tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post2258481452236200604..comments2024-03-28T13:39:03.094-07:00Comments on Edward Feser: Love and sex roundupEdward Feserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-81151260537846598652021-07-13T21:04:10.501-07:002021-07-13T21:04:10.501-07:00Ed, if I have understood your defense of the perve...Ed, if I have understood your defense of the perverted faculty argument correctly, then you believe that it would be morally justifiable (in principle) for a woman to be brought to orgasm by her husband during a sexual encounter in which he himself chooses to abstain from climax. Am I right in saying this?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-40923072533524021062017-08-22T16:05:38.637-07:002017-08-22T16:05:38.637-07:00Still a great articleStill a great articleGeorgehttp://www.cfrmagazine.com/?m=1noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-27829462772266767782015-07-23T14:51:14.928-07:002015-07-23T14:51:14.928-07:00Brandon,
I am a bit new to natural law and defin...Brandon, <br /><br />I am a bit new to natural law and definitely new to the understanding of anything pertaining to natural law having to fall under a common good. <br /><br />Question: If a person, who lives a solitary life with no contact with society, masturbates in the jungle, is it immoral under the natural law? If so then why? As detailed a response as you can would be greatly appreciated! God Bless!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02522134521889063418noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-84698573238682278422015-06-29T16:58:40.546-07:002015-06-29T16:58:40.546-07:00Can anybody refer me to good reading on gender the...Can anybody refer me to good reading on gender theory under natural law? Like, regarding trans-genderism, and what constitutes gender?Mikenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-63904533635549834992015-06-26T09:25:40.645-07:002015-06-26T09:25:40.645-07:00Looks like the Supreme Court made its decision. II...Looks like the Supreme Court made its decision. IIRC, a while back, wasn't the Supreme Court hearing arguments (regarding same-sex marriage) from conservatives? If so, I wonder what arguments were presented.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-91525607292289491742015-06-25T16:20:03.693-07:002015-06-25T16:20:03.693-07:00C,
If you are talking about general discussions, ...C,<br /><br />If you are talking about general discussions, Aquinas discusses common good explicitly at ST 2-1.90.2 and 2-1.94.2. But given the basic point, pretty much any discussion of natural law is a discussion about common good, even if it is not explicitly flagged as such.<br /><br />Tyrrell McAllister,<br /><br />The distinction between common good and individual good is a standard distinction in this context. Since the rest of your comment goes well beyond anything I said, it's not really a paraphrase of any argument I am making, but a remark in hope that it helps to clarify the point:<br /><br />Treadmills manifestly do not frustrate any faculty of walking at all because you walk on them, and therefore they are one way of exercising the faculty of walking for precisely what it is a faculty of. Having read all the comments on the example, I still don't understand why anyone would think this example to involve any kind of inconsistency, which is necessary for frustration of faculty. But <i>if</i> one were to assume that it did, it is true that it would not be immoral -- as opposed to just practically silly or stupid or weird or pointless -- except insofar as one could take walking to be a good shared in common by the human race. Frustration of a faculty by its nature is unreasonable, at least so far as it goes; deliberate unreasonableness with regard to human common good is violation of natural law in one way or another. This all just follows by the standard definition of natural law.Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-38500951960585811042015-06-25T15:03:40.157-07:002015-06-25T15:03:40.157-07:00@Brandon
It's perhaps worth reminding everyon...@Brandon<br /><br /><i>It's perhaps worth reminding everyone of the fact that in order for an end of a faculty to be a matter of natural law rather than mere practical reasonableness, it has to be, in some way, a common good rather than an individual one[.]</i><br /><br />I'm not positive that I entirely understand the distinction that you're drawing. I'll try to spell out what I take your point to be, but I look forward to any corrections. Here is my attempted paraphrase:<br /><br />One of the ends of the faculty of walking (i.e., the ability to move one's legs in a walking motion) is to change one's location relative to one's environment. Hence, to walk on a treadmill is to use this faculty while frustrating one of its ends.<br /><br />Similarly, one of the ends of the faculty of engaging in sexual intercourse is to reproduce. Hence, to use contraception is to use this faculty while frustrating one of its ends.<br /><br />Thus, both treadmills and contraception frustrate faculties.<br /><br />Nevertheless, treadmills are not a moral issue, because changing one's location is not always a community-relevant action. It is possible to change one's location in a way that has no significant impact on anyone else. In contrast, to reproduce is always a community-relevant action. It is impossible to reproduce in a way that has no significant impact on anyone else. For, at the very least, reproducing has a significant impact on the person generated.