Earlier this
month, British author Mary Harrington delivered a
First Things Lecture titled “Our Crisis is Metaphysical” in
Washington, D.C. You can now
watch the lecture at YouTube.
Just past the eleven minute mark,
Harrington makes some very kind remarks about my book
Scholastic Metaphysics, about
which she says: “I don’t think Professor Feser intended it as a page turner,
but I tore through it like it was an airport novel.” As she explains in her lucid and important
talk, she finds in Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics the vocabulary needed properly
to understand today’s deepest moral and political controversies. Especially important, as she says, are the
distinctions between (a) act and potency, (b) substance, accident, and
substantial form, and (c) the four causes. She notes that it was the moderns’ attack on
and burial of Aristotle, Aquinas, and Scholasticism that would pave the way for
developments such as feminism, contraception, and the trans phenomenon. And she says that these are held in place by a
“Thomophobia” (great coinage!) that dismisses traditional metaphysics
a priori as a tool of oppression. Give her lecture a listen.
Thank you, this looks most interesting.
ReplyDeleteI have always found the dismissal of classical metaphysical notions a priori for moral concerns bespeaks a moral confusion or guilty mindset on the part of the person--as per Ed's anecdote about John Searle. If one thinks homosexual love is good (as arguably did Plato) then one should expect this to be reflected in the metaphysical truth of reality in the transcendental sense; if that belief causes one to flee from ideas of metaphysical truth of reality then one's real position sounds more like mad volunteerism.
Of course for really getting to grips with scholastic metaphysical theories one must also be able to distinguish concepts some Aristotelians (sometimes) merge together such as form and matter (hylomorphism) and natural kind-property and accidental property including of course necessary or "proper" accidents (the basis of "real" essentialism) or matter (as passive potency) and matter (materia secunda, or corporeal matter).
I am very concerned that the above article is anti-feminist. Is Feser against women's right to vote and run for president? Doe she want the 20th amendment of the US Constitution to be repealed?
Delete"Feminism" has became so broad a symbol that it can mean overtly incompatible positions, as Harrington's own feminist label shows (one hears the same "technocratic society against sacred motherhood" criticism from neo-pagan feminists too).
DeleteAs for Feser's views, of course not.
“…or matter (passive potency) and matter (materia secunda, or corporeal matter).”
DeleteHold on. Are you saying all passive potency is considered to be matter?
"I am very concerned that the above article is anti-feminist. " Coward.
DeleteI am saying that on theories which view God as pure act passive potency is correlated with "matter," but the matter in question is not necessarily matter qua principle of individuation (Suárez comes to mind here, but I might be misremembering) or matter qua principle of materiality (Bonaventure and some Jewish theologians had matter qua passive potency form part of the angels--this leads to important differences with Aquinas who has to have angels as pure act albeit with essence and existence distinct and can only have one angel of each kind).
Delete"I am very concerned that the above article is anti-feminist."
DeleteFeminism is responsible for declining happiness in women, a gender war between men and women, a decline in marriage and, most seriously, a decline in births. If it is not soon arrested, the decline in births will lead eventually to the collapse of modern society.
Anon:
DeleteYou are on a website filled with people devoted to a Medieval ideology that upholds the Catholic Church and its dogmas. Are you really surprised that it'd be anti-feminist?
What is cowardly about that?
Delete@There is literally dozens if not hundreds of volumes and articles on Catholic saints and mystics like Saint Teresa and Julian of Norwich, by feminists Catholic and non-Catholic alike. Feminist theology is a sub-field of that discipline. I am surprised you do not know this.
Delete@OAPolice Okay, so I am somewhat puzzled by what you have said. Maybe it’s just me not understanding the Thomist position.
DeleteFirst of all, from what I remember reading about Aquinas, angels are not purely actual. They are referred to as ‘relative pure act,’ but only because their being includes a greater ‘portion’ of actuality than non-angelic creatures. They still are in potency to existence, however. But, to my mind at least, this does raise important questions about the relations up between act and potency, and by extension essence and existence. We speak of a potency being reduced to act. The actuality of a potential just is that thing considered qua actual….right? But essence and existence are weird in this regard, because Thomists seem to speak of existence as an actualizer of essence, yet at the same time it is referred to as the actuality of the essence. So which is it? Is existence a distinct item which is responsible for the actuality of the essence, or is existence just the essence considered in the mode of actuality?
Second of all, referring back to your original comment; it seems to me that what is referred to as ‘matter’ in Aristotelian thought does not fully exhaust the category of ‘passive potency.’ In other words, there are passive potencies which are not matter. Consider, for instance, a cup of coffee’s potency for being cool. As we know, ‘coolness’ is an accident, and not in the category of substance. And matter is in the category of substance. So coolness cannot be matter. It *inheres* in matter, but is not matter itself. What is the matter (specifically, secondary matter) in this situation is the cup of coffee of which the coolness is said to inhere in. The coolness however still exists in potency, despite not being matter. So not all passive potency is matter. Am I speaking correctly here?
Oh boy, the unoriginal and fallacious appeal to "old ideas are bad". Hysterical.
Delete@CaptainCH - An important detail to mention (and one which is often left out of the conversation by Aristotilean Thomists such as Ed) is that form, which for Aristotle was the actualizing power in the substance, is for Thomas itself actualized by esse (existence in your translation). In other words, form itself is potency with regards to the esse by which the substance is an ens, an esse-habens, or in other words an entity which exists. The esse is the intensive act of the entire essence, that is of the substance which exists in the world by means of its accidents. It is important to note that while Thomists hold to the real distinction, it is not these principles which "exist" strictly speaking, but it is rather the independently existing thing which subsists as substance through its accidents.
DeleteAs to your first comment, angels are not subject to substantial corruption because they do not share in matter, hence the moniker "relative-pure act," and yet, since they do not exist necessarily (their essence is not existence), they therefore are dependent on a first cause, and hence are in potency to this cause and therefore subject to passion as regards their coming into existence at the very least. I'm pushing beyond what I've actually read with this next part, but it seems like angels at least share in those accidental categories that are not dependent on matter, such as quality, relation, action, and passion. As such there is a sort of change they can undergo; were it otherwise they would not actually be able to exist as there would be nothing distinguishing their interiority (substance) from their membership in the world (accident).
As to your second comment, it then follows that matter does not exhaust passive potency. However, your example is off, as matter simply is the receptivity to recieving new actualizations by a corporeal substance. This is where the language of essence is helpful because essence covers both matter and substantial form. It is important not to equate substantial form (the principle by which a substance is itself) with the substance itself, considered as an independently existing thing, which in the case of a cup of coffee has an essence constituted by the union of form and matter. Coldness is an accidental form which inheres in it by virtue of its matter; since coffee can be either hot or cold without ceasing to be coffee the change from hot to cold is not a change in substance. In this case, the coffee cup has the potency for coldness by virtue of the matter which constitutes it.
@Casual Thomist
DeleteYes, I understand that within the Thomist system, form (and by extension, essence) is itself actualized by esse; and that the esse is the intensive act of the entire essence. However, I have difficulty understanding how exactly these two statements are meant to work together, because the Thomist seems to be wanting to have his cake and eat it too. Let me reiterate how I’m viewing this:
a) On the one hand, you have propositions of the form “X is actualized by Y.” It is always the case that Y is something really distinct from X, and reduces it to actuality, where that actuality is itself numerically distinct from (the actuality of) Y. Because if it weren’t, then we would have a case of X actualizing itself, which we would obviously agree is absurd. If we apply this to essence and esse, we get the notion that essence is a potency that is actualized by esse. But due to what has been affirmed, it precisely cannot be the case that esse is *also* the act of the essence. Actuality ≠ actualizer. Not only that, but we are then faced with the problem of accounting for esse in this equation. Is esse itself in potency to something else? Does God brutely create it and attach it to essence? Is esse simply God Himself? I find a lot of difficulties with this view.
b) On the other hand, you have propositions of the form “X is the actuality of Y.” Here, Y would be the thing which is actual, and X would simply be an internal principle by which it is actual (as in form being the actuality of the whole substance), or simply the fact that it is in its mode of actuality (as in the actual coolness). If we apply this to essence and esse, esse then becomes merely the state or mode of actuality in essence. That is, esse is simply but the essence considered in actuality. It should be clear then that it would make little sense to speak of esse as if it were a really distinct principle from essence. They would not be really distinct at all, but rather only modally distinct. I personally find this view significantly more parsimonious and in line with what Aristotle himself thought. But it is decidedly not the view found in Thomism, which is why I am confused when you or others speak of esse as the act of the essence.
So by my lights, the Thomist view seems incoherent. Perhaps you could shed some light on how esse and essence are supposed to work within the Thomist system, and correct my misunderstandings?
“ As to your second comment, it then follows that matter does not exhaust passive potency. However, your example is off, as matter simply is the receptivity to receiving new actualizations by a corporeal substance...”
I never denied that. My point was just that accidents (whether they be actual or potential) are not matter. Indeed, it should be doubly apparent on the view that matter constitutes essence alongside form, as accidents and essence are contraries. However, we seem to more or less agree on this point, so I’ll concede.
@Anonymous of March 18 re unhappy women: bald assertions such as "feminism is responsible for unhappiness in women" need to be substantiated. There are studies that claim that unmarried, single women without children are in general happier either than other women or than unmarried men, even acc. to some studies, all men. Those studies may be in error or may employ contentious terms like "happy" naively ... Still, at least within length befitting a combox, it would be useful to give robust reasons for others to accept your claim.
DeleteIt's not clear whether you would admit other causal factors than feminism for decline in marriage and births. You've blamed something ideological as though it is the sole cause without your considering economic and other factors.
@ficino4ml:
DeleteThe main study on declining female happiness is the article "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness" by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers. It's widely available online.
With respect to decline in marriage and births, there are many charts you can find online showing that the timing of the decline in marriage and births that ended the baby boom coincided with the onset of 2nd wave feminism in the late '60/early '70s and the unprecedented mass entry of women into the workforce and higher education.
Whereas during the baby boom, women got married and had children during their peak fertility years, in the '70s and after, women increasingly spent their peak fertility years in work or higher education.
@Anonymous re happiness: I'm not a sociologist. I have read that happiness overall for lower- and middle-income people of both genders has declined markedly as income inequality spreads across countries. As to "who's happier, men or women?", there are studies and studies. This one from 2024 claims that on average, single women are happier than single men:
Deletehttps://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19485506241287960#skipNavigationTo
What would be likely answers from women to survey questions such as:
"would you want the govt to take away your right to: vote; have a credit card in your name; have a mortgage in your name; equal pay for same job; equal insurance rates..."?
One factor that Stevenson and Wolfers did consider was the scenario where the wife works a job but also does the majority of work at home, including care of children and "emotional work." I read about this in many anecdotal accounts in the press.
Anon above @ March 17 says:
DeleteI am very concerned that the above article is anti-feminist. Is Feser against women's right to vote and run for president? Doe she want the 20th amendment of the US Constitution to be repealed?
Is this the state of the opposition to the perennial philosophy: a confusion that the good of women lies essentially with a universal right to vote, and that if you want women's welfare you MUST want the US's 20th amendment, even if you aren't American.
There are perfectly wholesome political orders in which neither the men have the vote nor women. And there are perfectly sound systems that would not give all of a generic class the vote, restricting it instead by, say, ability to exercise prudence (whether by men or women). The US movement to expand the right to vote to an ever wider class without asking "are they able to exercise rule" is clearly an experiment that may turn out well or ill, but is not an essential and necessary piece of good order.
