Some Problems with the Perverted Faculty Argument

 

(Photo: "Kissing in Lisbon" by Pål Joakim Pollen)

 

The Perverted Faculty argument is the central argument used by proponents of what is called (Old) Natural Law Theory (ONLT) to justify conservative sexual ethics. Typically, proponents of ONLT are Catholics (David Oderberg and Edward Feser come to mind); but this is not always the case (cf., e.g., Timothy Hsiao). The basic idea behind PFA reasoning is that our faculties have certain discernible natural ends. The end of the eye is to see, for example. The end of the reproductive faculty is to reproduce, etc. Actively frustrating these ends, so the reasoning goes, is always and everywhere immoral. Proponents of ONLT use such reasoning to rule out many sexual acts, including, but not limited to, masturbation (without finishing in coitus), homosexual acts, and contraceptive acts (including "the pullout" method). While I believe there is much to commend in the idea that the universe is chalk full of teleology, ends, and purpose -- a metaphysic presupposed by ONLT -- I believe that PFA reasoning in service of justifying conservative sexual ethics is quite weak. I explain some of my reasons for thinking this below.

In responding to counterexamples against their view, Old Natural Law Theory proponents of the Perverted Faculty Argument (PFA) make a distinction between using a faculty for something other than its natural end, and using a faculty for something against its natural end or actively frustrating its natural end. Proponents of the PFA grant that using a faculty for something other than its natural end, provided that the act doesn't frustrate the faculty's end, can be morally permissible. However, they would say that actively frustrating or acting against the end of a faculty is never morally permissible. But I've always thought that the way the distinction is appealed to in order to deflect counterxamples whilst simultaneously trying to justify the immorality of, e.g., masturbation and homosexual acts is ad hoc. I don't see why masturbating or homosexual acts are examples of using the sexual/reproductive faculty for something against its natural end rather than just for something other than its end (but not against its end). In order for PFA arguments for conservative sexual morality to work, acts like masturbation and male-on-male anal sex have to be acts that actively frustrate the end of the sexual faculty -- they can't *merely* be acts that utilize the sexual faculty for something other than its end. I can see why, for example, for a man to physically castrate himself would be to actively frustrate and indeed destroy his sexual or reproductive faculty. But I don't see how masturbation or a male-on-male sex is actively frustrating the end of the sexual faculty. One is just using the sexual faculty for something other than its end. But I don't see how one is frustrating anything here. 

 

Feser says the following in order to justify why masturbatory acts are contrary to the end of the sexual or reproductive faculty, for example: 

 

"Masturbatory acts involve a twofold frustration of the natural ends of sex. For one thing, they frustrate the procreative end insofar as the natural end of the physiological process in the male leading from arousal to ejaculation is not only to get semen out of the male but into the vagina, while the natural end of the physiological process of arousal in the female is to prepare the vagina for reception of semen. But these acts also frustrate the unitive end insofar as arousal is “other-directed” in a psychological sense no less than a physiological sense. Male sexual arousal is of its nature woman-oriented, and female sexual arousal is of its nature man-oriented. In each case realization of the natural end requires connecting emotionally as well as physically with another person. Masturbatory acts involve the active taking of the process of arousal to a climax that does not involve another person, and thus turns it against its natural end."

 

I still don't get the insistence on why masturbatory acts actively frustrate the end of the sexual faculty, rather than just being acts that use it for a different end. It's true that the natural end of sex "is not only to get semen out of the male but into the vagina," but that doesn't mean that solo masturbation (without the end of coitus) is somehow actively frustrating the end of the sexual or reproductive facutly rather than just using the faculty for something other than its natural end. And he needs the bolder claim for his argument to go through. It seems quite unmotivated to me.

