Subject:
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Re: Arguing about nature, Nature, and ethics
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 21 Dec 2000 18:33:36 GMT
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Viewed:
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413 times
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In response to "Kevin Wilson" <kwilson_tccs@compuserve.com> in message
news:G5vpnz.Fr8@lugnet.com...
Kevin,
I'm sorry that I haven't been able to get to all of your posts. You are
raising some good issues that I'd like to attempt to tackle.
By the way, can I commend you on your civil approach to debate (a friend of
mine has commented similarly)? As I mentioned before, I can imagine that
it's not altogether pleasant to have someone challenge you on something
that - for lack of a better term - "hits so close to home." I've had
similar discussions in other forums that got ugly rather quickly, and I was
left without any confidence that the participants were at all interested in
the arguments - and in what was true or false, right or wrong. I can't say
that about you, and I'm glad for it. Thanks for your part in what is
turning out to be an honest and engaging exchange of ideas.
Here's the argument I attempted to formulate last time:
> > > > >
(1) There is an archetypical human nature - a design, or
'ought-to-be-ness' - that we can discover and know and which sets the moral
parameters of our lives.
(2) In the case of human sexuality, which involves the interaction of our
bodies as persons, there is a natural teleology to sex evident in the fact
that one man and one woman - not more and not less - can act together to
procreate a child.
(3) Homosexuality, in this light, is like driving a car on the bottom of the
ocean; it is a violation of the design implicit in our biology.
(4) Human sexuality is morally significant, so behaviors inconsistent with
that significance (as embodied in the natural teleology) are immoral.
Another way to say this might be that (heterosexual monogamous) marriage -
in the fullest sense - is an intrinsic good for human beings and that
rejection of its defining principles (interpersonal unity) is therefore
wrong.
(5) Therefore, homosexuality is immoral.
<<<<<
You responded with:
> You're right that I have a problem with (1). However,
> even leaving that aside, I see a missing step (or implied
> assumption) between 2 and 3, which is that procreation
> is the *only* purpose of sex. If we accept that sex has
> other purposes as well as procreation, and that homosexual
> sex (and other forms of sex deemed immoral by your
> argument) fulfil some or all of these other purposes, then
> 3 no longer holds.
I think you misunderstood me, and it's probably an easy thing to do, given
how I've worded things. In fact, I don't think that procreation is the
primary purpose or reason for sex at all. Rather, (the capacity for)
procreation is the principle that makes unity between the participants
possible, and it is that interpersonal unity that is the good of marriage
and sex as consummating (completing) within that marriage.
To add some detail here, part of the importance of this is that the body is
not some sub-personal instrument, but is rather an important aspect of the
person him or herself. When an individual is raped, she cries out, "_I_ was
raped!" not "My body was raped!" It is the I - the person, the complete
package - that is involved. In this light, a real _marriage_ of the persons
is involved during heterosexual intercourse, which is both secured and
ultimately confirmed in its procreative nature.
Here's an anecdote that may be helpful. Rodney Dangerfield makes a joke
that goes like this: "The first time I had sex, I was afraid...I was afraid
because I was all alone." The audience laughs - why? They laugh either
because they already understand it not to be "real sex" (in the fullest
sense of the word) or minimally because our notion of sex involves two
people, not one. But the masturbation implicit in the joke is not made
fuller in any sense if two people simply replicate that act in tandem.
There is nothing between homosexuals that makes the acts in question
anything more than what is at the core of Dangerfield's humor; we might ask,
Why think anyone else should be involved? What is it rationally that
compels us to seek out another person where sex is concerned? Is it simply
blind, hormonal urges, or something more?
To respond terribly briefly to the question of other purposes to sex, my
contention would be that straying from the principle of unity - say,
embracing sex for the sheer enjoyment of it, etc. - will be to open the door
to behaviors that even you would disagree with.
> In a previous post, you quoted from C. S. Lewis thusly:
>
> > The monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside marriage is
> > that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind
> > of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union
> > which were intended to go along with it and make up
> > the total union. [This] attitude does not mean that there
> > is anything wrong about sexual pleasure, any more than
> > about the pleasure of eating. It means that you must not
> > isolate that pleasure and try to get it by itself, any more
> > than you ought to try to get the pleasures of taste without
> > swallowing and digesting, by chewing things and spitting
> > them out again. [Mere Christianity (Broadman & Holman
> > Publishers, 1996): 96-97]
>
> If one extends your argument to his example of isolating
> taste by chewing things and spitting them out again, one
> would end up concluding that chewing tobacco is immoral :-)
> Possibly even chewing gum, though maybe not - gum
> chewers do swallow the resulting liquid, if not the gum
> itself. But the distinction is as ridiculous as the conclusions.
There are a number of things that could be said in response here. First,
Lewis is smarter than you take him to be. His real strength as an apologist
was in taking difficult concepts and making them understandable for the
layperson. So I take him to be illustrating an idea rather than laying out
a tight case against non-Christian conceptions of sex.
