Alan Turing and Human Rights (1912-1954)
English mathematician Alan Turing is considered to be the founder of computer science. In 1936, he helped answer one of the great unsolved mathematical problems of the time by showing that it is theoretically possible to design a machine which, given any equation, could decide whether or not it could be proven. This is known as a Turning machine, the basis of all computers. During World War II, Turning worked in the British Communication headquarters at Bletchley Park where he was instrumental in solving the Enigma code.
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Alan Turing
Turing was one of the first to consider moral dilemmas in computing. In 1950, he thought of a test to determine whether or not a computer had developed artificial intelligence, now known as the Turing test. In order to pass, a machine would have to be able to engage in an instant message type conversation with a person without them noticing that it wasn't really human (Turing, 1950, pp.433-460). It wasn't until 1980 that John Searle argued a computer could follow the rules of language to devise a reply without understanding it (Searle, pp.417-457).
In 1952, Turing was burgled with the help of a man with whom he had had consensual sex. He reported the crime and in doing so was forced to admit to his sexuality. He was charged with gross indecency under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885. This law, implemented by Attorney-General Richard Webster, was also designed to protect women and children from sexual abuse and so it was important that it extended into the domestic sphere. Yet it required witness testimony and so could be used for blackmail and extortion. Less than sixty years earlier, Irish writer Oscar Wilde had been sentenced to two years of hard labour under this law. Wilde's time in prison had severely damaged his health and he died at the age of forty six, just three years after being released. Turing was given the choice between suffering Wilde's fate or taking oestrogen injections for a year to decrease his libido. He chose the injections, they made him impotent and deformed his body, his security clearance was revoked and he lost his job.
Turing wrote to a friend;
"Turing believes machines think
Turing lies with men
Therefore machines do not think" (Turing, 1952)
In 1954, aged forty one, Turing committed suicide by eating an apple laced with cyanide, perhaps influenced by Snow White, the favourite film of his friend, Austrian mathematician Kurt Godel. It wasn't until fifteen years later that consensual sex in the privacy of your own home was decriminalised for all adults in the UK.
There have been a number of historic arguments as to why we should ban homosexuality. In 1959, English judge Lord Patrick Devlin argued that if enough people are offended by something then it should be outlawed. This is because he thought that society is bound by a shared morality and that intolerance of homosexuality is one of those shared values (Delvin, 1989).
American philosopher Michael Levin extended this idea in 1997. He argued that heterosexual people's disgust of homosexuals is so great that it would be wrong to force them to work together (Levin, pp.233-240). Levin argued that this disgust might be biological in origin since he believed that homosexuality is a disease. This is based on the idea that homosexuals must be intrinsically unhappy because each bodily organ has a purpose which must be fulfilled. This means that it is not morally wrong to have sex with someone of the same gender as long as you also continue to have regular sex with someone of the opposite gender. Levin was unable to provide any scientific evidence to collaborate his theory and dismissed obvious counter examples such as celibate priests because he claimed that priests choose celibacy for a 'higher purpose'.
People sometimes use German philosopher Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative, developed in 1785, to justify banning homosexuality (Kant, 1993). This states that the morality of an action can be determined if we think about what the consequences would be if everyone were to do it. Lying is always wrong, for example, because if everyone lied then it would have terrible consequences for society. The fact that there would be no children if everyone were exclusively homosexual is often used as a way to claim that homosexuality is 'unnatural'. This use of the Categorical Imperative is wrong however. It would be terrible if everyone were postmen and there were no farmers, for example, but this does not mean that people shouldn't be free to be postmen. A more appropriate universal law could simply state that the government should have no jurisdiction over the sex lives of consenting adults.
References
Delvin, P., 1989, 'The Enforcement of Morals', Oxford University Press, Oxford
Kant, I., 1993, 'Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals', Ellington, J.W. (tr.), Hackett Publishing, Indiana
Levin, M., 2002, 'Why homosexuality is abnormal', Ethics in practice: an anthology, LaFollette, H. (ed.), Wiley-Blackwell, Malden
Searle, J., 1980, 'Minds, Brains and Programs', Behavioural and Brain Sciences, Vol.3
Turing, A., 1950, 'Computing machinery and intelligence', Mind, Vol.59
Turing, A., 1952, 'Letter to Dr Norman Routledge', see Hodges, A., 2007, 'Alan Turing', Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy