In the photo
at left, Justice Anthony Kennedy presents his considered response to Plato’s Laws, Aquinas’s Summa Contra Gentiles, Kant’s Lectures
on Ethics, and his own Catholic faith.
Asked to develop his argument in a little more detail, Justice Kennedy paused
and then solemnly added: “I got lifetime tenure, beyotch.”
Court
observers expect that Justice Kennedy’s subtle reasoning, backed as it is by a
sophisticated philosophy
of language and philosophy
of law, puts him in the running for the prestigious Ockham Award for
Catholic Statesmanship. Competition for
that prize has, however, been particularly
fierce of late.
Guilty as charged. Even leaving the AFR out of it, I believe all moral theories fall apart without God. That's why I think the only available arguments against gay marriage are religious in nature from top to bottom. Thus, given explicitly religious arguments are ruled out in American jurisprudence, gay marriage should be legal, even if it is, according to most religious views, immoral.
ReplyDeleteThen this is, in fact, the real point of contention between you and everyone else: if all moral arguments require assumptions that make them account as religious arguments, and one takes American jurisprudence to rule out all religious arguments, in the context of determining whether an American law should exist or not one can never appeal to moral considerations at all. It would be illegitimate to oppose segregation laws, for instance, on moral grounds; it would be illegitimate to support gay marriage on moral grounds; it would be illegitimate to support or oppose anything on moral grounds. So the question is, how would one support or oppose a law, if never on moral grounds?
(I think it's worth pointing out that AFR implies that all rational argument whatsoever depends on God, ultimately, and thus the actual conclusion should be that laws cannot legitimately be supported by any reasoning at all, since all arguments would be religious arguments in exactly the same sense all moral arguments would be. )
@ Chad:
ReplyDelete"Thus, given explicitly religious arguments are ruled out in American jurisprudence,"
Wait, which legal ruling said *that*? It seems to me (naïve non-lawyer that I am) that prohibiting people from arguing in favour of something for religious reasons is a pretty clear violation of the 1st Amendment.
Mr. X and Brandon,
ReplyDeleteOkay, so let's add to the definition of harm the notion of moral harm. Are you seriously arguing that adding such a stipulation makes the naive view as complicated and as difficult to understand as natural law?
I have to go, guys. I'll be back tomorrow or way later tonight.
ReplyDeleteI'm neither an expert in philosophy or law, but wouldn't it actually be very difficult to explain why the rape of the unconscious woman was wrong. I mean, I know that it is wrong, but justifying why it is wrong without appealing to emotions and upbringing seems difficult.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like Chad seems to take it at face value as wrong (as do I). Like I said, I don't know much, but I'm fairly certain Martin Luther King jr appealed to natural law in his endeavors in civil rights. It seems, using Chad's reasoning (forgive me if I'm wrong), he shouldn't have been allowed to do so.
ReplyDeleteEric
Better stated, he'd be allowed to do so, but recognize his case was weak from the legal standpoint.
ReplyDeleteEric
Chad:
ReplyDelete"Okay, so let's add to the definition of harm the notion of moral harm. Are you seriously arguing that adding such a stipulation makes the naive view as complicated and as difficult to understand as natural law?"
Adding the notion of moral harm raises the questions of what exactly counts as moral harm, and what criteria make it harmful if not physical or mental trauma. And then your answers to these questions will raise further questions, and so on, and so forth. In other words, the naïve view only seems simple because most people have spent all their life in a society where it's pretty much the default, and so don't really question it. If natural law were the default, people wouldn't question that, and proponents of your naïve view would have to spend ages arguing for their various metaphysical presuppositions.
Chad writes;
ReplyDeleteIt's just that at times yesterday it felt like people were chastising me for not being aware of relatively obscure philosophical and legal arguments I never had occasion to learn.
One reason I recommended C.S Lewis's The Abolition of Man is that in that work he eloquently describes the basically universal nature of natural law amongst humanity. Leaving aside the developed Aristotelian or Thomistic framework, most traditional cultures and moral philosophies have shared many assumptions, principles, and moral beliefs. It would be absolutely wrong to think of natural law as being an obscure Thomistic philosophy. It is basically universal.
Blogger Chad Handley said...
ReplyDeleteBrandon,
'But you seem to hold that all cases fall apart without God...'
... I believe all moral theories fall apart without God. That's why I think the only available arguments against gay marriage are religious in nature from top to bottom. Thus, given explicitly religious arguments are ruled out in American jurisprudence, gay marriage should be legal, even if it is, according to most religious views, immoral."
Was that an argument?
Chad seem to be arguing that "all moral theories fall apart without God." while assuming, that all God theories are religious, and implying that all moral theories that do not fall apart are religious theories. (which means that no moral theory that does not fall apart can be used to inform the law)
with
"the only available [valid?] arguments against gay marriage are religious"
and as
"explicitly religious arguments are ruled out in American jurisprudence"
therefore
"gay marriage should be legal"
Does Chad's use of "should", imply a moral sense, a prescriptive ought? Or does he merely mean that as a contract there is no reason for it not to be allowable and that the state by default practice will have no reason not to place its imprimatur on the agreement, and to require all citizen jurors to attest to and uphold it?
If so, what of establishing cannibalism contracts, suicide contracts, sexual slavery contracts.
What of those other "religious" proscriptions? How is one to disentangle them?
Thou shalt not kill, and Thou shalt not steal ...
Presumably in Chad's view, these prohibitions find their objective pre-legal validity, if they have any, in some rationale apart from a religious one. What basis is that? Good social order? According to whom, 51 percent of the voters?
How would those prohibitions be different in principle, rather than degree, from the reservation of the form of the legal marital union (and powers) to heterosexual couples?
Chad certainly cannot even argue that homosexual individuals and couples have a natural right under natural law to exist, much less to express themselves and to judicially call upon their political neighbors to validate their unions. Chad's thrown that line of potential argument right out of court.
And why under say "good order per se" would not even the eventual elimination of homosexual persons from the population through proactive abortions or other "therapeutic" or "social hygiene" measures such as surgery, or banishment, tend toward as much eventual "good social order" as would stamping homosexual unions with the rubric of matrimony?
Consider an extreme case for the sake of clarity. "We" legally kill all the time. What considerations apart from moral considerations, inform us when it is "really" proper or improper to do so? Is it possibly the presumed rights of the potential victims of those juridically colored death warrants?
But under Chad's theory, what "right" is there of the weak or the potential victim to be preserved against aggression, which is neither religious nor derived from natural law moral inferences?
In a Chadian world where inferences from natural law considerations are considered worthless and uninformative because they are viewed as merely non-prescriptive patterns temporarily occurring in a chaotic field, what objective, and pre-black letter obligation could there be to respect the right to existence, much less less the right to marriage, of the weak, or in the case of flamboyantly active homosexuals, the merely annoying?
" 'How would you handle such a situation?'
I wouldn't. I write comic books."
Stick to that, Chad.
Rank:
ReplyDeleteThis brings in the issue of the doctrine of double-effect, which is one of the weirdest and shakiest of all Thomistic concepts. Simply put, it's allowable, but the restrictions placed on it are counter-intuitive at best.
Can you direct me to where I can read more about this?
Also, I have to apologize for bailing on that last argument. I was writing up my response, but I just kept putting it off and putting it off--until it was just too late to go back.
That’s okay. Maybe the topic will come up again, and maybe reading my MacIntyre books will help clarify some of my questions. I’ll get to them after I’ve waded through some continental philosophy to finally get around to reading Hart.
Brandon:
ReplyDeleteActively frustrating the lower end is a distinct matter, though, and the corresponding scenario would not be merely letting oneself die in order to protect one's children but deliberately killing oneself to protect one's children. In general, this is usually thought to be always wrong, although under the circumstances it may not be a serious or grievous wrong.
First, this distinction between activity and passivity is problematic. Perhaps a homosexual is passively submitting to their sexual desires in order to better actualize a higher end. Does that make it “noble”? Maybe there are specific senses to “active” and “passive” that you are using here, though.
Second, would it be considered wrong to kill oneself if it would save your entire family? Perhaps one is living in Nazi Germany, and a member of the SS will spare your family if you kill yourself. Would be it better to refuse to kill oneself, and allow one’s entire family to be murdered?
@dguller:
ReplyDelete"Can you direct me to where I can read more about this?"
If you mean the doctrine/principle itself, try here.
(Item number 38 on his "Articles" page.)
ReplyDeleteGuilty as charged. Even leaving the AFR out of it, I believe all moral theories fall apart without God. That's why I think the only available arguments against gay marriage are religious in nature from top to bottom. Thus, given explicitly religious arguments are ruled out in American jurisprudence, gay marriage should be legal, even if it is, according to most religious views, immoral.
ReplyDeleteChad, I let you be because you said you were done, but here this is again. I've already addressed this argument, so I don't know why you're bringing it up again. Judging by this comment and the comments you've made to this point, you don't really have a particularly firm grasp on what natural law is. I recommend developing a better understanding before you make comments like this one.
And once again, your "thus" above does not follow. Morality, whether religious or otherwise is not "ruled out" by American jurisprudence. On the contrary, morality is all jurisprudence (American or otherwise) is. I'll grant that not all jurisprudence is explicitly religious but neither is natural law religious. That's sort of the point of it; it is "natural" to all people and is likewise binding on all of them, regardless of what religious beliefs they may hold.
I wouldn't. I write comic books.
This is a cop out. Have an argument or don't; don't rely on your credentials (or lack thereof) while simultaneously making arguments like the ones you've been making. Don't fall back on this whenever the argument isn't going your way.
dguller,
ReplyDeleteThere isn't actually a lot easily accessible on the doctrine of double effect, though, in my opinion, it's one of the most fascinating of all the philosophical questions.
Philippa Foot, who ultimately rejects the doctrine, provides some really interesting insight into it. You can read that here: http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/classes/econ362/hallam/readings/footdoubleeffect.pdf
Dguller,
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, I wouldn't necessarily trust the introduction explanation of the beginning of that article I linked; the person who wrote it couldn't even spell her name right. Please note that I link Foot not because she was a great defender of the doctrine but because she's such a joy to read; she is just so capable of laying out things in such a clear way. I actually think she gets her analysis wrong in this article, but she was such a sharp mind anyway. It's a great place to start.
DNW,
ReplyDelete"In a Chadian world?"
LOL
Excuse me while I completely ignore everything else you ever say.
This is a cop out. Have an argument or don't; don't rely on your credentials (or lack thereof) while simultaneously making arguments like the ones you've been making. Don't fall back on this whenever the argument isn't going your way.
ReplyDeleteYou were asking me to solve the problem of how to convince someone who thinks the law of noncontradiction is religiously motivated to see that it is not.
I don't see how anything in the conversation calls upon me to make such an argument or meet such a burden.
Refusing to chase every rabbit thrown in my path is not copping out.
It seems like Chad seems to take it at face value as wrong (as do I). Like I said, I don't know much, but I'm fairly certain Martin Luther King jr appealed to natural law in his endeavors in civil rights. It seems, using Chad's reasoning (forgive me if I'm wrong), he shouldn't have been allowed to do so.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, to my recollection, MLK mostly made explicitly religious arguments to his fellow Christians. He didn't argue against racism on the basis of natural law so much as he argued that America's Christian populace was failing to live up to the example of Christ.
Secondly, MLK was not a lawyer making a case before the Supreme Court.
My opinion is, natural law is unpersuasive without a theistic justification.
Therefore, arguing before the courts on the basis of natural law is tantamount to arguing before the courts on the basis of religion.
Therefore, using the natural law to establish something like DOMA is using the courts to establish an essentially religious view. Now, I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure the government isn't supposed to establish a religion.
That's the situation as I see it.
Now, maybe I'm wrong, but that hasn't been clearly explained to me. I've been quoted long passages of irrelevant commentary that doesn't clearly answer my question. I've been advised to go back to the Pre-Socratics. I've been asked to prove that the law of noncontradiction is not religiously motivated. But I haven't been shown why natural law isn't dependent on belief in a Creator for its moral force.
You say nature tells us that a gay relationship isn't oriented by nature towards the production of children, therefore it's wrong. An atheist would reply, the gay man is a free, rational agent who finds himself unfulfilled and unhappy outside of a gay relationship. The nature that gave humankind their nature is blind and has been known to make mistakes. Why do these gay men have an obligation to live personally unhappy lives because of how blind, clumsy, inefficient nature has made them, if there are choices before them that can make them happy?
But I haven't been shown why natural law isn't dependent on belief in a Creator for its moral force.
ReplyDeleteSure you have. You just think saying "So what?" is some kind of amazing knock-down reply, and keep treating your personal inability to be forced to change your beliefs on the spot as evidence that the whole line of thinking is flawed.
Of course, if it is - then all of your alternatives suffer the same problem too. Which you grumble at, but really, you know it's correct.
An atheist would reply, the gay man is a free, rational agent who finds himself unfulfilled and unhappy outside of a gay relationship. The nature that gave humankind their nature is blind and has been known to make mistakes.
Well, we could start but asking him in what sense nature is 'blind, clumsy and inefficient'. Blind in what senses? Lacking teleology and final causes? That's what's under dispute. Clumsy and inefficient? Again, in what senses? You keep acting as if the atheist, just because he's an atheist, gets all of these claims absolutely for free - but he doesn't. It's superficially possible to believe nature is efficient, directed (in the final cause sense) without being an atheist.
What's more, 'nature has been known to make mistakes'? How, in what sense? I can think of some possible examples - but in what relevant way? Better yet, in what relevant way that doesn't involve assuming purposes and a moral system at the outset?
Why do these gay men have an obligation to live personally unhappy lives because of how blind, clumsy, inefficient nature has made them, if there are choices before them that can make them happy?
I'd question the claim that, unless a gay man is receiving regular bouts of anal sex, that he's going to be unhappy. You make it sound like if people with same-sex attraction don't get some weekly dose of sodomy they're going to shrivel up and die.
That's really key here. The issue isn't friendship, or having relationships broadly, or much else. Your line of argument here hinges heavily on what amounts to 'anal sex is a prerequisite for happiness for the gay male' - that's not going to be an easy thing to defend. And if it IS a prerequisite, then the next question is, 'Is this person mentally healthy?' Which will be a pretty interesting question to explore.
In fact, let's start with that one right here: Is Doug Thomas sexually healthy? According to that hypothetical atheist you keep talking about. (Note: that's a somewhat vulgar-humorous link for those of you at work, but I think it illustrates the issue nicely here.)
It's superficially possible to believe nature is efficient, directed (in the final cause sense) without being an atheist.
ReplyDeleteOops. While, not without.
Sure you have. You just think saying "So what?" is some kind of amazing knock-down reply
ReplyDeleteAre you still on this?
I think "so what?" is an adequate reply to the direction our natures point us in only if the way our natures point us was determined by evolution.
Which you grumble at, but really, you know it's correct.
I return again to the analogy of the man lost in the woods, who finds the sign on the forest floor pointing him towards shelter.
If he saw the sign blown in from over the horizon by a random gust of wind, he's rational to say "so what?" about the direction it happens to be pointing him in.
If, however, he saw the sign posted by what appears to be a forest ranger, he would be irrational to say "so what?" about the direction it happens to be pointing him in.
I would agree that in both cases the person is free to say "so what?", but in the former case he is clearly rationally motivated to say "so what?" and in the second case he clearly isn't.
I'd question the claim that, unless a gay man is receiving regular bouts of anal sex, that he's going to be unhappy.
I think that's about as accurate as saying that your relationship with your wife can be reduced to regular bouts of vaginal sex.
But you clearly demonstrate that just because bigotry isn't necessary for opposing gay marriage, that doesn't mean you can't still be a bigot.
I think "so what?" is an adequate reply to the direction our natures point us in only if the way our natures point us was determined by evolution.
ReplyDeleteThat's what you think? Alright, I have a reply for this. But first...
So what?
I would agree that in both cases the person is free to say "so what?", but in the former case he is clearly rationally motivated to say "so what?" and in the second case he clearly isn't.
That leads off into AfR territory which questions whether the two cases are ultimately all that different in the end. More than that, that assumes something about nature and metaphysics that's going to need to be brought out - not every atheist is automatically a mechanist-materialist, even if that's one damn popular choice.
I think that's about as accurate as saying that your relationship with your wife can be reduced to regular bouts of vaginal sex.
Wife? You assume I have a wife? Hell, you assume I'm straight, or even completely straight? Or even if I am straight, that I just find 'sodomy' totally repulsive? Quite a limb you're going out on there.
Here's your problem, Chad. Sure, I'm going to grant that there are various aspects of a same-sex relationship that aren't connected to sex. But - and here's the key - it's the sex that is the problem. The central problem. If you remove the sexual aspects (the sodomy, the desire for sodomy) and put it aside in the context of the entire relationship, you're going to actually have some trouble finding the immoral/disordered remainder - both in terms of Natural Law, and in terms of religious teaching.
So if you say 'a homosexual relationship is a LOT more than anal sex!', I'm going to say, great - but I'm not offering a criticism of the entire relationship. I'm offering a criticism of a particular part.
Now if you're backing off and saying, no, anal sex has nothing to do with happiness, then so much for your argument here. Rephrase it, try another angle. If you're saying it IS essential, my questions stand.
Actually, they stand anyway. Doug Thomas: sexually healthy according to the hypothetical atheist? Is there anything going wrong there?
But you clearly demonstrate that just because bigotry isn't necessary for opposing gay marriage, that doesn't mean you can't still be a bigot.
What intolerance am I displaying? I'm getting to the point. If you believe that holding hands or going to the movies with another man is the part Natural Law or orthodox Christianity has a problem with, you've been sorely misinformed.
Again, Doug Thomas. I'd like the atheist's evaluation of his sexuality, thank you.
Chad writes,
ReplyDeleteBut you clearly demonstrate that just because bigotry isn't necessary for opposing gay marriage, that doesn't mean you can't still be a bigot.
Although it's been obvious for some time, this remark by Chad gives away the store. Natural Law opposition to State endorsement of homosexual relationships is bigotry? So, Chad is a "Protestant" who is "sympathetic" to "religious" arguments against homosexuality and finds such arguments "persuasive." One wonders whether Chad believes the following:
Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonour their own bodies among themselves. [25] Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
[26] For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. [27] And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error. [28] And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient.
Of course, a garden variety atheist or liberal wouldn't find such beliefs to be bigoted, would s/he? And if Chad espouses such a view, Chad is a bigot, according to the dear atheists he has been referencing. And if Chad doesn't really believe that homosexual acts are sinful, abominable, and filthy, then his endorsement of the "religious" argument is nothing but window dressing (the religious argument makes sense if one accepts its axioms, but I don't, so you're all just bigots anyway). The motive thus appears to attempt to undercut any "secular" philosophical argument for traditional morality by "proving" that such persons a bigots.
As the above "debate" demonstrates, Chad's tactic is to reduce counter arguments into something they're not, or to simply ignore them by either appealing to his ignorance or to reflexively say, "Not persuasive...I don't believe...I can't see." It's clear that he's in way over his head. IMO, a sincere person would step back and ask question after question from the participants of this forum in order to understand Natural Law Theory. S/he would then read relevant literature (something a critic like dguller has done) before taking it upon h/erself to argue over 200 posts against something s/he doesn't understand. The answers to the questions Chad has asked are merely used for ridicule or as a springboard for incoherent strings of statements. Since Chad has come nowhere close to producing a cogent argument, his continual barrage of non-sequiturs is eyebrow raising, to say the least.
Chad, there's no need to remind me of your "pledge" not to reply to unidentified posters. Your tactics "doth discover you."
Chad:
ReplyDeleteDo you agree that certain things -- food, friendship, etc. -- are good for humans to have, and certain things aren't? If so, then what difference does it make whether these things are good because God made them to be good for us or because we evolved to find them good? Aren't they still good for us to have regardless?
Although it's been obvious for some time, this remark by Chad gives away the store. Natural Law opposition to State endorsement of homosexual relationships is bigotry?
ReplyDeleteWhat? Are you following the conversation AT ALL?
Is this supposed to be serious?
No, mere opposition to gay marriage is absolutely not bigotry.
Reducing gay marriage, as Crude did, to "regular bouts of anal sex" absolutely is bigotry.
This is an absolutely useless conversation if people are going to ignore what's actually being said to such a ludicrous degree as this comment by you reflects.
My opinion is, natural law is unpersuasive without a theistic justification.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, arguing before the courts on the basis of natural law is tantamount to arguing before the courts on the basis of religion.
Therefore, using the natural law to establish something like DOMA is using the courts to establish an essentially religious view. Now, I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure the government isn't supposed to establish a religion.
That's the situation as I see it.
We've already explained to how this is incorrect, yet you keep on insisting otherwise. I'll link you to my blog. Maybe that will be helpful: Here. It's five parts if you want to read them all. You'll notice that I make no reference to God or religion and such things are ultimately not relevant to the arguments. You can say, "Well, I'm not convinced by this argument!" Fine, you're not convinced. But don't say that you being not convinced is evidence that it's a religious argument. That is just nonsensical. This may be helpful as well.
As a homosexual, I'll throw in a person anecdote here as well. I was convinced by natural law arguments well before I converted to Catholicism. One of the main reasons I converted to Catholicism is because Catholics got the ethics right. At no point, when evaluating the arguments, was I like "it's a good thing God made it this way!" In fact, I was thankful for the opposite. I was happy that the argument had nothing to do with God or religion and that it would be true whether or not God existed.
I daresay a lot of the problem here is that you really don't understand the arguments very well. There would be nothing religious, nor would there be an establishment of religion, if a court recognized these arguments. This is ignorance both of the arguments themselves and how the law works.
Now, it's rare for the courts to say things like "X is not allowed because it is immoral," but that's because courts aren't supposed to make law in the first place. This isn't true in practice, of course, and courts commonly decide things on moral grounds (why does a thing count as a "compelling governmental interest" for example?), but clear rules on what qualifies as marriage are generally left to the people because they are explicitly moral. Such things won't be the case in a year or two, of course, when the Supreme Court (hypocritically) strikes down state laws that ban gay marriage, but there it is.