 

Regarding his second point, coming from a secular perspective, I don't see a good reason to think that sex has such a "unitive end," which natural-law theorists ostensibly take to be realized in a unitive, comprehensive, exclusive and-open-to-children union with exactly one person of the opposite sex. That may be the view of  Genesis 1/2 and Jesus, but that's difficult to maintain on a secular view of the evolutionary history of higher animals and homo sapiens, a history which seems to suggest sex is more for males to nonexclusively spread their seed as far and wide and possible, rather than for the engenderment of comprehensive exclusive unions, as poetic as that may sound. Indeed, it seems like one needs to appeal to a certain revelatory version of theism in order to justify the view that one of the ends of the sexual or reproductive faculty is exclusive comprehensive open-to-children union with exactly one person of the opposite sex. The idea that the purpose of the reproductive or sexual faculty in humans is reproduction seems quite plausible just from observing the world around us. However, I think when we start talking about the aforementioned (specific) unitive end of the sexual faculty, then one has to appeal to a specific version of theism and indeed revelation. It's nowhere near apparent, just from looking at our evolutionary history, that the end of the sexual faculty is a comprehensive exclusive open-to-children union. I think proponents of NL theory are wittingly or unwittingly sneaking religious assumptions through the backdoor here. The idea that there's such a (comprehensive) unitive end to the sexual faculty will only be convincing to certain sects of religious people who already believe that for different reasons. Muslims, e.g., don't believe that. Polygyny is explicitly allowed in the Qur'an and Muhammad had way more than one sexual partner. In early Judaism polygny was sanctioned and widely practiced. How will the proponent of ONLT convince such people to adopt their Catholic-ish conservative secular ethics without simultaneously trying to argue for their particular religion, the truth of which will no doubt make PFA arguments moot? That comprehensive exclusive open-to-children union is  an end of the sexual or reproductive faculty is simply not something that is evident to the natural light. One needs religious presuppositions to justify a robust conservative sexual ethic with PFA-reasoning. But if the truth of a religion like Catholicism is already established, then PFA reasoning becomes quite moot. So PFA arguments strike me as pretty much only convincing to people who are already predisposed to conservative Christian ethics.

Therefore, my judgement on Old Natural Law theory is that while its underlying metaphysic seems to
have something going for it, pace its proponents, the metaphysic is not sufficient, without appeal to religious doctrines, to derive a conservative sexual ethic. There's no good secular reason to believe that masturbation or homosexual acts actively frustrate the end of the sexual faculty, rather than just being acts that stimulate the sexual faculty for something other than, but not contrary to, its end.

Should the State be Involved in Marriage To Begin With? Homosexual Marriages and State Interest

I have difficulty seeing why the government should be involved in marriage at all given that homosexual marriage has been enshrined into law.

When I ponder marriage, I find myself concluding that the only possibly compelling reason for the government to be involved in marriage to begin with is because it has an interest in perpetuating itself (and the only reason I add the qualifying adjective "possibly" is because I am not sure the government should be involved in marriage in the first place). In other words, the state has an interest in providing stable healthy environments for its future denizen,viz., children, and helping married couples provide that is why the state is involved. Yes, some married people never have children; some are physically unable to have children. But these are exceptions to the rule: historically, married couples have had children with one another. And laws are directed to the common good, not to individual goods, which is why it made sense to give married couples tax benefits -- they will typically have children and children are, as many parents know, expensive. So in order to help married couples provide a stable environment for childrearing, the state gives them tax breaks. This is, I believe, the only possibly compelling reason for why the state should be involved in marriage to begin with. 

