Right Reason: Natural ends and natural law, Part I

In a recent post on Left2Right, Don Herzog has criticized the claim that an action might be unnatural in a sense that entails that it is also wrong. This claim, he says, is not merely mistaken, but �strictly speaking nonsensical.� The claim in question is, of course, one commonly associated with natural law theory, and the traditional version of that theory was teleological, positing natural ends and purposes that determine the content of our moral obligations. Herzog�s main point seems to be that since a mechanistic conception of nature has replaced the old Aristotelian teleological conception, there is no longer any place for an appeal to natural ends and functions.

It isn�t clear from his post whether Herzog thinks that all appeals to nature as a basis for moral judgments are nonsensical � including appeals that presuppose a teleological conception of the world � or only that those made in the context of a mechanistic conception of the world are nonsensical. In any case, I think Herzog is far too glib in dismissing such appeals, and in this post and one to follow, I will try to explain why.

In this post I will give a sketch of a traditional understanding of how an appeal to nature justifies moral claims. I�m not suggesting that all traditional or contemporary natural law theorists would go along with it � for example, I assume Grisez and Finnis would not. But it probably represents the sort of approach that you�d find, say, in Catholic moral theology manuals of the pre-Vatican II period, and counts as at least one common interpretation of the Aristotelian and Thomistic approach to ethics dominant in the medieval period. I will save for part II the question of whether anything like this picture is defensible today. The aim for now is just to show how at least on this picture, appeals to nature in the context of moral reasoning can be perfectly coherent. I also hope to dispel some very common misconceptions of what is meant by saying that certain actions are immoral because they are unnatural.

Start with the broadly Aristotelian and Thomistic idea that things have natures, where having a nature involves participating in a form, and where we assume some version of realism about forms � if not Platonic realism, then at least Aristotelian realism. In particular, living things have forms that determine their natures. So there is a form of �squirrelhood,� for example, and it is by virtue of participating in this form that a squirrel counts as a squirrel, and has the nature of a squirrel as opposed to the nature of a dog. By the same token, there is a form of humanness by virtue of which human beings have the nature they do.

Now we move on to the concept of goodness, which on this way of thinking is to be understood in terms of the idea of realizing a nature or form. To be a good squirrel, say, is just to be a squirrel which fully realizes the form of a squirrel. A squirrel which, due to some genetic defect, say, is born without legs or born without a predisposition to gather nuts for the winter (or whatever) is less good than one without these defects, because it participates less fully in the form. From the example, it should be obvious that �good� is not meant here in a moral sense: it is rather a sense closer to the sense in which we might say that someone is a good pianist or a good speller, insofar as that person more fully realizes the characteristics that are definitive of piano playing or spelling than a bad pianist or speller does. It is also similar to the sense in which a painting might be a good painting, e.g. it might be a skillfully executed and accurate representation of its subject.

A related idea is the concept of flourishing. A good squirrel is one which flourishes in the sense that it realizes its squirrel nature to the fullest: it scampers up trees and avoids predators, gathers its food, rests when it needs to, and in general does well all the things that squirrels by their nature tend to do. By contrast, a squirrel which has been kept in a cage all its life and fed nothing but Ritz crackers and toothpaste is not one which is flourishing: it is bound to be sickly, and unable and perhaps even unwilling to scamper, climb trees, and so forth. Notice that this is true even if the squirrel has, because of conditioning or some genetic defect, come to prefer crackers and toothpaste to its normal food and come to prefer the confinement of the cage to scampering up trees. It is still a squirrel, and thus it is still in its nature to scamper up trees and eat nuts and the like; it�s just that it�s been damaged in such a way that it no longer is inclined to do what it is in its nature as a squirrel to do. (Compare a damaged painting of your mother, which is still a painting of your mother even if her image is now not so recognizable in it, or a damaged corkscrew, which is still a corkscrew even if it is now useless for opening bottles.)

This brings us to the notion of natural ends or tendencies, which is very widely misunderstood. A natural end or tendency is just an end or tendency that a thing has by nature, i.e. by virtue of participating in its form; it is not just any disposition a thing might happen to have, as a result of habituation or genetic anomaly for instance. If I cut off a squirrel�s leg, it does not follow that that squirrel�s nature is now that of a three-legged creature. The squirrel still realizes, only now less perfectly, the nature of an essentially four-legged creature. Similarly, if the squirrel comes through habituation or genetic defect to have a desire to eat nothing but toothpaste, it does not follow that this desire is �natural� in the relevant sense. Even a genetic predisposition to want nothing but toothpaste would be an accidental rather than an essential attribute of the squirrel, and thus not part of its nature qua squirrel. It would be as much of a defect � a failure perfectly to realize a form � as the loss of a leg.

