When Wish Replaces Thought: Why So Much of What You Believe Is False, by Steven Goldberg (Prometheus, 216 pp., $26.95)
RICHARD ISAY of the American Psychiatric Association writes in a letter to the New York Times that “homophobia, the irrational fear and hatred of homosexuals, is a psychological abnormality.” Those afflicted, he adds, should be quarantined and denied employment. Though Steven Goldberg didn’t have Dr. Isay in mind when he wrote When Wish Replaces Thought, he’s certainly real-life proof of the thesis of this delightful work of practical philosophy. Goldberg, a professor of sociology at the City College of New York, examines homosexual behavior, the death penalty as deterrence, patriarchy, and other social issues “that elicit the strongest of emotions.” Discussion of such topics tends to rely on beliefs derived from emotions, Goldberg says, rather than on arguments based on empirical study. In thinking about homosexuality, the author stresses that we must examine not just the behavior, but what might cause someone to risk social ostracism by doing what very few societies accept as normal practice. And the “homosexual spokesman” who argues that homosexuality is considered abnormal only because of religious bigotry must logically be willing to say that necrophilia is considered “abnormal” for the same reason—that is, not because it is abnormal, but because social bigotry tells us to disapprove. The “spokesman” must
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