And what's also going to happen, as is the case for our pathetic country, is that people will get very upset and will be very vocal about the fact that five people, without any sort of real precedent, have told them that they can't make moral laws about marriage. As a result, the opposition will say, "Oh, you're all just bigots on the wrong side of history; thank god we were saved from you!" clothing themselves in pseudo-neutrality, all while forcing others to accept their definitions of good and bad.
But I think there's different arguments going on here. In some ways you're implying that considering these arguments would be unprecedented, which is just not true. In other ways, you seem to be arguing that these arguments just aren't convincing to the average citizen. This could be true, but it's not true because the arguments are religious because they just aren't.
Do you agree that certain things -- food, friendship, etc. -- are good for humans to have, and certain things aren't? If so, then what difference does it make whether these things are good because God made them to be good for us or because we evolved to find them good? Aren't they still good for us to have regardless?
ReplyDeleteYes, I would agree that there are certain things that are physically and psychologically necessary for us to be healthy, regardless of whether we were designed by God or whether we evolved randomly. Where the natural law argument gets unconvincing to me is when it tries to stretch those physical and psychological necessities into the moral realm. It's that move that I just don't see being justified.
Does a person have to eat whether or not his nature was designed by a holy God? Sure.
Does a gay person have an objective moral obligation to remain a lifelong celibate whether or not his nature was designed by a holy God? That's where you lose me.
Reducing gay marriage, as Crude did, to "regular bouts of anal sex" absolutely is bigotry.
ReplyDeleteCrude wasn't reducing anything. He said the thing that makes gay marriage problematic (in this context) is the anal sex. Crude frequents my blog. He is very sympathetic to homosexuals and very much understands the emotional connections they have and need to have with people. There's nothing bigoted about what he said or about him. Don't be petty.
Here's the flow of the conversation:
ReplyDeleteI said
"You say nature tells us that a gay relationship isn't oriented by nature towards the production of children, therefore it's wrong. An atheist would reply, the gay man is a free, rational agent who finds himself unfulfilled and unhappy outside of a gay relationship. The nature that gave humankind their nature is blind and has been known to make mistakes. Why do these gay men have an obligation to live personally unhappy lives because of how blind, clumsy, inefficient nature has made them, if there are choices before them that can make them happy?"
Now, the unhappiness I'm referring to is clearly the inability to be in a relationship.
Crude replied:
"I'd question the claim that, unless a gay man is receiving regular bouts of anal sex, that he's going to be unhappy. "
Thus, Crude was clearly reducing happiness in a gay relationship to the amount of regular anal sex the partners were having.
That's a bigoted statement.
All day, every day.
Crude might not be a bigot, but Crude made a bigoted statement.
Yes, I would agree that there are certain things that are physically and psychologically necessary for us to be healthy, regardless of whether we were designed by God or whether we evolved randomly. Where the natural law argument gets unconvincing to me is when it tries to stretch those physical and psychological necessities into the moral realm. It's that move that I just don't see being justified.
ReplyDeleteDoes a person have to eat whether or not his nature was designed by a holy God? Sure.
Does a gay person have an objective moral obligation to remain a lifelong celibate whether or not his nature was designed by a holy God? That's where you lose me.
I think this very clearly shows your misunderstanding of the arguments.
The term "healthy" is basically an essentialist notion. Why is a thing "healthy?" What makes it "healthy?" Healthiness is merely a thing working as it should work based on the nature of what the thing is. A healthy heart pumps blood. An unhealthy one has trouble doing so. To be a healthy person is merely to use your body in a way that makes you, as a whole, healthy. In other words, to use your body in a way aligned with its natural ends. In the case of the heart, the would mean not screwing with it so it can't pump blood.
As is the case with the heart, so is the case with the reproductive organs, which have an end not for survival but for procreation. To use your penis in a way contrary to its natural end of sexual intercourse (that is aimed at the creation of life) is to misuse it. And of course there's no difference here in the sense that the sex thing is "moral" and heart one isn't. The heart thing is just as "moral" of a claim. Morality is merely the act of either using yourself in a rational way toward its ends or not.
You will see this, of course, when you tell a person to stop smoking. They usually respond as if you're making a moral judgment of them. They can say "so what?" but that response has no bearing on the fact that it is bad. All morality is merely a question of choosing good or bad. And goodness and badness are merely defined by a thing's essence, which is defined by its ends.
Chad wrote
ReplyDelete"Reducing gay marriage, as Crude did, to "regular bouts of anal sex" absolutely is bigotry"
Crude wrote
"So if you say 'a homosexual relationship is a LOT more than anal sex!', I'm going to say, great - but I'm not offering a criticism of the entire relationship. I'm offering a criticism of a particular part."
Chad, your comment really is an unfair account of Crude's argument. You're now reduced to hurling personal insults. Perhaps you should move on.
Joe and Scott:
ReplyDeleteThanks for the links. I'll look into them.
Chad,
ReplyDeleteHe's saying that without the anal sex it's really not a "gay relationship." And it's not. It's just two friends in such a case and is likewise completely moral. How is this hard to understand?
Here's my question:
ReplyDeleteSay you have the ultimate standard for a romantic relationship that is based upon natural law. It is pretty clear that no actual relationship is in accordance with that standard, and at best is an approximation that varies over time. If all actual relationships fail to meet the standard in question, then shouldn't all relationships be condemned altogether? After all, all relationships fail to meet the ultimately standard, and often involve the conscious choice to violate it, even while the individuals in question believe that they are acting for the good.
Look, everybody in the conversation agrees that certain things are biologically necessary for life. That natural law theorists try to count this as a point exclusively in favor of their theory by referring to biologically necessary things as "good" seems like an equivocation to me.
ReplyDeleteIn the statements:
1. It's good to eat vegetables.
2. It is good to love your neighbor.
... the term "good" doesn't mean the same thing. In 1., good refers to conveying biological health. In 2., good refers to moral obligations.
I don't see how admitting that good in the sense of 1. is true regardless of whether there is a God forces me to admit that good in the sense of 2. is true regardless of whether there is a God.
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ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxwjTcPW_78&list=PL222C14645D9D45E6&index=5
ReplyDeleteGive it a gander Chad. Seems relevant to your last post.
He's saying that without the anal sex it's really not a "gay relationship." And it's not. It's just two friends in such a case and is likewise completely moral. How is this hard to understand?
ReplyDeleteWha...Wha-AAAAAAT?
So, two guys who hold hands, cuddle, feel each other up, profess their romantic love for each other, care for and nurture each other, marry each other and profess lifelong romantic fidelity to each other, but refrain from anal sex... are just really good pals?
(And I shouldn't have to mention this to a gay person but: A. Not all gay people are men, and B. There are ways for gay men to express their love sexually that do not involve anal sex.)
Chad has a point. Forget evolution by natural selection, even. The natural world could have been fashioned by a malevolent demiurge. Why should we be obligated to follow the dictates of a biology that points toward evil?
ReplyDeleteIt's not just naturalism vs theism, but even the various flavors of these that make natural law a tough sell in a pluralistic society.
--Patrick CF
Chad has a point. Forget evolution by natural selection, even. The natural world could have been fashioned by a malevolent demiurge. Why should we be obligated to follow the dictates of a biology that points toward evil?
ReplyDeleteWell, yes. This is a much smarter objection that I would have made if I was a much smarter person.
I suppose the retort would be that if we were made such that our ends pointed towards rape and murder and the like that we wouldn't be human beings but some other creatures. But that would still leave the question of whether these "rape and murder" creatures would be "good" by raping and murdering, since they would in doing so be fulfilling the ends to which nature points them.
Chad:
ReplyDeleteI don't see how admitting that good in the sense of 1. is true regardless of whether there is a God forces me to admit that good in the sense of 2. is true regardless of whether there is a God.
Think about it this way.
There are rational animals and there are non-rational animals. Both are animals, but are different kinds of animals. The former involves the ability to abstract universal forms or essences from particular entities for rational analysis in the mind, and the latter does not involve that ability.
Similarly, there is moral goodness and there is non-moral goodness. Both are goodness, but are different kinds of goodness. The former involves rational deliberation and conscious choice to pursue the good, and the latter does not involve rational deliberation and conscious choice to pursue the good.
That’s all.
Chad:
ReplyDeleteI suppose the retort would be that if we were made such that our ends pointed towards rape and murder and the like that we wouldn't be human beings but some other creatures. But that would still leave the question of whether these "rape and murder" creatures would be "good" by raping and murdering, since they would in doing so be fulfilling the ends to which nature points them.
If that were their nature, then they would be “good” by performing those activities. Remember that X’s goodness is proportionate to the degree to which X actualizes its nature. Certainly, X’s actualization of its nature could result in harm towards others, but that is a secondary issue. For example, a good lion is one that is able to catch, kill and consume its prey. It remains good, even though its prey is harmed in the process.
@ Chad:
ReplyDeletePerhaps the point of contention is that you see morality as primarily a set of rules we should follow, whereas to most classical and mediaeval thinkers (including NL theorists), morality is primarily a matter of what character traits somebody has. (Just a guess; please correct me if you don't think that.) I think you'd probably agree that certain character traits are good for us to have (so somebody who's prudent, moderate and patient will have a more fulfilling life than somebody who wants everything immediately and is unable to control their desires). Natural law theory says that morality is basically a matter of cultivating these character traits and getting rid of their opposites, and, given that these traits help you to live a good life, acting immorally is just as irrational as (e.g.) eating so much that you make yourself feel sick, and for much the same reasons.
there is moral goodness and there is non-moral goodness. Both are goodness, but are different kinds of goodness.
ReplyDeleteI thought that was what I said?
I just don't see how admitting that one kind of goodness is linked to our natures commits us to thinking the other kind of goodness is linked to our natures.
Chad:
ReplyDeleteI just don't see how admitting that one kind of goodness is linked to our natures commits us to thinking the other kind of goodness is linked to our natures.
That depends upon what you conceive our nature to be. If you think our nature involves the rational deliberation and conscious choice to pursue the good, then our nature must involve both kinds of goodness. If you think our nature does not involve the rational deliberation and conscious choice to pursue the good, then our nature only involves one kind of goodness.
Chad said
ReplyDelete"(And I shouldn't have to mention this to a gay person but: A. Not all gay people are men, and B. There are ways for gay men to express their love sexually that do not involve anal sex.)"
Yes, I'm sure you've absolutely blown Joe K.'s mind!!! He probably never even considered that! Well done.
If that were their nature, then they would be “good” by performing those activities. Remember that X’s goodness is proportionate to the degree to which X actualizes its nature.
ReplyDeleteI suspected as much, and that's why I just don't think a thing's nature is a good place to ground morality, because it ignores the possibility that its nature could be directed towards a moral evil.
Sans God, evolution could easily produce something like a vampire, a rational creature pointed towards the consumption of human beings to reproduce. Evolution could cause human beings in the future to branch off into different species of rational beings whose natures point them towards destroying each other to survive. If natural law theory would force us to regard all of these creatures as morally good, then natural law theory robs the term of all meaning.
If you think our nature does not involve the rational deliberation and conscious choice to pursue the good, then our nature only involves one kind of goodness.
ReplyDeleteThat we are of our nature capable of consciously choosing the good does not entail that the good that we are consciously pursuing is determined by our natures.
Ethicists who are not natural law theorists are nonetheless attempting to consciously choose the good.
Wha...Wha-AAAAAAT?
ReplyDeleteSo, two guys who hold hands, cuddle, feel each other up, profess their romantic love for each other, care for and nurture each other, marry each other and profess lifelong romantic fidelity to each other, but refrain from anal sex... are just really good pals?
(And I shouldn't have to mention this to a gay person but: A. Not all gay people are men, and B. There are ways for gay men to express their love sexually that do not involve anal sex.)
Read what I said again, Chad: if you remove sex and the sexual aspects from a homosexual relationship, then finding the problematic portions - from either a natural law or an orthodox Christian standpoint - is going to be difficult. The portions of your reply here that involve sex or a sexual desire would therefore obviously be problematic. The portions that don't - a banal understanding of "holding hands", caring for and nurturing each other - would not be.
I know, I know. You read this and go W-W-WHAAAAAAT, and your eyes bug out comedically. Big shock. Congratulations: you've learned a little something about both natural law and orthodox christian teaching on this subject.
As for sex that isn't specifically anal sex: wonderful. Who cares? That's covered under 'sex and sexual aspects'. I zero in on anal sex because A) it's a pretty stark example of the sexual act that is specifically targeted by these understandings, and B) it's not exactly an outlandish act. It's useful here, precisely because it skips past the nonsense where someone could pretend (as you just tried to, despite my explicitly calling this out in advance) that 'holding hands' is what is condemned by natural law and/or orthodos Christian teaching.
So, back to my question. Doug Thomas: sexually healthy or not? What does your atheist friend say? You gave me a challenge to meet, and I'm trying to meet it. Or are you going to run away from this one, because you know exactly what position you're going to be put in by answering my fair question?
Chad:
ReplyDeleteI suspected as much, and that's why I just don't think a thing's nature is a good place to ground morality, because it ignores the possibility that its nature could be directed towards a moral evil.
Yes, I believe that natural law theory would say that it is nonsensical to say that actualizing X’s nature could be moral evil. By definition, X’s nature defines what it means for X to be good, and thus the actualization of X’s nature is X’s goodness. So, the question is what you mean by “moral evil”, because the natural law meaning is the deliberate choice to not actualize one’s nature.
Sans God, evolution could easily produce something like a vampire, a rational creature pointed towards the consumption of human beings to reproduce. Evolution could cause human beings in the future to branch off into different species of rational beings whose natures point them towards destroying each other to survive. If natural law theory would force us to regard all of these creatures as morally good, then natural law theory robs the term of all meaning.
Again, it depends upon what you mean by “morally good” to begin with. If “morally good” means something like “maximizing the happiness and pleasure in the world”, then certainly the existence of vampires and “human” beings whose nature it is to destroy one another, would not be “morally good” according to this definition. Then again, it would also be true that a square is a circle, if by “circle”, one meant a “four-sided figure”.
Yes, I'm sure you've absolutely blown Joe K.'s mind!!! He probably never even considered that! Well done.
ReplyDeleteHey, look. He's the one who said that anything short of anal sex is just a friendship.
Chad:
ReplyDeleteThat we are of our nature capable of consciously choosing the good does not entail that the good that we are consciously pursuing is determined by our natures.
It does if “goodness” is coextensive with “degree of actualization of our nature”.
Ethicists who are not natural law theorists are nonetheless attempting to consciously choose the good.
Of course, but it would be helpful if they knew what “the good” was to begin with. Otherwise, it would be hard to consciously choose X if you did not know what X was. At best, one could unconsciously and accidentally choose X in such a scenario.
Joe K,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments, by the way - much appreciated.
And I think your heart example does a great job of illustrating the problems at work here. Even saying 'I don't mean morality, I mean biological health' doesn't help - that's part of what I'm driving at with the Doug Thomas example, which I think you've seen before. (Hey, it's useful.)
Hey, look. He's the one who said that anything short of anal sex is just a friendship.
ReplyDeleteHe was pointing out that I wasn't 'reducing homosexual relationships to anal sex', but was singling out the actual problematic portion of a 'homosexual relationship': the sex and sexual aspects. You, meanwhile, offered up 'hand-holding' as one of the things that you think are condemned by natural law and orthodox Christian teaching.
Read what I said again, Chad
ReplyDeleteThat response wasn't directed at you, it was directed at Joe K, who said that anything short of anal sex is just good friendship.
if you remove sex and the sexual aspects from a homosexual relationship, then finding the problematic portions - from either a natural law or an orthodox Christian standpoint - is going to be difficult.
That's great, but before I objected, both you and Joe K were limiting "sex and sexual aspects" purely to "anal sex." And you specifically were reducing "happiness in a gay relationship" to "regular bouts of anal sex." Maybe you intended something more comprehensive and that was lost in your trying to sound clever. But that's what you originally said.
You're welcome for forcing you to make a clarification that makes you sound less like a crazy person.
It's useful here, precisely because it skips past the nonsense where someone could pretend (as you just tried to, despite my explicitly calling this out in advance) that 'holding hands' is what is condemned by natural law and/or orthodos Christian teaching.
LOL!
A. I was not talking to you.
B. My list of statements went far beyond holding hands and included things like romantically professing love.
C. I wasn't contesting whether nor not natural law was opposed to a gay couple holding hands, I was contesting Tony K's statement that anything short of anal sex was just a friendship and not a romantic relationship.
So, back to my question. Doug Thomas: sexually healthy or not? What does your atheist friend say?
What atheist friend? What are you talking about?
I didn't follow that link because I'm not about to start going down every rabbit trail somebody sets before me. If there's something at that link that's relevant to the conversation, then just tell me what it is.
So, on natural law, the vampire--a rational actor who freely chooses according to his nature to drink human blood, thereby murdering the human (another rational actor)--is doing good, not evil.
ReplyDeleteWell, I admire the consistency at least.
Apologies--that last anonymous comment is again from "Patrick CF."
ReplyDeleteHe was pointing out that I wasn't 'reducing homosexual relationships to anal sex', but was singling out the actual problematic portion of a 'homosexual relationship': the sex and sexual aspects.
ReplyDeleteUm.. are you people blind?
Or do you think I am?
Here's exactly what he said:
He's saying that without the anal sex it's really not a "gay relationship." And it's not. It's just two friends in such a case and is likewise completely moral.
That is a direct quote from a post dated (on my screen)July 4th, 7:13 AM.
Scroll up and read it.
I don't know what he intended to say. But what he actually said was that if there's no anal sex involved then it's just a friendship.
You, meanwhile, offered up 'hand-holding' as one of the things that you think are condemned by natural law and orthodox Christian teaching.
No.
I demonstrably did not.
You are so lost, I am starting to get embarrassed for you.
I included hand-holding on a list of other romantic activities that fall short of anal sex yet clearly seem to indicate that something more than friendship in order to dispute Tony's claim that anything short of anal sex is just a friendship.
You might want to try reading what's being said, Crude.
"Hey, look. He's the one who said that anything short of anal sex is just a friendship."
ReplyDeleteYou could be a little more charitable than that. I will admit the caricature of Joe you create is much easier to defend against. Oh, I can't begin to explain how much we all appreciate the "I'm not about to start going down every rabbit trail somebody sets before me" tactic. We'd all learn so much if we'd just adopt this technique when confronted with a real challenge to our thinking.
That response wasn't directed at you, it was directed at Joe K, who said that anything short of anal sex is just good friendship.
ReplyDeleteGreat, a nicely disingenuous response. You know full well what he was saying.
You're welcome for forcing you to make a clarification that makes you sound less like a crazy person.
Crazy person? Never happened. But thank you for showing yourself as being absolutely afraid of defending the necessity of anal sex specifically for the happiness of homosexual males. I'd say you don't sound like a crazy person yourself now, but there's still that 'hand-holding' schtick.
A. I was not talking to you.
B. My list of statements went far beyond holding hands and included things like romantically professing love.
C. I wasn't contesting whether nor not natural law was opposed to a gay couple holding hands, I was contesting Tony K's statement that anything short of anal sex was just a friendship and not a romantic relationship.
A. So what?
B. Remove the sex and sexual aspects and it's not clear whether what you have left is 'romantic love' or, if it is, in what way it's problematic. And you still included 'hand holding' despite that being the exact thing I was calling out as NON-problematic, given my qualifications.
C. Joe K said nothing about 'romantic love'. He said anal sex was problematic, and the slightest amount of charitable reading here makes it clear what he means - especially given that he was defending my statement, where I was *clear* that it was the sex and sexual aspects that were problematic, right from the start.
What atheist friend? What are you talking about?
Your hypothetical atheist who we must justify our beliefs about nature to. You forget already?
I didn't follow that link because I'm not about to start going down every rabbit trail somebody sets before me.
Sure, Chad.
If there's something at that link that's relevant to the conversation, then just tell me what it is.
Sure thing!
Doug Thomas, owner and founder of Pepperbees' Restaurants (being played by John C Reilly here) becomes sexually aroused - the 'only way he can achieve an erection' - is through having his customers at his restaurants receive top-notch friendly service. He's sexually aroused and satisfied by his waitstaff being courteous and friendly to customers.
Is he sexually healthy? The whole 'masturbating with an ice cream scoop up his ass to the pleasure that comes from knowing someone replaced the onion rings on their order with french fries' thing? If not, can you point out the sexually broken parts?
You could be a little more charitable than that.
ReplyDeleteHe could try being more explicit about what he says. Even if you expand his use of "anal sex" to mean "any explicitly sexual contact", I would still dispute his claim that anything short of that is merely a friendship rather than a romantic relationship.
A. So what?
So, the way you framed my response is only plausible if I was responding to your claims about what natural law forbids, rather than Tony's claims about what divides a sexual relationship for a friendship.
I wasn't. So, your comments here are completely off-base.
Remove the sex and sexual aspects and it's not clear whether what you have left is 'romantic love'
So, the way you define homosexuality, gay men do not actually feel eros towards each other?
He said anal sex was problematic, and the slightest amount of charitable reading here makes it clear what he means - especially given that he was defending my statement, where I was *clear* that it was the sex and sexual aspects that were problematic, right from the start.
You most certainly were not clear from the start.
When I questioned whether a gay man could be happy outside of a gay relationship, your first retort on that line of reasoning was, and I quote:
"I'd question the claim that, unless a gay man is receiving regular bouts of anal sex, that he's going to be unhappy"
You weren't clear from the start, you clarified later. I accept your clarification; I accept that there was a misunderstanding. I accept that you are not a bigot.
I won't accept your claim that you were clear from the start, because the record clearly shows you were not.
Your hypothetical atheist who we must justify our beliefs about nature to. You forget already?
