tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post6798973298523320732..comments2024-03-28T13:39:03.094-07:00Comments on Edward Feser: What’s the deal with sex? Part IIEdward Feserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comBlogger422125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-58245634118314044372016-11-14T14:02:38.650-08:002016-11-14T14:02:38.650-08:00The Catholic Church reduces the natural beauty of ...The Catholic Church reduces the natural beauty of sex between loving couples to a household chore by teaching that sex and marriage are ordered solely towards creating children and ideal conditions for raising children and that sexual pleasure is a merely a “lure” to get people to do this:<br />http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/are-marital-relations-not-supposed-to-pleasurable-because-they-are-only-for-reproduct<br />If you hadn't been raised from childhood by this oppressive system, then if someone asked you "Is it morally wrong to use a condom or masturbate?" you'd scoff and say "Of course not! What cruel person told you that?!?!?".<br />In the above given link, not the presence of the word "please is not a purpose of sex". Not the the choice to use the indefinite article "a", thus saying "a purpose" rather than using the definite article and saying "the only purpose". That particular sentence is the part of the paragraph that clearly implies "It is supposed to be pleasurable, but only because God has no alternative lure, and if he did he'd use that and sex wouldn't be pleasurable.". It thus implicitly gives sexual pleasure the status of something dirty but necessary.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15049127836285052945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-35311424687966718292015-04-18T20:03:46.657-07:002015-04-18T20:03:46.657-07:00We all discriminate. Each of us in our own way. E...We all discriminate. Each of us in our own way. Every time we choose to walk on the opposite side of the street from a group of people because of their menacing appearance, that is an act of discrimination. I prefer the word "discernment". <br /><br /> <br /><br />Regarding proposed LGBT ordinances:<br /><br /><br />Why stop there? Why not encompass the entire spectrum of paraphilia? Why not include incest? polyamory? zoophilia? anthropophagy? pedophilia? necrophilia? Although the concept of mutual consent has relevance in some instances, I am not being flippant. The larger question: If there is no such thing as a magnetic field, of what value is a compass?<br /><br />Sandy Kramer<br />PrincetonUniversity@Cox.net<br /><br />Princeton 1967https://www.blogger.com/profile/09114630960350512201noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-64565880158549340952015-03-08T14:37:35.974-07:002015-03-08T14:37:35.974-07:00No they're not :)No they're not :)Gaven Kerrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10356933142923048199noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-16336368961869368222015-02-19T09:22:14.584-08:002015-02-19T09:22:14.584-08:00@Daniel
"Thanks for the response. For what i...@Daniel<br /><br />"Thanks for the response. For what it's worry my concern is not over the moral status of contraception per see - it's what the grounds for claiming its being immoral may imply for the value of persons in general that give me cause to object."<br /><br />I'd like to understand better what you mean. It seems to me that concern for the value of persons is built into the grounds for claiming it is immoral. <br /><br />Matt Sheeannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-82510646471750146192015-02-19T02:48:43.065-08:002015-02-19T02:48:43.065-08:00Out of interest where does Natural Law stand on ar...Out of interest where does Natural Law stand on artificial insemination? The semen is produced in the natural manner for the purposes intend, employed where intended and all things being well has the effect intended. Can the faculty be said to be frustrated in such cases?<br /><br />@Scott,<br /><br /><i>I'm not sure why that question is so puzzling.</i><br /><br />I tend to think that if something is an end in itself it must be separable from whatever it might also be a means towards. To go with your example you could equally visit your physician friend on a purely social basis or you could visit a physician whom you knew solely in a professional capacity. <br /><br /><i>that doesn't mean that for the person having the sex, the unitive "end" is nothing more than a means; indeed, if it were, it would fail, because the whole point is to make the procreative act pleasant in its own right so that even subrational animals will undertake it without having procreation as an explicit subjective purpose at all.</i><br /><br />My worry here is that the analogy with non-rational animals is inadequate and for other reasons than the former's not knowing that action they undertake is good. On this account though the pleasant experience associated with the sexual act remains the significance behind it turns out to be a sort of illusion we can see through. What is a lover? A spasm, an instance of a certain qualia, reproduction and someone to feed and care for the child until they themselves are ready to go through the same process. <br /><br />If persons are means to one's flourishing then we should not care whether other people are zombies or not since both can do the job just as well – yet we do so there must something missing (I suppose this is similar to Nozick’s brain in a vat of pleasure solution thought experiment). <br /><br />@Matt,<br /><br />Thanks for the response. For what it's worry my concern is not over the moral status of contraception per see - it's what the grounds for claiming its being immoral may imply for the value of persons in general that give me cause to object.