<br /><br />Hence, while treadmills do frustrate a faculty, they do not do so in a morally relevant way.<br /><br />Is there anything important that is missing or wrong in this attempt at paraphrasing your point?Tyrrell McAllisterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03742116091097551615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-5735265094212151132015-06-25T06:55:45.856-07:002015-06-25T06:55:45.856-07:00I just heard a whopper on another blog: "What...I just heard a whopper on another blog: "What seems to be happening is your failure to grasp the esoteric teleology of the anus."<br /><br />Esoteric teleology, eh? Well, that's certainly convenient!Scott W.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-7279885624206837982015-06-24T13:19:26.088-07:002015-06-24T13:19:26.088-07:00@ Professor Feser,
Considering how gender theory ...@ Professor Feser,<br /><br />Considering how gender theory and SSM are extremely live issues, I hope you might perhaps write a book about the issue or compile already written material and release it with the title directly addressing the issue. What the New Atheists were are what the modern gender theorists are today except that they have a much, much broader reach. The LGBQT lobby really does put old Cold War Marxist propagandists to shame for their scope of popular influence. They really did their homework and research on theories of mass psychology and its fruit, public relations theories.<br /><br />Frankly the West desperately needs a <i>The Superstitions of Sex</i> on this.Timocrateshttp://americamagazine.orgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-71024936487480616902015-06-23T18:33:39.811-07:002015-06-23T18:33:39.811-07:00@Brandon
It's perhaps worth reminding everyon...@Brandon<br /><br /><i>It's perhaps worth reminding everyone of the fact that in order for an end of a faculty to be a matter of natural law rather than mere practical reasonableness, it has to be, in some way, a common good rather than an individual one </i><br /><br />I will be carrying this to my grave. My heart pours out gratitude for this answer, which to my mind suddenly renders the whole argument intelligible.<br /><br />I'd still like to see this point elaborated, and would love any relevant texts from Aquinas or contemporary Thomists where the natural law is discussed with reference to the common good.Cnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-49956721066316628852015-06-23T07:34:31.235-07:002015-06-23T07:34:31.235-07:00Daniel,
Nothing can be a matter of law unless its...Daniel,<br /><br />Nothing can be a matter of law unless its end is common good; and natural law is a form of law. Thus it's only insofar as an end pertains to common good that natural law enters into the question at all. This is one reason why the having and raising of children always comes up in sexual matters; anything that concerns procreation inevitably concerns the common good of the entire human race. Thus if we're looking at moral parallels with other faculties, we need to be careful that we know what human common good is involved in these other actions we are talking about.Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-24151470579793914912015-06-23T06:39:33.350-07:002015-06-23T06:39:33.350-07:00It's perhaps worth reminding everyone of the f...<i>It's perhaps worth reminding everyone of the fact that in order for an end of a faculty to be a matter of natural law rather than mere practical reasonableness, it has to be, in some way, a common good rather than an individual one...</i><br /><br />Care to elaborate on that point Brandon? Danielnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-45375338876357689782015-06-23T05:17:39.834-07:002015-06-23T05:17:39.834-07:00It's perhaps worth reminding everyone of the f...It's perhaps worth reminding everyone of the fact that in order for an end of a faculty to be a matter of natural law rather than mere practical reasonableness, it has to be, in some way, a common good rather than an individual one; this is always at least implicit in the way the perverted faculty argument is structured, but some of the points that have been raised require, I think, that it be made explicit.<br /><br /><i>I take in then that NL doesn't consider polygamy (which should carry over to both genders) intrinsically immoral, only immoral given the usual nature of human society on a wider scale?</i><br /><br />It depends on which natural law theorist you are considering. Aquinas himself explicitly rejects the idea that polygamy is intrinsically immoral; it is just such that the conditions under which it could be moral are usually very rare. And Cajetan, during the whole Henry VIII affair, suggested that polygamy might be a solution to the problem. I'm pretty sure, however, that you would not find everyone taking this position if you just randomly started asking natural law theorists the question. <br /><br /><i>The most common objection from people who are somewhat familiar with the PFA is this - what about pleasure? Pleasure is another, equally valid, use of the sexual faculty.</i><br /><br />Pleasure is a peculiar case, since pleasure is intrinsically a byproduct of fulfilling other ends, like the bloom on youth, in Aristotle's famous phrase. Thus it can never be considered without considering what other ends are being fulfilled. And it's also perhaps worth pointing out that in the case of no other faculty does anyone consider it reasonable to do things just in order to get pleasure -- even classical utilitarianism, which (unlike most ethical positions) makes pleasure an end in itself, requires that you be aiming at something more than merely getting pleasure (in utilitarianism, for instance, you have to be aiming at an appropriate distribution of it). Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-90338699268527662952015-06-23T05:13:49.711-07:002015-06-23T05:13:49.711-07:00Hi Ed,