Well, you understand that because he's hypothetical I can't really ask him as you requested, right? Because he doesn't actually exist. You presumably have atheist friends who actually do exist. If you're really desperate to know, you could always ask them. But I'll play along...
Doug Thomas, owner and founder of Pepperbees' Restaurants (being played by John C Reilly here) becomes sexually aroused - the 'only way he can achieve an erection' - is through having his customers at his restaurants receive top-notch friendly service. He's sexually aroused and satisfied by his waitstaff being courteous and friendly to customers.
Is he sexually healthy? The whole 'masturbating with an ice cream scoop up his ass to the pleasure that comes from knowing someone replaced the onion rings on their order with french fries' thing? If not, can you point out the sexually broken parts?
I would imagine the atheist who says that any sexual expression is okay as long as no one else is hurt would say, yes, this man is perfectly sexually healthy.
He might be lonely, but if he were to find a significant other, of whatever gender or orientation, who had no problems with his proclivity, he'd be perfectly sexually healthy.
And now a question to you. I recall in reading The Last Superstituon that Feser suggested that anything in a married relationship, including anal sex, that lead towards ejactulation into a vagina, was in accord with the natural law and completely moral.
So, if Doug Thomas was married, and all his erections that he could only achieve by delivering friendly service terminated in an ejaculation into his wife's vajajay, would the natural law theorist think he was sexually healthy?
(I have to add that, even as a Christian, I can't imagine myself caring about what a married man has to do to prepare himself to perform his husbandly duties. If he's not hurting anybody? Who cares?)
ReplyDeleteChad
ReplyDeleteHe could try being more explicit about what he says. Even if you expand his use of "anal sex" to mean "any explicitly sexual contact", I would still dispute his claim that anything short of that is merely a friendship rather than a romantic relationship.
By charitable, I mean assume you don't have to explain the finer points of the homosexual lifestyle to a gay man. Also, in his defense, he was probably avoiding expanding too much on the given subject lest he slam into your rock solid "I'm not about to start going down every rabbit trail somebody sets before me" technique.
He could try being more explicit about what he says. Even if you expand his use of "anal sex" to mean "any explicitly sexual contact", I would still dispute his claim that anything short of that is merely a friendship rather than a romantic relationship.
ReplyDeleteWhat you dispute wasn't the problem here. You were interpreting him uncharitably and you know it - and once you've removed sex and sexual desire from a relationship, the 'romantic' aspect is going to be a very interesting game to define.
So, the way you define homosexuality, gay men do not actually feel eros towards each other?
What's problematic according to both Church teaching and natural law are the sexual aspects - the acts and the desire. You keep referring to 'eros' and 'romantic love'. I'm willing to discuss that - simply tell me which parts you think are condemned that are neither sexual acts or sexual desires, and we can move forward.
Hint: holding hands? Not problematic. 'Making out and feeling each other up'? Probably sexual.
Well, you understand that because he's hypothetical I can't really ask him as you requested, right? Because he doesn't actually exist.
It's as if I'm assuming you're speaking in place for him in terms of a hypothetical conversation or something like that!
I would imagine the atheist who says that any sexual expression is okay as long as no one else is hurt would say, yes, this man is perfectly sexually healthy.
Alright, so for reference: man whose only acceptable sexual outlet is watching customers receive good service at his restaurant? Totally healthy, no problems there!
Yeah, I'm going to point out that that's far from obvious. In fact, it can be taken as a reductio of his position. And once again - 'so long as no one else is hurt'? How the hell is 'hurt' or 'harm' being defined here? Because I'll tell you, it's not obvious that Doug Thomas is not in some real way 'harmed'.
He might be lonely, but if he were to find a significant other, of whatever gender or orientation, who had no problems with his proclivity, he'd be perfectly sexually healthy.
Lonely? Who said anything about lonely? His significant other is his restaurant. By the way: should he be allowed to marry his restaurant chain?
And now a question to you. I recall in reading The Last Superstituon that Feser suggested that anything in a married relationship, including anal sex, that lead towards ejactulation into a vagina, was in accord with the natural law and completely moral.
Uh. You're going to have to quote me what part of TLS has Feser saying this before I answer, because as near as I can tell flipping through the book, you're apparently making this up or have grossly misunderstood Feser.
So, if Doug Thomas was married, and all his erections that he could only achieve by delivering friendly service terminated in an ejaculation into his wife's vajajay, would the natural law theorist think he was sexually healthy?
No, I'm pretty sure natural law regards sexual desire that only shows up in conjunction with (say) offering free refills of Doctor Pepper to your restaurant clientele as broken. As would, you know - most human beings who don't have their backs to the wall trying to defend other sexual acts and desires.
(I have to add that, even as a Christian, I can't imagine myself caring about what a married man has to do to prepare himself to perform his husbandly duties. If he's not hurting anybody? Who cares?)
ReplyDeleteIt's been pointed out before, but what constitutes "hurt" and "harm" is under question here. It's not like these things are uncontroversial, especially once you start analyzing them in the relevant contexts. Doubly so once you're *granting* the Christian view.
But at this point you've walled yourself up in a corner where you have to say things like, 'Oh, the husband can't achieve an erection / the wife can't get sexually aroused unless they masturbate to gore porn in advance? Hey nothing wrong there. Totally healthy, no damage or harm present!'
@Chad Handley:
ReplyDelete"Yes, I would agree that there are certain things that are physically and psychologically necessary for us to be healthy, regardless of whether we were designed by God or whether we evolved randomly. Where the natural law argument gets unconvincing to me is when it tries to stretch those physical and psychological necessities into the moral realm. It's that move that I just don't see being justified."
You seem to be distinguishing between physical/psychological necessity on the one hand and moral necessity on the other, and contending that the second is impossible without theism. If so,
here's a Scholastic philosopher who agrees with you.
That's George Hadley Joyce, arguing in Principles of Natural Theology that the existence of moral obligation proves the existence of God. (This proof he calls the "argument from conscience.") At the point in his argument to which I've linked, he's replying to the objection that one might be an atheist and still regard moral law as binding. He's contending that this could happen only through a sort of mental or cultural inertia, and the atheist in question simply hasn't realized that without God as lawgiver, the foundation of specifically moral necessity is gone—that we have only motives, not obligations.
Does that capture what you mean?
Uh. You're going to have to quote me what part of TLS has Feser saying this before I answer, because as near as I can tell flipping through the book, you're apparently making this up or have grossly misunderstood Feser.
ReplyDeleteWell, you're right, at least as far as the anal sex thing goes. Feser says on page 149:
"Sodomy (whether homosexual or heterosexual) no more counts as "sex" than puking up a Quarter Pounder counts as eating..."
So, I withdraw that misunderstanding with apologies.
But on page 145-146 he says:
"... sexual pleasure can be had by acts other than just vaginal penetration, and all sorts of complex and profound other-directed passions are aroused in a man and woman during the process of lovemaking that go well beyond the simple desire to get semen into a certain place... Nor does it mean that the only act consistent with nature's purposes is immediate penetration and ejactulation into a vagina. All sorts of lovemaking might precede this..."
So, I concede that anal sex is ruled out, but it's not clear to me that if food service is part of a married couple's foreplay, that natural law would consider this unhealthy.
If food service is ruled out, then what about perfume? Lingerie? Role-playing?
I mean, if we're talking about a loving married couple, where does natural law draw the line? Is it just what the natural law theorist finds weird?
You were interpreting him uncharitably and you know it
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't, because the charitable interpretation is only slightly less crazy to me. It's obvious to me that if two gay guys start dating each other and spending lots of time with each other and profess and feel erotic love towards each other, those guys are more than friends. Even if they never consummate the relationship in an overtly sexual act, those guys aren't just friends.
You can't seem to keep straight two separate issues:
1) My dispute with Tony about the boundaries between a friendship and a gay relationship, and
2) My dispute with you about what the natural law would allow.
Thus, when I brought up hand-holding in relation to 1), you accused me of using hand-holding in relation to 2). And in fact continue to do so, despite repeated corrections by me.
Let me try to be as clear as I can. I contend that gay couple who feel romantic love for each other and who as an expression of that love do nothing more explicit than hold hands are nonetheless in a romantic relationship, even though I understand that the natural law would not necessarily condemn that relationship if it only went that far.
Clear?
I'm willing to discuss that - simply tell me which parts you think are condemned that are neither sexual acts or sexual desires, and we can move forward.
Is a gay man feeling eros towards another man possible, according to the natural law theorist?
Yeah, I'm going to point out that that's far from obvious. In fact, it can be taken as a reductio of his position. And once again - 'so long as no one else is hurt'? How the hell is 'hurt' or 'harm' being defined here? Because I'll tell you, it's not obvious that Doug Thomas is not in some real way 'harmed'.
I don't think the hypothetical atheist would consider it a reductio. I think he'd just say (as I'm fairly tempted to say) who cares?
Is the guy happy? Is he hurting anybody? Then, who cares?
You seem to be alleging that he is in some way harming himself, so the burden is on you to spell out what you think that harm is. So, you know, do that.
Lonely? Who said anything about lonely? His significant other is his restaurant. By the way: should he be allowed to marry his restaurant chain?
Since I politically favor allowing consenting adults to marry, then obviously I favor allowing adults to marry inanimate objects, says the guy who just chastised me for uncharitable interpretations two seconds ago.
As would, you know - most human beings who don't have their backs to the wall trying to defend other sexual acts and desires.
No, I think most people would say it was weird, but most people wouldn't say he was broken, or immoral.
They'd say he didn't appear to be hurting anybody, and if you disagreed, they'd ask you to make a case as to how what he was doing was hurting someone.
So, why don't you tell them?
I really enjoy this post. So many comical slights back and forth.
ReplyDeleteI suspected as much, and that's why I just don't think a thing's nature is a good place to ground morality, because it ignores the possibility that its nature could be directed towards a moral evil.
The problem you don't seem to realize is that all you're doing is begging the question. You're assuming that "moral evil" has a meaning when that's exactly what's at issue in the first place. The natural law theorist is defining what morality is. It makes no sense whatsoever to say, "Well, if I follow natural law, it leads to immoral results!" It also makes no sense to say things like "Well, I think it's better to seek good outside of a thing's nature!" Where does this "goodness" come from? That you can't understand this is a fundamental problem.
Dguller identifies this issue when he writes:
"Of course, but it would be helpful if they knew what “the good” was to begin with. Otherwise, it would be hard to consciously choose X if you did not know what X was. At best, one could unconsciously and accidentally choose X in such a scenario."
I didn't follow that link because I'm not about to start going down every rabbit trail somebody sets before me. If there's something at that link that's relevant to the conversation, then just tell me what it is.
No one is trying to rabbit hole you. Most of these objections have been addressed elsewhere is much more significant detail. It's tiring repeating it over and over, especially when it's been done better before. These aren't esoteric, weird links. They're right on point.
Hey, look. He's the one who said that anything short of anal sex is just a friendship.
I love this. I'm sorry if what I said confused you. I believe everyone has explained what I meant well enough. But this is a general problem with natural law. When a natural law theorist says "it is immoral to misuse natural ends," people jump on it, thinking that sentence alone, without nuance or explanation, is the whole of moral theory. That like, so long as a man were hooked up to a machine that fulfilled (what is called) his natural ends (food into his mouth, ejaculation into a woman) he would be moral.
But this is of course a ridiculous caricature. Natural law does not deny that humans are highly, highly social animals that have complex and varied (many times spiritual) ends. (I'd link you to something on point, but I don't want to rabbit hole you.) It just, at the bare minimum, says, "Hey, it's not good to use this reproductive organ in a way totally contrary to reproduction." There's a lot more than this, but definitely this.
All Crude was trying to get at is that two (or even more) men, spending time together, expressing sincere feelings toward one another, even hugging as friends or kissing, depending on the culture, would not, at the minimum, be violating any natural law or Christian (though they're really the same) principle. I have plenty of friends whom I am very close with. We will hug during emotional moments, and I will explain to them how much they mean to me. This would never be a problem, as most importantly, we do not pervert the good end of our bodies (ejaculation outside of legitimate intercourse), and we do not pervert the good end of our relationship(expressing ourselves in a sexual or romantic way). The latter generally leads to the former, incidentally, which is reason enough to avoid it.
But this is of course completely besides the original point of this disagreement. None of these arguments are religious, but I assume you are trying to attack natural law itself now because you realize the previous argument is a lost cause. But again, even if you provided some slam dunk argument against natural law (which you haven't), it would not convert natural law theory into religious theory.
Is a gay man feeling eros towards another man possible, according to the natural law theorist?
ReplyDeleteIs it possible? Bro, it happens all the time. Are you asking some question I don't understand?
Is the guy happy? Is he hurting anybody? Then, who cares?
You seem to be alleging that he is in some way harming himself, so the burden is on you to spell out what you think that harm is. So, you know, do that.
This is the point. "Harm" has no meaning outside of a moral theory. It's a morally loaded word.
Since I politically favor allowing consenting adults to marry, then obviously I favor allowing adults to marry inanimate objects, says the guy who just chastised me for uncharitable interpretations two seconds ago.
You didn't answer the question.
It's been pointed out before, but what constitutes "hurt" and "harm" is under question here. It's not like these things are uncontroversial, especially once you start analyzing them in the relevant contexts. Doubly so once you're *granting* the Christian view.
ReplyDeleteAgain, you're the one alleging harm, so the burden is on you to explain what the harm is.
If the guy is married, but has to do something I find weird in his foreplay to become aroused to have sex with his wife, I don't see that anyone is harmed by that.
I think doing anything with feet is weird and gross. I don't like touching feet and I certainly don't want to put my mouth anywhere near someone's foot. But for some people, that really does it for them. What do I care if a married couple is into foot stuff? Why is that objectively any more healthy than being aroused by performing adequately at your job, whether it be food service or anything else?
The burden is on you to explain.
But at this point you've walled yourself up in a corner where you have to say things like, 'Oh, the husband can't achieve an erection / the wife can't get sexually aroused unless they masturbate to gore porn in advance? Hey nothing wrong there. Totally healthy, no damage or harm present!'
Not at all. From a Christian standpoint, it's pretty clear to me that the people in the pornography are being harmed, and by purchasing and viewing pornography, the Christian would be supporting an industry that causes harm.
But if being a good waiter gives him a stiffy? It's hard for me to see why that's harmful.
So, anytime you want to explain why the harm involved is so obvious it should constitute a reductio even for an atheist, that would be swell...
Not at all. From a Christian standpoint, it's pretty clear to me that the people in the pornography are being harmed, and by purchasing and viewing pornography, the Christian would be supporting an industry that causes harm.
ReplyDeleteEven if one were to accept this really poor (and thoroughly unChristian) moral theory that only "harm" (which I don't even know what counts as harm) qualifies as immoral, how are pornographers harmed...? I don't follow. You have consenting adults gaining immeasurable pleasure and money! It can be exploitative in some circumstances, but that's usually an issue of circumstance, not the actual act itself. It's not like the people are being raped or forced into it. At least, that's hardly a necessary characteristic of pornography. This also doesn't address the ever-pressing issue of ultra-realistic digital pornography, especially of children.
Chad writes,
ReplyDeleteWhat? Are you following the conversation AT ALL?...Reducing gay marriage, as Crude did, to "regular bouts of anal sex" absolutely is bigotry.
Yes, I've been following it--which is why my observations are accurate. Your non-arguments are clearly disengenuous.
So, Crude made a bigoted statement? But saying that God has given homosexuals over to a "reprobate sense" isn't bigoted? Homosexuals worship the creature more than the Creator, right? Homosexuals "dishonor" their bodies, right? Your "atheist" community would be fine with that, I'm certain!
You're fooling nobody here.
So, I concede that anal sex is ruled out, but it's not clear to me that if food service is part of a married couple's foreplay, that natural law would consider this unhealthy.
ReplyDeleteIf food service is ruled out, then what about perfume? Lingerie? Role-playing?
Just explain where the frustrating of natural ends is coming up, or where the desire is aimed at the wrong end.
If you like how your wife looks in high heels, that's not necessarily a sign of harm. If seeing this makes you want to have sex with the shoes instead of your wife, yeah, okay, maybe we're in problem territory.
Let me try to be as clear as I can. I contend that gay couple who feel romantic love for each other and who as an expression of that love do nothing more explicit than hold hands are nonetheless in a romantic relationship, even though I understand that the natural law would not necessarily condemn that relationship if it only went that far.
Clear?
If you're conceding that there is nothing natural law apparently condemns in a 'homosexual' relationship that is stripped of sex or sexual content, then sure, we're clear. So we've nicely zeroed in on the sexual aspects as the objectionable ones in that case.
Is a gay man feeling eros towards another man possible, according to the natural law theorist?
Eros? What, sexual attraction? Are you really asking that?
I don't think the hypothetical atheist would consider it a reductio. I think he'd just say (as I'm fairly tempted to say) who cares?
Considering the atheists throughout history who considered same-sex sexual attraction itself as disordered, that's far from obvious. 'An atheist' may claim as much. It's not an automatic default for 'atheists', period.
Is the guy happy? Is he hurting anybody? Then, who cares?
Back to the 'harm' and 'damage' issues.
You seem to be alleging that he is in some way harming himself, so the burden is on you to spell out what you think that harm is. So, you know, do that.
Burdens are on anyone making claims. If someone says 'there is no harm', they've got a burden. If someone says 'there is harm', they've got a burden.
We've already pointed out how on natural law this is 'harm'. Your reply has been "So what?" But as I've shown, I can "so what?" any reply you or your hypothetical atheists reply with in turn.
Since I politically favor allowing consenting adults to marry, then obviously I favor allowing adults to marry inanimate objects, says the guy who just chastised me for uncharitable interpretations two seconds ago.
I didn't say you did. I asked you whether you did or not. It's a question, not a claim.
So which is it? By all means, tell me you oppose that. I'd love to see you justify your standing in the way of a man's happiness and sexual gratification.
No, I think most people would say it was weird, but most people wouldn't say he was broken, or immoral.
And I disagree. I can certainly rally historical evidence for my view on this matter - I need only go as far as the history of the APA.
I've already made my case for the harm/damage aspect. "So what?", if it undermines my view, undermines every view it can be applied to - which happens to be all of them. So I'm afraid you'll have to do better than that.
The burden is on you to explain.
ReplyDeleteBurdens come with whoever is making claims. You say there is no harm - you've got a burden. The difference between you and me is I happily make an attempt to meet that burden, even in the face of the terrifying "So what?" objection. You're allergic to making a case - probably because you know you're not going to do as well.
Not at all. From a Christian standpoint, it's pretty clear to me that the people in the pornography are being harmed, and by purchasing and viewing pornography, the Christian would be supporting an industry that causes harm.
Who said anyone was harmed? Are you aware of this little thing called 'art' and 'drawing' and '3D animation'?
Arguments have already been supplied, Chad. Your response is: "So what?"
I eagerly await your defense of a lack of harm, or your definitions of harm. Actually, not really - I highly doubt you'll acknowledge your burden, much less attempt to defend it beyond assuming your definition of 'harm' is correct without argument.
The problem you don't seem to realize is that all you're doing is begging the question. You're assuming that "moral evil" has a meaning when that's exactly what's at issue in the first place. The natural law theorist is defining what morality is. It makes no sense whatsoever to say, "Well, if I follow natural law, it leads to immoral results!" It also makes no sense to say things like "Well, I think it's better to seek good outside of a thing's nature!" Where does this "goodness" come from? That you can't understand this is a fundamental problem.
ReplyDeleteI completely disagree. I'm coming at this from the standpoint of a person who is undecided on what moral theory to adopt, and who is surveying a range of proffered theories to see which one I think is best.
I bring to the conversation moral intuitions and I'm largely using those intuitions to decide between the rival moral theories.
If a moral theory so offends my moral intuitions in how it attempts to define the good that I can't bring myself to accept it, I am not begging any question. That my intuition so rebels strikes me as good evidence that the theory isn't correct.
If natural law says that a rational vampire would be doing moral good by devouring a human child, that does such violence to my moral intuitions that I have to conclude that natural law theory goes wrong in attempting to define the good.
I don't even need to have an alternative moral theory at the ready in order to dismiss natural law theory at that point and move on.
More after the break...
It's tiring repeating it over and over, especially when it's been done better before. These aren't esoteric, weird links. They're right on point.
ReplyDeleteThe link to John C. Reily getting an erection over food service wasn't esoteric or weird?
All Crude was trying to get at is that two (or even more) men, spending time together, expressing sincere feelings toward one another, even hugging as friends or kissing, depending on the culture, would not, at the minimum, be violating any natural law or Christian (though they're really the same) principle. I have plenty of friends whom I am very close with. We will hug during emotional moments, and I will explain to them how much they mean to me. This would never be a problem, as most importantly, we do not pervert the good end of our bodies (ejaculation outside of legitimate intercourse), and we do not pervert the good end of our relationship(expressing ourselves in a sexual or romantic way). The latter generally leads to the former, incidentally, which is reason enough to avoid it.
Fair enough, and I accept the clarification.
What I will not accept is blame for the misunderstanding, because neither of you were the least bit clear in your initial statements.
Is it possible? Bro, it happens all the time. Are you asking some question I don't understand?
Well, certainly you're aware that there are religious groups that believe that eros between gay men is impossible, and that homosexual relationships are merely sexual perversions having nothing to do with romantic love.
So, given those feelings are common in religious communities, it's not that uncharitable that I interpreted you and Crude as saying that when you gave every impression of reducing gay relationships to nothing more than anal sex.
This is the point. "Harm" has no meaning outside of a moral theory. It's a morally loaded word.
Fine, and according to the previously spelled out moral theory of the hypothetical naive atheist, no harm is being done.
If you guys disagree with my hypothetical atheist friend, explain why he's wrong.
You didn't answer the question.
When I restrict marriage to a relationship between consenting adults, I am not therefore obviously answering the question of whether a man can marry an inanimate object.