Second, the first thing I thought of in reading this passage was somewhat
more troubling: I pictured a bulimic gradually destroying herself by gorging
her food and then vomiting it up again. So I think that some readings of
the idea Lewis is attempting to get across can have more teeth than others.
Third, we're not dealing with some something as uninteresting and seemingly
neutral as food in the case of sex, but human beings. Some philosophers on
this subject argue on the grounds that abandoning the principle of unity
treats persons as means-to-an-end (say, pleasure) rather than treating them
as ends-in-themselves, and requires them to existentially dis-integrate
themselves in doing so. Their reasoning is a bit hard to follow, but the
idea is that, by discarding the interpersonal unity achievable in marital
acts, the participants effectively isolate and exploit the different aspects
of their being (the conscious self, the physical self); they "chew up and
spit out" _themselves_, in a sense not unfamiliar to Lewis' analogy. They
accomplish this by treating their bodies as sub-personal instruments - to
achieve some external end (sexual pleasure), rather than the end of marriage
already evident and realizable within them (and intrinsic to heterosexual
intercourse over and against homosexual acts).
Aquinas believed that we should not pursue any action purely for pleasure,
but that there must be some other rational ground (even where pleasure is an
appreciable effect) to every moral endeavor. He recognized that seeking out
pleasure as its own end was easily corrupting, and where persons are
involved (as subjects of justice who are - in the Christian view -
intrinsically valuable), and where they are effectively a medium to such a
powerfully-pleasurable experience as sexual orgasm, a great deal of caution
should be exercised. The procreative nature of heterosexual sex brings an
evident and intelligible reason for the couple to come together and
cooperate, complimenting and completing one another in a truly unique
fashion. There is quite literally a "knowing" of one another in that
experience as the couple merges as a lock and key do, and marveling I think,
in their enormous diversity as multi-faceted, complicated individuals and
their simultaneously simple and enjoyable unity as "one flesh".
On a more personal note, if I can "wax elephant" for one more minute, there
is something I find really amazing about sex where the possibility of
children is real, and where a husband and wife cast aside all obstacles to
that possibility. There is an embracing of one another knowing that a
larger commitment is taking place in that act - a commitment that
understands the care and nurturance children require over many years, and
the dedication to one another and to the product of their current
cooperation that will be required - that adds a completely new dimension to
the whole thing. I imagine it being somewhat like going on a long journey
together to an unknown place, where struggles will occur, and the mysteries
of life will be uncovered in a way that will further bind each to the other
as they share the experience. It is both extremely erotic and secure at the
same time, and perhaps unexpectedly so, but that makes it all the more a
welcome surprise. It is nothing less than a joyful experience in which one
feels genuinely free. It is something to be longed for.
This is the stuff that is within reach for heterosexual marriage (in the
fullest sense), however latent or far off it may seem at times; it is
implicit within the teleology of sex itself.
Moving on, I asked about the conditions necessary for "moral sex", what
reasons a person should have for engaging in it, and what - if anything -
was off-limits in your view. You replied with:
> Well, I would put my statement in a different form:
> rather than "when is it OK to have sex", I would say
> "when is it not OK to have sex". The basic assumptions
> are different - that the default is not to have sex, versus to
> have sex. Having said that, my assumptions 4-7 in
> another post bear on this:
I am torn about whether to interrupt here or not, because I don't want to
break the flow of your thought, but I think this is interesting enough to
stop for a moment. To respond to a question like, "What are the morally
sufficient reasons for having sex?" with "Let me change the question to,
When should one not have sex?" may be telling in itself. A couple of things
come to mind, which I'll take a shot at articulating, but which I haven't
seen explicitly anywhere else, so you'll have to bear with me.
First, the default position - particularly evident in cases in which
paternalism is required (i.e. where we have to make the decision for someone
else) - is to not have (or allow) sex. Sex with children or unconscious
persons are examples of this, and withholding sex (or even opportunities for
such) is our way of protecting these individuals. If it weren't true more
generally, I think that people would have sex first on a far wider basis and
then (secondarily) have rather normal conversation, perhaps about the
weather, the stock market, and so on. What restrains us from such a bizarre
society is our understanding of a natural vulnerability that requires
protection. This, I think, may very well conflict with your understanding
of the underlying view, where you indicate that the assumption is "the
default is to have sex."
Second, in changing the question I have to wonder if the idea of having
morally sufficient reasons for sex was not entirely foreign to you, as if
sex itself has no moral content, and nothing intrinsic to set the parameters
from within. There isn't a realizable moral goal or purpose to sex that
people can cooperate on, so all we can do is make sure - in liberal
fashion - that we don't "bump into" and violate each other's sense of
freedom. But in that case, I wonder if it doesn't also diminish the other
requirements: that consent be informed, for example, since there seems to be
very little to be informed about.
It looks like mere agreement may be enough, and in practice, I think that's
exactly what "informed consent" is reduced to much of the time. The fact
that the name of one's one-time partner may not even be known, and sex would
still be legitimate on this account (as far as I can tell) says volumes
about exactly how much weight is being attached to the act, and how much
"informed consideration" is really taking place.