Serious question, Ed. Do you actually believe your own story about how Scholasticism fell out of favor? I recall reading it in The Last Superstition, and had to spend several years disabusing myself of it. There, you claim that the Early Modern philosophers discarded Scholasticism more or less just because they wanted to, because it was convenient for an agenda, that there was no argumentation or weak argumentation proffered by way of proving it wrong. But this account is extremely ahistorical, to the point where I'd even venture to call it pseudohistory. There was no monolithic, beautiful unity of Thomism that got violently destroyed by a gang of unbelieving malcontents. Aquinas received sharp criticism from the get-go and even within 13th century Scholasticism was merely one school of thought among others. The challenge to traditional metaphysics broadly shared by the Scholastics of that period didn't arrive with the Early Modern era but with Late Scholasticism, roundabout the turn of the 14th century. The questioning of Scholasticism more generally also did not start with Descartes et al, but with Franciscan Humanism and the Humanist philosophies of the Early Renaissance. For instance, you identify one of Modernity's key ideas to be a reorientation of philosophy/science towards the improvement of human life in this world - but locus classicus for this idea is actually Roger Bacon, a 13th century Scholastic, and it has precursors in Franciscan and Humanist celebration of the idea that the mechanical arts are one of the ways by which God's beneficence is revealed. It's also ridiculous to claim, as you did, that the point of the Modern Project was to undermine any meaningful possibility of religious knowledge so as to stop religious conflict. Yet substantial notions of religious knowledge remained prominent in early Modern philosophy. It's utterly absurd to suggest that Descartes, Newton, et al, were trying to undermine any notion of substantial religious notion. Philosophy remained not only theistic but theocentric during this period - the shift away from theism actually occurred during the middle of the 19th century, and was motivated not by "agenda", but by discoveries in the natural sciences and biblical criticism which raised serious challenges to the intellectual coherence of Christianity as it had traditionally been understood.
ReplyDeleteBasically, this whole "Thomophobia" bit comes across as unconvincing. It comes across as an attempt to portray your field as unfairly persecuted. The whole shtick about just "wanting" to get rid of Aristotelianism, rather than being persuaded to on rational grounds, is just a an extended exercise in ad hominem. There is extensive argument offered for modern anti-Aristotelianism, and it is a product of a long trend of philosophical development at each step of which we find extensive argument.
Your comment almost entirely copies and pastes or paraphrases from a reddit thread from 5 years ago.
DeleteDescartes may not have been trying to undermine religious knowledge, but Locke and Hobbes, as well as Voltaire and others were quite explicitly doing that.
Roger Bacon's aim was very different to Descartes'. Bacon thought focusing on the natural world and improving lives was a way to achieve greater knowledge of God and improve proper worship of God among the faithful. Descartes, on the other hand, wasn't seeking some ultimately religious means. The focus on practical this-worldly matters was the end he was seeking. He even says repeatedly that, as a practical matters, we shouldn't focus so much on seeking certain truth and simply do what is practical and useful. His supportive contemporaries, and others through time to this very day, make a big deal about his search for certain knowledge, his arguments for God, etc, but when his contemporaries would address it to him, Descartes himself was actually telling his contemporaries to not focus on that, that it's not particularly important. He only laid that groundwork as a means to get to his real focus: science and practical moral philosophy. So, to equate what Bacon was doing with what Descartes was doing is kinda revisionist in itself.
It is undeniable that the early moderns, often without rational argumentation provided, had a real animosity toward the Schoolmen and Aristotle.
The scholastic critiques of St. Thomas were still within the Platonic-Aristotelian paradigm. So, the critiques were often on far more nuanced points. They weren't critiquing the basic Aristotelian foundation. The early moderns were outright rejecting that, without much in terms of rational arguments provided.
Tell me: what were the early humanist or early modern critiques of, say, intrinsic final causes exactly? Apparently, you are convinced they dismantled it rationally. So, what exactly are the critiques they made?
I suppose your tactic here is to publish so many falsehoods that people despair of being able to take the time to correct them.
DeleteEXE, maybe you are confusing Roger Bacon (c. 1219-1292) with Francis Bacon (1561-1626)? We can say that Roger Bacon emphasised experiments and the practical value of knowledge, but it sounds a bit too much to describe him as "questioning Scholasticism" or launching a "reorientation of philosophy/science towards the improvement of human life in this world", while instead I can definitely see how that claim can be correctly associated with Francis Bacon, who is indeed an early modern.
DeleteNo, Raffaele, I am not confusing the two. Roger Bacon was absolutely a Scholastic himself, but he was also one of the earliest proponents of the scientific method, and of the power of theoretical knowledge to improve human life. He did not attack Scholasticism, that came later. The point is that it is very ahistorical to claim that "let's focus our knowledge on improving this world" is an Early Modern idea.
DeleteBilly:
DeleteYes, I got much of my information from that thread. What of it? How is that relevant to anything, unless you're trying to poison the well here?
"Descartes may not have been trying to undermine religious knowledge, but Locke and Hobbes, as well as Voltaire and others were quite explicitly doing that."
Of these, only Hobbes is really a plausible candidate for what you are describing. Even then, he was more concerned with crushing the political power of Christianity than undermining religious knowledge per se. Locke advocates toleration, but this is not the same as undermining religious knowledge per se - that idea comes out of his empiricist belief that our assent to revealed truths mustn't go higher than our ability to rationally show that a divine revelation has in fact happened. Even Voltaire, who is infamously critical of the Catholic Church, doesn't neatly fit the mold - certainly he wished to promote religious tolerance and destroy the political power of the Church, but is that the same as "trying to get rid of the possibility of religious knowledge"? It seems more accurate to say that he wanted to place reason first and attacked dogmas as irrational.
"Roger Bacon's aim was very different to Descartes'."
This is completely irrelevant. I do not claim that Roger Bacon was a party with the Moderns, the only reason I mentioned him at all was to point out that it is ahistorical to suggest that the idea of organizing knowledge towards the betterment of human life was some novel invention of the Early Moderns.
"It is undeniable that the early moderns, often without rational argumentation provided, had a real animosity toward the Schoolmen and Aristotle."
Weasel words. Be more specific.
"The scholastic critiques of St. Thomas were still within the Platonic-Aristotelian paradigm. So, the critiques were often on far more nuanced points. They weren't critiquing the basic Aristotelian foundation. The early moderns were outright rejecting that, without much in terms of rational arguments provided."
I don't know why you think this is supposed to answer anything I said. Sure, the other Scholastics were still Aristotelians and their criticism of Thomas weren't attacks on Aristotelianism. My point here was that the notion of Scholasticism being some beautifully unified whole until the Early Moderns came and ruined everything is false. The Early Moderns did reject that, but it is false to suggest that said rejection starts with them, it starts with the Late Scholastics. You also here repeat Feser's assertion that there was "little argumentation", which is what's in dispute.
"Tell me: what were the early humanist or early modern critiques of, say, intrinsic final causes exactly? Apparently, you are convinced they dismantled it rationally. So, what exactly are the critiques they made?"
Nuh-uh, not falling for that burden-shifting you're trying to pull off here. I don't need to prove that the Early Modern critiques were correct, for I have made no such claim. YOU (and Feser) are the ones making the claim here, which is that the Early Modern rejection of Scholasticism was *motivated by a desire* to get rid of it, in other words that it was a dishonest agenda and that all the arguments were post-hoc rationalizations made to excuse what they simply wanted to do. Argue, if you wish, that their critiques were wrong. But to claim that they were DISHONEST, that they were simply intellectual cover for irrational, base motives, is another kettle of fish entirely.
Funny how when Billy simply asked what specific critiques were made by the early humanists, Exe shifts the narrative into claiming that the question was asking if those critiques were valid or not. Hilarious.
DeleteEXE In ‘Modern moral philosophy’, Anscombe describes Hume’s methods as ‘sophistical’. ‘A mere- brilliant- sophist.’ Which implies she thinks neither his motives nor his methods are rational. I haven’t read the last Superstition so I don’t know if it’s Ed’s view but in any event not all philosophers think early modern philosophers have clean hands.
DeleteAnyone who reads my comment carefully can tell that it was only ever about showing how Feser's account of how Scholasticism came to be replaced (specifically the one made in TLS) is ahistorical. Maybe Darnell can't read, or maybe he's lying in order to signal confidence to his in-group and "own" the outsider. Either way, I don't care. Let the reader make their own judgment.
DeleteEXE,
Delete"Nuh-uh, not falling for that burden-shifting you're trying to pull off here. I don't need to prove that the Early Modern critiques were correct"
You claimed they had rational critiques. I don't expect you to prove they were correct. It's okay if they are wrong. I simply want you to just provide the arguments they gave.
I ask because you seem to think they had some. A handful of humanists did have some quite obscure ones that argued that Aristotelian final causes contradicts scripture, some others argued that it didn't have practical application in the building of virtue, others thought some of the ways that final causes were applied seemed arbitrary. But none those aren't really strict refutations really.
The early moderns, on the other hand, didn't actually have arguments at all though. Descartes mildly remarks that final causes are not needed for scientific purposes but, again, that isn't attempting to refute anything, but just saying it can be ignored for scientific purposes. THere was the ongoing remark that the Schoolmen just blindly accepted Aristotle but, again, that isn't an attempted refutation. And that is the problem. Many people today and over the centuries have this assumption that the early moderns refuted Aristotle. But then you ask someone to provide the refutation and you get nothing. But, if they did, just provide 1 or 2 of them. That's all I asked.
If you can't find any, then it should raise a HUGE red flag for you as to WHY they had such a scoffing attitude to Aristotle and even why so many people today somehow think they had rational arguments. If it isn't a mere desire to reject him, then what was the reason?
Yeaaa sure, I’m lying. Says the guy who twists other people’s basic questions. You’re like a low rent version of StarDusty.
Delete@Billy: I think we'll agree that Aristotle introduced the notion of final causes -- which, as Prof. Feser pointed out, had antecedents in Anaxagoras and others -- to explain what he saw as goal-oriented movement and process in nature. Did Aristotle prove that there are final causes? Or was it that he argued, if there are not final causes, then we can't account for regularity observed in nature? If the latter, that's not, strictly speaking, a proof.
DeleteMy recollection of Descartes' actual argument at the beginning of his philosophical discourse simply ignores all of the prior state of philosophy and starts more or less from scratch. Doing so had the effect of considering all of Aristotle and Plato (and their critics in other schools) as so much fluff. He never then went back and took up detailed dis-proofs of the prior philosophies and their models.
DeleteYou can argue that nobody is required to start philosophy with "the state of the question" as prior thinkers have presented it, anyone can start from scratch if they want. It's true. But humanity as a whole (and science as the world now knows it) recognizes quite clearly that even if someone is smarter than any other individual around at the same moment, nobody is smarter than the whole body of all workers who work to increase knowledge, and usually anyone who discovers a really important contribution to human knowledge does so on the basis of what he has learned from past work (e.g. Newton, a great thinker, relied heavily on Kepler and Galileo). To think you are well justified in ignoring the entire body of prior philosophers and striking off completely on your own is the height of hubris; to then decline to (ever?) circle back - once you have developed conclusions - and then interact with past philosophy by integrating a successful critique of the past work and showing how your own model answers the same needs but does it better, that's just being an ivory tower egghead. Why should anyone else take you seriously?
To a degree, Hume's starting point is similar, and Kant's method of approach is equally dismissive of Descartes, and with more justification (though he doesn't simply dismiss out of hand the issues presented by empiricists). These moderns have not built on each other's< work, they have created largely disparate models of how to think about the world and truth, the "systems" being incompatible with each other. And I have not discovered them taking on Scholasticism specifically and attempting direct dis-proof - at least, not with anything remotely sound as an argument.
ficino4ml,
DeleteFrom my understanding, from Book II, ch. 8 of the Physics, Aristotle is arguing that no other cause can explain the regularity, only final cause can, and he deems the four causes to be an exhaustive list.
Whether you consider that a proof depends ultimately on your view of the PSR. If an explanation must exist and final causes is the only game in town, then final causes must be real. That seems to be a proof to me, and not merely an appeal to best explanation.
@Billy: I asked about Aristotle on final causes because in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy under Aristotle on Causality, Andrea Falcon writes, "Before considering how the defense is attempted, it is important to clarify that this defense does not perform the function of a proof. By showing that an approach to the study of nature that ignores final causality cannot account for a crucial aspect of nature, Aristotle does not thereby prove that there are final causes in nature. Strictly speaking, the only way to prove that nature exhibits final causality is to establish it on independent grounds. But this is not what Aristotle does in Physics II 8. Final causality is here introduced as the best explanation for an aspect of nature which otherwise would remain unexplained."
DeleteToo much to quote more from Falcon, but if you're interested in his take, see
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-causality/
Like you, Falcon says Aristotle introduces final causes in order to explain the regularity of processes in nature, e.g. sharp teeth in front, broad teeth in back are good for the animal (its survival), and appeals to coincidence don't cut it.
Do you think that Falcon is wrong to describe Aristotle's as an argument to the best explanation? Is Falcon wrong to say that in order for the argument to constitute a bona-fide proof, it would have to establish "on independent grounds" that there are final causes in nature?
My dim recollection of the Galileo and co. crowd is not so much that they refuted the doctrine of final causes as that they offered explanations for regularity in nature that did not need to appeal to final causality. I'm no specialist on 16th century phil. of nature, though.
It's true that Aristotle argued for final cause as the best explanation but he also used a deductive argument. Isn't a logical deduction a sort of proof?
Delete1. Natural events happen either by chance or for a purpose.
2. Events that happen by chance do not happen regularly or predictably.
3. Natural events happen regularly and predictably.
4. Therefore, natural events must happen for a purpose.
Strictly speaking, the only way to prove that nature exhibits final causality is to establish it on independent grounds.
DeleteUnlike most activity in nature, from which we must infer causes, we can directly observe final causality in nature. We ourselves act with final causes, and we observe this directly. And we are part of nature.
It may require more argument to establish OTHER cases of final causes, but there is no need to look elsewhere to establish THAT final causes are in operation. And once we can say with certainty that they exist, there's no reason to hold doubtful that they are the best explanation of many other events.
Golly. Somehow, this doesn't seem so much like a serious question as a very serious accusation of dishonesty.
ReplyDeleteI'd appreciate the "serious question" a lot more if you just called Dr. Feser a liar outright instead of the passive-aggressiveness.
Well, under most definitions, lying requires conscious deception, and I don't know Ed's mind. Maybe he wasn't lying, maybe he just has a crank view of history. What I do know is that the view of the history of philosophy that he's put forth would not be taken seriously by the vast majority of historians.
Delete"The moderns attack on Aristotle, Aquinas and Scholasticism paved the way for the development of contraception." That's absurd. Contraception has been around since 3000 B.C.E. Scientific advances paved the way for the methods we have today. Attacks on Aristotle and Aquinas had nothing to do with it.
ReplyDeleteYou clearly haven't been around here long enough. In *The Last Superstition*, Feser blames Nominalism for basically everything he doesn't like about modern politics - for the excesses of liberalism, atheism, the sexual revolution, abortion, etc. It's this particular community's manifestation of the more general Conservative Persecution Complex.
DeleteAnon at March 17, 2026 at 7:33 PM. You can't be this empty headed. "Contraception has been around since 3000 BC". Come on, you are playing at being this difficult on the matter. And watch as EXE traipses right into agreeing with you. I bet you wouldn't accept a similar argument on guns "oh, come on... launching projectiles from tubes has been around since 3000 BC!".
DeleteTim Lambert, you are empty-headed.
Deletehttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10615352/
"Male barrier methods (penile sheaths) were used in ancient Egypt and Rome, and a female condom was described in the Greek literature from 3000 BCE."
If you say feminism is a bad thing, doesn't that mean you're against women's right to vote, Edward? And you do realize that there are people BORN transgender, right?
ReplyDeleteNot all forms of feminism are the same. One can be against third or fourth wave feminism and still acknowledge basic voting rights. Also, hermaphrodites are not necessarily trans.
DeleteOne can be for women voting and against feminism. Women voting isn't exclusively a feminist project. In fact, it was the christian temperance movement that really pushed womens sufferage, not the feminist movement.
DeletePeople might be born with gender dysphoria, but that doesn't actually mean that males are born as actual girls. That just means the person has a disorder (aka something is not how it is SUPPOSED too be). That is especially apparent with the extreme correlation between gender dysphoria and autism and the damn-near 1:1 relationship between having gender dysphoria and having some personality disorder. The whole meaning of words like girl/boy or man/woman are incoherent in trans-ideology. They can't even agree among themselves what these words even mean once disconnected from biological sex and often end up with circular definitions.
The fact that someone is born with a certain (pre)disposition doesn't tell us anything about whether that disposition should be encouraged, suppressed, treated, ignored, etc. This was a bad argument when it was made in favor of gay marriage and it's a bad argument now. To get where it needs to go, it has to change from a scientific argument into a natural law argument of some sort, and that doesn't strike me as very promising. Not that that usually stops activists from hopping from scientific arguments to bad natural theology to gender mysticism without stopping to realize that scientists don't believe in souls, philosophers don't fall for is-ought arguments, and New Agers don't care about scientific arguments unless they confirm what they already want to believe. A good argument for gender transitioning might be possible, even in natural law terms.
DeleteBut I sure as heck haven't seen it yet.
@1st Anon:
DeleteDon't bother trying to argue this. These people are deeply immersed in and utterly committed to an ideology that takes essentialism for granted. They will simply deny that anyone can be born trans. This is what their ideology demands, and they don't care one white about the lived experience of trans folk or the harm their views cause to others.
There are also people who are just bi-sexual, and equally attracted to men and women.
Delete@Exe
DeleteYou aren’t something separable from your body and it makes no sense to talk of being born in the wrong one. There’s no experience that can cast any doubt that. It’s the extreme body modification that has been part of the trans ideology that has been causing harm. We should view it as a treatment for mental illness the same way we view lobotomies.
"These people are deeply immersed in and utterly committed to an ideology"
DeleteYou should take a good look at yourself.
So if being trans is to be regarded as a
Delete"lived experience", then surely wanting to identify as another race is just as valid of an experience. Right?
If theories of Trans identity force the Western World to sign up to the Universal Declaration of Substance Dualism then I say go for it.
Delete@Kevin, sure why not. Easier than making it dependent on one’s voting for Joe Biden.
@Michael
DeleteWell, nothin' I say is ever gonna change your mind, but thankfully, that won't matter for too much longer. Your kind is getting more and more fringe and socially unacceptable. Before too long, your beliefs will grant a pariah status comparable with that enjoyed by those who think Blacks and/or Women are inferior. Hate it as much as you like, but you can't stop it.
Predicted Responses:
-yOu dIdN't maKe an aRguMenT
-*verbal snarl*
-*scoff at the intellectual paucity of this absolute Bohemian*
-*angry cope about how reactionary Catholicism is totally gonna make a comeback and undo the last few centuries of progress*
EXE, this isn't even about essentialism. Many non-essentialist see the coherency problems (and real world harmss) with trans-ideology.
DeleteWith that said, the paranoid schizophrenic's lived experience will tell him that his curtains are talking to him, but that doesn't actually mean the curtains are, in fact, talking to him.
Plus, when you ask a trans-identifying male why he thinks he is a woman, he'll say things like "I want to wear dresses" and "I like the color pink", or "I like doing stuff that women do". Not to mention that nearly half of such males explicitly report having an erotic experience to it (they get aroused by seeing themselves in womens clothes).
There are males now, who don't produce breastmilk, who are making their infant children suck on their nipples. Why? Because "that's what women do", right? So, according to trans-ideology, this makes total sense.
It's the ones promoting trans-ideology that have the burden of proof to show that they can coherently explain these things. But, so far, they can't even coherently define man and woman.
"Your kind is getting more and more fringe and socially unacceptable. Before too long, your beliefs will grant a pariah status comparable with that enjoyed by those who think Blacks and/or Women are inferior. Hate it as much as you like, but you can't stop it."
DeleteWhether this trimphalism is warranted or not, and what this says about EXE and his intentions, and how his arguments, such as they are, should be received, I will leave to everyone to decide. I will note that a few days ago in London, a multitude of Muslims including the mayor Sadiq Khan, prayed in Trafalgar square, in a fantastic display of utter and complete domination. Responding to criticisms, Sadiq Khan appealed to secular, liberal values in his defense. It is one thing to expect your internal enemies to die out, by say indoctrinating the younger generations, it is quite another to defeat your external enemies; maybe the promise of freedom and prosperity, the luring with cell phones and porn, will work, maybe it won't. Or maybe the liberal and secular values will find a workable compromise with Islam and Sharia law values in some way that we cannot now foresee. It is one thing to expect your internal enemies to die out while in a time of prosperity, quite another in a volatile world where many (most?) young man cannot buy a house, or even find a stable, decent paying job, are not marrying and forming families (the main way to have a stake in the society you are in) and the welfare state is not sustainable (barring some technological miracle). As a practical matter, and quite ironically, liberals *may* want to assert the imperial dominance of the US for their global project to succeed.
Convince me of what? That a woman can sometimes be biologically male? That’s something that no one is truly capable of believing in, just like you can’t really believe 2+2=5. As Harrington points out even the most ardent trans supporters don’t really believe it; they understand exactly what a woman is when it’s time to go on a date or buy a baby.
DeleteNon-essentialism is objectively more insane and harmful than Trans-genderism. It takes a special degree of ideological self-hypnosis to drug oneself out of the principle of identity. Mostly it's politically motivated nonsense little more beyond the milk-faced student who says "morality is bad."
DeleteOn body modification--there is a terrible tragedy in that at some level people must know that these physiological changes do not give them a body of the opposite sex, so by their own beliefs how can it be anything more than a poor simulacrum?
The debate about transgenderism to me really seems to be among mental health professionals, not philosophers. The question is whether gender dysphoria is a real mental health condition, how does it operate, and whether gender-affirming care is beneficial in at least some cases. Its no different than bipolar or ADHD or any other mental health issue in that way. If gender-affirming care is beneficial in some cases compared to the alternatives (talk therapy, medication), that is a very different situation to one where gender-affirming care is a useless speculative folly that almost always leaves patients more distraught than before. If GAC is as beneficial as its proponents claim, the principle of double effect would take care of most of (though maybe not all) of the philosophical issues conservatives have with these procedures. If not, then the conservative critique is a lot more valid. Whether a biological male who received gender-reassignment surgery and socially presents as a female is ontologically a "man" or a "woman" according to philosophers is kind of beside the point.
DeleteTransgenderism isn't about a medical diagnoses. That's gender dysphoria. Transgenderism is about the meaning of words like "man", "woman" and what it means to identify and designate someone as these.
DeleteIt's about the meaning of words, and we can't trust medical professionals with that. I mean, killing people is now deemed healthcare.
There is tremendous appreciation for Thomism and Scholasticism in the Evangelical Theological Society. Matthew Barret, Gavin Ortlund, Jordan Cooper, Craig Carter, James Dolezal, Steven Duby, and Carl Trueman are leading figures in reviving "The Great Tradition" or "Classical Theology" within Protestantism, as were Norman Geisler and Tom Oden. Protestant Scholasticism (between 1530 and 1700 roughly for its heyday) largely retained Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics and largely rejected the via moderna and nominalism.
ReplyDeleteNorman Geisler received his Ph.D in phil at Loyola Univ, a Jesuit school, and wrote books and articles about Thomistic phil.
DeleteYes, I have used portions of Geisler's Thomas Aquinas: An Evangelical Appraisal in class before. His Systematic Theology also uses Aristotelian causes. For example, he discusses the sin in Genesis 3 as follows: the material cause is eating the forbidden fruit; the formal cause is disobedience; the efficient cause was the first human couple; and the teleological cause was pride.