I have to say, that you and Crude are the ones continuing to accuse people of uncharitable interpretation is becoming something of a farce. You two should go on the road (as kissing, hand-holding, romantic-poetry-reading friends, of course.)
Even if one were to accept this really poor (and thoroughly unChristian) moral theory that only "harm" (which I don't even know what counts as harm) qualifies as immoral, how are pornographers harmed...? I don't follow. You have consenting adults gaining immeasurable pleasure and money!
ReplyDeleteSpeaking as a Christian, am I really meant to repeat all the arguments that you are obviously aware of as to why pornography causes harm? Is the idea to refute me or to tire me out? Fill in the blanks with the data you already know and proceed to your point.
Speaking as the hypothetical atheist, I agree, no harm is being done.
This also doesn't address the ever-pressing issue of ultra-realistic digital pornography, especially of children.
As a Christian, I would say that fostering in oneself an attraction towards ultra-realistic depictions of children is de facto nurturing an attraction towards children. And if Jesus says that lusting towards a woman in one's heart is sinful, I imagine that would go 100 fold towards children. So, as a Christian, I'd say it's wrong because Jesus would condemn it. How's that for a Christian moral theory?
Speaking as the hypothetical atheist, I would agree. Nobody's hurt with the act of viewing realistic images of children, so long as that desire isn't inflamed by the porn to the extent that the person viewing turns to preying on actual children.
Chad:
ReplyDeleteIf natural law says that a rational vampire would be doing moral good by devouring a human child, that does such violence to my moral intuitions that I have to conclude that natural law theory goes wrong in attempting to define the good.
First, Once again, you would have to explain what you mean by “moral good”.
Second, you seem to reject the idea of that if an activity if good for X, then it cannot possibly be bad for Y. In other words, if Y is harmed by X’s action, then X’s action cannot possibly be considered good. Is that true?
"So, as a Christian, I'd say it's wrong because Jesus would condemn it. How's that for a Christian moral theory?"
ReplyDeleteHa ha ha ha, the wheels are officially off! Absolutely amazing!
Crude:
ReplyDeleteEros? What, sexual attraction? Are you really asking that?
Love. Romantic Love. Of the pining, swooning, heart skips a beat, "I want to get lost in your eyes," "if only I could be near you," kind.
As opposed to mere lust, of the "wow, that dude looks hot in those jeans" kind.
Do gay men in relationships have authentically romantic love for each other?
Considering the atheists throughout history who considered same-sex sexual attraction itself as disordered, that's far from obvious. 'An atheist' may claim as much. It's not an automatic default for 'atheists', period.
Well the specific contemporary atheist we've been talking about for 30 frickin' posts in a row , the one whose opinion you specifically asked about, would say "he doesn't seem to be hurting anyone, so it's fine."
Burdens are on anyone making claims.
Great! So if someone says that being aroused by food service is so obviously harmful that it should constitute a reductio for the atheist, he would also be making a claim.
So, he should back up that claim.
So, you know, do that.
So which is it? By all means, tell me you oppose that. I'd love to see you justify your standing in the way of a man's happiness and sexual gratification.
Speaking as the hypothetical atheist, if the person is aroused by the restaurant, who cares?
If the person wants to marry the restaurant, and be able to leave his property to his restaurant, and allow the restaurant to assume custody of his children, well that wouldn't be possible, because a restaurant, rather unlike a gay man, can't perform any of those functions.
And I disagree. I can certainly rally historical evidence for my view on this matter - I need only go as far as the history of the APA.
I don't know what the APA is, but again, I'm only referring to the contemporary hypothetical atheist.
Burdens come with whoever is making claims. You say there is no harm - you've got a burden. The difference between you and me is I happily make an attempt to meet that burden
Happy to hear it!
So, just point me to where you met the burden of proving your claim that being aroused by food service is so obviously harmful, it's a reductio against my hypothetical atheist.
Anytime you want to get around to that, that would be great.
I mean, you bring me an example. You ask me if I can see any harm. I say, no, I don't see any harm. You then say the the harm is so obvious that it's a reductio against the opposing position. Then you say that the burden is entirely and only on me to prove my (hypothetical) position, and that you have no burden at all.
You're funny.
I've already made my case for the harm/damage aspect. "So what?"
You said that it's so obvious that the man aroused by food service is sexually unhealthy that it constitutes a reductio against the atheist.
And you're no saying that your argument that meets the burden of proof that claim places upon you is "So what?"
I take it back. You're not funny, you're hilarious.
First, Once again, you would have to explain what you mean by “moral good”.
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't.
I absolutely do not.
If someone tells me that a vampire eating a child is morally good, I do not need to explain what I mean by moral good before I say "nope, it absolutely isn't."
If someone presents me with a moral theory that yields a result that is entirely contrary to my moral intuitions, I don't need a developed moral theory of my own to reject that moral theory.
In other words, if Y is harmed by X’s action, then X’s action cannot possibly be considered good. Is that true?
No, I'm saying, a rational agent eating human babies can't possibly be performing a morally good action by so doing.
So any theory that says that when Dracula snatches up a toddler off the playground and munches into him like a Twix, he's not just performing a biologically necessary act for his survival, but actually exemplifying a moral good, is wrong.
Such a theory just defines the good in a way that can't possibly be true.
Chad:
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't. I absolutely do not. If someone tells me that a vampire eating a child is morally good, I do not need to explain what I mean by moral good before I say "nope, it absolutely isn't”
How can you say that X is not morally good without knowing what “morally good” even means?
If someone presents me with a moral theory that yields a result that is entirely contrary to my moral intuitions, I don't need a developed moral theory of my own to reject that moral theory.
What are these “moral intuitions”? How do they differ from other kinds of intuitions that make them moral intuitions? Are they just feelings that you have about certain actions? Would you accept it if an atheist rejected an argument for Christianity just because the conclusion is contrary to their “intuitions”?
No, I'm saying, a rational agent eating human babies can't possibly be performing a morally good action by so doing.
And until you explain to me what a “moral intuition” and “morally good action” means, then I literally have no idea what you are talking about.
Such a theory just defines the good in a way that can't possibly be true.
Which is better than not defining the good at all, and yet helping yourself to it at your leisure.
Chad said...
ReplyDelete"Do gay men in relationships have authentically romantic love for each other?"
Doesn't matter if they do or not, I'd say it's wrong because Jesus would condemn it. How's that for Christian moral theory?
When I restrict marriage to a relationship between consenting adults, I am not therefore obviously answering the question of whether a man can marry an inanimate object.
ReplyDeleteAs pointed out above, you have no logical basis to "restrict marriage to a relationship between consenting adults" because you've already condeded that fundamental definitions may be revised on discrimination grounds. There is thus no logical defense against granting everybody marital status to avoid a charge of discrimination. You of course ignore that.
Again, you're fooling nobody here.
Chad,
ReplyDeleteIf someone tells me that a vampire eating a child is morally good, I do not need to explain what I mean by moral good before I say "nope, it absolutely isn't."
If someone presents me with a moral theory that yields a result that is entirely contrary to my moral intuitions, I don't need a developed moral theory of my own to reject that moral theory.
You're just begging the question. You've assumed that such a theory must be wrong ahead of time if it contradicts your intuitions, just because it contradicts your intuitions. How's that for an argument?
Also, your intuitions are largely the products of cultural indoctrination. Stuff happened in Rome that seemed intuitively right to people at the time, but we'd all be shocked by it now. Yet your intuitions would tell you that it was wrong. So whose intuition was right? Unless you want to endorse a totally emotivist and incommensurable theory of morality, you're back to square one: actually presenting an argument.
Have any of you ever seen the show "True Blood?"
ReplyDeleteIn True Blood, vampires exist. They are able to live among humans via the invention of the titular product "True Blood," which is a synthetic blood that vampires can subsist on, thus relieving them of the need to feed on humans.
Keep in mind that in vampire fiction, feeding on humans is also how vampires procreate. Most humans vampires feed on will die, but some predictable percentage of them will survive to become vampires themselves. Thus, even though vampires lust and hunger for human blood, and need human blood to survive, nature obviously has procreative ends in mind with the compulsion towards feeding.
Thus, nature obviously did not intend or orient or point Vampires towards drinking True Blood, but towards drinking human blood.
So, what's a rational Vampire to do?
Follow nature, and kill humans?
Or drink True Blood, and spare them?
Natural law theory would seem to suggest that it's more moral for them to kill humans.
Chad:
ReplyDeleteSo, what's a rational Vampire to do?
Follow nature, and kill humans?
Or drink True Blood, and spare them?
Natural law theory would seem to suggest that it's more moral for them to kill humans.
Natural law theory would say that they would be more moral to kill humans, much like natural law theory would say that a lion that can viciously hunt down and kill its prey is a better lion than a lion who cannot do so. At least, that's insofar as I understand natural law theory.
How can you say that X is not morally good without knowing what “morally good” even means?
ReplyDeleteBest I can do is that the moral good is like that old joke about porn - I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.
When I'm watching a vampire slowly drain the blood from a horrified, screaming toddler?
Guess what? I'm not seeing it.
How do they differ from other kinds of intuitions that make them moral intuitions?
They're about morality?
Look, you know what a moral intuition is. You had them well before you were aware of any philosophy.
If moral intuitions play no role in choosing between rival moral theories, on what basis should one choose between rival moral theories?
Natural law theory would say that they would be more moral to kill humans, much like natural law theory would say that a lion that can viciously hunt down and kill its prey is a better lion than a lion who cannot do so. At least, that's insofar as I understand natural law theory.
ReplyDeleteWell, my definition of moral good, were I to provide it, would include in it somewhere near the very top that a rational agent shouldn't cause harm to another rational agent if it doesn't have to. I have to imagine such a law would be near the top of most definitions of the moral good.
If natural law differs, then IMO, natural law fails as an account of moral goodness.
I forgot to say, if a nonrational lion has to kill a nonrational deer to survive, I don't have an issue with that. The lion has no choice but to do as nature bids him or die.
ReplyDeleteThat's different from a rational agent who has a choice to defy nature and to do less harm to other rational creatures by defying nature.
So, I don't see what the lion has to do with anything.
Love. Romantic Love. Of the pining, swooning, heart skips a beat, "I want to get lost in your eyes," "if only I could be near you," kind.
ReplyDeleteAs opposed to mere lust, of the "wow, that dude looks hot in those jeans" kind.
Do gay men in relationships have authentically romantic love for each other?
Yes, of course. I've fallen in love a dozen times with (usually straight) men. This is a non-issue. No one is claiming anything to the contrary.
If someone presents me with a moral theory that yields a result that is entirely contrary to my moral intuitions, I don't need a developed moral theory of my own to reject that moral theory.
This is just flat out refusing to actually partake in philosophical discussion. If your reason for saying that the moral theory is incorrect is that it is immoral, then you absolutely have to explain why it's immoral. Else, you are just begging the question.
The vampire example is too underdeveloped to answer. The question as to why murder is immoral is a more complex question than is determining that homosexual sex is immoral. That is, it's not merely an issue of perverting a faculty.
It would be accurate to say that it would be "bad for" the vampire to not eat and die, as that is how a vampire flourishes, but seeing as the vampire, presumably, is rational (I assume in the same way a human is), it would be able to recognize what a human is---not just another animal, but something made up of immaterial form and matter. For example, would you say that a lion does something immoral by eating a child? Certainly not. Similarly, natural law does not condemn humans killing non-human animals.
So the issue is what the hypothetical vampire's rationality really is and why killing rational animals is condemnable. Those things have to be sorted out before really addressing the question. And you need not have a non-realistic vampire to address the issue. Just put two people trapped in a cave, where one can kill the other to survive. It is always a good to survive, and it would be to flout the natural good end by not eating, but then, to do so, the person would have to murder another human being.
Yes, of course. I've fallen in love a dozen times with (usually straight) men. This is a non-issue. No one is claiming anything to the contrary.
ReplyDeleteAre you and Crude the same person? Why do both of you keep answering questions addressed to the other?
I got your answer already; I was asking Crude.
This is just flat out refusing to actually partake in philosophical discussion. If your reason for saying that the moral theory is incorrect is that it is immoral, then you absolutely have to explain why it's immoral. Else, you are just begging the question.
No, I am not begging any question. If someone says to me "my theory of the good has as its foundational principle the savage rape of children," I don't need a developed moral philosophy to say "your theory of the good is incorrect."
If there are shades and nuances of difference between my moral intuitions and a theory I'm considering, then my intuitions might not rule the day. If a moral theory might require me to change my position on gay marriage, that's fine. I already have inclinations i that direction.
If, however, a moral theory would require me to change my position on the morality of rational beings eating children when they don't have to?
Not even going to consider it. For a second. At all.
Call me crazy, call me unphilosophical, call me whatever name you like, but I'm personally not even going to consider a moral theory that positively inverts a moral intuition that fundamental. If a rational agent choosing to eat babies over a harmless alternative is good, then I no longer even care what good means. I have no use for good and I'm not interested in being good, if that's what good is. *shrug*
The question as to why murder is immoral is a more complex question than is determining that homosexual sex is immoral.
Really?
It's less clear why murder is wrong than it is why homosexuality is wrong?
Seriously?
It would be accurate to say that it would be "bad for" the vampire to not eat and die, as that is how a vampire flourishes, but seeing as the vampire, presumably, is rational (I assume in the same way a human is), it would be able to recognize what a human is---not just another animal, but something made up of immaterial form and matter. For example, would you say that a lion does something immoral by eating a child? Certainly not. Similarly, natural law does not condemn humans killing non-human animals.
Well, what about my True Blood example?
The Vampire has the choice between acting in accord with its nature and eating humans or frustrating nature's ends and drinking True Blood?
Which should he do?
And you need not have a non-realistic vampire to address the issue.
I disagree. Humans aren't oriented by nature towards eating each other, so they wouldn't be frustrating nature's ends in quite the same direct way by not eating each other as a vampire would. The vampire oriented by its nature to eat humans and to only eat humans.
So, if it had the choice to not eat humans and to survive, but only at the cost of frustrating nature's natural ends, should it do so?
Call me crazy, call me unphilosophical, call me whatever name you like, but I'm personally not even going to consider a moral theory that positively inverts a moral intuition that fundamental. If a rational agent choosing to eat babies over a harmless alternative is good, then I no longer even care what good means. I have no use for good and I'm not interested in being good, if that's what good is. *shrug*
ReplyDeleteThis isn't philosophy. This isn't anything. This is just "I don't like it." This is much closer to the mindset that bigots actually do have. Step back, think for one second that maybe what you feel is good or bad aren't. In 100 years, the idea of someone feeling like homosexuality is wrong may be all but stamped out of the Western world, especially once Christianity becomes sufficiently meaningless. This has no bearing, whatsoever, on whether it is or isn't good. Similarly, imagine a person doesn't feel that murdering people is always wrong or even wrong at all. He's just...wrong because your feeling about it is...stronger?
It's less clear why murder is wrong than it is why homosexuality is wrong?
Stop being a child. It's a more complex analysis; that's all I meant. Unlike you, I don't find "uh, that doesn't feel right, dude" to be a particularly convincing moral argument, even if I feel much more strongly about murder than I do about homosexuality. I don't just assume my feelings are correct. As such, the morality cannot be answered through a perverted faculty analysis, which are usually easier to work through.
The Vampire has the choice between acting in accord with its nature and eating humans or frustrating nature's ends and drinking True Blood?
Which should he do?
This is my point. It may be very well within the nature of all rational creatures to not intentionally kill other rational creatures, no matter the necessity. That's what first would have to be determined. And no, there's no difference with humans; humans have an end to survive, by eating whatever they can, just as much as a vampire does. Humans are just luckier in that they have a digestive system that can eat more things. This hypothetical works for an ultraviolent Klingon or anything else put in a situation where it has to kill a rational creature to survive.
Vampires eat blood to survive. The eating of blood is not an end in itself. It's pointed at survival. It is proper to say that vampires have AN end of surviving, through ingesting human blood. Just like the eyes are oriented toward seeing for survival. But if the eye were getting in the way of a human's overall survival (like with cancer or whatever), it would be perfectly in line with natural law to pluck it out. Things are what they are in reference to a higher form of which they are a part. Which, of course, is obvious. Why eat blood but for some other purpose?
In other words, if the natural end of rational animals (of which a human or a vampire or a Klingon would fall) is to not kill a being with an immaterial soul but instead to respect it, it would not be morally good for the vampire to kill the human. Just like it would not be good for the human to kill another human to eat and ultimately survive. So, whether that's what makes murder wrong for rational creatures is what has to be determined, something I have not done here.
Do gay men in relationships have authentically romantic love for each other?
ReplyDeleteGoing by the wikipedia: "Romance is the expressive and pleasurable feeling from an emotional attraction towards another person associated with love.
In the context of romantic love relationships, romance usually implies an expression of one's strong romantic love, or one's deep and strong emotional desires to connect with another person intimately or romantically."
Still a bit vague, but it's love - it's only going to get so technical. Sure, I'll grant that, especially if we're talking in terms largely of feelings.
Great! So if someone says that being aroused by food service is so obviously harmful that it should constitute a reductio for the atheist, he would also be making a claim.
I've done so repeatedly, as have others, insofar as they've explained what constitutes harm on a natural law perspective.
Your response has been: "So what?"
My response to your response: "So what?"
Checkmate, I suppose.
Speaking as the hypothetical atheist, if the person is aroused by the restaurant, who cares?
My hypothetical atheist replies, "He's out of his goddamn mind."
If the person wants to marry the restaurant, and be able to leave his property to his restaurant, and allow the restaurant to assume custody of his children, well that wouldn't be possible, because a restaurant, rather unlike a gay man, can't perform any of those functions.
My other hypothetical atheist replies: He can certainly leave property to his restaurant. Custody of children? Since when are 'children' essential to a marriage? And whether he can marry his restaurant is exactly what's under dispute.
Who are you to stand in the way of his love?
Can a man have romantic feelings for a restaurant chain? It certainly seems as if he can have feelings of lust for it. You get lost in someone's eyes, he gets lost in the salad bar.
So, just point me to where you met the burden of proving your claim that being aroused by food service is so obviously harmful, it's a reductio against my hypothetical atheist.
I said it can be taken as a reductio. You, clearly, will not take it as such, because anal sex is clearly so sacred a commodity to you that you've bitten the bullet and are now insisting that being exclusively sexually attracted to acts of good food service is totally normal and not evidence of psychological harm or sexuality problems or otherwise. At this point, you yourself are more or less a living reductio. So hey, thanks for that.
Now, you'll dig in your heels and say 'Ha! I haven't yet been convinced that being exclusively aroused by gore porn indicates harm! You haven't met your burden according to my standards, Crude!' But as I said from the start - that's not really a concern.
I've met my burden as far as one could reasonably be expected to. Do let me know when you even attempt to meet yours.
And you're no saying that your argument that meets the burden of proof that claim places upon you is "So what?"
I'm using your own standards here, Chad. You think 'So what?' is the stuff of intellectual power - it's as available to me as it is to you.
As for the comedy, it's been available in abundance here. Please, tell me again how according to not only your moral theory (which you seem pathologically incapable of defending or explaining) but also your quaint view of Christian teaching, being sexually aroused by and masturbating to gore porn is A-OK, not indicate of any kind of damage or harm or otherwise.
See, that alone is funny. But the fact that you're reduced to this all in a Quixotic hope of fending off any criticism of anal sex? That is comedy writ large.
This isn't philosophy.
ReplyDeleteIf philosophy thinks that whether or not a rational agent should eat a baby is a question that requires a complex theory of the good to answer, so much the worse for philosophy.
Similarly, imagine a person doesn't feel that murdering people is always wrong or even wrong at all. He's just...wrong because your feeling about it is...stronger?
So what role do moral intuitions play in moral theory choice?
If a moral theory leads to what strikes me, as a Christian, to be an outrageously immoral outcome, is that not even evidence that the moral theory is wrong?
As a Christian, if a moral theory would require you to deny Christ, don't you know right away that theory is wrong? Even if you're a Christian with no philosophical background whatsoever?
Again, I ask, on what basis does one choose between moral theories if one cannot use one's moral intuitions as a deciding factor?
How exactly is it that you know that utilitarianism is wrong and natural law is right? What enabled you to make that call?
even if I feel much more strongly about murder than I do about homosexuality. I don't just assume my feelings are correct.
Again, if your moral philosophy says that the moral status of murder is murkier than the moral status of homosexuality, so much the worse for your moral philosophy.
Let me ask you this - do you think moral philosophy would be possible if human beings had no moral intuitions or feelings whatsoever? If all we had to guide us was how coherent and consistent a moral theory was, would that alone be able to guide us to something trustworthy?
It seems like there's no end to moral systems that are coherent and self-consistent. If not moral intuitions, what makes a person choose one theory rather than the other?
Will somebody please answer this? Seriously?
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It may be very well within the nature of all rational creatures to not intentionally kill other rational creatures, no matter the necessity.
ReplyDeleteHow could such a nature get into a frickin' vampire? A being designed by nature to kill rational creatures?
If that's the case, it's possible for nature to direct the same being towards two mutually self-contradictory ends. His nature would be commanding him both to eat humans and to not eat humans.
In which case, nature is schizophrenic, and that's all the more reason not to turn to it for moral direction.
It seems that what you're really doing here is retroactively defining the nature of rational beings such that it conforms to your moral intuitions. You know it's outrageous to suggest a vampire might be morally obligated to eat a baby rather than drink some synthetic chemicals, so you're redefining the nature of a rational animal until it fits your moral intuitions. In which case you're not getting deriving your moral intuitions from your theory, you're tweaking your theory to fit your preexisting moral intuitions. Which is roughly the same thing you're chastising me for.
In other words, if the natural end of rational animals (of which a human or a vampire or a Klingon would fall) is to not kill a being with an immaterial soul but instead to respect it, it would not be morally good for the vampire to kill the human. Just like it would not be good for the human to kill another human to eat and ultimately survive.