<br />Danielnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-55003413461132709192015-02-18T23:50:46.515-08:002015-02-18T23:50:46.515-08:00I wouldn't say artificial sweeteners are inher...I wouldn't say artificial sweeteners are inherently evil, they exist to bring about a good (the pleasure of eating) and as long as they have no side effects, there is no evil being done directly.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10520726665603834310noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-64848321421772070492015-02-17T17:59:16.576-08:002015-02-17T17:59:16.576-08:00@Anonymous Jeremy:
"What do you think about ...@Anonymous Jeremy:<br /><br />"What do you think about the following scenario: say we discover that semen has medicinal properties relative to some quite pernicious disease.…[C]ould we morally procure semen, in any fashion whatever, so as to make use of its hypothetical medicinal properties?"<br /><br />As I understand things, the moral problem is with the perversion or positive frustration of <i>faculties</i>. Surely it would be morally permissible, say, to extract seminal fluid by hypodermic needle; that wouldn't involve (as far as I can see) any frustration of a faculty.<br /><br />A rough analogy: Suppose the cure for a certain deadly disease were locked behind a door that could be unlocked only by speaking a certain sequence of sounds ("too-pluss-too-iz-sicks") that, when interpreted according to the ordinary conventions of English, would constitute a lie. It seems to me that it would be morally unobjectionable to make the necessary sounds (as long as, e.g., one has made clear to anyone listening that one is making them <i>only</i> as sounds and not as an expression of a proposition one wants them to believe).<br /><br />But that's a first-look opinion from a non-expert. Anyone else care to weigh in?Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-42320603929852846872015-02-17T15:55:41.210-08:002015-02-17T15:55:41.210-08:00I have a question about how natural law relates to...I have a question about how natural law relates to the reproductive faculty and its end. What do you think about the following scenario: say we discover that semen has medicinal properties relative to some quite pernicious disease. This quality would be, I take it, accidental to the nature of semen, which would still, qua its nature, be FOR insemination, not FOR treating disease. Yet could we morally procure semen, in any fashion whatever, so as to make use of its hypothetical medicinal properties? Perhaps we should add that semen is the only known treatment for the malady.<br /><br />Now think the same regarding blood: blood, which qua nature transfers oxygen, etc., is found to be a palliative of some sort. My sense is that we will have less moral qualms about harvesting blood than semen -- even though we are putting each to a purpose besides that deriving from its nature -- but I am not sure. I would be interested to hear any thoughts on this.<br /><br />Separately, does natural law allow an unmarried man worried about his sperm count but who cannot gather up semen from a nocturnal emission (say he never has these, itself a possible cause for his concern) to procure semen through masturbation so as to have his count tested? I don't mean to harp on hard cases, but would be interested to learn about this as well. I apologize if this has been covered in the many, many comments; I have not been able to read them all.<br /><br />JeremyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-56643450936770111892015-02-16T22:38:05.243-08:002015-02-16T22:38:05.243-08:00"Why is that any more problematic than, say, ..."Why is that any more problematic than, say, my visit to my family physician being both an end in itself (because my doctor is also my friend; I've known him since twenty years before he even became a doctor) and also a means (because I'm visiting him for the sake of my health)?"<br /><br />To add to this, since I was mentioned in Daniel's comment...<br /><br />Your visiting your friend, the doctor, involves him as an end in your own health as a doctor. He is able to practice his trade, to actualize his potential thereof on your person. You, in turn, are treated for your health, and, in this relation your own endiness (since that's a technical term now) is established as he, by his doctoriness promotes your healthiness.<br /><br />On the other hand, in the case of contraception, so the argument might go, the female and the male are related to each other in a way that stifles that which allows them to uniquely contribute to the relationship in the sex act. You might think of contraception like lying to the doctor about a pain, or withholding some important information from him because you think that it will lead to uncomfortable tests and such. You would be, in some way, preventing him from fulfilling his role as a doctor, and thusly treating him as a means, say, to hear what you want to about your health or something like that.<br /><br />(I should add, after all this, that I [too] am not ultimately in agreement with the absolute badness of contraception, but the fact that the traditional natural law position on it makes so much sense does bother me).<br /><br />Matt Sheeannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-78930578451357886922015-02-16T15:22:43.765-08:002015-02-16T15:22:43.765-08:00@Daniel:
"Yes, I know - how it can be anythi...@Daniel:<br /><br />"Yes, I know - how it can be anything more than 'only' given those conditions is the prime question for me."<br /><br />I'm not sure why that question is so puzzling. The unitive end of sex exists <i>in nature</i> because without it the procreative end wouldn't ordinarily be fulfilled, but that doesn't mean that <i>for the person having the sex</i>, the unitive "end" is nothing more than a means; indeed, if it were, it would fail, because the whole point is to make the procreative act pleasant in its own right so that even subrational animals will undertake it without having procreation as an explicit subjective purpose at all.<br /><br />Why is that any more problematic than, say, my visit to my family physician being both an end in itself (because my doctor is also my friend; I've known him since twenty years before he even became a doctor) and also a means (because I'm visiting him for the sake of my health)?Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-31814170398005359792015-02-16T14:41:39.131-08:002015-02-16T14:41:39.131-08:00@Daniel:
"Okay to work from this analogy: If...@Daniel:<br /><br />"Okay to work from this analogy: If one is offered the choice of two meals with roughly equal nutrition value one of which is bland and the other flavorsome and pleasant is it immoral to chose the former instead of the latter?"<br /><br />All else equal, I'd put that in the territory Brandon describes as involving better and worse rather than morally right and wrong. Deliberately choosing a less tasty meal over a more tasty one strikes me as without any specifically moral import, but if it's done for no good reason, then one has done worse than one might have.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-11707553782513119712015-02-16T12:23:45.064-08:002015-02-16T12:23:45.064-08:00On topic it seems worth mentioning this book due o...<br />On topic it seems worth mentioning this book due out in less than ten days time:<br /><br />http://www.amazon.com/True-Love-Josef-Seifert/dp/158731889X/ref=la_B001JY73OW_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1424118046&sr=1-2<br /><br />@Scott, <br /><br />Thanks <br /><br /><i>Again, your use of "only" strikes me as problematic.</i><br /><br />Yes, I know - how it can be anything more than 'only' given those conditions is the prime question for me. Perhaps I should try to swallow my dislike of Ethics as a subject and read some more in depth work on Natural Law in this area. <br /><br /><i>Eating is pleasurable for us because, as animals, we rely on it for nutrition, but since it is pleasurable for us, enjoying the taste of well-prepared food is also an end in itself. Where's the problem?</i><br /><br />Okay to work from this analogy: If one is offered the choice of two meals with roughly equal nutrition value one of which is bland and the other flavorsome and pleasant is it immoral to chose the former instead of the latter? Danielnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-63411964147678394502015-02-16T07:47:00.285-08:002015-02-16T07:47:00.285-08:00@Daniel:
"I find it hard to comprehend how s...@Daniel:<br /><br />"I find it hard to comprehend how something that is only an end relative to another can also be an end in itself."<br /><br />Eating is pleasurable for us because, as animals, we rely on it for nutrition, but since it <i>is</i> pleasurable for us, enjoying the taste of well-prepared food is also an end in itself. Where's the problem?<br /><br />Again, your use of "only" strikes me as problematic. The unitive end of sex isn't <i>only</i> a means to its procreative end even though the latter explains, as a matter of biological history, how it came to have the former.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-48170636444300062112015-02-16T03:58:13.418-08:002015-02-16T03:58:13.418-08:00This might be too late but I'm going to go bac...This might be too late but I'm going to go back to the two concerns I brought up since they probably resolve to the same type of query over ends and means <br /><br />Scott said, <br /><i>I think your use of "only" here indicates the source of the problem. It's true that in the order of nature, the unitive end exists only because the procreative end does, but it's not therefore true that it doesn't exist as an end to be satisfied in its own right; the one isn't only a means to the other from the point of view of the animal (rational or otherwise) whose well-being is at stake</i><br /><br />Matt said,<br /><br /><i>From these two sketchy thoughts - procreation gives sex its meaningfulness (meaningfulness being a social thing to boot), and is the condition by which the "endiness" of both parties is preserved in the act (that is, when they both strive together for that common, meaningful end).</i><br /><br />I understand how something can be both an end in itself and a means to other ends* but I find it hard to comprehend how something that is only an end relative to another can also be an end in itself. <br /><br />To give a probably less than adequate illustration: If I want to visit Moscow then being in Moscow is an end. If then I decide I would like to see the Kremlin I can do so if and only if the first end is satisfied. So being in Moscow is a Necessary Condition of visiting the Kremlin but attempting to visit said building is not a Necessary Condition for attempting to visit Moscow.