Delete@Anonymous - Norman Geisler introduced me to classical theism many years ago. I was immediately drawn to it, though much of it initially remained opaque. It wasn’t until I encountered Ed Feser’s work that everything finally clicked. That was the point of no return.
DeleteTim Finlay, Is this you? If so, you have my respect for what you achieved.
Deletehttps://etsjets.org/job-candidate/timothy-finlay/
Thank you, Anonymous, that is me. I need to update it because I found a publisher for my work on genres and I have just received the proofs back from the editors. I shall give more news on this next month probably.
DeleteTim Finlay, Thanks for your reply. I see you have a undergrad degree from Ambassador College. That was affiliated with Garner Ted Armstrong and the World Tomorrow, right? I am not formally trained in biblical studies or theology ( I work in for a law firm) but theology and biblical studies have been my interest for many years and I have large personal library. If you were still at Azuza Pacific Univ, I was going to email you to discuss the O.T, but I didn't see you on the faculty. If you have an email address you would care to share, let me know. I wish you well on your forthcoming books.
DeleteI will debate any person on feminism in the comments today, if you want to do that.
ReplyDeleteFeminism has been a noxious influence on society because, at its core, it is the belief that men and women are different classes and that men have historically and currently oppress women. The domestic society (aka family) is then seen as the vehicle for that oppression and thus must be completely dismantled for women’s “liberation.” The result is unhappiness for both genders, especially young men, rampant misandry, and low birth rates. The last symptom of feminism is especially catastrophic given how our entire economic system hinges on our population being able to replace itself. In fact, you cannot have a society at all if you cannot generate new families.
Nobody will deny that, in the past, there were abuses of women. However, feminism is the wrong ideology to approach these issues, just as Marxism is the wrong ideology to approach these problem of labor. The answer is and always has been Catholicism, chivalry, and the veneration of motherhood against the forces of individualism, which would leave women at the mercy of predatory men. Men and women need to rediscover their duties towards each other. Feminism stands in the way of that.
I'll bite with this actually, though it's not a generic Left kind of response.
DeleteIndividualism is exactly what many forms of modern feminism stand against in that they appeal to dread abstract identity categories i.e. "women" as if they were some kind of collective interest group, thus following the general ID-pol "if one does not have x views one is not a real woman." Just think of the women, even black or lesbian women who have dared question whether abortion is not an 100% wonderful morally licit thing (China and the results of the one child policy come to mind).
Rather than fostering individual agency and its inseparable correlate awareness of responsibility many types seek to drown the agency and responsibility of individual women in the morally stupefying crowd identity of "Solidarity," a near meaningless Marxist dog-whistle. But to obey a group of women on the basis of their gender is as immoral to do the same with men.
On the other hand references to "predatory men" while themselves sometimes true, often have an implicature of denying or obscuring the female capacity for viciousness and sexual depravity--this is negative in that awareness of one's freedom and thus responsibilities means awareness of one's capacity do evil--to deny the latter is to deny the former. Both Right and Left are guilty of this.
*Torn loss from morality and responsibility the ultimate of "feminist" empowerment is the figure of Élisabeth Báthory--beautiful blood-bathing amoral noblewoman who cared for nothing but her beauty for its own sake. Yet such a figure is antipathetic to almost all forms of modern feminism as it's essentially anti-Marxist (she's the Ubermensch in a bodice).
"You cannot vote" is definitely oppression, just to list one of many examples!
DeleteThe "nuclear family" is really just a 1950's American Capitalist family, not some ancient, primeval thing that's existed since the dawn of humanity. Capitalism is'nt even 300 years old, being a direct result of the Industrial Revolution. People act like front he very first generation of humanity we always had daddy go to work to sell his labour to a wealthy "Boss" who gave him money that he took to a grocery store and good food for the stay-at home mom and her kids. These ideas stem from a sexist and ethnocentric 19th century lens on anthropology. in reality various societies prior to the influence European Imperialism did not function this way. Also, type in "prehistoric women worked" on google and you'll find some surprising results! Not to mention that women joining the workforce means they are no longer forced to live with men who rape them. & did you know it wasn't until the 1960s that raping one's wife was illegal in the US?
DeleteThe "nuclear family" is indeed an American 19th century creation, and arguably anti-Catholic in essence. But that can hardly be said to be "European Imperialism." One point that can be justly made about Trad Catholics is that they don't hold Protestants toes to the fire enough about contraception--many of these Protestants love appealing to perverted faculty type arguments against homosexuality, yet have few children.
DeleteThe well-known and sad fact here is that for Western academia prefers to focus on past injustices in their countries rather than present ones abroad because it's bound in incompatible narratives e.g. feminism and "anti-colonialism" (a self-serving Stalinquese project). Up until a few years (I am not sure if this has changed) spousal rape was not considered a crime in the Republic of China--there is a rather infamous horrible video of a female politician mocking the idea. Likewise the number of abortions in that country based on the preference for a male child over a girl dwarfs the Holocaust by some staggering sum, yet few call this out.
Denying the vote to women is not necessarily a form of oppression if one accepts the premise that the running of society is primarily a male responsibility while the running of the household is primarily a female responsibility.
Delete@WAV:
Delete"Chivalry" demonstrably does not work to protect women. The system you're proposing, even IF it actually functioned as you say, would merely be a slightly less bad form of oppression. Women would still be entirely dependent on men and would be unfree to live as they wished. They would still be forced to obey constructed social roles regardless of how much they hated them. Yes, it is better for men to be polite to women than having them be brutal. But it is best of all for women to be free and equal. Why should they not be? Would you want to live that way, if the coin of Fate had landed on the other end and you had been born a woman? Oppression does not come only in the form of physical chains and physical violence.
The above quote was made by a sexist.
DeleteYou'll notice that I mentioned neither the nuclear family nor female suffrage in my post on feminism. I mainly argued that feminism's view of men and women as distinct classes at war with one another is my central problem with it. The sequel to it is unhappiness, misandry, and low birth rates as the relationship between the sexes collapses.
DeleteMy claim is that feminism, properly understood, is hostile to all forms of male-female monogamous bonding, "nuclear" or otherwise. You have radical feminists claiming that heterosexual sex is rape and marriage a form of prostitution. They believe that children ought to be raised by the community rather than by their parents. They believe women ought to be focused on their careers rather than taking care of children, as though childcare was somehow demeaning.
EXE:"
DeleteWomen would still be entirely dependent on men and would be unfree to live as they wished."
Women are still entirely dependent on men, and always will be, for recognition of their rights, lol. What planet are you on?
Men and women will always be dependent on each other for essential needs. We are two halves of the same species, not separate classes that compete with one another.
DeleteAlso, a reason many women nowadays aren't stay at home moms or nuns nowadays is that having a job helps protect you from being dependent on a man who rapes you.
DeleteSomewhat unrelated, but I just wanted to say that I put a little shout-out to Dr. Feser in a novel I'm currently serializing over on Substack. The story is set in 2007, so the only book I could have one of the characters reading was Philosophy of Mind, but I felt it was the least I could do after all the enjoyment (and frustration) I've gotten out of this wonderful blog over the years: https://fearherwrath.substack.com/p/the-house-that-shadows-built-chapter-324
ReplyDelete"Feminism, contraception, and the trans phenomenon" are all good things and if Aristotle and scholasticism interfere with them, then its a good thing they were buried by modernism.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you disagree, but tough, that battle is over and your side lost. Maybe you should find something better to do in than nurse fantasies about rewinding history back to 1500 or whenver you think it was that things went wrong.
"that battle is over and your side lost".
DeleteBattles are rarely permanently won or lost.
The future belongs to those who show up. Increasingly, feminists are simply not reproducing themselves while groups that do reproduce themselves [e.g. the Amish, the Haredim and traditionalist Catholics] are not feminist. The future belongs to the latter, not the former.
Hahahahah. Oh wait, you were serious. Let me laugh even harder.
DeleteAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
This is pure, undiluted copium. Tell me, what's the apostasy rate among hardcore Traditional Catholics? This sort of thing isn't well studied, but I'd be absolutely gobsmacked if it was under 50%. Your kids are going to have to encounter the secular world at some point no matter how much you try to shelter them, and a lot of them are going to decide they like it better than the world of 17th century dogma. From my experience, when someone leaves a rigid religious group, they're a lot more likely to become a virulent atheist rather than just a friendly lax Catholic or secularist. Notably, all of the groups you mentioned as exemplars are tiny, insular communities that can only exist because of wider society around them. Actually, let me just check the assumptions you've made:
-That "Trad" group birthrates will remain consistently higher than secular birthrates for multiple centuries (any earlier timeframe for a Trad Replacement is too ludicrous to be worth responding to)
-That "Trad" group apostasy/deconversion rates are low and will remain low for multiple centuries
-That contact with the secular world will not significantly change the minds of new generations of Trads, OR that Trads will grow big enough to form entire ecosystems that can isolate you from cradle to grave.
Those don't seem like safe assumptions to me, especially given the rancorous infighting common in such groups. Trad growth claims are vastly over-stated, driven by vocal online presences and the fact that Trad parishes are generally rarer and thus people come from further afield to take part in them. The idea that you're genuinely going to outbreed the libs and create your Catholic Confessional Utopia is a fever dream that you cling to in order to deal with the fact that your views are losing cultural ground and you have no good plan for reversing that.
You cannot be anti feminist and a good person at the same time. It’s like being pro-segregation.
DeleteEXE, your posts consistently strike me as some of the most unhinged paroxysms I have ever seen. I wonder to myself "does he actually talk this way to people in real life?". I have to assume no. You have all of the e-bile spewage of someone who's never had to "pay the bill" for their insults.
DeleteBut that aside, you come across as unhinged. Your frenetic angry posts... occasionally followed by some post of "maybe I need time away from the internet"... Makes me wonder. EXE, did you ever Shea what your real name is?
EXE, your comments seem aimed at displaying an expert ability to be insufferable. Despite your best efforts to convince otherwise, you're just coming off as immature and insecure at this point. Maybe refrain from commenting at all. Especially if you actually desire to be taken seriously. If that's not your goal, why comment at all?
Delete"You cannot be anti feminist and a good person at the same time. It’s like being pro-segregation."
DeleteThat's ridiculous. Race and sex are two completely different things. People of different races are largely the same except for relatively minor cultural differences.
The two sexes, on the other hand, are fundamentally different. Feminists pretend that the sexes are essentially the same. This leads to animosity between the sexes, lower birthrates and gradual decline of feminist societies.
V83, the only thing rabid secular leftists have to offer is mere infantile and petulant provocation/mockery. Nothing more nothing less.
DeleteSpeaking of birthrates, why ignore the fact that the Muslim birthrate will ultimately dwarf secular non-religious populations by the year 2050 per PewResearch? Surely that is something to acknowledge. I don't recall anyone specifically saying that Traditional Catholics are the ONLY grouping whose birthrates are high or expected to grow exponentially, considering that anonymous included Amish and Haredim. Rather he's referring to traditionalist groupings that tend to have large families.
Delete"Feminism" when used by conservatives is essentially a negative boogeyman buzzword with no substantial meaning. It has the same place in their vocabulary as "woke" or "Marxism". 90% of "anti-feminist" conservatives are OK with women going to college and working in traditionally male professions like law, medicine, or serving in management roles in corporations, and they are also OK with married couples splitting up domestic tasks evenly, fathers using paternity leave, etc. These were not normal opinions to hold in US society prior to the rise of feminism in the 1960s. These are substantial social changes that were brought about by feminism. Its just that conservatives have internalized feminist social changes as "normal", while redefining feminism to refer to extreme academic sects. True anti-feminism exists among certain fundamentalists, but it would strike the vast majority of Americans, including most self-described conservative, church-attending Catholics and Evangelicals, as bizarre and extreme.
