It can be both innate and learned. Humans have both innate responses and remarkably plastic brains.
Agreed...and I believe some literally have plastic brains. My opinion.
Their abhorrence is personal and if they voice it they should be ready for the consequences of their actions. People have personal abhorrences for a lot of things but don't voice them out of respect. It is natural to have an abhorrence to disease, but we don't call out people in public who have diseases.
Not sure how you mean personal? All human action is personal at some level. Even coming from those who robotically claim to be acting on behalf of someone else's desires not their own.
I agree, you should be ready for the consequences of your actions. That goes for both sides of the issue. Instinctual or not.
All too often people sacrifice their own abhorrence of something to the god of sentimentality in an attempt to avoid offence. And all too often our attempts end in catastrophe and the inevitable realization of what we were trying to avoid.
What one should prepare for is inevitably being offended. Productive debate offends.
The offender needs to expect offence and realize that the offended and what is offensive to them is their personal, natural inclination to defend against the death of their own opinion.
We struggle to survive and live but even ideas struggle toward survival through legitimacy in being true. A false opinion is death for an idea and we all wish to see what we birthed in an idea survive and thrive.
Deliberate offence is solely a reflection of the offenders failure.
The offended should realize that the offender often does not intend nor cannot help but offend in a discussion of a disagreement.
Deliberate delegitimizing of those who offend us is the sole failure of the offended.
The problem is that in attempting to respect someone else's sentiments by sacrificing our own we are ironically losing the ability to respectfully speak to each other instead of at each other or over each other. We delegitimize -not the true opinion of the person since it may not be one- but the condition that person formulated their opinion in.
It is natural to abhor disease, I agree. But its worse to ignore it. To ignore it leaves both parties unnecessarily uncomfortable and distressed. It establishes a barrier that need not be one.
None of the "handicapped" people I know or have heard interviewed on similar subjects would wish their affliction to be ignored but rather acknowledged and accepted for what it is.
One should acknowledge, one should accept the state of the condition, and one should help improve that state if possible. The condition then ceases to become a barrier between, which leaves room to build a bridge between, which then creates the possibility for improving everyone's condition for the better- hopefully towards a true opinion.
Reaction, especially instinctual reaction is sometimes quite hard for some people to restrain.
I agree with you that when one is able, the respect given should be in the form of productive restraint. However IF one has strong convictions on what is moral/ethical -a correct opinion or not- one is
obligated to not "respect" that which dictates the actions of those your in disagreement with through legitimization until such time as true opinion can be established. Else one simply disrespects and delegitimizes ones own opinion and no progress is made.
For instance a psychopathic serial killer may find killing people useful (get rid of witnesses), satisfying (fulfills an impulse), and even twistedly ethically acceptable (it gets rid of the undesirables -homeless people or sex workers) leaving more resources for the more desirables.
Should I in any way respect the serial killers opinions?
You might consider that example an extreme but the nuances of what and how we respect and legitimize something is similar.
Should we respect and legitimize the actions of another if we are of the opinion that it is harmful to them or others?
Should we respect an opinion that may be false or one that insists on not being offended or should we place our respect in the person who is willing to take a journey with you in order to find true opinion regardless of personal offense?
The emphasis is on the "if". Hypothetically if we condemn those who instinctually are against homosexuality then, all else being equal, we would be in the right to condemn homosexuality that is a reflection of instinctual drives. If A=B whatever A is subject to B should be as well.
This makes no sense in a modern civil society where many of our instincts are quelled in order to live together. It is far more likely that what you speak of is a learned behavior more so than homosexuality is.
Why is it far more likely? Civil society may to some extent mediate how we react to certain triggers but it in no way dictates what it is that stimulates us to react. The two things are in different classifications.
Be that as it may...if one can learn to hate homosexuality, one can also learn to be homosexual.