First and foremost thank you for your live...Hi Ed,<br /><br />First and foremost thank you for your lively und stimulating blog. I am a reader from Germany and follow your blog for several years.<br /><br />This is the first time I comment and I have one remark and one question:<br /><br />1.) Besides the article from Tim Hsiao there is another interesting paper from Micah Newman, a Catholic Philosopher from Tarleton State University, with the title "A Realist Sexual Ethics" in the 2015 May issue of the journal Ratio.<br /><br />http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/rati.12063/abstract<br /><br />2.) A few weeks ago I had an interesting e-mail discussion with Alex Pruss about the perverted faculty argument. Hi criticises it in his book "One Body" under the label "the perverted function argument" and I think he is one of the best critics I have read so far. Have you read his book and do you grapple with his objections in your essay?Johannes G.https://www.blogger.com/profile/02700177466548990171noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-48787839909091164692015-06-23T01:44:08.066-07:002015-06-23T01:44:08.066-07:00I think Micah Newman's "A realist sexual ...I think Micah Newman's "A realist sexual ethics" is also relevant here. It apeared in Ratio some weeks ago. In it Newman says that only after he finished his essay people told him that his line of reasoning is similar to Aquinas's in the Summa contra Gentiles: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/rati.12063/abstractAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-35355471210870105732015-06-22T15:39:05.867-07:002015-06-22T15:39:05.867-07:00John West wrote,
You should do a "roundup&qu...John West wrote,<br /><br /><i>You should do a "roundup" roundup some time. There are all sorts of roundups on here now.</i><br /><br />Ahh I missed this first time around. How about a round-up of all posts not included in a round-up? Danielnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-46722101711688467592015-06-22T08:27:08.611-07:002015-06-22T08:27:08.611-07:00@Daniel
some people with knowledge in the releva...@Daniel <br /><br />some people with knowledge in the relevant fields suggest that good sex does increase the chances of conception, so you could make the same "practice" argument for contraceptive sex.<br /><br />@Mr. Green<br /><br />How are we certain that procreation/reproduction is *the* end of the sexual faculty and not one of many? <br /><br />The most common objection from people who are somewhat familiar with the PFA is this - <i>what about pleasure? Pleasure is another, equally valid, use of the sexual faculty</i><br /><br />Not falling over is important, but it seems like it is important because it exists in the service of ambulation. Interestingly, I once heard a physical therapist describe walking as "controlled falling" <br /><br />No one would think that their legs are working properly if they keep them from falling over but prevent them from moving from place to place.<br /><br />It seems to me that one needn't have any particular destination in mind, just as one needn't have any particular sexual act in mind as the one that ends in pregnancy or any particular idea of what their child will be. Just an openness insofar as they are not deliberately frustrating the end of that faculty.Cnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-22814499130381921512015-06-22T06:59:52.853-07:002015-06-22T06:59:52.853-07:00Ccmnxc: Can you ever directly violate then end of ...Ccmnxc: <i>Can you ever directly violate then end of some organ</i><br /><br />Nope.<br /><br /><br />(Frustrating an organ means you’re using your body the wrong way, which is irrational — that’s what makes it intrinsically immoral — and trying to play that off against some supposed benefit is a classic case of the ends justifying the means or two wrongs making a right.