But the cases are fundamentally different, in that nature points the vampire towards eating a sentient being and only towards eating a sentient being. And if you're right, nature simultaneously forbids it from eating sentient that sentient being.
So, maybe, sans God, nature is a random, stupid process that could produce a being that couldn't be completely happy or moral no matter what it did, so maybe we should leave nature out of it.
At any rate, again, if a natural law theorist would look at the vampire's choice between eating a baby and drinking a bottle of inert chemicals and think "Hmmm, this is a tough call. I need to think about this..." then natural law theory isn't for me.
My moral intuition tells me utilitarianism is wrong no matter how well your arguments are put together chad.
ReplyDeleteI've done so repeatedly, as have others, insofar as they've explained what constitutes harm on a natural law perspective.
ReplyDeleteYou said it was a reductio for the atheist, who does not believe in natural law.
How would the fact that the man's behavior is wrong as defined by natural law constitute a reductio for the atheist's position???
My hypothetical atheist replies, "He's out of his goddamn mind."
Well if you have a hypothetical atheist, then why the hell do you keep asking to borrow mine??
My other hypothetical atheist replies: He can certainly leave property to his restaurant. Custody of children? Since when are 'children' essential to a marriage? And whether he can marry his restaurant is exactly what's under dispute.
He can put property in his restaurant, but the restaurant can't own property, because inanimate objects can't own property. The inanimate object, being an inanimate object, cannot partake in any of the rights the government conveys to married human beings. Thus, the government couldn't recognize the marriage if it wanted to.
Now, if the man wanted to have a private ceremony and consider himself married to the restaurant in his head? My hypothetical atheist says "You're a lunatic, but knock yourself out."
I said it can be taken as a reductio.
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I said it can be taken as a redutio
ReplyDeleteOnly someone who already believes in natural law. But not by our hypothetical atheist, who does not.
Why is he wrong to say that, as far as he can tell, there's nothing wrong with a man becoming aroused by doing food service?
What the holy heck was the point of that giant, winding rabbit trail, if your only point was "if you're a natural law theorist, then you would find immoral what natural law finds immoral."
Because that's all you've gotten out of this whole, useless, stupid digression.
You, clearly, will not take it as such, because anal sex is clearly so sacred a commodity to you that you've bitten the bullet and are now insisting that being exclusively sexually attracted to acts of good food service is totally normal
I didn't say it was normal, you sneaky rhetorical cheat. I said it wasn't obviously sexually unhealthy or obviously morally wrong to become aroused by serving food, especially for the atheist who says "all consensual sex acts that do not hurt others are fine."
Now, you'll dig in your heels and say 'Ha! I haven't yet been convinced that being exclusively aroused by gore porn indicates harm! You haven't met your burden according to my standards, Crude!' But as I said from the start - that's not really a concern.
Well, I already knew it was wrong by your standards!
What was the point of bringing it up if all you were going to do is show it was wrong by your standards?
I said you were funny, but I didn't realize until now just how absurdist your particular brand of humor is.
I'm using your own standards here, Chad. You think 'So what?' is the stuff of intellectual power - it's as available to me as it is to you.
I've said a million times that my "so what?" was restricted to a specific situation, that of where nature points us morally if nature is blind.
You can't even compete in a rational argument without not only inventing strawman, but clinging to them like a drowning man clings to a lifeboat.
being sexually aroused by and masturbating to gore porn is A-OK, not indicate of any kind of damage or harm or otherwise.
Do you think it's an effective rhetorical technique to simply accuse someone of saying the opposite of what they said?
You asked me about porn, and I said Christians shouldn't watch porn because it does harm to the participants.
My God you are terrible at this. I mean, when I watched you argue with people at a distance, I just assumed you were a smart guy who resorted to insults with atheists out of annoyance. I didn't realize until now that you did it because you're utterly incapable of doing anything else.
You said it was a reductio for the atheist, who does not believe in natural law.
ReplyDeleteWhen did I say the atheist didn't accept natural law, when my position is that an atheist could accept natural law? Granted, I brought in my hypothetical atheist - but that was far later.
Well if you have a hypothetical atheist, then why the hell do you keep asking to borrow mine??
I sure hope this was comedy, because there's no other way to process it.
He can put property in his restaurant, but the restaurant can't own property, because inanimate objects can't own property. The inanimate object, being an inanimate object, cannot partake in any of the rights the government conveys to married human beings.
Says who? Your senseless bigotry? Last I saw, the government declared that corporations are persons. Whether an animate object has rights or can own property is up to the law.
Why won't you get your nose out of people's private lives and let them live life the way that makes them happy?
Only someone who already believes in natural law. But not by our hypothetical atheist, who does not.
No, Chad - the field is a bit broader than that. Namely 'anyone who thinks that someone whose sexuality is defined almost exclusively in terms of restaurant service is rather nutty'. And according to you, you don't even need to have reasons beyond some intuitions. Do you honestly think those intuitions are only had by natural law proponents?
I didn't say it was normal, you sneaky rhetorical cheat. I said it wasn't obviously sexually unhealthy or obviously morally wrong to become aroused by serving food, especially for the atheist who says "all consensual sex acts that do not hurt others are fine."
Oh, my mistake - you don't think it's 'normal'. You just think it's healthy and morally acceptable.
Wait, hold on: that's still pretty ridiculous!
What was the point of bringing it up if all you were going to do is show it was wrong by your standards?
The point of highlighting someone's absurdity isn't always to get the person who embraces it to recognize their absurdity. They may well, for various reasons, bite the bullet and remain blind.
But I think there's a chance at least some onlookers are going to take one look at 'There's nothing unhealthy or morally suspect about masturbating to (let's qualify it as 'virtual') gore porn, or being sexually aroused exclusively by quality customer service at your chain restaurant - because otherwise maybe it wouldn't be a foregone conclusion that anal sex is A-OK!' and not see "Chad's brilliant reasoning skills" but "Wow, some varieties of LGBT activists are just completely bonkers".
I've said a million times that my "so what?" was restricted to a specific situation, that of where nature points us morally if nature is blind.
Oh, I get it! "So what?" only works if... what, your justification of it is suitably ad hoc?
Do you think it's an effective rhetorical technique to simply accuse someone of saying the opposite of what they said?
ReplyDeleteYou asked me about porn, and I said Christians shouldn't watch porn because it does harm to the participants.
To which I replied, in the context of the gore porn quote: Who said anyone was harmed? Are you aware of this little thing called 'art' and 'drawing' and '3D animation'?
At which point, you went silent. Or maybe you missed that.
My God you are terrible at this. I mean, when I watched you argue with people at a distance, I just assumed you were a smart guy who resorted to insults with atheists out of annoyance.
Insults? Chad, if you feel insulted by my laughing at what you're stooping to, the problem ain't me - it's with you. The only "insults" I am throwing at you at this point involve simply pointing out what positions you embrace, and the flaws in your arguments. And believe me: it's not like I'm highlighting things that are otherwise hard to see.
I'm sorry, what were you expecting? "Hey, good point! Sexual arousal stirred on by imagining blood and carnage is not only obviously moral generally, but moral according to a proper understanding of Christianity too. Because your definition of 'harm' and 'damage' is obviously true, on account of you feeling strongly"?
I saw, the government declared that corporations are persons.
ReplyDeleteA building is not a corporation. A corporation is a collection of persons treated by the government in some respects (really, just one, right?) as a single person.
That the Sears Corporation has rights doesn't entail that an empty, unowned Sears Tower would have rights.
Namely 'anyone who thinks that someone whose sexuality is defined almost exclusively in terms of restaurant service is rather nutty'. And according to you, you don't even need to have reasons beyond some intuitions. Do you honestly think those intuitions are only had by natural law proponents?
Everyone thinks it's nutty, including me. But whether it's unhealthy is less clear, and whether it's immoral is less clear still.
Just because a person thinks a sex act is nutty doesn't mean he thinks it's unhealthy or immoral. As I TMI'd earlier, I think putting your mouth on someone's foot is nuttier than a fruitcake, but I don't think it's unhealthy (depending on the foot) or immoral.
You seem to be trying make a connection between "this is weird" and "this is unhealthy and immoral." And I don't see that connection, particularly if I look at it, as you asked me to, from the perspective of the atheist who thinks all consensual sex acts that do not harm others are moral.
Oh, my mistake - you don't think it's 'normal'. You just think it's healthy and morally acceptable.
In the words of Judge Joe Brown, here we go again.
Saying something is "not obviously unhealthy" is not saying "it's healthy." Saying something is "not obviously immoral" is not saying it's "morally acceptable."
Part of our problem is you picked a horrible example to make your point. If you asked me if a dendrophiliac was unhealthy, I'd have probably said yes. Even in that case, I find it hard to say he's immoral. That strikes me more as a psychological condition he has little control of, so it calling it immoral seems wrong.
But a guy who gets chubbed-up on food service? I think it's weird, but that's as far as I'll commit myself.
"Wow, some varieties of LGBT activists are just completely bonkers".
WOW. I'm an LGBT activist because I'm arguing with you guys about natural law theory?
Yes, I think gay marriage should be legal, but I frankly wouldn't lift a finger to see it made into law, as I wouldn't lift a finger to see most anything else made into law. I'm about as far from a political activist as a human being can be.
At which point, you went silent. Or maybe you missed that.
Maybe you're not terrible. Maybe you just have selective blindness.
I did answer that. I said it would be wrong on the Christian view because by nurturing an attraction to photorealistic images of children a person would be de facto nurturing his attraction to children. I then said that since lusting in one's heart for women was wrong, doing so towards children was more so. Then I said that my moral theory was following Jesus. You might have seen several Christians on this forum ridiculing me for saying I prefer following Jesus' example rather than following some dubious philosophical theory.
If you missed all that, then you should just quit, because you aren't reading anything that's being said.
I'm sorry, what were you expecting?
FOR YOU TO READ WHAT I SAID.
Which is obviously expecting too much from you.
Chad,
ReplyDeleteI notice that you didn't even bother responding to my point. You seem to much prefer throwing wild, question-begging non-arguments at Crude and Joe than breaking down why anyone should pay attention to you. Your feelings about this or that moral issue are not arguments, and no one is obliged to take them as such. Now, you may believe that morality is simply what you feel that it is on the spot, and that's a perfectly valid (if depraved) way to think. But to attempt to convince others to feel the same way without appealing to anything other than your own feelings is just ridiculous. You are clearly out of your league, here.
I notice that you didn't even bother responding to my point.
ReplyDeleteSeveral people made the same point, and I responded to them. I'm supposed to argue against 7-8 people and respond to all of them individually, even when 5 of them make the same point?
You seem to much prefer throwing wild, question-begging non-arguments at Crude and Joe than breaking down why anyone should pay attention to you.
Apparently unlike you, I'm not overly concerned with receiving an internet stranger's direct attention.
If you don't think I'm worth paying attention to, stop paying attention to me. I won't notice.
Your feelings about this or that moral issue are not arguments, and no one is obliged to take them as such.
I didn't ask anyone else to take my moral intuitions as arguments. I said that if my moral intuitions were outraged by a moral theory, I wouldn't consider that moral theory anymore. I'm speaking only for myself in that regard. I realize that might outrage some of you. I don't care.
But to attempt to convince others to feel the same way without appealing to anything other than your own feelings is just ridiculous.
I've made arguments here as to why I think natural law theory is wrong. I've made several. Maybe they're all bad, but I haven't just come in and said "I don't feel natural law theory is correct, so you all have to agree with me!" Swing and a miss by you.
You are clearly out of your league, here.
Maybe, but not for any of the clearly, demonstrably false reasons you just cited.
Chad:
ReplyDeleteBest I can do is that the moral good is like that old joke about porn - I can't define it, but I know it when I see it. When I'm watching a vampire slowly drain the blood from a horrified, screaming toddler? Guess what? I'm not seeing it.
So, you are a sentimentalist when it comes to morality, i.e. if X offends your emotional sentiments, then X is immoral.
They're about morality?
And what is “morality”?
Look, you know what a moral intuition is. You had them well before you were aware of any philosophy.
I have my understanding of a “moral intuition”, yes, but I wanted to know what your understanding is, because otherwise we will be using the same word, but with a potentially different meaning, and thus be talking past one another rather than to one another.
If moral intuitions play no role in choosing between rival moral theories, on what basis should one choose between rival moral theories?
I never said that they play no role, but they do not play a dominant or exclusive role. I would choose between rival moral theories on the basis of internal consistency, broadness of scope, correspondence to moral intuitions, and so on. Personally, I think that our moral intuitions are mostly stable equilibrium between character-based ethics, deontological ethics, and consequentialist ethics, but there are scenarios in which this equilibrium becomes completely unstable, typically when our moral intuitions and internal values clash in fundamental ways, which is the case during debates about euthanasia, abortion, capital pubishment, and so on.
Well, my definition of moral good, were I to provide it, would include in it somewhere near the very top that a rational agent shouldn't cause harm to another rational agent if it doesn't have to. I have to imagine such a law would be near the top of most definitions of the moral good.
That would work certainly work for a human rational agent, but why should it also apply to a vampire rational agent? Why should your human standards apply to vampires who would presumably have a different nature from human beings? If we should not hold dogs to the same standards as human beings, then why should vampires be held to the same standards as human beings? Just because they are rational agents? That would presume that all rational agents have the same nature, which I do not think is necessarily the case.
That's different from a rational agent who has a choice to defy nature and to do less harm to other rational creatures by defying nature.
That’s true.
Joe:
ReplyDeleteThis is my point. It may be very well within the nature of all rational creatures to not intentionally kill other rational creatures, no matter the necessity. That's what first would have to be determined.
How would one go about determining this? According to my understanding, rational creatures are simply those who can abstract universal forms from particular entities in an immaterial intellect, and then subsequently analyze those forms further and make judgments about them. This would include the ability to understand what is good for an entity with the abstracted form, because one cannot understand a form without understanding what counts as a good instantiation of that form, which would also apply when the rational creature abstracts its own form from its particular existence.
If that rational creature had a nature that involved intentionally murdering other rational creatures, then I fail to see how simply having the power of rationality would somehow make it proper to violate its nature. It seems that you are simply projecting the human way of being a rational creature onto the vampire way of being a rational creature, which just begs the question. So, how would you demonstrate that all rational creatures should behave according to ideals set for human rational creatures?
Vampires eat blood to survive. The eating of blood is not an end in itself. It's pointed at survival. It is proper to say that vampires have AN end of surviving, through ingesting human blood. Just like the eyes are oriented toward seeing for survival. But if the eye were getting in the way of a human's overall survival (like with cancer or whatever), it would be perfectly in line with natural law to pluck it out. Things are what they are in reference to a higher form of which they are a part. Which, of course, is obvious. Why eat blood but for some other purpose?
First, this seems to condone using a bodily organ in a way that explicitly violates its purpose for the sake of a higher purpose. And wasn’t that precisely what was prohibited when it comes to anal sex in homosexuality?
Second, you seem to minimizing the necessity of consumption of human blood as part of the vampire’s nature. Sure, a vampire could eat the blood of rodents, but that would lead it to be a weak and desiccated vampire, and thus far from what would count as an exemplary instantiation of the vampire nature. So, to be an ideal vampire necessarily requires that a vampire consume human blood. Sure, there are different ways for a vampire to acquire human blood, many of which do not require the vampire to murder human beings. However, if part of the vampire’s nature was to dominate its prey, then certainly taking steps to preserve the dignity and integrity of the prey would be a violation of vampire nature.
And to look at Chad’s point about whether it would be a violation of the vampire’s nature to use a synthetic form of blood, then I suppose that it would not be a violation of vampire nature if the vampire could acquire sufficient strength and physical health from the synthetic blood. However, if the vampire’s nature is to dominate and exploit its prey without consideration for its pain and suffering, then synthetic blood would violate its nature. It would be like injecting lions with multivitamins and nutrients instead of allowing them to hunt and kill their prey. Sure, it would keep them alive, but it would be a violation of the lion’s nature.
I would choose between rival moral theories on the basis of internal consistency, broadness of scope, correspondence to moral intuitions, and so on.
ReplyDeleteSo far we have:
1. Internal consistency
2. Broadness of scope
3. Correspondence to moral intuitions
Anybody have anything to add.
Chad writes,
ReplyDeleteYou seem to be trying make a connection between "this is weird" and "this is unhealthy and immoral." And I don't see that connection, particularly if I look at it, as you asked me to, from the perspective of the atheist who thinks all consensual sex acts that do not harm others are moral.
Let us look at this another way. Man is made in the image of God; he is, in a sense, an echo and reflection of God. Now, there is clearly weird and weird, eccentric and eccentric, in the sense that some forms of eccentricity are deemaning to our theomorphic dignity and others are not. Indeed, in the modern West the traditional Christian and Tory can hardly escape being seen as somewhat eccentric. But we should not engage in weirdness that demeans our nature, not least because, if it anything but the most insignificant part of our lives it will intellectually affect us and hinder our knowledge of God, our ability to properly apprehend the sacred and our path in life.
Creation, as well as man, is an image and reflection of God (man himself is a microcosm of the universe and vice versa). All creation has the power to remind us of God, to allow us to see through it, so to speak, to the divine beyond, although some aspects (like Scripture and the sacraments and marriage itself) are more readily accessible in this regard that are others. But this demands of us a spiritual attitude that is ready and open to the essentially sacred character of all existence. For the average believer he can be forgiven lacking a bit in this quality, but the sort of perversity and weirdness you are talking about is a weight on proper spiritual perception and being.
"Do gay men in relationships have authentically romantic love for each other?"
I think the answer must be that they do not love in the form that heterosexual marriages are capable of. They are not capable of that highest eros that may turn into agape and is a symbol of the deepest divine love.
Also, statistically speaking, homosexuals, especially male ones, have negligible rates of long term fidelity. Whereas married women have something 85% fidelity and married men close to 80%.
Love is used in many, from a merely sentimental attachment to that "the Love which moves the sun and the other stars".
And to look at Chad’s point about whether it would be a violation of the vampire’s nature to use a synthetic form of blood, then I suppose that it would not be a violation of vampire nature if the vampire could acquire sufficient strength and physical health from the synthetic blood.
ReplyDeleteBut keep in mind, that feeding on humans is also how vampires reproduce.
So, even if the vampire could acquire sufficient strength through synthetic blood, it would be frustrating one of nature's ends for its feeding - the siring of new vampires.
If we are to talk of moral intuitions then surely we must consider C.S Lewis's point in The Abolition of Man, that is the shared moral assumptions and conclusions of traditional civilisations?
ReplyDeleteNotwithstanding certain claims to the contrary founded on the disproportionate and dubious use of ambiguous or marginal sources, homosexuality and sexual immorality have been almost universally condemned in human societies until modernity.
The homosexual, the effeminate, or, indeed, the foot fetishist (so far as he has existed or been acknowledged at all) has been considered to be acting contrary to normal human dignity.
Of course, Lewis would be the first to maintain that morality is not simply a matter of sentiment. Indeed, he himself notes somewhere that before about the middle of the eighteenth century morality was always considered not based in feeling but in reason, even if the reason meant was one broader than discursive reason - the whole intelligence or Nous (indeed, it is the atrophy of reason into merely ratio that was a prime cause that the moral sentimentalists could open a space up against moral rationalism).
To just add to the statistics I just mentioned, it should be noted that homosexuals who say they want marriage are not, generally, interested in traditional marriage - they want what modern marriage has become. In essence, judging both by the statistics about homosexual relationships and by the statements of many high profile activists, what they want will be far closer to what is euphemistically called open marriage - the absolute strictures against adultery are not a part of marriage in these conceptions.
ReplyDeleteVampires, so far as they exist at all, are psychic entities and, in this case, essentially what is called demons. I'm not sure the point in discussing demons in the current context.
ReplyDeleteA building is not a corporation. A corporation is a collection of persons treated by the government in some respects (really, just one, right?) as a single person.
ReplyDeleteSo a collection of persons is legally a person. My hypothetical atheist would like his chain of restaurants to legally be a person.
That the Sears Corporation has rights doesn't entail that an empty, unowned Sears Tower would have rights.
Who cares about 'entailment'? My hypothetical atheist wants legal recognition of his marriage to his corporation. It would make him happy.
Who are you, again, to stand in the way of this? On what grounds?
Everyone thinks it's nutty, including me. But whether it's unhealthy is less clear, and whether it's immoral is less clear still.
Superficially, an act or desire which is apparently nuts is an act or desire which - if in fact nuts - harmful.
Or does 'crazy' not mean 'damaged' now?
You seem to be trying make a connection between "this is weird" and "this is unhealthy and immoral." And I don't see that connection, particularly if I look at it, as you asked me to, from the perspective of the atheist who thinks all consensual sex acts that do not harm others are moral.
Once again, originally I was arguing that an atheist can subscribe to natural law. That, as near as I saw, went unchallenged save for 'So what?'
Saying something is "not obviously unhealthy" is not saying "it's healthy." Saying something is "not obviously immoral" is not saying it's "morally acceptable."
Part of our problem is you picked a horrible example to make your point. If you asked me if a dendrophiliac was unhealthy, I'd have probably said yes. Even in that case, I find it hard to say he's immoral. That strikes me more as a psychological condition he has little control of, so it calling it immoral seems wrong.
But a guy who gets chubbed-up on food service? I think it's weird, but that's as far as I'll commit myself.
A guy who is 'unable to achieve an erection' by any means other than having customers at his restaurant get top-notch friendly service.
But alright - the tree-humper is unhealthy. 'Damaged'. Why? He's doing what makes him happy. Apparently, short of losing limbs, that's the beginning and end of it for you.
If you grant that Doug Thomas' - or the dendrophiliac's - desires are 'unhealthy' or that their having them indicates damage on their part, then moral or not, you're conceding one hell of a thing.
WOW. I'm an LGBT activist because I'm arguing with you guys about natural law theory?
