critic suggests that my essay conceptualizes knowledge as a direct product of social activity: what is significant in terms of knowledge production, quoting me, is the transformation of the world in which all human beings live, as well as the way people understand themselves as living in that world. But is not knowledge always directly related to social activities? For example, this relation can involve, first, the application of existing knowledge to social life, as in the Manhattan Project. It can involve, second, the production of new knowledge, motivated by social conditions and which has an effect on them: the development of solar and fusion energy sources as response to dwindling fossil fuels which could result in consequences for the social conditions that produced the knowledge that led to their development. On a more narrowly social level, the production of knowledge about AIDS transmissability allowed for the invention of safer sex techniques that then transformed what sexual excitement was perceived to be.' Third, knowledge