DeleteSome demographers attribute the fact that more feminist societies (US/UK/Nordics) have higher birthrates than Southern Europe and East Asia with the fact that parents are more likely to share domestic tasks in the former. In Italy, Spain, Korea, or Japan, what tends to happen is that both parents need to work for financial reasons, but social custom is that the woman does all the domestic tasks by herself, leaving her with two full time jobs. This strongly discourages women in these societies from having larger families, or starting families in the first place.
I think conservatives confuse (1) highly devout and motivated religious people (Trad Catholics, Orthodox Jews) with (2) mostly secular people with conservative views on gender roles. Most people just aren't that religiously devout, and never have been. In a less feminist society, category (2) will be a lot more common than category (1). That's how you end up with Italian or Korean birthrates.
I mock you because (at least on this type of politics) I don't consider you to be worthy of respect or serious attention. Most of the ideas being espoused here deserve to be marginalized and held up to public humiliation. What, do you expect me to hold a sober discussion as if "maybe women should be oppressed" is a viewpoint worthy of being taken seriously? Would you be willing to take me seriously if I started insisting that we ought to start mandating the teaching of atheism in schools? That Christianity should be banned? No, of course not. That's far beyond the pale of what you would consider acceptable politics. In that specific case I'd actually agree with you, but my point is that stuff like calling transgenderism a mental illness and taking the vote away from women are to me what state atheism or banning Christianity are to you - an unacceptable and monstrous position that must be opposed at all costs. We are too far apart for there to be common ground between us, so on these subjects there can be no debate. You disagree? Very well then, culture war it will have to be.
DeleteBut I suppose it's true that there's not really much point in me being around here. I don't respect most of the commentariat here and you don't respect me, so these games of ours don't amount to much beyond emotional validation on both our parts. Nobody's gonna change anyone else's mind, and honestly, there are better ways to spend my time on Earth. Keep your Medieval opinions, then, just don't bring them into the public space.
@the above from 4:45 AM: Japan and South Korea's low birth rates are because people there work TWELVE HOURS A DAY. And in the US we've been brainwashed into thinking it's normal to work eight hours a day! No wonder the suicide rate in these three countries is so high!
Delete@9:21 poster: You are generallizing three billion female human beings here, seemingly implying that they are unqualified to or should not vote, run for president, or do anything besides a homemaker or nun.
Delete@7:59 Anon:
DeleteDon't be surprised if he feels fully entitled to make that generalization.
More vacuous appeals to chronological snobbery fallacy and fragile moral outrage 🥱
Delete@ EXE:
Delete"Keep your Medieval opinions, then, just don't bring them into the public space."
Another example of an increasingly common phenomenon: those on the left wish to censor speech they disagree with.
And people wonder why an incompetent buffoon like Trump managed to get elected twice.
While I'm a liberal and mostly going to agree with the criticisms of the claims made in the original article, I'm not sure how much I could say that hasn't already been said. And as EXE notes above, it's hard or impossible to convince someone who's very dedicated to a particular viewpoint. I'll try to defend my own views if asked, but for now, I'm interested in hearing the Thomistic response to the bodily-rights argument for abortion - I've been wondering about it for a while. (Abortion might only be tangentially related, but OA Police brought it up earlier). So the argument basically goes that abortion is morally acceptable because no one, even another person, has the right to use someone else's body even if it's necessary for them to stay alive. Judith Jarvis Thompson's famous violinist argument is about this, and I've also heard arguments pointing out that you are allowed to refuse to donate blood, organs, etc. even if someone else would die without them.
ReplyDeleteSo what, from the Thomistic point of view, is the disanalogy between refusal of organ donation, etc. and abortion? Or is there such a disanalogy in the first place? (From what I've read of David Oderberg, he argues that you would in fact be morally obligated to stay attached to the violinist, that detaching is intentionally killing an innocent person, and any intuition otherwise is incorrect. I don't know if he says anything about organ donation, though). I will note that personally, while I would consider myself closer to "pro-choice" than "pro-life," I am skeptical of the bodily-rights argument in particular because I think, for roughly consequentialist reasons, that you might very well have radical obligations to help other people when what they stand to lose is greater than what you stand to lose. But for now, I'm interested in hearing out a non-consequentialist anti-abortion position on this matter.
I am not sure what a specifically Thomistic response would be, but I can give you a basic natural law point of view.
DeleteThe idea is that someone is not obligated to donate organs or blood because he did not cause the disease afflicting the person. There are diseases that exist, but people cannot be *obligated* to cure them. Though it may be admirable to do so. In the case of the violinist, the idea is the same. The person hooked up to the violinist did not cause his disease and so it would be beyond the call of duty, so to speak, to remain connected. Though the individual may decide to do so.
Likewise, with regards to refusing medical treatment. Someone who decides not to continue treating a fatal disease did not cause the disease. So this case is not equivalent to someone with a terminal illness who chooses to be killed.
The difference with abortion is that normal sexual acts of their nature lead to pregnancy. Not always, but it is still in their nature to do so. Pregnancy does not "just happen". Zygotes are not just "out there" like the people seeds analogy in Thomson's article where she talks about the violinist.
Likewise, from the natural law perspective, it would be wrong to eat lots of rich food and enjoy the experience, but them vomit it up to avoid gaining weight.
"So what, from the Thomistic point of view, is the disanalogy between refusal of organ donation, etc. and abortion?"
DeleteThe fetus is already using the organ. That's one difference. Even if some mad scientist stole your organ and put it in someone else, so it's completely without your consent, you can't then rip that person open and take your organ back.
But there is a further point to make: While most of our organs are for our own good, like your eyes are for you to see, our reproductive organs are primarily not for our own good, but for the good of another as well. For example, a woman's breasts naturally produce breastmilk, and naturally near the end of pregnancy (the fact that we can medically induce it, even in a deficient way in males, doesn't refute this natural fact). Now, we all recognize that this isn't produced for the mother. We know that it's produced for the baby to gain nutrients. Imagine a scenario where a 2 month old baby is starving to death, and say there is an infant formula shortage, thus the only nutrients available is the breastmilk in the mother's body. Do you think she has a parental obligation to breastfeed her child, or can she let her child die and simply say "The breastmilk is part of my body and I don't have any obligation to give it to my child"? Even without some comprehensive understanding of the final causes of the production of the breast milk, one can recognize that the reason her body produces the breastmilk is in order to give it to her child and if she refused, that would make her a neglectful parent. However, if the child needed blood instead, we wouldn't think the mother has some obligation to give blood because we recognize that her blood is primarily produced for her own body. So, we can recognize a distinction. A purely consequentialist view of organ donation is counter-intuitive, and an absolutist bodily-rights position is too. However, the Thomist view takes account of factors that can make more sense of this distinction. The function and purpose of a bodily organ or bodily product is a relevant factor in the ethics of acts like organ donation. The uterus, unlike, say, a kidney or heart, is FOR the unborn child that is in it.
There are several problems with the violinist analogy too.
Delete1. Unplugging from the violinist is NOT sufficiently analogous to abortion. I know pro-choicers like to use euphemisms like "terminating a pregnancy", but giving birth or getting a C-section also terminates a pregnancy (because the pregnancy ends), but those are obviously not abortions. Abortion requires that the fetus die. If a fetus survives an abortion, that is a failed abortion. If a doctor needs to remove the fetus to save the mother's life (which happened to a friend of mine with an ectopic pregnancy recently), and tries his best to keep the fetus alive, but the fetus dies anyway, that is an unfortunate casualty, but it's NOT an abortion. The more accurate analogy to abortion would be to take a knife and stab the violinist in the neck to kill him before unplugging yourself, which I assume you would agree would be gravely immoral.
2. The woman has specific parental obligations of care to her own child that she doesn't have with the violinist. Do you know the 'drowning babies" thought experiment? Imagine you walk by a lake and see 1000s of babies drowning. One can intuitively conclude that you have an obligation to save at least some of them. However, if you have your own kids, you can't be there forever saving the drowning babies while your kids are starving to death at home. Your obligations to your kids take priority over the drowning babies. The purely consequentialist view wouldn't recognize the prioritization in any necessary sense. But Thomism does account for that. So you will have to stop saving the drowning babies at some point, preferably after finding someone to take over. Similarly, with the violinist, if you have kids to take care of or some other overriding obligation, there is the possibility that you may have to, at some extreme point, unplug from him (but, no matter what other obligations you have, you can't stab him in the neck, remember, so it's not sufficiently like abortion anyway). But even then, you can't just do it for any bodily-autonomy claim. However, the violinist analogy is, for another reason, not sufficiently analogous because, with pregnancy, the fetus IS your child, so this reason doesn't apply even in the case of simply removing a living fetus. If, instead of being connected to the violinist, you are connected to one of your children, you can't unplug yourself out of concern for another of your children. In the real world, we would be horrified to learn a mother neglected one child until he died because she prioritized another. There is no substantial difference in the dignity and entitlement to a parent's love and care between the born and unborn.
@Intentionality Anon
DeleteThe violinist argument is bad or at least disanalogous as an unborn child does not intend to violate somebody else's bodily integrity*. If the argument were modified to say that the violinist had no say in the matter of being hooked up to the person (say a mad scientist kidnapped them both) then it would be more analogous. But then I straight up say one does have a duty not to immediately unplug and at least try to get medical assistance. If it turns out one must stay hooked up to the violinist for eight months or till doctors find sufficient donated organs then that may well be a duty one is bound to.
*Hypothetically this might allow a more conservative pro-choice person wiggle room in the case of rape or sexual harm where they could argue there was a morally relevant difference.
Staying hooked up forever is a different issue; in that case I'd say the onus might be on the violinist to allow themselves to die.
(Part 1)
DeleteAlright. So yeah, I was thinking that Thomists (or just natural law theorists in general, such as @NLR) would discuss special obligations, the telos of bodily organs, and the doing/allowing distinction to explain the difference between abortion and the other scenarios that certain pro-choicers try to compare it to. What I was surprised by is that Oderberg (unless I'm misremembering) apparently said that even unplugging from the violinist is wrong, so I was wondering how much stress was actually being put on the disanalogous elements. With that said, while again, I myself actually don't necessarily support abortion for a bodily-rights reason, there have been pro-choice responses to these claimed disanalogies. I'll discuss them so, if nothing else, people here know what they are saying.
For the responsibility objection that NLR brought up, does that apply to pregnancy due to rape (which I believe was the original context of the violinist argument, with the "people-seeds" argument mentioned later an attempt to extend it to consensual acts)? Because from what I've heard, natural law theorists oppose abortion even for a pregnancy caused by rape. In addition, it's been pointed out that even in cases where, for instance, somebody assaults someone else to the point of causing organ failure, the law cannot force the aggressor to donate organs. However, pro-choicers making the latter point all too often seem to forget that laws might be immoral and could be changed (even though those points are important for the pro-choice cause, given that many places have restrictive anti-abortion laws).
Billy, I think that a response to the organ theft case could be that if your organs are stolen and implanted into someone else, they are no longer working for you and part of your body, while in pregnancy, your organs are still working for you and part of your body, even though they are also working for the fetus. Now usually, you have the right to take something back if it was stolen from you, so this is an odd situation where you cannot. I would say, however, that your relationship to your own body is different from your relationship to your property (and I think that hylemorphists would agree, to some extent at least).
As for the telos argument, I've argued before that teleology is not actually morally important. However, this is a major issue on its own, so I won't go into much depth for now. But I think the breastfeeding case might still be useful, though extended. Namely, if you find an abandoned baby and no one else is available, I would say it is your responsibility to take care of the baby if possible, even if that requires you breastfeeding and even if the baby isn't biologically related to you.