No, I think you reasonably come across as an LGBT activist based on your unwillingness to even regard (though this may be changing) people aroused by gore porn, or guys exclusively aroused by good restaurant service, as either somehow damaged, or that regarding them as damaged is not obviously incorrect - because of where that may lead in the LGBT discussion.
Maybe you're not terrible. Maybe you just have selective blindness.
ReplyDeleteI did answer that. I said it would be wrong on the Christian view because by nurturing an attraction to photorealistic images of children a person would be de facto nurturing his attraction to children.
Uh, I didn't mention 'children'. I talked about gore porn. Photorealistic images of children was brought up by Joe K. So no, you gave no reply to me - children are inconsequential to my example. Make them all adults if you wish.
You might have seen several Christians on this forum ridiculing me for saying I prefer following Jesus' example rather than following some dubious philosophical theory.
Your claims to be following Jesus' example with regards to your views on sexual morality are damn quaint.
FOR YOU TO READ WHAT I SAID.
Which is obviously expecting too much from you.
Yeah, you should probably holster shit like this until you're sure your supposed 'replies' were actually to the right person, about the same topic.
What is meant by Jesus' example here?
ReplyDeleteTo follow Christ is to be Christ-like, in essence this is to aim at nothing short of perfection. What demeans our theomorphic nature can hardly be Christ-like.
My hypothetical atheist would like his chain of restaurants to legally be a person.
ReplyDeleteI wish him luck in court. But that corporations may be regarded as persons in terms of free speech wouldn't seem adequate or relevant enough precedent to support granting marriage rights to a building. As has been politely pointed out several times, however, I'm not a lawyer.
My hypothetical atheist wants legal recognition of his marriage to his corporation. It would make him happy.
When have I ever argued that a person has a legal right to something because it makes him happy?
The only place happiness entered into my argument was when I said I doubted a gay person has a moral obligation obey unguided nature and remain celibate if it makes him unhappy.
To paraphrase Chris Rock, you speak in so many strawmen it nearly constitutes its own language.
Superficially, an act or desire which is apparently nuts is an act or desire which - if in fact nuts - harmful.
That sounds like a claim. Prove it.
Prove that acts that are "nuts", by which I mean, strange, contrary to expectations, and/or unusual, are always harmful.
Once again, originally I was arguing that an atheist can subscribe to natural law. That, as near as I saw, went unchallenged save for 'So what?'
It sure did go unchallenged, since I never disputed that an atheist could subscribe to natural law. All I said was, the binding force of natural law is weakened IMO if there's no good God behind the immanent teleology in nature.
or the dendrophiliac's - desires are 'unhealthy' or that their having them indicates damage on their part, then moral or not, you're conceding one hell of a thing.
How so?
Do you think only natural law is capable of explaining why a person shouldn't have sex with trees?
No, I think you reasonably come across as an LGBT activist based on your unwillingness to even regard (though this may be changing) people aroused by gore porn, or guys exclusively aroused by good restaurant service, as either somehow damaged, or that regarding them as damaged is not obviously incorrect - because of where that may lead in the LGBT discussion.
I don't even know what gore porn is and I've been around the internet long enough to know better than to look it up. If you mean snuff porn, then I would think the response I've already made, hours ago, about why I regard that as wrong would suffice for an answer.
You accuse me of being okay with gore porn only because you missed the responses where I said I addressed the question. In your typically dishonest fashion, you turned what you incorrectly perceived as my silence into not just consent, but full-throated approval. And then you used that imagined approval to make me into an LGBT activist. Quite a feat, even for someone who trades in intellectual dishonesty quite as briskly as you do.
Oh but there's more...
Uh, I didn't mention 'children'. I talked about gore porn. Photorealistic images of children was brought up by Joe K. So no, you gave no reply to me - children are inconsequential to my example. Make them all adults if you wish.
ReplyDeleteIs the point about not cultivating lust inconsequential to you? Nope, it's not. So you should have considered your question answered, if you were paying attention.
Your claims to be following Jesus' example with regards to your views on sexual morality are damn quaint.
What view of sexual morality that I've promoted here is contrary to Christ's example?
All I said was, it's not obvious to me that the guy who gets aroused by doing food service is damaged or immoral.
I also said I support the state's recognition of gay marriage, even though I would not support any church's recognition of same.
So, what did I say that was so contrary to Christian sexual morality?
Yeah, you should probably holster shit like this until you're sure your supposed 'replies' were actually to the right person, about the same topic.
Uh, yeah, how many times have you responded to questions I posed to Joe, and vice versa?
As I said to rank, if I'm having to hold up a conversation with 10 people, and 5 of them make nearly the identical point, I'm not going to make 5 separate responses to each. Before you accuse me of going silent, and then use that silence to paint me as an LGBT activist, you might want to read what I've been saying.
Whilst I don't disagree with Crude about the frustration of natural biological functions, of course, modern man has long since got out of the habit of thinking about such functions in their normative and symbolic fullness. I would make sure that, in this argument, one relates such functions to the full reality of human sexuality and martial relations. That is, marriage operates in two directions, ascending and descending. It brings together the two poles of humanity in a stable and healthy way, symbolic of the highest divine love, and the biological aspects of human sexuality are symbolic of, or patterned on, this union at the corporeal level. But the biological and passionate functions are also, in the lives of individuals, a foundation and support for the higher union. Marriage, in its highest aspect, should involve the whole being of both individuals, male and female, and ultimately serve as bridge between eros and agape.
ReplyDeleteI would make sure to always stress something of the full, sacramental reality of marriage and not to talk of the (albeit quite true) unnaturalness and immorality of sodomy in isolation.
ReplyDeleteAll I said was, it's not obvious to me that the guy who gets aroused by doing food service is damaged or immoral.
So, what you're saying is that there is nothing incongruous, nothing out of place, in a theomorphic being for him to be aroused in such situations? Is that really consistent with the dignity of human nature, made in the image of God, a very reflection of cosmic order?
I think the answer should be obvious.
Prove that acts that are "nuts", by which I mean, strange, contrary to expectations, and/or unusual, are always harmful.
ReplyDeleteProve is a strong word for a combox discussion, but I have given you plenty of reason, as have others. That you do not wish to reply to anonymous posters is your own choice, but not acknowledge our arguments and points and post as if they had not been made is rather strange and childish behaviour.
I'm going to repeat for people who missed it - if you can't be bothered to give some identification to yourself in your posts, I'm not even going to read it. So, don't bother responding to me.
ReplyDeletePeople are having enough trouble keeping up with posts from named commentators. I'm not about to start trying to figure out which anonymous is which.
I'm out here getting called everything but a child of God under my real name. I'm not dignifying cowards hiding behind their anonymity.
Man up or shut up.
I wish him luck in court.
ReplyDeleteHe'd like your endorsement, consistent with your view that the state has no right to stand in the way of his happiness on religious grounds.
When have I ever argued that a person has a legal right to something because it makes him happy?
That's fine - I'd be more than happy to see how you're denying this man the right to marry that which he loves, and on what grounds.
Or are you going to say you don't oppose that?
That sounds like a claim. Prove it.
'Prove it'? What, to your satisfaction? I can argue it, but we'd be right on back to natural law versus subjective whim. With the latter, apparently, having quite some force.
It sure did go unchallenged, since I never disputed that an atheist could subscribe to natural law. All I said was, the binding force of natural law is weakened IMO if there's no good God behind the immanent teleology in nature.
Then it sounds like natural law arguments aren't automatically religious arguments after all, nor would passing laws in accordance with them be some kind of crossing of secular boundaries. Wonderful.
Do you think only natural law is capable of explaining why a person shouldn't have sex with trees?
Not at all.
I don't even know what gore porn is and I've been around the internet long enough to know better than to look it up. If you mean snuff porn,
Not necessarily, since snuff porn tends to imply living, breathing humans being involved. Now, maybe you're saying that this would encourage them to commit such acts.
Let's say it doesn't. They have no desire to ACTUALLY harm people. They can differentiate between fantasy and reality. Prima facie, this is possible. Is it still damage? Does one have to be religious to regard it as damage?
You accuse me of being okay with gore porn only because you missed the responses where I said I addressed the question.
You didn't respond to my question - you responded to Joe K asking a different question. Knock off the bullshitting attempts: I nowhere said you were 'okay with gore porn'. I said you either were silent on that, or I missed something. It turns out, momentarily silent.
Is the point about not cultivating lust inconsequential to you? Nope, it's not. So you should have considered your question answered, if you were paying attention.
No, I don't consider my question answered when you don't reply to it. Now you've answered, and you consider it immoral in that it cultivates lust. Alright.
And are these secular or religious conclusions? And if religious, are they necessarily religious?
I also said I support the state's recognition of gay marriage, even though I would not support any church's recognition of same.
So, what did I say that was so contrary to Christian sexual morality?
Nah, this was a fuck-up on my part and overreach. Apologies offered, claim withdrawn.
As I said to rank, if I'm having to hold up a conversation with 10 people, and 5 of them make nearly the identical point, I'm not going to make 5 separate responses to each.
I don't care if you get confused during the discussion, or miss something - that's no big deal. But some snarky 'you don't even read what I say!' response, citing a response to a question I didn't ask, on a different topic? Yeah, like I said - holster it until you're sure from now on.
Arguments and insights are true, or false, no matter whose name they come under. It seems that you are, unfortunately, not interested enough in truth.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to be trying make a connection between "this is weird" and "this is unhealthy and immoral." And I don't see that connection, particularly if I look at it, as you asked me to, from the perspective of the atheist who thinks all consensual sex acts that do not harm others are moral.
Let us look at this another way. Man is made in the image of God; he is, in a sense, an echo and reflection of God. Now, there is clearly weird and weird, eccentric and eccentric, in the sense that some forms of eccentricity are deemaning to our theomorphic dignity and others are not. Indeed, in the modern West the traditional Christian and Tory can hardly escape being seen as somewhat eccentric. But we should not engage in weirdness that demeans our nature, not least because, if it anything but the most insignificant part of our lives it will intellectually affect us and hinder our knowledge of God, our ability to properly apprehend the sacred and our path in life.
Creation, as well as man, is an image and reflection of God (man himself is a microcosm of the universe and vice versa). All creation has the power to remind us of God, to allow us to see through it, so to speak, to the divine beyond, although some aspects (like Scripture and the sacraments and marriage itself) are more readily accessible in this regard that are others. But this demands of us a spiritual attitude that is ready and open to the essentially sacred character of all existence. For the average believer he can be forgiven lacking a bit in this quality, but the sort of perversity and weirdness you are talking about is a weight on proper spiritual perception and being.
All I said was, it's not obvious to me that the guy who gets aroused by doing food service is damaged or immoral.
So, what you're saying is that there is nothing incongruous, nothing out of place, in a theomorphic being for him to be aroused in such situations? Is that really consistent with the dignity of human nature, made in the image of God, a very reflection of cosmic order?
I think the answer should be obvious.
-Charles Edward Francis Stuart
'Prove it'? What, to your satisfaction? I can argue it...
ReplyDeleteSo, do it.
Instead of exclusively arguing by accusing me of saying things I've never said, being something I've never been, and holding positions I don't hold, actually argue for one of your positions. If only for novelty's sake...
Then it sounds like natural law arguments aren't automatically religious arguments after all, nor would passing laws in accordance with them be some kind of crossing of secular boundaries. Wonderful.
That an atheist can be a natural law theorist doesn't demonstrate that natural law theory isn't, at its base, religious. It could mean the atheist isn't aware that his commitment to natural law is ultimately a commitment to a religious view.
Isn't that what the Christian natural law theorist thinks of his atheist counterpart, anyway? That he's already given away the store by committing to natural law?
Not necessarily, since snuff porn tends to imply living, breathing humans being involved. Now, maybe you're saying that this would encourage them to commit such acts.
Let's say it doesn't. They have no desire to ACTUALLY harm people. They can differentiate between fantasy and reality. Prima facie, this is possible. Is it still damage? Does one have to be religious to regard it as damage?
So, reading between the lines, I assume gore porn is animated snuff porn.
Speaking as the hypothetical atheist with the laissez faire attitude towards sexual morality, if it is possible for them to enjoy it without it leading them to harm others, there's nothing wrong with it.
Speaking for myself, it would still be cultivating a lust for seeing human beings hurt and destroyed, and would be ruled out.
One doesn't have to be religious to regard it as damaged, but again, the specific hypothetical atheist you've been asking me to speak for is the hypothetical atheist who thinks all sex acts are moral unless they harm others. So, of course, that atheist isn't going to see a problem.
And are these secular or religious conclusions? And if religious, are they necessarily religious?
They're my conclusions, so they're religious. I don't think they're necessarily religious, because a person who is not a natural law theorist could come to the same conclusion for different reasons.
Nah, this was a fuck-up on my part and overreach. Apologies offered, claim withdrawn.
Thank you. I appreciate it.
holster it until you're sure from now on.
Right back at ya.
I think there is a confusion in Chad's comments about what religious means in this context. What it generally means is appeal to special revelation. It would be religious to suggest that because the Bible says something is wrong it is simply wrong. It is not religious, in this context, to hold a metaphysics and an moral philosophy that is not naturalist, even if the divine is at the centre of one's position. Natural Law is not dependent on special revelation and is therefore not religious.
ReplyDeleteJeremy Taylor
"I think there is a confusion in Chad's comments about what religious means in this context. What it generally means is appeal to special revelation."
ReplyDeleteIt also means appeal to theism (even if established by natural theology, which just makes it "natural religion"). There's no confusion.
Arguments and insights are true, or false, no matter whose name they come under. It seems that you are, unfortunately, not interested enough in truth.
ReplyDeleteYou don't know anything about me. Why would I be in a conversation where I'm receiving nothing so reliably as insults, if I wasn't interested in truth?
So many of my fellow Christians are just determined to make anyone who doesn't instantly agree with them into the enemy.
The most reliably insulting people in the conversation are always the people who refuse to identify themselves. If you doubt that, read through this conversation. Making people identify themselves civilizes the discussion.
So, what you're saying is that there is nothing incongruous, nothing out of place, in a theomorphic being for him to be aroused in such situations? Is that really consistent with the dignity of human nature, made in the image of God, a very reflection of cosmic order?
If a man can only be aroused in this way and that arousal leads to nothing else but some kind of perverted act with kitchen appliances, then sure, that's beneath his dignity. I'd still hesitate to call it immoral, though, because a person doing that seems more like a person suffering from a psychological problem.
If, however, we're just talking about someone who gets a bit randy by doing a good job in his career, but then takes that energy home to his loving wife, then I don't see it as some huge problem. Everybody has turn-ons. If you're aroused by somewhat strange things, but never satisfy that arousal outside of sex with your wife, I honestly don't see the problem.
I recently read an article that said that it was not uncommon for women to become sexually aroused by watching their husbands do housework. That housework might include something that looks like kitchen service. I know guys who say their wives are never in the mood unless they do a bunch of chores first. Maybe that's a little friendly marital extortion, or maybe some women are just wired like that.
Again, if everybody's married and everybody's faithful, I flat out don't see the problem.
"That an atheist can be a natural law theorist doesn't demonstrate that natural law theory isn't, at its base, religious. It could mean the atheist isn't aware that his commitment to natural law is ultimately a commitment to a religious view."
ReplyDeleteFor the record, in case you missed it, I gave you a link earlier in the thread to a Scholastic philosopher who agrees with you on precisely this point.
So, do it.
ReplyDeleteAlready done, ad nauseum. What, I have to get back on that hamster treadmill?
That an atheist can be a natural law theorist doesn't demonstrate that natural law theory isn't, at its base, religious. It could mean the atheist isn't aware that his commitment to natural law is ultimately a commitment to a religious view.
Isn't that what the Christian natural law theorist thinks of his atheist counterpart, anyway? That he's already given away the store by committing to natural law?
It's going to depend on the Christian. You make it sound as if utter certainty is required here and always in force. Which is why saying 'prove it' is just naive - if that's the standard, we're not moving anywhere. Not on secular terms, not on religious terms.
One doesn't have to be religious to regard it as damaged, but again, the specific hypothetical atheist you've been asking me to speak for is the hypothetical atheist who thinks all sex acts are moral unless they harm others. So, of course, that atheist isn't going to see a problem.
So what?
And I'm not being flippant. Okay - so there's a hypothetical atheist who doesn't find a given argument compelling, despite the fact that it's a secular argument. Where, exactly, are you going with this?
Is it the idea that secular law has to result in laws that all participating parties agree with? That an argument that is not compelling to all parties is therefore a bad law, or a law that shouldn't be passed?
And so we're clear - same-sex homosexual activity. Heterosexual sodomy. Moral or not in your view?
Right back at ya.
Not needed, what with me not doing it and all.
Scott,
ReplyDeleteBut in this context what meaning does it have to differentiate the theistic from the non-theistic metaphysics and moral philosophy, and, as is the case, to grant the latter a legitimacy in the public square and to make the former illegitimate in the same setting?
Surely, that is the implication of declaring Natural Law to be a religious view: in other words, it is merely a religious view and we don't need to pay any notice of them in public debates.
What is being confused is the distinction between religious views based on special revelation and those that are not, like Natural Law.
Jeremy, I agree with Scott. My position is that natural law loses most of its force if nature was not designed by a good God. The claim that we ought to obey an essence that was given to us by random, unguided nature is not as strong as the claim that we ought to obey an essence that was given to us by a nature ordained and directed by God.
ReplyDeleteSo, given that natural law theory derives so much of its moral force from God, I see it as a de facto religious theory.
I'm probably wrong about that, and I'll be embarrassed by all of this in a few months when I know more about this stuff. But that's how it seems to me right now.
Scott,
ReplyDeleteSorry, I'm missing a lot. We're on 334 posts in two days. And every time I send a post, I see three more coming at me. It's hard to keep up. I'll hunt that down and read it.
Chad,
ReplyDeleteFirstly, whether or not God exists is not, or so is the position of Thomists and many others, not simply a matter of faith. The theist need give no ground to the atheist here.
Secondly, whilst I do agree that ultimately Natural Law, in whatever guise, must ground itself in the Good itself, I do not think it quite so simple as a choice only between a random and unguided nature - whatever that might mean - on the one side and heavily theological arguments on the other.
Ultimately, in terms of the public square it is hard to see why the atheists metaphysics and moral philosophy, even if only implicit, should be acceptable but that of the theist not. Only when one is restricting the theist's arguments to special revelation alone can I, perhaps, understand such arguments.
Jeremy Taylor.
Already done, ad nauseum.
ReplyDeleteExcuse me? When did you make an argument showing that that which is "nuts" in the sense of being unusual is always harmful?
That was the claim you made. Just direct me to where you backed that claim up, if you please, because I must have missed it.
Where, exactly, are you going with this?
Where am I going with this?
Who repeatedly begged me to look at the link to this guy?
I assumed you were going somewhere with this.
Not needed, what with me not doing it and all.
Sure, you didn't call me an LGBT activist or accuse me of promoting an unChristian sexual morality or of being silent about pornography or...
"Surely, that is the implication of declaring Natural Law to be a religious view . . . "
ReplyDeleteI'm as disinclined as Chad to argue with anonymous posters, but I'll reply briefly that "surely" the implication in the present context is exactly what Chad says it is. And "surely" you don't need me to refer you to the posts where he's already explained his point repeatedly.
"What is being confused is the distinction between religious views based on special revelation and those that are not, like Natural Law."
No, that's not being confused. As you yourself have just acknowledged, they're both religious.
Now, if you want further replies from me, attach a name to your posts. I declared a long time ago that I wasn't going to reply any more to posters who didn't have the balls to commit even to an on-screen identity, and I've just made the only exceptions I'm going to make in this thread.
@Chad Handley:
ReplyDelete"Sorry, I'm missing a lot."
No apology needed and no offense taken. I figured that in all the kerfuffle you'd understandably overlooked it.
Excuse me? When did you make an argument showing that that which is "nuts" in the sense of being unusual is always harmful?
ReplyDeleteI said that superficially an act or desire which is 'nuts' is harmful. I was taking 'nuts' as meaning 'crazy', and cashing out crazy as 'harm/damaged' is just another way of putting the arguments I've already made.
Where am I going with this?
Who repeatedly begged me to look at the link to this guy?
No, I used that link in order to illustrate a point about the ability to ascertain, on non-religious grounds, that a given sexual desire or act - even if it's among consenting adults, etc - is still 'damaged', and quite possibly immoral, and is arguably so without being on 'religious' grounds.
That's it. Pretty straightforward. Now, early in, it seemed like you were arguing that laws against gay marriage specifically could not be grounded in non-religious arguments. That, I disagree with.
Sure, you didn't call me an LGBT activist or accuse me of promoting an unChristian sexual morality or of being silent about pornography or...
I apologized for the unChristian sexual morality. Being silent? You were! You didn't respond. I didn't say or even imply the silence was acceptance - I even said, hey, maybe you missed that.
And I did just ask about the morality of same-sex sexuality behavior, etc, on your views. Did I miss that answer?
Chad,
ReplyDeleteThis is an extremely complex topic, but ultimately we are called to be perfect, to reverse the fall. We are called to have a perfect relationship to all creation, to view it perfectly - in its essence and its relations - and to, most centrally, to view all aspects of our lives perfectly.
Now, for the average believer he can be forgiven if he does not always remember the complete spiritual nature of things at all times, especially in a civilisation like ours, but he must not do things that are an active hindrance to his appreciation of his place in the cosmos.
I agree that someone who had sex with inanimate kitchen equipment is more damaged and unhinged than immoral.
In terms of other sexual activities, what must be asked is whether they are against the dignity and nature of man. One can say, for instance, that sado-masochism, even in marriage, is against man's dignity. Liking one's wife to wear stockings is another matter - it is a complex topic and would take a lot of thought to come to a conclusion.
Scott,
ReplyDeleteI think that less time should be spent in arguing - guns drawn, lines marked, sides taken - and more time spent investigating what is true and right.
Anonymity at least means less of a risk of stubbornness and egotism, as the anonymous poster, lessening the personal edge to the conversation.
