When Beliefs Must Be Public

I often hear people invoke the following principle of liberalism:

I don't care what you do or believe in private as long as you keep it private and don't cause me or anyone else harm.

My intuition is that this general principle is a good one and can go a long way toward helping us decide how we should act in any given situation.  However, principles such as these are bandied about so frequently these days (almost every political issue seems to boil down to Some Traditionalist vs. Some Liberal Autonomist) that I worry their favor within my academic and social circles acts as a bias which leads me to think (perhaps incorrectly) that they are good, or at the very least, uncontroversial.  At some point, I would like to read and think a lot more about "autonomy," what we generally mean by it, and what place it should have in discussions regarding bioethics.

For now, I want to suggest that this principle is often invoked too presumptuously and in vain.  Put another way, this principle is not the be all and end all of moral argument that many take it to be.  Consider religious belief.  Many atheists who consider themselves more welcoming than Dawkins and the other New Atheists claim not to care if others maintain religious beliefs as long as they keep these beliefs to themselves and cause no harm.  But what if the harm that would be caused by making these beliefs public (e.g. through proselytizing or protesting outside of abortion clinics) is believed to be less than the harm that would be caused by keeping these beliefs private?  From the Mormon perspective, proselytizing is saving a whole lot of people from missing out on Heaven.  How can we say to a devout Mormon that they may only maintain their religious beliefs in private when the whole point is to make them public?  How can we tell a religious pro-lifer that they are entitled to their views, but not entitled to foist them in the faces of others, when they believe that not doing so is tantamount to standing idly by as thousands of innocent people are murdered.  It seems to me that we can't do so without being incredibly insensitive to the force of their beliefs.

Moreover (and if we want to avoid the consequentialist route), consider the possibility that many religious people may believe in a cluster of inseparable propositions (i.e. if you believe one proposition, then you must believe all the propositions in its cluster).  This seems plausible given the existence of holy books like the Bible which propose entire sets of moral precepts and correct beliefs.  Imagine a person who subscribes to the following cluster: 1) I believe in God and, 2) I believe that God's love for humanity should be spread far and wide through proselytizing.  Now, regardless of the quantities of harm that would result from action or inaction, this person believes he ought to make his religious beliefs public and will therefore do so.  How am I supposed to come along and convince him otherwise using my trusty principle of liberalism?  I can say, "I believe that your beliefs should be kept private," and he will say in return, "Well, I believe that my beliefs should be made public."  What are we to do?  He has a belief of which I am trying to dissuade him simply by stating the opposite belief.  This is not how you change people's minds.  This is how you make people dig in deeper.

So, we are left with an excellent way of offending people with no chance of any practical gain.  Religious people, of course, are the obvious victims here, but I think the principle of liberalism in question is also mistakenly used to put down the vegetarians or vegans who dare open their mouth to persuade others to cease eating animals.  After all, one could argue that vegetarians and vegans have a good reason to convince others to eat like them given how much American eating habits contribute to global warming.  The cluster argument may not apply here, but how should we compare the harm that results from remaining a private vegetarian and the harm that results from being a public vegetarian...?

Sex and Human Uniqueness

Many people (most notably, religious folk) maintain that humans are categorically distinct from all other animals (i.e. mere beasts).  Of course, Darwin destroyed the notion that species are real and distinct categories, showing instead that they are simply artificial categories which are useful for understanding the continuous spectrum of evolved life.  Not to be undone, Pope John Paul II posited the existence of an ontological discontinuity along this spectrum between "human" and "beast."  That is to say, though there is no physical discontinuity between "human" and "beast," there may very well be a spiritual discontinuity.  As a spiritual being, therefore, humans are categorically distinct from all other animals.

It generally follows from this claim that humans are to behave differently from all other animals (perhaps because something different is expected of us).  A favorite claim (usually religious) is that human sexuality should not resemble the sexuality of beasts.  Human sexuality should be enjoyed exclusively within marriage.  Human sexuality should be reproductive-in-type (cf. Robert George).  Human sexuality should not be a wanton pleasure.

Perhaps I'm constructing a straw man, but I just don't see how these claims regarding human sexuality can follow from the claim that humans should behave differently from all other animals.  For the vast majority of animals, sex occurs exclusively among mating pairs (is "mating" not the animal analog of "marriage"?).  The vast majority of animals engage exclusively in reproductive-type sex.  The vast majority of animals know nothing of having sex solely for pleasure.  One exception to these three claims is the bonobo.  Individuals of this species regularly engage in non-reproductive-type sex (both homo- and heterosexual) with non-mating partners for the sake of pleasure.  With this in mind, it seems to me that if humans should behave differently than beasts, then we would do better to act more like the bonobo than other animals when it comes to sex.  One simply can't argue from the premise that humans are categorically distinct from beasts that human sexuality should be "dignified," restricted to marriage and reproduction.

To be sure, I don't mean to argue that truly "dignified" humans are the ones engaging in orgies on a daily basis.  Put another way, my purpose here is not to trivialize humans or sex.  I think both are worth much respect and thought.  Instead, I would argue that human sexuality in all its forms, not simply its reproductive form, should be considered a component of what makes humans so unique.  After all, human sexuality in all its forms is one way of distinguishing ourselves from most other animals.  Therefore, rather than demonizing homosexuals, non-monogamists, fetishists, and those who have sex before marriage as behaving contrary to human nature, I would suggest we champion these people as reminders of the human uniqueness.