<br /><br />*Most human actions are. God is the only end that is not also a means <br />Danielnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-2939945003309881322015-02-15T21:17:49.625-08:002015-02-15T21:17:49.625-08:00"I don't understand how using contracepti..."I don't understand how using contraception prevents 'mutual self-giving.'"<br /><br />Speaking as a Catholic, I really don't see why this is so hard to grasp. <br /><br />Natural law holds that it is wrong, in the absence of some higher end, to frustrate the natural ends of our faculties. Contraception acts against against the procreative end of sex for obvious reasons. It acts against the unitive end of sex inasmuch as it prevents <b> complete </b> mutual self-giving; for either or both of the parties involved are holding back their fertility, thus not fully giving of themselves. This seems clear enough to me.DeusPrimusEstnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-67326645034774804202015-02-15T12:16:14.779-08:002015-02-15T12:16:14.779-08:00@Sunglasses:
"I don't understand how usi...@Sunglasses:<br /><br />"I don't understand how using contraception prevents 'mutual self-giving.'"<br /><br />Well, as I've mentioned a couple of times, I'm not (yet) Catholic myself and I'm not (yet) 100% on board with the Church's teachings on this subject although I regard them as worthy of the greatest respect and take them with the utmost seriousness. But if you want a pretty good explication of this point beyond what you've already received in this thread, <a href="http://www.faith.org.uk/article/march-april-2006-sexual-morality-the-perverted-faculty-argument" rel="nofollow">this one strikes me as pretty good</a>.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-77338428042512885312015-02-15T12:01:35.866-08:002015-02-15T12:01:35.866-08:00Eek. In that last sentence, "own own" sh...Eek. In that last sentence, "own own" should be "our own."Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-54364167053287386112015-02-15T11:47:01.603-08:002015-02-15T11:47:01.603-08:00@Mr. Green:
"Frankly, I don’t really underst...@Mr. Green:<br /><br />"Frankly, I don’t really understand what Brandon was getting at by saying perverted-[faculty] arguments don’t necessarily entail moral obligations, since that — at least in the broad sense — is pretty central to the presentations of natural law that I have seen."<br /><br />Well, there's morality and there's morality. If I'm right about what Brandon meant, then I'm in at least basic agreement with him that our obligations <i>to other people and involving a/the common good</i> have a greater ethical importance than our "obligations" to our own good. I would not, however, agree with Robert Heinlein (writing as Lazarus Long in <i>Time Enough for Love</i>) that "hurting yourself isn't sinful—just stupid" if that means there's just nothing wrong with self-harm at all. My own inclination is to say that failure to pursue one's own good is <i>unethical</i> or <i>vicious</i> (i.e. "anti-virtuous"), but not <i>immoral</i>.<br /><br />Interestingly (to me, anyway), the current usage of these terms seems to be the other way around: "ethics" is commonly taken to be a narrower term than "morals," and (especially in business and medical contexts) it seems to be accepted that a practice can be "ethical" (in accordance with professional ethics) without being "moral" (good or right). I can't say I'm too bothered about the choice of terms as long as the distinction is made; it reminds me of something John Leslie said somewhere about "existence" and "reality," to the effect that we can say that mere possibilities are real but don't exist or that they exist but aren't real, but it doesn't much matter which.<br /><br />Either way, what I think matters is that, because we're social/political animals and because the interests of others of our kind are at stake in some/many/most of our actions, there's a sense in which acts that tend toward the well-being of people other than ourselves have a greater "shouldiness" or "oughtiness" about them than acts that tend <i>only</i> toward own own.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-74622659477693667212015-02-15T08:29:11.039-08:002015-02-15T08:29:11.039-08:00@Sunglasses:
"I'm sorry, didn't Bran...@Sunglasses:<br /><br />"I'm sorry, didn't Brandon say that the only way anything can be morally wrong (or a moral issue at all) is if it violates the common good? Did I misunderstand him or do you disagree?"<br /><br />Again, what I took Brandon to be saying is that <i>moral</i> right and wrong are narrower concepts than ethics and virtue generally. The misuse or perversion of a natural faculty isn't <i>virtuous</i>, so it's bad/wrong in the broadest sense. But I understood Brandon to mean that unless there's a common good involved, that wrong isn't, strictly speaking, a violation of a specifically <i>moral</i> obligation. Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-39215569461340288102015-02-14T16:30:21.672-08:002015-02-14T16:30:21.672-08:00I have sympathy for Anonymous Sunglasses's con...I have sympathy for Anonymous Sunglasses's confusion; heck, I sometimes have trouble following these threads even when I know what’s going on, let alone when trying to come to terms with a new argument that requires a new way of thinking. In fact, I was confused when the conversation diverged into talk of the common good. Frankly, I don’t really understand what Brandon was getting at by saying perverted-factulty arguments don’t necessarily entail moral obligations, since that — at least in the broad sense — is pretty central to the presentations of natural law that I have seen.<br /><br />For what it’s worth, I think that line of argument is central to Sunglasses’s questions, so here is how I would reply: going back to sight, NFP (Natural Focal Processing) involves wearing sunglasses or closing one’s eyelids; artificial contravisualisation involves <b>pinching off the optic nerve so that the signal never finishes reaching the brain</b>. Clearly, there is a fundamental difference between the two approaches: one merely takes advantage of how vision naturally works, while the other <i>interferes</i> with how vision is supposed to work and <i>prevents</i> it from actually working that way. To our modern ears, trained in utilitarianism and consequentialism, the effects sound similar, but clearly in terms of the nature involved (i.e. the way the human body naturally works), there is a drastic distinction. The artificial method actually involves <i>breaking</i> your vision (albeit temporarily (you hope!)).<br /><br />Much the same thing applies to artifical contraception: as opposed to NFP, which merely takes advantage of how the human body naturally works, it involves <i>breaking</i> the natural biological process that occurs, to stop it completing in the natural way. Note that this natural completion typically results in conception, but not always; that is why it is only the general <i>allowance</i> of conception that is required. An act that does not happen to result in pregnancy — as NFP might facilitate — is not wrong <i>for that specific reason</i>, although it might be for some other reason. The problem is trying to change the way the act itself works, by attempting to alter the biology of the couple to act differently, in a not-quite human way. It is effectively dehumanising; like making different kinds of organisms that are very like human beings, but not quite the same. Cf. Anscombe’s talk of changing the "kind of act” it is; it is not an act of human sexuality, strictly speaking, but an attempt at some quasi-humaniod sexuality instead.<br /><br />None of this contradicts the further points about the common good, etc. — these all apply too, but the level of our human faculties and how they naturally work sets a <i>minimum</i> standard. We can go much further, but not any <i>less</i> far than what we are. You can add external context, but you can’t remove intrinsic context — extrinsic factors come and go, but your human nature is always fully present wherever you are. As rational beings, it is our nature to act rationally. Using a helium balloon as a paper-weight is irrational, because it is not in the nature of a helium balloon to weigh down papers. It would be perverse to try (and in such a silly case, we might question the sanity of anyone who tried). It is likewise perverse to wear sunglasses all the time so that you can never see anything — and if you did so deliberately, say for the sake of vanity — then you would be committing a moral fault. (Since sunglasses don’t completely block sight, it might be only a mild fault, of course.) If you never ate, that would go against your nature, and would be immoral. Not eating at any particular time is not immoral, of course (at least, not without bringing in other circumstances), but “uneating”, that is, forcing your eating-apparatus to function in a broken way by making yourself vomit up good food would be perverse, and thus wrong. Always using NFP to avoid having any children would be wrong, and sabotaging a single act of sexual intercourse would also be.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-17573105571537799952015-02-14T13:54:46.778-08:002015-02-14T13:54:46.778-08:00Georgy Mancz: Evolution is about how a living thin...Georgy Mancz: <i>Evolution is about how a living thing came to be, not strictly speaking what is is.</i><br /><br />Since you implored, how can I resist? I do agree with the responses already given. I would say the answer to Matt’s question is yes and no: of course a (true) evolutionary explanation of how man developed would shed light on his current nature; just as knowing how infants develop sheds light on adult humans. But we cannot simply take some fact about babies and apply it to adults (“solid food is unsuitable for infants, therefore adults shouldn’t eat it either”!); and in fact, we may be able to make sense of our knowledge only in hindsight — for example, in order to undertsand why adults have navels, we would need to understand how the umbilical cord works for babies in the womb, but you'd have a hard time deducing this <i>a priori</i> if you didn’t already know what adults were like. So evolutionary knowledge may be useful only if we already know what human nature is. Furthermore, an infant is substantially the same thing, the same species as the adult human, whereas an evolutionary ancestor is not even the same kind of thing — as Georgy points out, it is about how something came to be, not what it is. Most importantly, the step from irrational being to rational being is greater than any other evolutionary aspect, and does not itself admit of degrees or gradual development. Either you have an immaterial intellect or you don’t; likewise for free will. That human beings are capable of cannibalism provides absolutely no reason to suppose that it’s “natural”, not even if man had evolutionary ancestor that were cannibals (i.e., for which cannibalism was part of their proper nature).<br /><br />Matt Sigl: <i>After all, if the sexual organ can be shown to have a function in intrinsic biological human flourishing that is outside the current boundaries of what we consider Natural Law, would that not just then mean that we should change our scope of what the Natural Law IS?</i><br /><br />Well, the <i>application</i> of natural law would change, because you are posting that we discovered we were wrong about human nature all along, and a more accurate understanding of our nature will (naturally!) lead to a more accurate understanding of our moral obligations. Of course, in actuality, no such thing has been shown; in fact, the more we learn about our physiology the more we see how well traditional moral precepts about sexuality fit it (for example, discovering how the chemical reactions work to reinforce bonding between the couple, and so on).<br /><br /><i>But, the majority of people who follow traditional sexual morality do not do so because they are convinced by Natural Law Arguments. Remember, Natural Law, as I understand it, claims to be demonstrable without reference to revelation, perhaps even without reference to theism. (Though you rarely see a Natural Law conceptual system disentangled from an overarching theistic worldview.) </i><br /><br />Of course, there’s a reason for that: natural law depends on natures, and natures depend on a directing intelligence (the Fifth Way in a nutshell). So while natural law does not rely on revelation or any direct theology, it’s not too surprising that rejecting the theology should lead to different conclusions one way or another. But I even have to disagree that most people do not follow natural law — they do not do so explicitly or consciously, insofar as the vast majority of people have never formally studied the philosophy of natural law in the first place — but the vast majority does have experience with human nature, and what are nowadays labelled Catholic positions appear throughout history across all different cultures. So these conclusions can’t be all that unconvincing, either.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-73269568495917494602015-02-14T13:29:41.281-08:002015-02-14T13:29:41.281-08:00Anonymous,
[Quoting me]: "The problem is tha...Anonymous,<br /><br /><i>[Quoting me]: "The problem is that all your interlocutors need to show here, is that it's wrong on a natural law conception of wrong. I think they've done this quite capably."<br /><br />Can you direct me to the post where this was accomplished?<br /><br />I'm still very unclear on why the perversion of the reproductive faculty inherent in the use of contraception is against the common good.</i><br /><br />I note that, in your reply, you were specifically asking me to point you to a previous post.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04470664030455998305noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-4180123497140924322015-02-14T12:55:02.846-08:002015-02-14T12:55:02.846-08:00I think that's just exactly the problem that C...<i>I think that's just exactly the problem that Catholic moral philosophy has with it. It's a failure (a privation, and thus an evil) to fulfill the natural tendency of the sexual act to lead to mutual self-giving, which in turn is precisely because it's performed for the sole purpose of enjoying the pleasure of "talking about Rawls" while frustrating the act's natural end.</i><br /><br />I don't understand how using contraception prevents "mutual self-giving." For that matter, I don't understand what is exactly meant by "mutual self-giving."<br /><br />And contraceptive sex could be performed for one of the act's natural ends, the same end that NFP sex is performed for: the Church-endorsed "unitive end" of sex.<br /><br />In general, I'm noting that NFP doesn't fare any better than contraception in meeting the terms given.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-65035754427438793172015-02-14T12:36:23.383-08:002015-02-14T12:36:23.383-08:00Anon,
The answer that I was regurgitating, I hope...Anon,<br /><br />The answer that I was regurgitating, I hope, might go some distance to answering your question. It was an answer that was given after your hiatus to the question you posed before leaving - why contraceptive sex is considered of the species of evil on the Catholic view.<br /><br />Anscombes paper deals to some extent with the history of Catholic thought on the subject, and why the view that contraceptive sex is evil has persisted.<br /><br />With that, I shall respect your wish and refrain from commenting further,Matt Sheeannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-21788392056584200992015-02-14T12:24:34.607-08:002015-02-14T12:24:34.607-08:00Propagation of the human race (which includes not ...<i>Propagation of the human race (which includes not just sexual procreation but education of children and the relations between generations) is necessarily part of the common good for the human race; this is, I think, independent of any particular population concerns -- population concerns are only concerns, for instance, when they are possibly threatening the propagation of humanity in some way (to take just one possible example, by making it impossible for each generation to set the next up for a life of virtue and, where possible, prosperity).</i><br /><br />This is really confusing. So, you're saying the common good that contraception threatens is propagation, and that this would be true <b>even if contraception aided human propagation?</b><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com