It is my impression that Chad has long suggested that religious claims should not be made in the public square - that only strictly arguments are acceptable. It was my impression this was based on a confusion between those religious claims based on special revelation and those not, because I can't see any reason why these latter have less right to be heard than the claims of the atheist.
Jeremy Taylot
@Chad Handley:
ReplyDelete"My position is that natural law loses most of its force if nature was not designed by a good God. . . . I'm probably wrong about that, and I'll be embarrassed by all of this in a few months when I know more about this stuff."
I'm not seeing any reason for your future embarrassment. The link I tossed you earlier in the thread (here) was specifically to a Scholastic philosopher who agrees with you that moral necessity—obligation, as opposed to mere motive—must be grounded in the existence of a divine lawgiver.
Chad Handley: In the statements: 1. It's good to eat vegetables. 2. It is good to love your neighbor.
ReplyDelete... the term "good" doesn't mean the same thing.
Yes, it does. That is the whole point: "moral goodness" is not some magical, different thing; it is the very same "goodness" as anything else that is good for something. Precisely because moral goodness simply is this natural sort of goodness there is no problem of how to derive it from an "is" (that other ethical theories run into when they try to make morality something unconnected to nature). If you don't see that, then you have missed the whole point of natural law.
(We give "moral" goodness a special name because of the specialness of the agent, not of the goodness. Beings with free will can choose whether to do thing that are good for them or not, which is what makes an ordinary natural good (or evil) to be moral (or immoral). See DGuller's posts.)
I don't see how admitting that good in the sense of 1. is true regardless of whether there is a God forces me to admit that good in the sense of 2. is true regardless of whether there is a God.
Again, the whole point of natural law is that (2) just is (1) when done by a free creature. So if (1) can be true without [direct] reference to God, then so can (2). The only way the atheist/etc. can escape natural law is to deny natures altogether, i.e. to deny (1) as well.
I don't think quite buy that natural law is a nonreligious theory of morality, because I think it obtains all of its moral force from the belief that nature was ordered by God.
The word "religion" does not mean "God". Please stop calling arguments that have some connection to God "religious".
What does your average atheist believe about nature?
Atheist or not, most people believe that it exists; i.e. that things (such as electrons, etc.) behave in certain ways (e.g. falling under the force of gravity, or being attracted or repelled by electric charges, etc.). It may be that atheists are being inconsistent in believing that nature "works" — that there is such a thing as food that's good for human beings to eat, and things that are not good to eat, for example — and in believing that these natures are not ultimately dependent on God; but they are also inconsistent in believing that electrons act the way they do, or in believing in physics at all, because physics also is ultimately dependent on God. But that doesn't mean atheists can't do physics. It does not make a physics textbook a "religious" tome, not even a theistic one.
(cont...)
[continued...]
ReplyDeleteNow you are correct in your point about purposelessness, as far as it goes. Natural law obviously will carry no weight with someone who does not believe in natures in the first place. But note what this entails: even if we allow that fundamental particles have some kind of nature, a reductionist materialist atheist who believes that people are only "piles of particles" cannot coherently believe there is any such thing as human nature at all. There can be no such thing as "food that is good for humans to eat" because there is not really any such thing as a "human", just particles. "Human being" must on such a view be an arbitrary name for an arbitrary collection of particles, and whether such a collection goes this way or that is meaningless. If the "human-shaped cloud of particles" eats something poisonous and dies, that's not bad (except in a totally arbitrary way), because all that's "really" happened is that the cloud of particles has moved around in one way instead of another. It's not good or bad for the electrons and quarks involved — it's just as good for them to be here as to be there.
So strictly speaking, yes, given the belief that [what would be mistakenly called] "natures" really are just random, then natural law cannot apply. But this is not about atheism or evolution — very, very few people actually go so far as to claim seriously that "human nature" is just an arbitrary fiction. In societal terms, you will simply never find enough such people to matter.
After all, when the bubonic plague wiped out half of Europe, the bacteria that cause it were only fulfilling the "ends" set to it by nature. The realm of nature and its ends seems an odd place to ground morals.
Note also that the "nature" in "natural law" does not refer to "Mother Nature" or "the realm of nature". It refers to natures, as in "things being certain ways, having certain behaviours, acting according to certain laws" — i.e. having "essences". If you can figure out that some things are good for humans to eat and other things are not, then you're figuring out natural law.
Scott: It also means appeal to theism (even if established by natural theology, which just makes it "natural religion").
ReplyDeleteI don't think this is right. One can appeal to theism without being religious (e.g. so-called "deism"). Religion is a re-ligament, something that binds us to God. Religious practices have to be practices, not just theistic theories. Natural religion is just the worship or prayer or other rites and rituals that connect us to God as far as He can be known by natural reason (as opposed to practices enjoined on us by revelation). Now certainly, the word is sometimes (ab)used to mean anything that is in some respect theistic, but I consider that a debasement of the term (at least in certain contexts like this one).
I think this is my fault for being imprecise, although I did try to explain.
ReplyDeleteWhat I meant was I felt religious had been used to refer to arguments that were not acceptable in the public square because they were religious. The implication, it seemed to me, was because they were all akin to special revelatory arguments, which I thought was confusing two different kinds of religious arguments.
If it is not the case that Chad has been claiming that religious arguments are not acceptable in the public square - are not strictly legal, as was the terms used earlier - then I stand corrected. I may be incorrect. I think it would behoove us all to make sure we are getting what is being said right and to avoid being overly confrontational or snarky.
Jeremy Taylor.
I think it would behoove us all to make sure we are getting what is being said right and to avoid being overly confrontational or snarky.
ReplyDeleteHa, too late! Good words all the same.
Dguller,
ReplyDeleteYou'd have to first determine what about humans' rational nature entails that we can't harm other rational animals (humans) but can harm other non-rational animals. (I would contend, for example, that it would be wrong to kill Vulcans, even though they are not homosapien.) Murder (or any harm to someone else) is trickier than sex, as it's not just a perverted faculty argument. At least in the most basic way anyway. That is, it's easier to identify the good end of parts of the human body, but it's harder to determine the good end of the rational animal in totality.
First, this seems to condone using a bodily organ in a way that explicitly violates its purpose for the sake of a higher purpose. And wasn’t that precisely what was prohibited when it comes to anal sex in homosexuality?
I write about this some. The ends are different for the sexual organs than they are for all the other organs. Our sexual faculties aren't aimed at survival but at procreation. Aside from a crossover with urination, they really are aimed at no other end. The organs are always subordinate to the whole with respect to the survival of the species, but with procreation that is not the case. A homosexual does not sacrifice a subordinate part for the good end of the sexual faculty (procreation) by having anal sex. This is unlike removing a diseased liver that is failing to do what livers are supposed to do so that the organism as a whole can survive.
Second, you seem to minimizing the necessity of consumption of human blood as part of the vampire’s nature. Sure, a vampire could eat the blood of rodents, but that would lead it to be a weak and desiccated vampire, and thus far from what would count as an exemplary instantiation of the vampire nature. So, to be an ideal vampire necessarily requires that a vampire consume human blood. Sure, there are different ways for a vampire to acquire human blood, many of which do not require the vampire to murder human beings. However, if part of the vampire’s nature was to dominate its prey, then certainly taking steps to preserve the dignity and integrity of the prey would be a violation of vampire nature.
I think yes and no. As I said, I think it would be appropriate to say "it is bad for a vampire not to drink blood." I think that's a true statement. But I don't think this would be the end of the analysis. Drinking blood is not the only end of the vampire. In the same way it would be correct to say that it would be "bad for a human to only eat 200 calories a day." But if the human were only eating 200 calories a day so that his son could eat because that's all the food they had, it would not be appropriate to say, as a whole, that the human were a bad human. The person, like the vampire, has a conflict of two good ends. Now, whether it is a good end for the vampire to respect the ends of other rational creatures is really what's at issue. That's something, I think, needs more development. But I do think, anyway, that natural law is fully capable of dealing with conflicts of good ends, though such analysis is going to be more difficult.
And comparison to a lion won't really do. In the hypothetical, the vampire is fully rational. He is completely capable of understanding what goodness is for the human (including a connection to the infinite). It may be more appropriate to say that a vampire is merely a human that hungers for blood. Or to put it more simply, anything that is a rational animal is a human, with everything that goes along with that. I think of the Beast from Beauty and the Beast. He was hardly homosapien, but I would contend that he was fully human. Now, in that story, he started human and was turned into a beast, so that might hurt the example, but even imagining that he didn't but was just born a rational lion-creature, he would still be human. Also note, of course, that vampires start as humans as well and are turned into vampires through some blood-born disease thing.
Chad writes,
ReplyDeleteHe can put property in his restaurant, but the restaurant can't own property, because inanimate objects can't own property. The inanimate object, being an inanimate object, cannot partake in any of the rights the government conveys to married human beings.
All of this is nothing but hand-waiving. Chad has ALREADY CONCEDED a fundamental redefinition of marriage. Consequently, he has no logical defense against others who wish to redefine it by calling any kind of unconventional act a "marriage." His position thus reduces to making marraige a meaningless term.
@Mr. Green:
ReplyDelete"Now certainly, the word is sometimes (ab)used to mean anything that is in some respect theistic, but I consider that a debasement of the term (at least in certain contexts like this one)."
Fair enough. Still, the argument Natural law receives its binding force from the existence of a divine lawgiver sounds "religious" to me in the sense Chad intends, and at least some natural lawyers (e.g. G.H. Joyce, op. cit.) do make that argument.
At any rate Chad could make his point without using the word "religious" if he had to.
Joe:
ReplyDeleteYou'd have to first determine what about humans' rational nature entails that we can't harm other rational animals (humans) but can harm other non-rational animals. (I would contend, for example, that it would be wrong to kill Vulcans, even though they are not homosapien.)
And what would this argument be?
I write about this some. The ends are different for the sexual organs than they are for all the other organs. Our sexual faculties aren't aimed at survival but at procreation. Aside from a crossover with urination, they really are aimed at no other end. The organs are always subordinate to the whole with respect to the survival of the species, but with procreation that is not the case. A homosexual does not sacrifice a subordinate part for the good end of the sexual faculty (procreation) by having anal sex. This is unlike removing a diseased liver that is failing to do what livers are supposed to do so that the organism as a whole can survive.
The basic point remains that it is permissible to do violence to a bodily organ’s core function if it serves a broader purpose for the organism. For example, you say that it is permissible to surgically remove a bodily organ if that organ’s malfunctioning poses a risk to the survival of the whole. Since it is not in the nature of the bodily organ itself to be surgically removed, but rather to perform a bodily function, by removing it, you are intentionally violating its purpose and function.
And I don’t exactly understand your response to this fact. You make a distinction between bodily organs that are designed to perpetuate the survival of the individual and bodily organs that are designed to perpetuate the survival of the species. Our sexual organs are the latter, and the rest of our organs are the former. However, you also write that “[t]he organs are always subordinate to the whole with respect to the survival of the species, but with procreation that is not the case,” which implies that procreation is not relevant to “survival of the species”, when it clearly is. Did you misspeak here?
Also, you write that “[a] homosexual does not sacrifice a subordinate part for the good end of the sexual faculty (procreation) by having anal sex”. But this misconstrues my point. I am not saying that by having anal sex, a homosexual is sacrificing “a subordinate part for the good of the sexual faculty”. I agree that the homosexual is violating the nature of the sexual organs by engaging in anal sex, but my question is whether this could be justified by appealing to the optimization of other organs, to an improvement in the quality of life for the whole person in question, and to an enhancement of other aspects of their humanity. You also agreed that it is permissible to violate the nature of bodily organs when it serves a higher purpose for the organism, such as when their survival is at stake. Why not apply the same line of reasoning to homosexual intimacy if that very intimacy could lead to closer and emotionally balanced relationships with others, improved self-esteem, a sense of belonging, an ability to utilize their reasoning powers without impediment from depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts? I mean, if a sexually active homosexual was actualizing all other purposes and goals of a human being, then purposes and goals that might not have been possible to actualize at all without that sexually active lifestyle, then would that make it alright?
Now, whether it is a good end for the vampire to respect the ends of other rational creatures is really what's at issue. That's something, I think, needs more development. But I do think, anyway, that natural law is fully capable of dealing with conflicts of good ends, though such analysis is going to be more difficult.
ReplyDeleteThat’s true, but as you said, the question is whether it is a good end of the vampire to avoid hunting and killing human beings, simply because the vampire is a rational being. If it is a good end, then natural law theory would say that the vampire is being morally good by murdering human beings by draining them of their blood. Chad claims that this is a highly counterintuitive claim, which casts doubt upon natural law theory as a whole. Personally, I don’t think counterintuitiveness implies falsity, but it should give one pause and think things through more carefully.
And comparison to a lion won't really do. In the hypothetical, the vampire is fully rational. He is completely capable of understanding what goodness is for the human (including a connection to the infinite).
I agree, and conceded this to Chad above.
It may be more appropriate to say that a vampire is merely a human that hungers for blood. Or to put it more simply, anything that is a rational animal is a human, with everything that goes along with that. I think of the Beast from Beauty and the Beast. He was hardly homosapien, but I would contend that he was fully human. Now, in that story, he started human and was turned into a beast, so that might hurt the example, but even imagining that he didn't but was just born a rational lion-creature, he would still be human. Also note, of course, that vampires start as humans as well and are turned into vampires through some blood-born disease thing.
So, under this interpretation, by definition simply by being a rational animal, the vampire would simply be a kind of human being, and not a different species altogether. They would be like a twisted and distorted human being by virtue of their bloodlust and altered physical characteristics, much like the Beast, but this would not be sufficient to warrant their separation into a different species.
I think that this confuses the human form of rational animality and possible non-human rational animality, such that of vampires and Klingons, or whatever. I don’t see a logical contradiction between there being different kinds of rational animals, some of which involve natures that idealize community and cooperation and social bonding, and others that involve natures that idealize violence and destruction as the ideal form of thriving.
I'm sorry for getting this started and running, but I gotta get some work done over the next few days, folks.
ReplyDeleteI'll keep reading and comment when I can.
Why not apply the same line of reasoning to homosexual intimacy if that very intimacy could lead to closer and emotionally balanced relationships with others, improved self-esteem, a sense of belonging, an ability to utilize their reasoning powers without impediment from depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts?
ReplyDeleteDon't you think this is one hell of a jump? Consider for a moment what you're implying here.
"When it is properly understood, it cannot reasonably be denied that the traditional natural law position is at the very least perfectly coherent, rational and defensible, even if one ultimately rejects it."
ReplyDeleteAnd it's bigoted, perhaps a signal either that its underlying metaphysics is incorrect, or that its traditional interpretation of the metaphysics is flawed.
Do any natural law theorists support same-sex marriage?
- tanlar
And it's bigoted, perhaps a signal either that its underlying metaphysics is incorrect, or that its traditional interpretation of the metaphysics is flawed.
ReplyDeleteOr perhaps - just perhaps - it's not bigoted at all, and is in fact correct.
Do any natural law theorists support same-sex marriage?
What natural law theorists have you read?
And it's bigoted,
ReplyDeleteShamelessly beg the question much?
I've seen this kind of cluelessly bigoted mentality before, in a prominent philosopher (who will remain nameless) who actually said to me that if A-T metaphysics really does imply what it is usually taken to imply vis-a-vis abortion and other feminist concerns, then that would be reason to reject it.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, start with your desired moral conclusions, and work your metaphysics around them, accepting only what will rationalize those conclusions. Exactly what religious philosophers are routinely accused of doing. Tanlar, like our earlier Anonymous (though maybe they're the same person), is exactly what he thinks he opposes.
I've seen this kind of cluelessly bigoted mentality before, in a prominent philosopher (who will remain nameless) who actually said to me that if A-T metaphysics really does imply what it is usually taken to imply vis-a-vis abortion and other feminist concerns, then that would be reason to reject it.
ReplyDeleteI've seen a PhD philosopher argue that the morality of same-sex sexual activity should not be allowed to be question, period. To even allow the question was to invite and promote bigotry - the answer was "it is moral, period".
OK, but it doesn't seem we have any more reason to consider same-sex marriage wrong than we do to consider different-sex marriage wrong. There's no question that either is wrong; we know that both are legitimate and moral, and equally so.
ReplyDeleteIf SSM is moral, then why can we not work backward -- even as an intellectual exercise -- to a metaphysics that gets us to a conclusion we know is right?
And why can we not accept that metaphysical assumptions that lead us to an incorrect conclusion contain one or more errors along the way, perhaps at the very beginning?
Certainly all this is worth considering seriously, right, as I imagine you have. In any case, your perspective is valuable and valued.
I'd still be interested to know if any natural law philosophers have publicly made arguments favoring SSM.
- tanlar
Crude said...
ReplyDelete" 'And it's bigoted, perhaps a signal either that its underlying metaphysics is incorrect, or that its traditional interpretation of the metaphysics is flawed.'
Or perhaps - just perhaps - it's not bigoted at all, and is in fact correct.
'Do any natural law theorists support same-sex marriage?'
What natural law theorists have you read?
July 5, 2013 at 12:08 PM"
"Bigoted"? "Bigoted" is the scalpel that will lay bare the frame of a reality which logic cannot reach?
Bigoted, a term that springs to life from chaos like some pagan god, and sets the world of men to a fictional order, illusory though that order, or narrative admittedly must be.
Yeah ..
The petulant logical and conceptual incoherence of the people with whom you (and me earlier), have been trying to communicate, is stupefying.
Witness, strings of "arguments" that are really more expressions of pique and hand-waving emotionalism than actual structures of valid and sound inference; arguments that when they are made, more or less, contain blatantly obvious assumptions which serve to undercut the conclusions they purportedly entail; demands that your demonstrations if they are to be granted by the listener, also strike him as emotionally satisfying; and then there are those always clever verbal footstamps, those "so what?" and "who cares?" rejoinders suitable for almost every occasion.
It occurs to me that a certain social cohort has been raised on the assumption, accepting as the default position, that reality is (settled science here) meaningless chaos, and that as a result felt emotions are the only indubitable aspect of human reality. The new metaphysics: I feel, an illusion.
Thus, for these persons, the only aspect of morality that can be real, will reduce to the emotional. And their emotional well-being ( as probably should be expected of persons more dependent and interdependent for their survival on others than previous generations of Americans) seems to be pretty much shaped around the idea of acceptance and inclusion.
If Jesus can't be scientifically shown or trusted to be there to offer a little unconditional positive regard, then the state at least can be shaped in a way so as to offer a "reasonable" facsimile.
A place for everyone, and ultimately, everyone in his place.
It's beyond strange the way so many visitors here parse reality. There is they know, no intrinsic standard of right and wrong discernible from men's natures, but if there is, well "So what, I don't feel it!"
And along with this we are expected to swallow propositions on the order of that the although the world and every thing and act in it meaningless, it is really "cruel"; and although to no purpose high or low, macro or micro, organisms can still be said to be ill-designed; and although of no natural account, men "deserve" acceptance and inclusion, as part of a birthright - which doesn't really exist, one can only surmise.
The fact that these discussions about the inferences of natural law take place in the context of, based on the predicate of, rational beings inspecting their natures and vital interests and powers on average, and deducing from the phenomena certain observations that will function as irreducible axioms relevant to the project of rational associative ordering, seems to have escaped their notice.
Or maybe it hasn't quite, exactly. More a matter of: "Rational", shrug. "Conscious", shrug. "Inference", shrug.
What a spectacle. Not to be unexpected though for a generation suckled on this, and the like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC3JFVKJtyM
ReplyDeleteEdward Feser said...
"I've seen this kind of cluelessly bigoted mentality before, in a prominent philosopher (who will remain nameless) who actually said to me that if A-T metaphysics really does imply what it is usually taken to imply vis-a-vis abortion and other feminist concerns, then that would be reason to reject it.
In other words, start with your desired moral conclusions, and work your metaphysics around them, accepting only what will rationalize those conclusions. Exactly what religious philosophers are routinely accused of doing. Tanlar, like our earlier Anonymous (though maybe they're the same person), is exactly what he thinks he opposes.
July 5, 2013 at 12:56 PM"
One of these days you should write something on Rorty.
Not today or this weekend though.
I have acres of brush to mow.
OK, but it doesn't seem we have any more reason to consider same-sex marriage wrong than we do to consider different-sex marriage wrong. There's no question that either is wrong; we know that both are legitimate and moral, and equally so.
ReplyDeleteNah, we don't. But if you have an argument to that effect, offer it up. I think we'll enjoy it.
Crude, you just made the argument for me in your first four words.
ReplyDelete- tanlar
Crude:
ReplyDeleteDon't you think this is one hell of a jump? Consider for a moment what you're implying here.
That’s why I brought it up, i.e. for consideration. I don’t see anything erroneous in applying the general principle that the function of a part can be violated for the sake of the whole – or, to put it differently, that a lower telos can be sacrificed for the sake of a higher telos – to the anal sex of homosexuality. But clearly you see something wrong. What do you think is the problem with the inference that I’ve made?
Crude, you just made the argument for me in your first four words.
ReplyDeleteOh, it's that easy to defeat? Okay then.
Let us know when you're willing to try again. Or, you know. Try at all.
dguller,
But clearly you see something wrong. What do you think is the problem with the inference that I’ve made?
I'm not even sure the part I'm pointing out as problematic is even an inference. Unless I've misunderstood you, you're stating that having anal sex "could lead to"... "emotionally balanced relationships with others, improved self-esteem, a sense of belonging, an ability to utilize their reasoning powers without impediment from depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts."
I'm sure you'd qualify it a little. Well, I'm hoping you would. But as it stands, that's a hell of a thing. If you're calling that an inference, I'd like to see it backed up.
Crude:
ReplyDeleteI'm not even sure the part I'm pointing out as problematic is even an inference. Unless I've misunderstood you, you're stating that having anal sex "could lead to"... "emotionally balanced relationships with others, improved self-esteem, a sense of belonging, an ability to utilize their reasoning powers without impediment from depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts."