But this reason for the state's involvement does not extend to homosexual marriage. Per Obergefell v. Hodges, the state now recognizes as marriage a type of union which cannot possibly produce children. The only way for married homosexual couples to have children is for them to adopt (or at least for one of them to). And the vast majority of married homosexual couples do not raise children. So, because it is biologically impossible for homosexual couples to reproduce, and because only a small percentage end up adopting and raising children, it would seem that the state's interest in such unions should be minimal or nonexistent. Unlike in the case of heterosexual marriage, there's simply no similarly possibly compelling reason why the state should support these types of unions. The state should not be in the business of regulating love affairs, as most people would grant. But that is basically what the current state of play is in the United States. Once you take children out of the equation, the state's regulation of marriage simply amounts to the state's regulation of peoples' love affairs. And I submit to you that it is no business of the state to be involved with the love affairs of its denizens. Why should the state care whether Joe and Bob, or Mary and Sally, would like to live with one another and engage in sexual acts in the privacy of their own bedrooms? I can detect no compelling reason for the state to insert its tentacles here. And given that I see no compelling or even good reason for state involvement here, I believe that  giving out tax breaks in support of homosexual marriages is simply a waste of hard-earned taxpayer money. Basically, I believe that the state's blessing homosexual unions and thereby elevating them to the status of a legally codified contract called "marriage" is silly. I see it as a reductio ad absurdum for current government involvement in marriage in the first place. Maybe the state should recognize hetereosexual marriages, maybe not. But if  the state is going to recognize homosexual unions as marriages, then I think it's better off just getting out of the marriage business entirely. If, as I believe, the only putatively compelling reason for the state to be involved in marriage to begin with is children, and marriage is, from the state's perspective, no longer about children, then the state should no longer be involved in marriage.

Now, someone may respond and say that while it is true that it is biologically impossible for homosexual married couples to produce children, and that most of them do not end up raising children for adoption, many heterosexual couples do not end up raising children either (whether because of infertility issues or otherwise). So, the argument goes, my view unjustly discriminates against homosexuals. By way of rejoinder I would repeat what I said above: laws are meant to be promulgated for the common good, and not to individual goods. That is, laws are not meant to make exceptions, but to make rules -- exceptions and particularities are handled at the level of the actual application of the law to a particular case. Most heterosexual married couples can conceive and have historically had children. The same is not the case for homosexual married couples. So there is no unjust discrimination in my view that there is a putatively compelling state interest in enshrining heterosexual marriages into law, but not homosexual marriages. However, I'm open to the possibility of only bestowing tax breaks for married couples, heterosexual or otherwise, who can prove that they are raising children. But perhaps that will be too messy. And perhaps that's all the more reason the state should finally get out of the marriage business.

People Come and Go Like the Wind

Life isn't black and white and so this isn't always true. Rarely do general rules concerning human behavior not admit of exceptions. But nonetheless, I've found this to be true the vast vast majority of the time. People take different paths on their Earthly sojourns. Sometimes those paths may cross with yours for a short time only, sometimes for a long time, and sometimes they may not cross at all. But, in any relationship you have with someone, great or small, friendly, familial, or romantic - never try to force it. That's not to say that you should turn inward on yourself. No, of course not. After all, no man is an island unto himself; and humans are social animals, to paraphrase Aristotle. But the point is that you should realize that you do not need to have your concern, friendliness, or love reciprocated by anyone. So you shouldn't chase anyone who is not interested in making time for you. If people really want to be with you, talk to you, reach out to you, they will. If they do not want to, then they will not. And that is totally okay. We are all on different journies in this world. Peace be with you.

Supporting the UFC is Immoral - Especially for Christians

Supporting an organization like the UFC that encourages people to beat, bloody and knock each other out for profit and entertainment is, though tempting, neither ethical nor Christian. Can you honestly imagine Jesus having a front-row seat to a UFC fight getting rowdy and encouraging a bearer of the imago dei to beat up another bearer of the imago dei? I cannot.

Christians with an inclination towards satisfying their violent urges in this manner would do well to read Augustine's recollection of the story of his student and friend, Alypius, recounted in book 6 of his famous Confessions. Christians are supposed to be in the world but not of the world. Do not degrade yourself with such folly. Remember who you are: a divine breath created out of the effulgence of the Supreme Mind, placed in a vale of soul-making in order to become the greatest possible type of created entity: a freely and unconditionally loving alter Christus.

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/110106.htm (ch. 7)

Hugh Hefner: A Poster Child of a Wasted Life

No one seems to talk about Hugh Hefner anymore. He has been dead for almost five years and has now been forgotten. His case is instructive because it shows the folly of pursuing worldly vanities. He has now been forgotten. What remains is only his legacy. And what is his "great" legacy, pray tell? Being the first guy in America to put nude women pictures on the covers of magazines? trying to sleep with as many women as possible? That's pathetic. History is littered with men who lived for no higher calling then finding their way inside beautiful women. That's nothing special.