(Part 2)
DeleteFor the killing versus letting die argument, some people, including me, are skeptical there is a moral difference. But I think that others, including Thomson herself and David Boonin (who has defended Thomson's arguments) have argued that even if there is a moral difference, killing is acceptable in some cases where letting die is. I believe Boonin has actually defended stabbing the violinist if he won't feel pain (such as if he's unconscious), when somehow that's the only way to free yourself from him. And there's the argument that hysterotomy abortions that involve removing the uterus, or abortion pills that cause an embryo to detach from the uterus, are analogous to disconnecting from the violinist (though others, even at least one pro-choicer, have stated they still count as killing). But it's another complex and interesting issue. (Though for pro-choicers who appeal to the law, pointing out that stabbing the violinist would be illegal even if disconnecting is legal might do something. They might then make a self-defense argument, though).
Anonymous, I think that might be closer to (my understanding of) Oderberg's views - you are obligated to stay attached to the violinist after all. But from what I remember, the original thought experiment already had no implication that the violinist himself was the one responsible for being hooked up to you. And many people, certainly many pro-choicers, would say that you are allowed to detach even if the violinist is completely innocent. But this might be a clash of intuitions, if some pro-lifers would say otherwise. Though I'll note that the right to defend yourself with force if necessary against even an innocent threat is widely accepted, including by me, though natural law theorists might disagree. (It might also be that the law would in fact allow you to detach in all cases - but yet again, laws can be changed).
It does seem odd to me if you're arguing that you could detach from someone who intentionally plugs into you, even if them plugging in temporarily is the only way they can save their own life, yet you cannot detach in the same situation without the intentional plugging. This might be due to my consequentialist leanings. I think consequentialism might have a different way of saying why staying plugged in your whole life shouldn't be mandatory - both of you restricted that much for your whole lives might be worse than one dead and the other free. (By the way, though this is directed at Billy, I have heard of the "drowning child" thought experiment. I wanted to discuss it more, but this is getting long enough already).
Most versions of the Violinist argument do in fact assume that the Violinist had no intention of becoming hooked up to you. It'd be a pretty blatant omission if they didn't, wouldn't it? Since the fetus' lack of intention is obviously an important part of the discussion? I don't know if I actually agree with the Violinist Argument, but I don't think the accounts people here are giving are accurate. Also, I don't understand how Billy's point about the type of violence involved is relevant. Stabbing someone to death and unplugging their life support both directly lead to their deaths, don't they? It doesn't seem correct that the *force* used is what makes the act wrong. After all, if it did, couldn't someone counter by saying that this just proves that we should use less violent and painful methods of abortion?
DeleteHi Intentionality Anon,
DeleteI appreciate the generous response. I wouldn't be able to get to everything, but I'll respond to some.
You say, "if your organs are stolen and implanted into someone else, they are no longer working for you and part of your body, while in pregnancy, your organs are still working for you and part of your body, even though they are also working for the fetus"
This is very important. Firstly, when you say "working for", how is this being used? I assume you mean the teleological sense of performing it's proper function as the organ it is. If someone stole your kidney and just taped it to his shin to use as a shin-pad in soccer, that wouldn't be the kind of "working for" that you mean, right? If you do mean the proper function sense, this raises the question of the proper function of the uterus. As mentioned, the reproductive organs don't appear to be working for the ones who have them, but for another, and being other-directed. This would entail that it is working for the unborn child, and only the woman in a secondary sense. I think you would run in to some serious problems if you tried to go with the broader understanding of "working for". The broader sense, disconnected from the recognition of proper function, would entail that my wife's larynx is working for me when she tells me I need to get up or I'll be late for work. Maybe you can make a case for how the uterus's proper function is for the woman.
As a side point, regarding what you say about final causes not being morally important, to say that something is "working for you", in the proper function sense, I'm not sure how you avoid this ultimately meaning "working for the GOOD of you". In the case of your organ transplanted in to another, it would seem that teleology would be relevant to who the organ is working for and a part of, which is relevant to the moral concerns. I assume you think you can unstrap your kidney from the thief's shin and take it back.
Secondly, we would need to know what it means to be "part of your body". This might seem simple but there is a lot of philosophical discussion about parts, and Thomism has it's view as well. Unfortunately, I doubt we can resolve this in a comment thread, but I wish to only point out that it's not so easy to narrow down. Sure, for most cases, it's rather intuitive, but even organ donation or theft throws some interesting curveballs. If your kidney is stolen and is sitting in a cold storage container, currently not working for anyone, is it part of you still? Thomism, as far as I understand, would say yes, but would you? Saying no opens up a whole bunch of issues, especially if you agree that the body isn't like property and, I assume, strapping a kidney to a shin doesn't make it part of someone.
Regarding breastfeeding, yea, a woman may be obligated to breastfeed a strangers baby. Although, it wouldn't be the same obligation as the mother.
Oederberg is broadly correct, I'd say, but, as mentioned, there would still be some circumstances were you can detach, but it won't depend on a bodily autonomy reasons at all.
Intentionality Anon,
DeleteThe main argument would be that disconnecting from the violinist is not analogous to abortion. The reason is because in abortion, the death of the developing child is deliberately caused, while in the case of the violinist, the death of the violinist is not deliberately caused. I am pretty sure that this argument is made in Philippa Foot's essay "Killing and Letting Die", but I read it a long time ago so maybe it was somewhere else. She specifically refers to the violinist argument in it.
Overall though, I think that in terms of abortion and in philosophy in general, the meta-philosophy, the philosophy behind the philosophy, the thinking and motivation beyond the specific arguments is just as important and even more so than the specific arguments themselves.
For instance, a common reason given for not drinking and driving is that one does not want to be at the risk of injuring oneself or someone else. But the whole way that the issue is considered is that sobriety is an individual's responsibility. An ordinary person is capable of understanding the issues and of acting upon them. Also, it is not just that society is prohibiting something, but the idea is that people should want to live up to a higher standard. By contrast, abortion is often treated as a riddle for the professional ethicists. The ordinary person should follow what society (meaning mass media, government, academia, NGO's, etc.) have to say. Furthermore, it is presented as all about society making or not making people do things, not about an individual trying to know and follow a moral standard.
As far as the moral importance of teleology, I would say that it is one of the most morally important things. I will elaborate on this a little bit. What I mean by teleology more specifically is the purpose or nature of particular things, more broadly than any particular philosophical framework which teleology comes into. This is where the meta-philosophy comes in, because whether things have a particular nature, whether they are a certain way and this is because of what they are is a big question.
For instance, some philosophers seem to have the idea that only elementary particles have defined natures; everything else is just a combination with particular properties, but there is no deeper significance to those properties. If one comes down on that side of the question, then that settles a lot of philosophy right there. One can talk about game theory, social convention, and all the rest of it, but it ultimately comes down to what people can convince others of, not what should be.
But this relates to intentionality as well. Consider the famous illustration of monkeys with typewriters, randomly producing text. As far as the monkeys can tell, it is all just combinations: the complete works of Shakespeare are the same as a haphazard jumble of letters, spaces, and punctuation. One might say, "meaning in language comes about by convention", but that is missing the bigger picture. Why is there even language in the first place? Why can words, sentences, paragraphs cohere into a story? It is not possible to derive the fact that they do cohere just from the fact that they are combinations, that has to come from the fact that they are intentional, that they are about something.
And so, if there is no such thing as how things should be, it is just a matter of how we can arrange things according to our wishes. But if things do have natures, ways that they should be, then we should try to understand that and live in accordance with it.
Hi Intentionality Anon, I would recommend Christopher Kaczor’s book, “The ethics of Abortion.” His refutation of the violinist argument is not distinctively Thomistic, but it is non-consequentialist. It’s been years since I’ve read it but I think he has a response to just about everything you’ve mentioned.
DeleteHe also confronts stronger versions of the bodily autonomy argument such as that advanced by David Boonin as well as other arguments for abortion. Frankly, it’s the best book I know of on the ethics of abortion.
Also, I doubt I can convince you that teleology is morally relevant (certainly not in a little comment here) but maybe Dr. Feser can help you to see that it’s not so unreasonable to think it is. If you’ve never read his essay “In Defense of the Perverted Faculty Argument,” I recommend it.
(Part 1)
DeleteSorry for the wait, everyone. I got busy. Billy, what I meant by "not working for you" is that if your organ is completely detached from your body, it currently isn't doing what it would normally do for your body. This is entirely consistent with the teleological view that what it should be doing is working for you. As for the other person, I was focusing more on the fact that if the organ is implanted in their body, you would have to intrude into their body to get it out, while you wouldn't have to do that if it was merely taped to a shin. This isn't directly related to function, and could even apply in cases such as smugglers hiding contraband inside their bodies (would the law allow forcibly performing an operation to remove those items? I'm not actually sure).
I'll again note that I myself am not committed to bodily-rights arguments; I was just suggesting what a pro-choicer dedicated to them might say when confronted with the organ theft case. I do agree that if one isn't an eliminativist about biological teleology, it is plausible that part of the purpose of your organs is to work for a fetus during pregnancy, and this does make fetuses different from parasites (a tapeworm, say, might be relying on your organs, but it's not the teleological function of those organs to support the tapeworm). However, I did argue that teleology isn't morally important in the comments section of a previous post. (And yes, I have read Dr. Feser's essay that Dario mentioned - much of my discussion in those previous comments was about the Perverted Faculty Argument). I'm worried that saying the whole thing again here would be way too long (EXE, incidentally, was there and saw it).
But very briefly, I think that pleasure and suffering have intrinsic value and disvalue, respectively, and this can be perceived by reflecting on their natures. I think that this can be an objective ground for morality, even apart from teleology (contrary to Dr. Feser's claims that only teleology can objectively ground morality). In addition, while rejecting the existence of all teleology, even within the mind, does appear to lead to incoherence, rejecting the existence of teleology outside minds/treating it as merely a projection of minds doesn't seem obviously incoherent in this way (even if it happens to be false). Dr. Feser's argument for biological teleology that I remember is that it is necessary for biology and that every attempt to reduce it to something else (such as in certain interpretations of evolution) leads to indeterminacy issues. Some quick responses:
- Even if all reductions of teleology lead to indeterminacy, perhaps biology is fine with studying the indeterminate. Is there any sense of teleology that is both necessary for biology in particular and must be completely determinate?
- If teleology doesn't exist outside the mind, how can it be useful in biology in the first place? I'm a scientific realist, as Feser is, and that is an important question. But there are ideas in other sciences that clearly don't exist yet are useful, such as frictionless surfaces and point masses in physics. Assuming our minds have been shaped to some extent by evolution for survival, perhaps projecting our sense of purpose onto mindless organisms can help us understand their survival.
(Part 2)
DeleteAnyway, because I believe that it is certain conscious states that have intrinsic value, I think that abortion before a fetus develops consciousness is completely morally unproblematic in ordinary circumstances. This principle of value also explains why it's okay to take an irreversibly brain-dead person off life support, even if machines could keep their other biological processes going on indefinitely. But if only consciousness matters, would that mean it's okay to kill someone who's asleep or in a temporary coma? No, because their mental states before and after temporary unconsciousness are connected, while the pre-conscious fetus and the brain-dead body don't have either the "before" or "after" respectively and so cannot be harmed. (I'm ignoring any afterlife or pre-existent souls for now, but note that if there is a good afterlife, that raises the question of whether death really is a harm in the first place).
After a fetus becomes conscious, things become more complex. Dario, while I haven't read the book you mentioned (I might see if I can get it), I have read "Abortion Rights: For and Against," which features Christopher Kaczor debating Kate Greasley. Interestingly, despite defending the pro-choice position, Greasley criticizes bodily rights arguments, arguing they wouldn't work if fetuses were people. She instead argues that fetuses aren't people. However, I think it's sentience that's really relevant, which might allow restrictions on late-term abortions. Yes, this means it is often wrong to kill nonhuman animals. Unlike Kaczor and Greasley (I think), I'm fine with that conclusion. I think both also agree that abortion is killing, not letting die, and while I mostly also agree, why don't the hysterectomy or pill abortions mentioned earlier count as letting die? Is it the teleological "it's natural for a fetus to be unable to survive outside the womb, but abnormal for a born human to be unable to survive without being hooked up to someone else?"
