Alan Turing and gay rights

Alan Turing is considered to be the father 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. During the World War II Turning worked in the British Communication headquarters at Bletchley Park where he was instrumental in solving the problem of the Enigma machine.

As well as laying down the foundations for the personal computer Turing considered moral dilemmas in computing well before anyone had the technology capable of causing these problems. In 1950 he thought up a test to determine whether or not a computer had developed artificial intelligence. This is known as the Turing test, in order to pass the machine would have to be able to engage in an instant message type conversation with people without them noticing that it wasn't really a human (Turing, 1950). It wasn't until 1980 that John Searle proved that a computer could follow the rules of language to devise a reply without understanding it (Searle, 1980). 2 years after coming up with this idea Turing was burgled by a 19 year old 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. Just over 50 years earlier Oscar Wilde had been given 2 years of hard labour under this law. Wilde's time in prison had severely damaged his health and he died, at the age of 46, 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 He chose the injections, they made him impotent and permanently deformed his body, his security clearance was revoked and he lost his job.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" (Letter to Dr Norman Routledge, 1952). In 1952, aged 41, Turing committed suicide by eating an apple laced with cyanide, perhaps influenced by Snow White, the favourite film of his friend Godel. It wasn't until 15 years later that consensual sex in the privacy of your own home was decimalised in the UK. There have been a number of historic arguments as to why we should ban homosexuality. Lord Devlin (1959), a knight and British judge, believed that if enough people were offended by something then it should be outlawed. This was because he thought that society was bound together by a shared morality and he believed that intolerance of homosexuality was one of these shared values. This view seems redundant  as an intellectual way to attack homosexuality in the modern age. Yet Michael Levin (1997) argued that heterosexual people's disgust of homosexuals is so great that it would be wrong to force them to have to work together. Levin argues that this disgust might be biological in origin since he believed that homosexuality was a disease, this is because he believed that homosexuals were intrinsically unhappy. This claim was supported by his theory that 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, but by never having heterosexual sex you would not fulfilling the needs of your body and this would make you intrinsically unhappy. He dismisses obvious counter examples such as celibate priests because the priest chooses celibacy for a 'higher purpose'. People sometimes use Kant's Categorical Imperative (1785) to justify banning homosexuality. 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 it would have terrible consequences for society. The fact that if everyone were homosexual then no children would be born is often used to explain why it is unnatural. However, I think this use of the Categorical Imperative is wrong, it would be terrible if everyone were postmen and there were no farmers, however this does not mean that people shouldn't be free to be postmen. A universal law could be simply that the government can have no jurisdiction over the sex lives of consenting adults. References Turing, A. (1950) 'Computing Machinery and Intelligence', Mind. Searle, J. (1980) 'Minds, Brains and Programs', Behavioural and Brain Sciences, vol. 3, pp.417-57. Delvin, P. (1959) 'The Enforcement of Morals', Oxford University Press, Oxford. Levin, M. (1997) 'Why homosexuality is abnormal', in Ethics in Practice, LaFollette, H. (ed.), Blackwell Publishing, pp.233-240. Kant, I. (1785) 'Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals', 3rd ed., Ellington, J.W. (tr.), Hackett, 1993 ed. http://www.thestargarden.co.uk/Alan Turing and gay rights.html