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-83930514805913432092015-06-22T05:04:21.654-07:002015-06-22T05:04:21.654-07:00C: I was taking ambulate to mean move *from place ...C: <i>I was taking ambulate to mean move *from place to place*<br />If that is the reason for the sake of which walking exists,</i><br /><br />Well, that's the question I wanted to prompt. Isn't that just one particular possible end of walking? "Not falling over when you're on a treadmill" sure seems like an equally valid end. And in turn, this should prompt us to ask, "Is 'walking' really <i>the</i> end of having legs? Or just one possible end?" We have the faculty of sight, but surely not a faculty of "seeing Mount Vesuvius erupt" — in fact, most people have no power to see that. Our faculty of seeing-in-general gives us the facility to see this or that in particular, but we're talking about something proper to human nature, which can't be seeing <i>this</i> particular thing, or walking to <i>that</i> particular destination. As Scott and David et al. have noted, our legs' general acrobatic functions are not being hampered or impaired. The Latin <i>”frustra”</i> doesn’t merely mean “prevented” but “in vain” — something is in the process of trying to happen, but is being thwarted (not merely not happening because something else happens <i>instead</i>).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-56430160058771916672015-06-22T03:44:41.985-07:002015-06-22T03:44:41.985-07:00For what it's worth, given that locomotion is ...For what it's worth, given that locomotion is the end (but possibly not the only end) of legs, walking on a treadmill at least perfects the ability of legs to perform their end. It's hard to see how training an organ to do better what it is supposed to do could be a perversion. This isn't the case with respect to things that are usually the subject of the perverted faculty argument - e.g. contraception. Using a rubber doesn't train you to be more effective at getting a woman pregnant.David Thttp://www.lifesprivatebook.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-5809698160757480592015-06-21T16:55:23.032-07:002015-06-21T16:55:23.032-07:00One last thing:
I would interested to hear what p...One last thing:<br /><br />I would interested to hear what people think of Quentin Smith's proposed Ethical Theory which takes the Good as the realization of a being's nature, a standard which applies in analogues ways to non-living things as well. A couple of WLC's responses to this theory as raised in the context of their debate might help illustrate things (including the extent to which Theist Personalists will go to ignore Scholasticism) <br /><br />www.reasonablefaith.org/does-god-exist-the-craig-smith-debate-2003#ixzz3dkAqzSsq<br /><br /><i>Now Quentin realizes this, and so to avoid specie-ism he claims that the Good is the actualization of anything's nature. But this identification of the Good is not only arbitrary but, I think, preposterous. On Quentin's view--he says this explicitly -- a big rock has greater moral value than a little rock, because its nature is more fully realized!8 Or when a slime mold increases in size, it increases in moral value. Now, I take this to be self-evidently ridiculous. And even if you think it's not self-evidently ridiculous, you have to agree that scarcely anybody else believes such a thing, so that Quentin's identification of the Good is, I think, at best idiosyncratic and hardly a foundation for a compelling argument for atheism.</i><br /><br /><i>Fifth, and finally, Quentin’s ethics degrades other people's moral worth. He says, and I quote, “A person who develops her theoretical reason is a better and more valuable kind of person than other kinds of people. The best possible person is someone who discovers why the universe exists.”13 Well, isn’t that convenient? This self-congratulatory analysis is so morally repugnant that I think it’s unacceptable as a moral theory. So for all of these reasons, I think that Quentin's atheistic moral theory is inadequate.</i><br /><br />He (Smith) sets out the theory properly in his <i>Ethical and Religious Thought in Analytic Philosophy of Language</i>. I have the book though have yet to read through it properly. From the looks of it his elaboration on Lingustic Essentialism appears elegant andworth reading (plus opening sections on Logical Positivism and Plain Language along with a later throw-away jibe about the Churchlands are entertaining - translate as 'Ouch, yes, well that was a bit embarrassing wasn't it: not all naturalists display that sort of behavior though, certainly John Post and myself don't)Danielnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-57704377791708016112015-06-21T16:29:50.282-07:002015-06-21T16:29:50.282-07:001. A question. Imagine our old friend the mad neur...1. A question. Imagine our old friend the mad neurologist (doubtless the Cartesian demon's under-study) were to fit a small device into a person's brain which would allow them to experience the qualia associated with orgasm at the touch of a button. There would be no corresponding stimulation or action in the sex organs just the phenomenal experience. Would the use of this device be considered immoral?<br /><br />2. Someone brought up the point that the telos of the sex organs, at least in males, is strictly speaking reproduction with as many different partners as possible. Now in theory as long as said male could take care of his wives and off-spring there would be immoral actions involved. I take in then that NL doesn't consider polygamy (which should carry over to both genders) intrinsically immoral, only immoral given the usual nature of human society on a wider scale?