I’m still hoping someone better qualified than I am will jump in here, but I can answer part of your question. I wasn’t able to read all the previous comments so hopefully I’m not misunderstanding the question from lack of context (forgive me if I am).
DeleteI don’t know enough about the abortion pill to speak about it, but regarding hysterectomy, I think from a natural law point of view, its moral rightness or wrongness in any particular case depends on intention and circumstances. Hysterectomy is an example of indirect abortion. If it is done for the purpose of killing the fetus it is always wrong. If however, a pregnant woman’s uterus is cancerous and leaving it would kill her, and the death of the fetus is an unintended side effect of the removal of the uterus, then saving the mother’s life could be a proportionate reason for performing a hysterectomy.
I realize that doesn’t answer your question really. You’re probably wondering, “Okay, but why would we need the circumstance of a cancerous uterus for the hysterectomy to be justified but in the case of the violinist there is nothing analogous to the cancerous uterus yet some argue it is still justified?” It may have something to do with the teleology you mentioned. I personally actually always leaned toward the intuition of being obligated to stay plugged into the violinist. And for somewhat similar reasons to you. But I’m thinking within the boundaries of double effect.
DeleteAlso, to clarify, you asked for a non-consequentialist position. I took you to mean consequentialist in the narrow sense. I know of no argument that doesn’t take ends into account. They are important even for a Thomist, but they are just one determinant in analyzing the morality of abortion.
""Feminism, contraception, and the trans phenomenon" are all good" good for whom? The national travestiche bewegung you belong?
ReplyDeleteWomen, people who don’t want kids, and trans people. That’s who.
Delete"people who don’t want kids" your attempt to inflate the argument to make it seem like it represents a larger group of people is simply pitful. You should be ashamed of such a bogus attempt like that.
DeleteSugar isn't good for diabetics just because they want it.
DeleteInflate? Who do you think contraception is made for? Someone else besides people who dont' want kids? I don't understand what you're trying to say.
DeletePriests, celibates, monks, and ascetics don't want to have kids, either. Do they also make part of the movement? Notice that the reason or motivation of why any of these groups mentioned present to "not wanting kids" doesn't really matter. What the point is about is that you can't simply sloppily lump all these people together under the umbrella of "not wanting kids" and tell us that contraception as such is a good because people don't want kids. Contraception is not a natural thing; it has a lot of effects on a woman's body, for example. A priest would not agree; a classical philosopher who exempts himself from bodily pleasures would also reject introducing something unnatural into the body to prevent the natural process of fecundation.
DeleteIn other words, when you simply put "people who don’t want kids" under the umbrella of being favorable to contraception, you are inflating (and also conflating) the number of people who might or might not agree with what you have to say. You can't do that in an honest discussion. The same example would also apply to feminism and the so-called "trans people." There are a lot of people who don't want to have kids but find the idea of impeding the life cycle with contraception to be abhorrent. That's a fallacy that the left usually does as a trick to mislead people into thinking that their ideas "represent" or "adhere" to most people, but that simply isn't true. That's why you should be ashamed of using such a dirty trick.
Yea, it's not "people who don't want kids".
DeleteIts people who want to be able to do the thing that produces kids without producing kids.
They want to do the equivalent of tasting and swallowing food, but avoid all digestion. In short, they want to be slaves to their appetites and never be confronted with that truth.
Talk about splitting hairs!
DeleteAlthough it is different insofar as not digesting will actually kill you, while using a condom or masturbating has never killed anyone.
Delete@Vini, most people wouldn't automatically think of including celibate priests, monks , and nuns when reading the words "people who don't want kids".
Delete@V83 Did anyone get obese from feminism, being trans, or contraception? I know they have from excess sugar.
Delete@Anon from 21 March, 7:47
DeleteIt's not splitting hairs at all; it is a very basic point. You must not be used to thinking about these matters, but, in fact, it is a very simple point about fallacies.
@Anon from 21 March, 7:50
Your rhetoric does not follow. V83's point was about not going through with the natural processes of human life, and he used a very clear (natural) example of eating food (tasting) and not wanting its effects (digestion, perhaps in fear of gaining weight, and so on). It was a very clear example that he gave. Also, very importantly, nitpicking on the examples is not a good strategy, since we can clearly change the example, and the point still holds.
@Anon from 21 March, 7:54
That's a valid observation, Anon! But my point was not about who people think the label "not wanting to have kids" applies exactly to. My point was that there are people who don't want to have kids but will also reject contraception as a method. A very clear example would be of an ascetic and a celibate. These people don't want to have kids for philosophical or religious reasons, but they will reject contraception, too. Even if people don't usually think about them, they are part of the group that "doesn't want kids."
The reason I presented this point was to show that the first Anon was inflating his argument, in the sense that he was taking for granted that his personal beliefs about feminism, contraception, and trans would apply to a larger group of people than it actually applies.
@Anon from 21 March, 7:55
Your sophistic rhetoric towards V83 is simply puerile. It shows one of two things: 1) you couldn't understand his point, or 2) you deliberately tricked your intellect into not taking his point into account, and then fabricated this infantile answer. Such a vitriolic attitude will not lead you anywhere, man.
@Vini Tadeo
DeleteIs 7:55 anon's response really incorrect? It seems to me that they were pointing out a disanalogy between the two metaphors. V83 was saying that "sugar isn't good for diabetics even if they want it", clearly suggesting that his point was "just because you want something doesn't mean it isn't harmful". In that context, anon's response seems to be pointing out that sugar consumption has harmful effects that can be objectively observed. What are the parallel harms caused by feminism, contraception, and transgenderism? Even if you could identify harms, you would also then need to show that they are greater than the harms caused by not permitting or supporting these things. For instance, many trans people find that their mental health and quality of life greatly improve after transitioning, so even if you can identify harm caused, it needs to be so great that it is not worth permitting in order to save people's mental health and quality of life.
Also, Vini, your attitude seems rather condescending. If you stopped treating other people like they're stupid for not agreeing with you, perhaps these discussions would generate more light than heat.
Delete@Vyakhya,
DeleteYou said,
"Is 7:55 anon's response really incorrect? It seems to me that they were pointing out a disanalogy between the two metaphors. V83 was saying that "sugar isn't good for diabetics even if they want it", clearly suggesting that his point was "just because you want something doesn't mean it isn't harmful". In that context, anon's response seems to be pointing out that sugar consumption has harmful effects that can be objectively observed."
V83 was referring back to a traditional point about nature and its telos, and the fact that people only want 'the good part' or 'the fun part' without going through the natural cycle of it. It was not a simple-minded affirmation that "sugar is bad for you," but that there are things in nature that we should refrain from doing (e.g., as in the case of a diabetic).
You continue
"What are the parallel harms caused by feminism, contraception, and transgenderism?"
I wasn't making a point about feminism and trans, even though we could do so, too. My point was that Anon was committing the same mistake as you are doing now: lumping all together in hopes that it sticks. My point was about contraception, and that there are people who don't want to have kids, who would also reject contraception. My point was as simple as that! But then, you shift the discussion:
"Even if you could identify harms, you would also then need to show that they are greater than the harms caused by not permitting or supporting these things. For instance, many trans people find that their mental health and quality of life greatly improve after transitioning, so even if you can identify harm caused, it needs to be so great that it is not worth permitting in order to save people's mental health and quality of life."
There are a couple of things wrong with what you are saying. First, when you say, "Even if you could identify harms, you would also then need to show that they are greater than the harms caused by not permitting or supporting these things," you are imposing premises that your adversaries do not need to agree with. You are basically pressing a utilitarian view -- which most of us here reject. The value of a thing is not measured by contrasting its pros vs cons; philosophy and moral choices are harder and more complex than that.
Also, one need not show the benefits of transgenderism, feminism, or contraception while criticizing a view; that's the job of the defender of a theory, not the critic! The critic, of course, needs to take them seriously, but you can't simply impose the burden of proof on the critic of a position -- you need to show him why he is wrong in the first place.
Lastly, just a simple dialectical point for you to think about: suppose that most people would simply find it beneficial for society that beggars should do forced labor. Measuring the pros vs cons, it was clear that beggars would be more productive if doing so. The million-dollar question is this: Is this right or wrong to do? Of course, it is wrong, but measuring the pros vs cons will not lead you to that conclusion.
The same goes for measuring the pros vs cons of trangenderism, say. Suppose that, for the sake of the argument, we decided against transition because the suicide rate is higher, depression hits harder, and there are a lot of people that regreted doing so. Would you still wave the flag of utility even though it goes against your personal beliefs about these matters? At the end of the day, though, you should be careful about measuring the value of things due to their utility, or else you are not as distant from the fascists you guys so eagerly claim to be against.
As for your last point: "Also, Vini, your attitude seems rather condescending. If you stopped treating other people like they're stupid for not agreeing with you, perhaps these discussions would generate more light than heat."
DeleteThere are a lot of people here whom I disagree with, but I do respect their answers and, most of the time, find myself unable to answer them the way I would like. A great example is Miguel Cervantes, who most of the time delivers good criticisms. The difference is that Miguel is a gentleman in the comment section, but you guys hide under the veil of anonymity, disrespect Ed and others with childish behavior -- and then when someone raises the tone, you guys don't like. This is not Twitter; this is a blog where people have bounds and are directed at the deliverances of philosophy, not childish behavior (like accusing Ed of being against women voting, mocking others' responses, and so on).
By the way, I will no longer interact in here, since the level of the discussion is at an all-time low (the arguments presented against us haven't changed a bit), and I said what needed to be said.
Ah, so it's a telos vs harm argument, then? Well, the issue I'm having is that despite looking high and low, I have not been able to find a satisfying explanation of either telos' existence or the claim that we ought to follow our teloi. Harms, on the other hand, objectively exist and can be demonstrated.
DeleteTelos is a very nice and intuitive claim, but in my experience it breaks down under close scrutiny, requiring increasing levels of motivated reasoning in order to continue supporting. Let me explain what I mean.
Aristotle originally came up with the form-matter distinction in the context of created objects. This can be seen in the fact that the actual word for "matter" used, ὕλη, literally refers to wood or timber. This suggests that the fundamental metaphor being used is that of furniture or other manufactured goods. This brings to mind the idea of "making", and of course when we humans make things it is for specific purposes, with specific ends in mind.
But this scheme runs into problems in many areas. For one, what about things that are very obviously not the products of design? What is the form, essence, or perfection of a slab of granite? What is the final cause of a lightning bolt? But much more of a problem is the fact that it doesn't really work very well for living creatures either.
Aristotle tries to apply this analysis to them in De Anima, and he categorizes their perfections under "faculties" which can be actualized to achieve the "true perfection" of a given species. Plants bear fruit and reproduce, animals do this plus movement and sensation, humans do all that plus reasoning. Very tidy, and to some extent, it works. But how does one identify the true form? How can you actually know that you've identified the qualities that constitute perfection in a particular specimen?
Say I have a daffodil in my hands. What shade of color is the "best" shade for it to have? What is the ideal shape for its petals, sepals, stamen, and stem? In fact, how do we know that reproduction is actually this plant's highest end, rather than something else? Who’s to say that these attributes and tendencies constitute perfection for the daffodil at all? Aristotle thought so, certainly, but surely we can't just say "Aristotle taught such" and leave it at that, can we? All of these problems seem puzzling, and I haven't found a good answer for them. If perfections can really be found in nature, there should be a good way of demarcating them, surely?