Let’s put it this way. The human being X is good to the degree to which X actualizes his human nature. If X actualizes his human nature more than Y, then X is a better human being than Y in the sense that X is closer to the ideal of humanity than Y is. Say that X and Y are both homosexual, and X is permitted to engage in sexual activity while Y is prohibited from engaging in sexual activity. If it turned out that allowing X to engage in sexual activity resulted in a higher degree of actualization of X’s human nature than Y’s actualization of his human nature, then a case could be made that allowing sexual activity to homosexuals was conducive to a higher degree of goodness in homosexuals than prohibiting sexual activity to homosexuals.
For example, say that it turned out that denying homosexuals permission to engage in sexual activity resulted in psychological pathology in the form of self-loathing, depression, anxiety and suicidality, which all compromise any state of psychological equilibrium, and thus have a detrimental impact upon the homosexuals’ ability to form loving relationships with others, to be productive members of society, to be able to critically reflect upon issues in a rational fashion, and so on. Even though the homosexuals in question are using their sexual organs according to their proper function, the cost to the rest of their humanity would be severe in that case. Perhaps allowing them to use their sexual organs in a way that violated the organs’ natural function would lead to a greater flourishing among them, and thus allow them to actualize more of their human nature than the other group of homosexuals. And if that were the case, then an argument could be made that, under such circumstances, homosexual sexual activity should be permitted, even according to natural law principles.
Any thoughts?
@Crude:
ReplyDelete"Unless I've misunderstood you, you're stating that having anal sex 'could lead to'... 'emotionally balanced relationships with others, improved self-esteem, a sense of belonging, an ability to utilize their reasoning powers without impediment from depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts.'"
Surely dguller's question is clear: he's asking whether being a sexually active homosexual (including having a "sexually active lifestyle" of which anal sex would presumably be a part) might help to actualize "purposes and goals that might not have been possible to actualize at all without that sexually active lifestyle"—and if so, whether a natural law theorist would regard the anal-sex part as justified on the whole even though it amounts to "violating the nature of the sexual organs." (He's not suggesting that anal sex in and of itself might have all those effects; he's suggesting that an overarching intimate relationship that includes anal sex might do so.)
If I'm reading him correctly, I don't see any long inferential leap here; the question seems to me to be a good one. And since it's a question I have myself, I'd be interested in hearing an answer.
Scott:
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly my question. Thanks for putting it so succinctly, and without any reference to P-ness in A-ness, even though that would be perfectly apt in this context. ;)
@dguller:
ReplyDelete" . . . without any reference to P-ness in A-ness . . . "
I was tempted, believe me. ;-)
Scott,
ReplyDeleteSurely dguller's question is clear: he's asking whether being a sexually active homosexual (including having a "sexually active lifestyle" of which anal sex would presumably be a part) might help to actualize "purposes and goals that might not have been possible to actualize at all without that sexually active lifestyle"—and if so, whether a natural law theorist would regard the anal-sex part as justified on the whole even though it amounts to "violating the nature of the sexual organs." (He's not suggesting that anal sex in and of itself might have all those effects; he's suggesting that an overarching intimate relationship that includes anal sex might do so.)
I don't think it was clear, and I'll explain why.
The problem is, every time 'intimate relationship' comes up, it's the sex and sex-related (sexual desires, etc) which is the particular problem the natural law proponent is zeroing in on. So talking about an "overarching intimate relationship", as near as I can tell, unnecessarily complicates matters. Now, someone can say that an intimate relationship is broadly impossible without anal sex, the sex acts, etc. But I'm going to find that hard to believe. At the very least that's going to be open to argument, and I think it's reasonable to expect as much.
Again, let's look at the list: "emotionally balanced relationships with others, improved self-esteem, a sense of belonging, an ability to utilize their reasoning powers without impediment from depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts." Not a one of those to me jumps out as a problem for which the obvious cause of the problem is "lack of sex" (or, more particularly, lack of anal sex, etc), much less for which that would be reasonably regarded as THE solution, or even a solution.
I could go on, but before I do: is anyone going to disagree with this? At the very least, is anyone going to disagree that the connections I'm question are in fact open to being questioned?
Any thoughts?
ReplyDelete(1) The question is, I hope, not "denying homosexuals permission to engage in sexual activity" since any reasons for that would be reasons for denying everyone permission to engage in sexual activity, and the situation would have to be far too narrow or far too extreme for the sort of considerations you mention to be of much weight. But I take it from other things you say that you mean instead "denying everyone permission to engage in homosexual activity", and are looking at the relatively greater difficulty this would cause for homosexuals. (2) The argument would have to be about toleration, not permission (the two come apart on natural law principles).
However, with revisions of this sort, yes, the argument can at least be made: the principle of toleration implies that whenever, under the circumstances, the enforcement of a moral precept would genuinely harm the common good of everyone more than the toleration of the violation, then toleration of the violation is to be preferred. If one took this approach, it's an argument that would have to be actually made on the basis of actual circumstances. It also wouldn't alleviate one of the need to consider other relevant arguments on the subject, since any other arguments on the subject wouldn't magically go away and would have to be taken under consideration in order to determine harms to the common good accurately. But the argument could be made.
@Crude:
ReplyDelete"Now, someone can say that an intimate relationship is broadly impossible without anal sex, the sex acts, etc. But I'm going to find that hard to believe. At the very least that's going to be open to argument, and I think it's reasonable to expect as much."
I think dguller recognizes that that's open to argument, and at any rate I do. But as far as I can see, that's not relevant to his question. His question is whether, assuming it's the case that an intimate relationship is enhanced by anal sex and, with such enhancement, leads to other goods that wouldn't otherwise have been actualized (i.e., to more of them with anal sex than without it), natural-law morality would allow it.
Even if the hypothesis is unlikely to be realized (a matter on which I don't claim knowledge either way), I don't see any round squares lurking in it.
"At the very least, is anyone going to disagree that the connections I'm question[ing] are in fact open to being questioned?"
I'd be surprised if even dguller disagreed that they were open to question. But that's not the point of his inquiry, at least as I understand it (and so far he's confirmed my understanding of what he's asking).
Scott
ReplyDeleteAt any rate Chad could make his point without using the word "religious" if he had to.
Not his whole point, which was that religious positions were illegitimate in the public square - they were not strictly legal. This is a common secular argument and it obviously needs to use phrases like religious and to confuse different kinds of religious or theistic claims.
This is important to stress because positions like Natural Law are just as acceptable to the public square, as defined even by secularists, as are atheistic moral systems.
Dguller writes,
I don’t see anything erroneous in applying the general principle that the function of a part can be violated for the sake of the whole – or, to put it differently, that a lower telos can be sacrificed for the sake of a higher telos – to the anal sex of homosexuality.
Presumably, the good of a being unifies all that makes up the being - ultimately, it declares that apparent disunity was but caused by an error of judgment and fallen will. It sets up the lower ends to serve and support the higher ends and orders the lower aspects through the higher aspects.
When it comes to psychological problems the immediate response that springs to mind is that anyone could become depressed if their desires are not met - but we do not necessarily approve all desires all the same.
Man is made for eternity; most fundamentally he needs to remove obstacles, vices, that prevent him orienting himself towards the divine. But you raise a good point that could be discussed further.
- Jeremy Taylor
Scott,
ReplyDeleteI think dguller recognizes that that's open to argument, and at any rate I do. But as far as I can see, that's not relevant to his question. His question is whether, assuming it's the case that an intimate relationship is enhanced by anal sex and, with such enhancement, leads to other goods that wouldn't otherwise have been actualized (i.e., to more of them with anal sex than without it), natural-law morality would allow it.
Even if the hypothesis is unlikely to be realized (a matter on which I don't claim knowledge either way), I don't see any round squares lurking in it.
I think you'd need to assume more than that. You'd need to not only assume A) these benefits would come about, B) there would be no competing trade-offs (even beyond the violation of natural law, which it'd seem would be accepted as a wrong/harm even in this case), C) that there were no alternate ways to reasonably gain such benefits in a broad sense, and D) that there are no additional problems caused for others by the existence of such a relationship.
And keep in mind, those are assumptions that are going to be in play even if one also assumes that this would be permissible under natural law - which seems to be what the main focus was.
I'm reminded of the ultimate fate of Sebastian Flyte, who fights his alcoholism but periodically relapses into bouts of drunkenness.
ReplyDeleteA distinction would need to be drawn between accepting homosexual activity as a vice that is to minimised but not, perhaps, conquered in this life and accepting it as something more than that - which is what really seems to be implied in this scenario. What would be required to serve the purpose of the scenario would be considerable legitimacy for homosexual activity, if still a certain inferiority. But would even be pressure to accord homosexual activities equal legitimacy to heterosexual ones.
By the way, part of the reason I'm pointing out what I am and asking the questions I am is to try and get a grip on just what context we're dealing with with this question. What's being left in or out of the hypothetical, what areas are we focusing on, how artificial or not the whole thing is, etc.
ReplyDeleteBut dear Crude, if we both have no reason to consider either SSM or DSM wrong, then we agree. Let's part as friends. Perhaps Herr Professor Feser has something to add. I do accept that his arguments are nicely formulated and coherent. That they result in bigoted positions is unfortunate and undesirable. Many wonderful arguments have been made for bigoted and otherwise abhorrent positions. So it goes. But when the rubber meets the road, so to speak, SCOTUS has ruled according to the Constitution and the founding libertarian principles of the US. Thank FSM for that. To have ruled otherwise would have forced betrayal to the very idea of America, to the very idea of SCOTUS. Those of us who live on the US now live in a better, stronger nation.
ReplyDelete- tanlar
Some seem to live in a fantasy land, that's for sure. I don't recall so called gay marriage being an issue much discussed by the Framers of the U.S constitution. I wonder what epithets would have been heard if it had been brought up.
ReplyDeleteBut dear Crude, if we both have no reason to consider either SSM or DSM wrong, then we agree.
ReplyDeleteWe don't agree, boyo - I was making fun of your lack of argument and blowing you off. Apparently I need to spell that out.
That will stop when you actually make an argument. But you haven't made one, and are clearly afraid of trying to make one - so, you're entirely disarmed. But hey, if you stick around you'll get to see more reasons why any 'gay' marriage is entirely fake, legal or no. You clearly love to deny reality if it conflicts with the sacrament of anal sex, so hey, there's that. ;)
Some seem to live in a fantasy land, that's for sure. I don't recall so called gay marriage being an issue much discussed by the Framers of the U.S constitution. I wonder what epithets would have been heard if it had been brought up.
ReplyDeleteConsidering Jefferson tried to pass a castration law for people guilty of sodomy - and that was seen as liberalizing, in that it would normally yield the death penalty - yeah, I'm going to say that gay marriage wasn't exactly looked upon with favor by the founding fathers.
But remember - fantasy land. Tanlar can't cope with any reality that conflicts with anal sex, so all this is just going to get hands over eyes and an 'I'm not reading LA LA LA LA' out of 'im.
Crude,
ReplyDeleteI sense you need to feel superior. Have at it, friend. You have said you want an argument, but that's not really true. What you want is a way out, and I cannot help you with that. What you want is an elusive peace. As you mature, I'm sure you'll find it. Best --
- tanlar
I sense you need to feel superior.
ReplyDeleteNot at all! I come here largely to learn, often to argue, and I do a lot of both. And granted, while we both know any attempt at you making an argument wouldn't go so well for you here (I wouldn't need to be involved), 'superiority' has little to do with it. People would learn, and that's what matters.
When you finally feel emotionally stable enough to learn, tanlar - when you can finally admit that the sacrament of anal sex is no sacrament, and is actually kind of a sad thing in some ways - people will be here to help you. And you won't be inferior for finally admitting what you already know. If anything, you will be better for it.
Here's hoping you can make that step someday.
Don't feed the troll.
ReplyDeleteNot his whole point, which was that religious positions were illegitimate in the public square - they were not strictly legal.
ReplyDeleteThis is not at all my point.
My point is you can't pass a law that amounts to establishing a religion.
And if I'm right (not saying I am, but if I'm right) then passing a law on the basis of natural law says is not much different than passing a law on the basis of what the Bible says. A person would need to believe in a God of some sort for the argument to have any force.
I know that's what natural law theorists explicitly deny, but that seems a bit disengenous to me since most theistic natural law proponents seem to admit that the only way to make sense of immanent teleology in nature is if God exists.
At any rate, I never said that religious arguments weren't allowable "in the public square." I'm all for people arguing for all the civic and political causes they want on the basis of religion. I'm just saying if the only justification for a law is religious doctrine, that is ruled out by the Constitution.
Anon,
ReplyDeleteOh, I'm just playing. But you're right. Assuming that was meant for me.
Chad,
I know that's what natural law theorists explicitly deny, but that seems a bit disengenous to me since most theistic natural law proponents seem to admit that the only way to make sense of immanent teleology in nature is if God exists.
I think it's less admit, more argue - while (as Feser does) at the same time noting that this isn't exactly obvious.
Keep in mind, the SCOTUS used a whole lot of moral language in their recent ruling - but, if I recall, you believe that 'moral' talk all ultimately must come from God to make any sense. So aren't you put in the position of having to regard the SCOTUS ruling itself as over the line? It'd be open to the same 'this is really religious' charge a natural law argument would be.
Chad,
ReplyDeleteOkay, but Scott was suggesting that you were not implying any political or constitutional points at all, and were just making philosophical points about Natural Law. That is what I was trying to clear up and your explanation doesn't differ all that much from what I was trying to explain to him.
In respect to your point, aside from the fact some Natural Law theorists and those of related positions claim you do not require theistic arguments, the use of the term believe is ambiguous. That is, Natural Law theorists are generally prepared to argue for God's existence and not simply to assert it as an act of faith. There is no real difference here between the atheist arguing for their metaphysics (of course, the atheists love to abuse notions of the burden of proof and make out atheism is a natural default - but that is nonsense).
Also, I think you could make arguments about practical reason and support Natural Law fairly well, if not as well, without talking about God. After all, one can note the existence of immanent teleology (without which we loose all understanding of regular and orderly cause and effect) and what this entails for practical reason.
Chad,
ReplyDeleteOkay, but Scott was suggesting that you were not implying any political or constitutional points at all, and were just making philosophical points about Natural Law. That is what I was trying to clear up and your explanation doesn't differ all that much from what I was trying to explain to him.
In respect to your point, aside from the fact some Natural Law theorists and those of related positions claim you do not require theistic arguments, the use of the term believe is ambiguous. That is, Natural Law theorists are generally prepared to argue for God's existence and not simply to assert it as an act of faith. There is no real difference here between the atheist arguing for their metaphysics (of course, the atheists love to abuse notions of the burden of proof and make out atheism is a natural default - but that is nonsense).
Also, I think you could make arguments about practical reason and support Natural Law fairly well, if not as well, without talking about God. After all, one can note the existence of immanent teleology (without which we loose all understanding of regular and orderly cause and effect) and what this entails for practical reason.
Crude,
ReplyDeleteNo, I think objective moral theories don't make any sense without reference to God. But we don't need objective moral theories to make laws.
I personally believe in a "social contract" form of negotiated law that need not make reference to any objective morality or any God to be binding internally on the parties that agree to it. That's what I see a democracy as being. We've all agreed to obey certain dictates we regard as necessary to our peaceful co-existence, and whether or not those dictates correspond precisely to a correct theory of objective morality is irrelevant for the purpose of governing.
I can't speak for the specific moral language in the ruling because I haven't read it. If they refer to objective moral principles outside the boundaries of the social contract as represented by our laws and constitution, then sure, it's entirely possible that those arguments are as illicit as the natural law arguments.
Double post for some reason.
ReplyDeleteThose posts were mine, forgot to sign them, - Jeremy Taylor
Okay, but Scott was suggesting that you were not implying any political or constitutional points at all, and were just making philosophical points about Natural Law.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read through the whole thread yet, but I was making two points:
1. That natural law is essentially religious.
2. Given 1, any law passed solely on the basis of natural law would violate the establishment clause.
What Scott was probably saying was that 1. can stand on its own.
Chad,
ReplyDeleteNo, I think objective moral theories don't make any sense without reference to God. But we don't need objective moral theories to make laws.
Sure, but if someone bases a law or the justification for a law on what amounts to a reference to what's offered up as an objective moral view, then they'd be off in the land of religion about as quickly as you're saying Natural Law must be.
And there's a further problem.
I personally believe in a "social contract" form of negotiated law that need not make reference to any objective morality or any God to be binding internally on the parties that agree to it. That's what I see a democracy as being. We've all agreed to obey certain dictates we regard as necessary to our peaceful co-existence, and whether or not those dictates correspond precisely to a correct theory of objective morality is irrelevant for the purpose of governing.
First off, no - I don't think 'we've all agreed'. Not in the normal sense of the term. That's minor, but, I wanted to note it.
Second, I also don't think that makes anything clearer. Obviously some rules that also have a basis in religion ("Thou shalt not kill") are acceptable. Now, I'm sure you could say that you could remove all of the 'religious' aspects of such a rule, and what's left over is a nice, secular remainder. But I'm not sure that's possible: purposes, ends, aims and goals seem every bit as problematic to make 'objective' as morals apparently are. But if subjective purposes and ends are acceptable, then laws against gay marriage are acceptable too - it is trivial to come up with a whim or view that can be described in a completely subjective way, and apparently that's all we need. And it's not as if history only shows that religious people were the ones who had criticisms of homosexuality, or who didn't support gay marriage.
Chad,
ReplyDeleteWell, I would point you in the direction of Burke, Bonald, and the traditional conservative political tradition for a start - in the American tradition to John Adams, Orestes Brownson, Richard Weaver, Robert Nisbet, and Russell Kirk.
Your conception of politics, law, and society is far too individualist and thin. You cannot ask men to live together in a society, especially one where all the parts of society are presumed to mingle and mix regularly, and have that society ignore all their higher aims and ends.
In any nation that written constitution is but an outgrowth of the unwritten constitution of the nation - all the traditions, beliefs, mores, and institutions that have historically grown up. Man being a social and cultural animal, it is the unwritten constitution, which is necessarily complex and intricate (representing the complex and intricate nature of human society and culture), which must support and supplement the written constitution; indeed, in many ways, it is the unwritten constitution that is more important than the written one.
- The above was my post. -Jeremy Taylor
ReplyDeleteI should also add, there are objective moral theories that really and truly do not reference God, or even lead to arguments that could point to God. Just because I don't think those theories make sense without God doesn't mean those theories amount to making religious arguments.
ReplyDeleteThere might be a philosopher who thinks that utilitarianism is an objective moral theory. I think that philosopher is wrong, but that philosopher is not trying to sneak God in under the door the way the natural law theorist (IMO) is doing.
Chad writes,
ReplyDelete2. Given 1, any law passed solely on the basis of natural law would violate the establishment clause.
This doesn't make sense. It makes a distinction between atheistic and theistic metaphysics and moral philosophy that, whilst often being made or implied by atheists and secularists themselves, is wrong. If a theistic position doesn't simply take the existence of God on faith, if it argues for his existence and proves it, then what reason is there to say its position is illegitimate and that of the atheist legitimate?
Also, I think it might be a stretch to suggest the establishment clause was meant to mean that. It might mean that to the Warren Court and its successors, but I doubt that Fischer Ames, when he gave the final wording to that amendment, really meant it ruled out any religious arguments whatsoever.
I especially don't think Ames, Madison, et al meant to say only scrupulously atheistic moral systems are an acceptable basis for law.
-Jeremy Taylor
"Scott was suggesting that you were not implying any political or constitutional points at all . . . "
ReplyDeleteI didn't mean to suggest any such thing. Of course Chad's argument is political/Constitutional.
I should also add, there are objective moral theories that really and truly do not reference God, or even lead to arguments that could point to God. Just because I don't think those theories make sense without God doesn't mean those theories amount to making religious arguments.
ReplyDeleteThere might be a philosopher who thinks that utilitarianism is an objective moral theory. I think that philosopher is wrong, but that philosopher is not trying to sneak God in under the door the way the natural law theorist (IMO) is doing.
I don't think this works - this reduces the whole case you're making to an exercise in psychoanalysis, rather than any problems with natural law arguments themselves. The fact that you think natural law arguments don't make sense without God is given as the reason to exclude NL arguments from the public sphere - but the fact that you think utilitarian arguments don't make sense without God get a pass, because you take the atheist utilitarian at his word, even though you think he's wrong.
And that's before the question of whether various forms of atheism (materialist naturalism, or something more platonic) aren't reasonably viewed as religious anyway.
Sure, but if someone bases a law or the justification for a law on what amounts to a reference to what's offered up as an objective moral view, then they'd be off in the land of religion about as quickly as you're saying Natural Law must be.
ReplyDeleteNot at all. As I said above, there are plenty of moral theories that claim to be objective that really and truly do not have anything to do with God.
I don't think those theories are secretly referencing God, like natural law does, I just think those theories are wrong.
Second, I also don't think that makes anything clearer. Obviously some rules that also have a basis in religion ("Thou shalt not kill") are acceptable. Now, I'm sure you could say that you could remove all of the 'religious' aspects of such a rule, and what's left over is a nice, secular remainder.
There could be laws put in the social contract that are verbatim identical to religious prohibitions. I don't think that would be a problem as long as religion is not the sole motivation for that law.
If, as seems to be the case with a prohibition against gay marriage, a law only has religious justification then I would regard such a law as illicit.
But if subjective purposes and ends are acceptable, then laws against gay marriage are acceptable too - it is trivial to come up with a whim or view that can be described in a completely subjective way, and apparently that's all we need.
No, what's needed are arguments that are relevant to the social contract, that are not solely motivated by religion.
You are utterly misunderstanding my point about objective morality. You seem to think that because I think that all objective moral theories fail unless they reference God, that therefore all objective moral theories actually reference God. That just doesn't follow.