<br /><br />3. Why is it good to have children in the first place? If it's because it's completive/ fulfilling the final end of the human organism then we seem confronted with potentially infinite chain stretching out into the future. The Eudaemonist approach would seem to literally make another person a pure means to an end (the relational being of the child is a means). To be born on a Catholic, or perhaps broadly Christian anthropology, is to be born naturally destined for darkness and eternal separation from God. Of course maybe it’s not good to have children really; only better to have children if one cannot help but engage in the sexual act in the first place. This has certain Pauline resonances but again I really doubt it would fit well with the earthy ‘anti-gnostic’ life enhancing byline of modern Catholicism. <br /><br />4. That Blackburn on Anscombe article says a lot about state of contemporary philosophy actually. Why for heaven's sake is that man considered a philosopher at all? Even the random combox lurkers could come up with more plausible parodies than him. Of course the extent of this man’s crimes against philosophy at large are well documented elsewhere. <br />Danielnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-1675775285140375732015-06-21T16:06:09.406-07:002015-06-21T16:06:09.406-07:00For a very good overview regarding Perverted Facul...For a very good overview regarding Perverted Faculty arguments and parody examples it's worth checking out the Reply to Sullivan and the combox conversations which follow wherein Ed discusses a number of such objections. For what it's worth I think NL might lead to a few things humans do for recreation e.g. smoking Tabaco being classified as immoral in a (probably venal) sort of way.<br /><br />As far as I can gather on NL ethics the extent to which the misuse of a faculty is considered immoral is also gauged by the importance and consequences of that action to man's flourishing (including social flourishing) as a whole. So while consequentialist concerns aren’t enough to make an action which is wrong right they can be taken into account in a secondary way to ascertain the degree of wrongness involved. Scott can no doubt correct me here if that last sentence is infelicitously phrased. <br /><br /><i><b>Hence sexual reproduction - tied as it is in human beings (but not in other animals) to a set of desires possessing a highly complex interpersonal intentional structure (as described in books like Roger Scruton’s Sexual Desire), associated with an intricate network of social and cultural norms and attitudes, and crucial to the well-being of society and the human race as a whole - has overwhelming moral significance.</b> By contrast, earwax production and urination have no such similarly crucial links to our rational and social nature, and thus are of far less moral significance, if any. It is plausible, then, that even on a traditional natural law approach to morality, a failure to use these latter capacities in accordance with nature’s intentions does not necessarily constitute a serious moral failing, or even (at least in trivial cases) a moral failing at all. (Yes, the theory no doubt would have the implication that someone who for some odd reason refuses ever to urinate, and thus either bursts his bladder or in some other way ruins his health, is guilty of a serious moral failing insofar as this threatens his own well-being or that of people who depend on him. But common sense would agree with this specific judgment, so this is hardly a problem for traditional natural law theory.)</i><br /><br />I’m not saying I agree with what will follow but I think we all know that a certain type of Ethicist will try to argue that sex need not have that degree of over-arching significance; that humans are now free to modify their sexual customs to better suite our wants. This of course would not be enough to render certain actions moral but it would reduce the extent of their immorality. <br />Danielnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-74621292107115496262015-06-21T12:56:19.318-07:002015-06-21T12:56:19.318-07:00Dear ccmnxc:
Violating the teleological end of re...Dear ccmnxc:<br /><br />Violating the teleological end of reproductive organs would only be "okay given the principle of totality" if such a violation contributed directly to the overall good of the entity containing the organs. If someone, say, wanted to have the pleasure of sex without any of the accompanying factors, such as the possibility of reproduction, I don't see how the lack of total commitment involved would bring about "better unity" for the couple involved. It would seem to imply something like, "I will commit myself to you enough to bring us pleasure, but no further." So my answer to your opening question would be "I don't think so." (I would be open to correction, however.) If they want better unity, let them go shopping, or play chess, or something. Craig Paynenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-58806927426248113252015-06-21T11:02:04.188-07:002015-06-21T11:02:04.188-07:00A question that's been bugging me for awhile:
...A question that's been bugging me for awhile:<br />Can you ever directly violate then end of some organ (let's just go with reproductive organs, here) and have it still be okay given the principle of totality? And if so, can't one argue that gay sex, contraception, etc, while having some drawbacks in terms of violating the end of said reproductive organs, can bring about better unity or some other good between the couples that would have a net benefit for them as persons?<br />Thanks.<br />ccmnxcnoreply@blogger.com