Moreover, Hugh didn't make the world a better place. If you just respond by saying, "why do you care? He lived his life having fun. That's all that matters." I don't have a problem with "having fun" -- within moderation and reason -- but you should have fun whilst making the world a better place. And as far as I can see, Hugh didn't make the world a better place for his fellow sentient creatures. Much is expected to whom much is given. He was given much in life in the form of wealth, but squandered it on merely selfish pursuits. As such he represents a life that a twenty-first century man ought not to emulate. Instead, the twenty-first century man ought to emulate people like Jesus, Maximillian Kolbe, Jack Lalanne, and Martin Luther King. All such men lived admirable lives and actually contributed to making the world a better place in their own ways. But, regrettably, the story of Hugh is unlike theirs. His story is similar to the story of many who lived lives of inward-directed luxury in their earthly Sojourns. There is, then, some wisdom in Jesus of Nazareth's proclamation that it is harder for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven than it is for a camel to enter the eye of a needle. For much is expected to whom much is given.

In closing, I commend to you all this opinion piece penned by the New York Times Columnist, Ross Douthat, shortly after Hugh passed on to purgatory. (I unreservedly say he passed on to purgation because I am, after all, a universalist, and believe in the final redemption of all sentient beings -- even of the devil and his angels (if such there be)).

The Trinity is Contradictory

So I have been debating a Christian philosopher-friend on the metaphysical possibility of the Trinity recently, and it has helped me clarify my thoughts here. I'm thinking that the only way to remotely parry the claim that it is metaphysically impossible is by appealing to something like trope theory. I tend to think such a solution doesn't work, but I have to think about it more. In any case, it seems like the Trinitarian is forced to appeal to trope theory, or at least forced to reify the the deity of the persons into a particular. I don't see how a Platonist, for example, can get out of the conundrum here. I'll explain and then welcome your thoughts on this.

Here's a basic Fitch-style deduction I made in LaTeX. It represents the translation of the standard Trinitarian septad we are all familiar with, along with a proof that it is contradictory. Now, my contention is that at least the translations of (2) - (7) are unassailable. Let's start with (5) - (7). They can be proved by Leibniz's law and other Trinitarian propositions like "the Son is begotten" but "the Father is not begotten," etc. Unless one is going to absurdly say that absolute identity is unintelligible a la Geach, then one has to take (5) - (7) to be true expressions of the Trinitarian dogma.

So how about (2) - (4)? Well, that's just the standard way to translate predicative statements like "Joe is human." Creedal statements seem to make it clear to me that the "is" here is an "is of predication." The "is" here can't be the "is" of numerical identity because then we can easily derive "the Father is begotten of the Father" and get a contradiction. Besides, however you want to cash out properties, of course each person has the property of <being God>. Even the relative identity theorist -- I believe both strong and weak theorists -- have to agree that (2) - (4) are faithful expressions of the Trinity. The relative identity theorist affirms propositions like "f is the same G as s," and this implies Gf and Gs. After all, "x is the same F as y" is true only if Fx and Fy. So I honestly don't see how a Trinitarian can reasonably object to the translations of (2) - (4).