Just some thoughts off the top of my head.
> 4. Harming others is bad (includes emotional/mental/physical harm)
> 6. Love is good. The more the better.
> 7. Pleasure is good (provided it doesn't harm others).
>
> On this basis, any sex which is safe (does no harm),
> sane (all concerned are in their right minds, not drugged
> or drunk, capable of giving informed consent) and
> consenual (all concerned know what's going on and
> consent to it without coercion) is OK. In your examples,
> that would make rape (no consent), pedophilia (not capable
> of giving informed consent, coercion) and bestiality
> (no informed consent, although some people argue about
> this) off limits. Unmarried sex, homosexual sex, AND
> married sex would all be OK or not depending on whether
> they met the conditions. A husband getting his wife
> drunk so she'd say yes and not "have a headache" would
> be immoral under these conditions whereas SSC
> homosexual sex would not.
Question for you, if you'll indulge me - it may seem a bit off the wall:
Imagine that a referendum vote came up in your area, and you could vote on a
measure slated to reduce the penalty for rape from a felony to a misdemeanor
offense. Would you vote in favor to do so, or not?
Moving on, from here we talked about why I invoked considerations of the
naturalist worldview in speaking about morality, and you <snip>-ped what I
took to be an important argument - and its not just me, but professional
philosophers: as part of a universe in which nature is all there is, how
does one move from _what is_ to what _ought to be_? (In fact, the problem
is known as the naturalistic fallacy, and it goes back at least as far as
Kant; in any event he had some hand in popularizing it.) Where is the
standard to which the natural world and its contents (including human
beings) must measure up to, and exactly how is this "oughtness" binding to
the act or event in question? And even if you believe that morality is a
mere invention, in what way can I make sense of the idea that I "ought to
do" anything - from returning some money I borrowed to controlling my temper
so that I don't kill someone? I think this is worth wrestling with.
> Good argument. Howver, it does not follow from
> "morality is a human invention" that "all moralities
> invented by humans are equally valid". I can guess
> your next point :-) how do we judge which humanly
> -invented morality is "best" without an absolute
> standard to judge it against? This goes back
> to Dave's explanation of the social development of
> morality in another post, although I would put it
> rather differently:
>
> "Morality is that set of behaviours which produce the
> greatest good balanced between the community as a
> whole and the individuals within it".
It looks to me as if you've put aside a standard by which to arbitrate
between humanly invented moralities only to turn around and stipulate
another standard - one which can distinguish between different levels of
goodness, ultimately aimed at producing "the greatest good balanced between
the community...and the individuals within it." What determines what is
"good"? Or, more simply, "What is good?" The question still remains,
Kevin, and with all due respect, I don't think you've made any progress in
answering it.
> > So why believe that morality is only an invention?
> > And why even ask me the questions you are if
> > there is nothing of real, objective significance, in
> > the end, to be gained or lost?
>
> Just because something is a human invention does
> not mean it has no real, objective significance.
> Mathematics is a human invention but it has a great
> deal of real, objective significance.
I think that's terribly confused, but its also has the beginnings of another
thread, so I'll skip it for now... :-)
> > On the other hand, if there are things that -
> > for all people, in all places, across time -
> > are really right or wrong and really fulfilling or
> > destructive, apart from what we think
> > individually or collectively, then you would
> > have an argument to make; you would have a
> > means of appeal to which we are all ultimately
> > accountable. Your life as a human being would be
> > valuable apart from some stipulation within an
> > invented morality, and there would be a good life
> > that we could work together to achieve.
>
> That's quite true. Unfortunately it still leaves us
> with the "my morality is better than yours" problem
> because we don't know what the Real Morality is.
The logical alternative is that all views are equally right or wrong, which
puts you back in the mode of being unable to arbitrate between any morality.
It is better that one should be right, and all others be wrong (but
approaching the correct standard to different degrees, mind you), than that
all should be equally right. And I would say that the primary problem is
not our knowing right and wrong (we know enough), but in our denial and
suppression of what we do know.
Thanks again for a stimulating discussion. Take care,
Steve
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Arguing about nature, Nature, and ethics
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| In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Steve Thomas writes in response to Kevin Wilson: Steve, sorry to interrupt again, but there's a basic assumption of your argument that I totally disagree with. I think your subsequent conclusions are fascinating, but I'm (...) (24 years ago, 21-Dec-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Arguing about nature, Nature, and ethics
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| Steve Thomas wrote in message ... (...) My family is going through the stomach flu at the moment - I can feeling it creeping up on me as I type after spending last night cleaning up %$@#$# - so I am going to be dropping out for a while. Back later! (...) (24 years ago, 23-Dec-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Arguing about nature, Nature, and ethics
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| Steve Thomas wrote in message ... (...) the (...) You're right that I have a problem with (1). However, even leaving that aside, I see a missing step (or implied assumption) between 2 and 3, which is that procreation is the *only* purpose of sex. If (...) (24 years ago, 20-Dec-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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