Then, of course, evolution makes this problem even worse. We now know that species are not stable, static things created once and then established forever immutable. Instead, they are constantly in the process of changing into new types of things, sometimes very different things. This means that species is not a "thing" but more like a continuum. What seems like an aberrant mutation may in fact simply be the early manifestation of a change that will become the dominant form further down the line. There are many indeterminate forms that straddle the line between species, and even within a single species there can be a great number of natural attributes that do not contribute at all (and sometimes even thwart!) what we imagine to be the ends or perfections of a thing.
These problems (demarcation, ranking, and explanation) seem to make hylemorphism very problematic. At best, it seems to be a highly limited and antiquated form of analysis that's only applicable in very specific domains. Simply documenting natural phenomena without seeking a normative standard for "perfection" seems to be a more fruitful exercise, less blinkered by assumptions about how things "ought" to be, or what they are "for".
Vyakyha,
DeleteI don't know where you get your info, but may I suggest you try one of the many free AI applications to test out your assumptions before posting at a blog where many people have considerable knowledge regarding AT philosophy? It will help keep the level of engagement at a higher level here.
For instance:
Gemini:
"Since a slab of granite has no particular form, how would Aristotle classify it?"
Aristotle would classify a slab of granite with no particular, designed form as a primary substance (a "this-something" or tode ti) characterized as proximate matter or potentially formed matter.
Even if the granite is just a rough, shapeless slab (lacking a specific "formal cause" like a statue), Aristotle would not consider it entirely "formless." He would classify it through the lens of hylomorphism (the compound of matter and form) as follows:
As Matter (The Material Cause): It is the raw material (hyle) for a future object, such as a statue or a pillar. It is in a state of potency, meaning it has the potential to receive a new, specific form.
As a "This-Something" (Primary Substance): Because the slab is a natural, tangible thing, it is an individual substance (a particular stone) rather than a "prime matter" (which is purely theoretical matter with no form at all).
As a "Homoiomerous" Stuff: As a mineral, it is part of the class of materials where every part is the same as the whole (like rock or bronze), possessing "natural form" as a substance, even if it lacks a designed shape.
The Four Causes View:
Material Cause: The granite itself.
Formal Cause: Low-level; it is simply a "slab" or "stone," but lacks a specific, final form.
Efficient Cause: The workers who quarried it.
Final Cause (Purpose): To be made into something else (e.g., a table).
In summary, for Aristotle, a shapeless slab of granite is a concrete substance that is matter relative to a future purpose.
I think he meant a slab of granite just lying in the ground, never to be discovered or mined.
Deletebmiller, are you actually serious? AI is notorious for its unreliability, especially on specialist topics! It regularly hallucinates information, makes things up, and . The fact that you would seriously suggest that I do this instead of asking knowledgeable people is downright unbelievable. I thought this was a place of knowledge, and I am disappointed to see that intellectual concerns are dismissed so casually here.
DeleteAnonymous March 27, 2026 at 12:12 PM,
DeleteIt seems the Gemini response gave several different ways of responding to the prompt. It really isn't true that a slab of granite whether it is in the ground or not is formless. All slabs of granite may not have the same physical shape, but they are all "primary substances" since they are particular concrete and individual things and are composed of the same stuff. Maybe there is a confusion between shape and form?
Vyakyha,
Yes, I am serious that you should give AI a shot as a first pass before making claims such as Aristotle did not address natural things that were not designed by men. I find that it is usually better than doing repeated Google searches. However you'll probably have to keep refining your prompt after each iteration just like you would do for Google searches. You don't necessarily have to trust it, but you can ask it for links to articles that go into the details of what is summarizes and make your own decisions.
Having said all of this, then what do you find wrong about the Gemini answer and we can discuss that. Or do you have other reasons for your engagement?
I seriously cannot believe what I'm hearing. I happen to actually know a little bit about how Large Language Models work. Trust me, they are only good at stringing together words that "sound right" based on their training data. They are regularly wrong about basic things, regularly make things up whole cloth, and generally act in a way so as to agree with the person prompting them. The fact that you would trust them on philosophical questions that you don't know the answer to is a damning indictment of your own intelligence.
DeleteVyakyha,
DeleteRegardless of your opinion that AI is utterly useless, may I suggest you get beyond your astonishment and attempt to engage fruitfully?
For a start, you claimed things like a granite slab was problematic for Aristotle's theory. If you disagree that Aristotle would classify such a thing as a primary substance and therefore be comprehended by his theory you should explain why it would not.
Is it your position that since this fact turned up in a AI search it is therefore wrong and does not deserve consideration? That would be a case of the genetic fallacy.
That last comment might have been a bit excessive. But I stand by the idea that it is absurd to trust a Large Language Model to have any useful insights on a complex, niche topic.
DeleteVyakyha,
DeleteIn case you haven't noticed, I am not trying to convince you AI useful. You can use it or not use it however you see fit.
Since you're not interested in discussing AT theory, I'll just sign off by mentioning that if you don't want to look things up on the internet, you can purchase Dr Feser's book Aquinas or check it out at a local library. That's actually a way better way to get up to speed anyway.
Very true. It's also important to remember that the "modern" philosophy's attack took the form of opposition to the modern scholasticism of Salamanca and Suarez etc., the great revival which took place to deal with the challenges of the new world emerging in the sixteenth century.
ReplyDeleteEXE has mentioned how traditionalists have a high absconding rate. And, how once they leave they become bitter angry atheists. Makes one wonder if that is EXE's story. Years back during the Intelligent Design debates there was an ID proponent named DNAUnion. A very vocal defender of ID. Some say there were things a bit off with the guy though. He needed the world a bit too black and white. When things didn't immediately go his way he jumped ship and became one of the most unhinged critics of Intelligent Design. He even changed his name from DNAUnion to DinaNoun. I guess is own little way of trying to deconstruct everything about his past self. I see something of EXE in DinaNoun. I also see something of EXE in the way he rails against traditionalists.
ReplyDeleteApologies if this comment is off-track or a total downer, but seeing the level of discourse in this thread had me musing and reminiscing of better days, and specifically how it's already been a decade since Scott died. Such patience and quality of thought was not deserved, but sure is missed.
ReplyDeleteScott was the absolute man.
DeleteAgree with what you said, although there were two posters who left and who I certainly don't miss.
DeleteYes the combox was so much better. Scott, Rank Sophist and Dguller were my absolute favorite commenters.
DeleteLet's not forget TheOFloinn, too. I hope he and Scott are in the lovely arms of God.
DeleteGreat guys, very much missed. Is there anyone else we've lost?
DeleteWe have inexplicably lost very frequent and invariably interesting contributors StarDusty and Papalinton. I hope very much that they are still well, and pray for their speedy return.
DeleteWait, by Scott you mean Jim the Scott = ben Yaakov? He died ten years ago? Although we disagreed on many points, I appreciated discussion with him and learned a lot. I would have wanted to share a pint.
DeleteHey, Ed! Really don't know if there is anyone else, but I don't know if something happened to George R and Gleen, too. Haven't seen them on the combox in a very long time.
Delete(off-topic: I could only learn about the existence of Ed's blog in 2019, but dived a lot into the older posts, like 2010, 2012, and the 2016 ones. I could only experience the 'golden age of the combox' retrospectively, but yeah, I can definitely say that I learned a lot from it -- especially with some good metaphysical questions that Ed answered back then and also the comments, mostly from Scott and some others. It's funny how people across the internet, most of whom we have never seen, could make a good and lasting impression on us... One day, we should write about the history of the blog and also mention the good friends -- in the Aristotelian sense -- that we made along the way and participated in this wonderful community that Ed built.)
Hey ficino,
DeleteNo, Jim the Scott/Ben Yaakov is still with us, and occasionally still posts here. These days he is much more active on Twitter, though.
The "Scott" being referred to is the late Scott Ryan, who you can read about here:
https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2016/03/scott-ryan-rip.html
@ Professor Feser: thank you for the clarification. Scott Ryan sounds like a good man.
DeleteI'm not aware of anyone else having died aside from Scott and Mike Flynn (although this isn't surprising given my lack of real-life connection to posters here).
DeleteI don't see much of guys like Glenn, Greg, or Crude here these days, although some of the old guard such as Tony, Brandon, or grodrigues still seem to be around with greater or lesser frequency.
I've got to say, the time period between about 2010 and 2015 on this blog had some of the most substantive combox discussions I've seen anywhere, and it was immensely instructive to me when I was cutting my teeth on philosophy in general and Thomism in particular.
Just wanted to note my gratitude to all those who contributed (whether still with us or not) and to Ed for being such a fine host.
Hi Vini
DeleteYes, I too have spent hours going through the archive of the blog.
The discourse was truly marvelous.
Although I recall that at the height of the 2024 elections, there was a lot of genuine intellectual exchanges on this blog so much so that Dr Janet Smith complemented us.
So many be we can carry the torch.
Scott was the best.
DeleteHey Norm!
Delete"Yes, I too have spent hours going through the archive of the blog."
What is even harder to measure, besides the time spent, is which post (or series of posts) is the best! I personally loved the "Reading Rosenberg," "ID versus AT," "Scientism," and, lastly, the "Cosmological Argument" roundups.
To be honest, all the integrity of work I ever wished to find in a philosopher or someone who takes the world seriously, I could find in Ed's work. I have nothing but deep gratitude and appreciation for our host.
Interestingly, it's been almost exactly 10 years since he passed.
ReplyDeletehttps://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2016/03/scott-ryan-rip.html
This post highlights, in graphic form, my entire philosophical interaction with this tradition - admiration for the metaphysical and philosophical concepts; unbridgeable (currently) political, life and death disagreements with the people that believe in said concepts. For example, I feel that Semiotics, as developed by ‘the Latins’ per John Deely has all the resources to handle and discuss properly nature vs culture debates, can accommodate, probably better state, arguments *for* Feminism, explain why Race is not Real but Racism is, and go some way towards an ethical language when discussing transgender people - w/o presuming them errors or defects. **In other words, the intellectual tradition is strong but its political and religious sect continue to bedevil it. Conservatives have strangled great concepts and research programs because they insist on forcing it into their particular theologies and deriving every ill from not following them.
ReplyDelete** A gloss on this: As Semiotic animals - and against what Deely and Catholics in general might think - we exist in a space where we *can* evolve our moral concepts and deal with new facts we learn about our biology. Yes, an ethical framework exists but behaving as if we can learn nothing new which changes how we ought to treat each other - so must derive that these people are ‘against nature’ and subsequently must be treated poorly- is ridiculous. You’re just reading bigotry into nature and not actually behaving and utilizing our unique existence in the world of nature to make it better. We’re called on to be more than brutes.
"so must derive that these people are ‘against nature’ and subsequently must be treated poorly- is ridiculous."
DeleteSorry, who is saying that we must treat anyone poorly?
As far as I understand 1st Anon, they're probably talking about things like claiming that Trans people are just mentally ill and must be prevented from transitioning, or that gay people must be prevented or at least discouraged from engaging in gay sex, etc (please correct me if I'm wrong). Perhaps you, second Anon, would not regard this as "maltreatment", perhaps you think it is simple loyalty to the truth. I admit that I can't know what exactly you think. The greater point is that the metaphysical positions you hold, if logically adhered to and consistently carried out, will inevitably entail doing things to marginalized groups that we and most others consider to be harmful and/or poor treatment.
DeleteAny other interested Thomists could also answer :)
ReplyDeleteSuppose someone says it's an illusion that there are multiple red objects.
There is just one red object along with its something like a platonic object.
As such there are no multiple instantiations of red.
Can we invoke the appearance/reality distinction to refute this manner of thinking, that is can we say there are atleast two instantiations of red , the way red appears to us(as a property that has multiple instances) and the way red actually is.
This is the same kind of argument Prof used to defend multiplicity in scholastic metaphysics , could we use it in this way ?
Could it be used to defend the multiplicity of particular properties?
Could you take a shot at it Prof :)
Hearty Congratulations on Winning the Award Prof! Your work has been inspiring to many! Keep up the great work cheers!
Delete