So that brings us to (1). In my humble opinion, the Trinitarian *has* to challenge this translation. But this is a completely standard way of translating "there is only one F." If I wanted to translate "there is only one human" into first-order predicate logic, I would just replace the 'G' with a 'H', for example. If I wanted to translate "there is only one turtle," I would just replace the 'G' with a 'T.' It seems like the most natural translation. Be that as it may, I'm thinking that perhaps the Trinitarian can say that "there is only one God" can be translated as "there is only one divine nature" here. One could say that instead of my translation, of "There is only one thing that is G," (1) should be translated as "there is only one divine nature." On Platonism, this would just mean that there is only one property of <being God>. But this wouldn't be a correct translation. There's also one human nature on Platonism. There is only one property <being human>. But saying that "there is only one human" means that "there is only one property <being human>" is clearly a mistranslation. When we ask "how many Fs are there?" we are asking how many things instantiate F-ness, not how many properties of <being F> there are. There's obviously only one such property. So this translation, while avoiding a contradiction, is clearly a mistranslation on Platonism. But what about on nominalism? Well, nominalism will run across the same mistranslation problem as Platonism here *unless* deity or Godness is reified as a particular. And if it is reified as a particular, then we are talking about something like trope theory. On such a Trinitarian trope theory, the Father's Godness is a trope which is numerically identical with the Son's Godness, which is numerically identical with the Holy Spirit's Godness. (I believe Leftow holds to something like this.) And since a trope is just a proper part of a primary substance, the Godness trope is a proper part of each of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (For those who believe in Divine Simplicity, this will not be an acceptable solution.) I'm not sure this solution is metaphysically possible, but it seems like the best and, quite frankly, the only remotely plausible solution to me -- but of course this may just be because the contradiction has been obfuscated by an appeal to strange metaphysics. 

 

 

 

 

 

The Decline of America And the Need for Saints

A deep darkness is descending over the United States. We are going to need saints and heroes to courageously stand up to the malevolence that is spreading - we're going to need people much better than my weak self. I'm not a Christian, but I lament that the light of Christ is dimming precipitously in the States.

The family, the root of a healthy society, is under attack. The absurdity that is gay marriage has been codified into law. Divorce rates have rocketed above fifty percent. Tens of millions of our young people are under the sway of violent and filthy rap and hip hop music. We have reverted back to pagan gladiatorial games (e.g. UFC) where people bloody and bash each others' heads for money, fame, and the captivation of a depraved audience. Hormones are being pumped into sex-confused kids in what can only be described as a futile and diabolical rebellion against nature and reality. People are being harassed, mocked and attacked for not insanely referring to singular individuals with "they/them" pronouns. Academics moving against the current can no longer speak freely without significant reprisal. Grifters have largely succeeded in reinvigorating once-dormant racial tensions. Demonization of the other side is now the modus operandi of politicians on both sides. Our mainstream news outlets have been generally exposed as unreliable propaganda outlets at best, and state pravda at worst. The state's tentacles are intruding into spheres once thought by Americans to be sacred and one's own. Mental illness and suicidal idealization have probably reached rates never before seen in America's history. It seems like every week some mentally disturbed individual shoots up random people at a local church, store, or school. We are in the midst of an opiod epidemic; and one state has already legalized meth and cocaine use - a moral monstrosity which would have been unthinkable even a few years ago. The gap between the rich and the poor is growing larger, with our wealthiest obscenely worth in the hundreds of billions. The authoritarian and orwellian Chinese wolf is prowling ever closer and may well overtake us as the world's superpower soon. Inflation is out of control...The list goes on.

But the biggest problem of all facing America -- the root problem, if you will -- is the same one that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's elders spoke of as the reason for Russia's twentieth-century calamities: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” [1] We Americans have forgotten God. We as a nation have lost the sense of the transcendent, and have devolved into a sensuous people bereft of a grander compass with which to steer our lives.

It is in such times of ever encroaching evil that we need saints, bodhisattvas and alter Christuses to emerge from the shards of a nation in its death throes, not only to help cure the ails of the present order, but to rekindle in the American heart the sense of a divine transcendence, a divine transcendence which alone can infuse our lives with meaning and purpose. I do not, or rather, try not, to despair because I believe in this transcendent Logos. So I can rationally hope, along with Tolkien, that "From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall  spring."

 

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[1] Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr. “Men Have Forgotten God" (Speech, 1983), National Review. https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/12/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn-men-have-forgotten-god-speech/. The following words are particularly powerful: "More than half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our Revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”

[2] The above image is taken from https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/origin-174.jpg?w=640, and I claim no rights to the image; it is copyrighted to its owner.