Philosopher Says We Need More Lust

I’m not sure which currently-active philosopher falls into the category of “most recommendable” for ErosBlog’s readers, but I’m pretty sure that Neil Sinhababu would need to make the shortlist at the very least. He is a prominent defender of ethical hedonism. He once wrote a paper called “Possible Girls,” which is possibly the sexiest use of David Lewis‘s modal realism hypothesis evah. (And he is also co-editor, with Brian Leiter, of the recent volume Nietzsche and Morality. What a guy!)

But what really finally inspired me to get off my lazy butt and write a blogpost about young Professor Sinhababu was a blogpost of his own called “The Optimal Distribution of Lust.” Riffing off a post by Kay Steiger (key phrase “Women who discount men because they are short are, well, kind of bigots.” — and yes, I feel the tug of the sentiment even if it’s kind of not in my interest to since I’m 6’2″.) Sinhababu does a quick, clean bit of moral reasoning to conclude that it would generally be a lot better if we could all lust a bit more broadly, or perhaps a bit more unusually.

This might be a little tricky to bring about, but there is something we can do.

So if one of your female friends confesses an attraction to short men, express your admiration and tell her that more women like her would make the world a better place! And if one of your male friends expresses his desire for a heavier-than-average woman, for goodness’ sake don’t make fun of him! And I literally mean for goodness’ sake — for more good things to happen, we need currently unusual preferences to be more widespread in people.

The whole post is well worth reading. And the predecessor post about awesome sex dreams downloaded into your brain ain’t bad either, whether or not you agree with its politics.