It should also be clear that �natural,� on the view I�m describing, does not mean just anything that happens to occur in nature. Sometimes people object to natural law reasoning on the grounds that �everything that happens in nature is natural, so the theory is vacuous.� But this just badly misunderstands the theory. �Natural� in this context doesn�t mean �happening in accordance with the laws of nature (e.g. physics)� but rather �reflecting a thing�s nature in the sense defined by its participation in a form.�

Now human beings, by virtue of participating in a certain form, also have certain natural ends or tendencies. And these are not just whatever tendencies a person happens to be born with, since these might result from a failure fully to participate in the form. Someone born with a clubfoot, or without arms, or with a predisposition to alcoholism, is not �naturally� that way in the sense of �natural� in question, because these traits are not part of the form or natural ends associated with humanness, but are rather departures from it. (It is important to emphasize also, though, that we are still not yet talking about a moral sense of �good,� and so there is absolutely no implication in any of this that human beings born with genetic defects are of less moral value than other human beings. What makes you human, and gives you the rights and dignity entailed by being human, is that you participate in the form of a human being at all, not how perfectly you instantiate it. This is why Terri Schiavo, on the view I�m describing, had just as much a right to life as any other human being, regardless of her �quality of life.�)

Among the traits that human beings have by nature are capacities for reason and free choice. And here, at last, is where the concept of moral goodness enters the picture, as a sub-category of the broader concept of goodness discussed so far. A squirrel that behaves in the strange ways described above is in a sense a �bad� squirrel, but not in a moral sense of �bad.� Distinctively moral goodness attaches only to the behavior of a creature capable of freely choosing to engage in it. Now among the natural ends human beings have is the realization of certain potentials, where this realization requires time and habituation. We don�t start out fully formed: our formation is a process that takes at least a lifetime. This is what the development of a virtuous character involves. But it is also part of human nature that human beings are capable of reflecting on their actions and deciding whether or not to act in accordance with their natural end. A fully good human being, in the not-yet-moral sense of �good� used above, is one who has fully realized his natural potentials. And a morally good human being is just one who tends to choose to act in a way that will lead him to realize those potentials. By the same token, just as a bad human being, in the not-yet-moral sense, is one who fails to realize those potentials, a morally bad human being is one who tends to choose to act in a way that keeps him from realizing them.

Aquinas famously held that the first principle of moral reasoning is that �good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided.� Critics of natural law sometimes object that this principle is trivial, without realizing that it is supposed to be trivial. It is intended merely to state the obvious starting point of moral reasoning, not to tell us specifically which actions happen to be good and which ones evil. Answering that question is where the theory of the good I�ve been sketching comes in. If we know from this trivial and obvious first principle that we ought to pursue good and avoid evil, and from the theory in question that the good is whatever fulfills our natural potentials and ends, then it follows that we ought to fulfill our natural potentials and ends. Notice that there is no �is-ought� fallacy here. Such a fallacy is committed when one goes from premises that make no reference to �oughts� and/or to the good to a conclusion that does contain such a reference. But the premises in this case do make reference to the good and to what we ought to do.

Now what exactly are the potentials and ends natural to human beings? That�s a large topic. For Aquinas and other medieval natural law theorists, of course, our ultimate end is the beatific vision, since in their view nothing less than communion with God can possibly satisfy our nature as rational and moral creatures. But let�s stay closer to earthly life. �Natural ends or tendencies,� in the sense in which the view I�ve been describing understands that concept, are bound to correspond at least roughly with the inclinations and impulses we tend to have as a matter of statistical fact. It is part of our nature to require food, and so of course it is not surprising that we should tend to have an inclination to want to eat food. It is also part of our nature, though, that eating too much tends to cause us various moral and physical problems, so that not just any desire to eat, however excessive, can be counted �natural� in the sense in question. An appeal to statistical regularities, then, is at best a fallible guide to discerning what is natural for us.

A surer guide can be had only once we focus on the ideas of function and design. To say that we have certain natural ends entails that our various physical and psychological capacities are �for� certain purposes, and once we determine what those purposes are � what the function of these capacities is, or what they are designed to do � we will have a pretty good method for determining which actions are virtuous and which vicious, i.e. which actions will tend to help us to realize our ends and which will tend to keep us from doing so. Now we might think of the purposes or functions involved as somehow inherent in the capacities themselves; or we might follow Aquinas in holding that it ultimately makes sense to speak of purposes and functions in things only if there literally is a designer who had these purposes or functions in mind in creating the capacities in question. In either case, it is at least useful for heuristic purposes to ask what a designer might have had in mind in creating the capacities in question.

When anthropologists discover some tool buried in the earth, they often do not have too much trouble figuring out what it is and what it is for. They may not get all the details exactly right, but in general they can determine from its structure that it is indeed a kind of artifact, and that its purpose is for cutting flesh or hides, or whatever. Similarly, with at least many human physical and psychological capacities, if we assume, at least as a heuristic method, that they were created with some sort of end or purpose in mind, we can often draw plausible conclusions about what that end or purpose was.

Since it�s the natural law theory example that critics of the theory always get the most worked up over, let�s look at sex. One way to understand the traditional natural law view of the matter is this. If you consider the sexual drives that human beings have, then it is blindingly obvious that if those drives have any natural purpose at all � if they were, say, designed with a certain end in view � then that purpose is to get people to use their sexual organs. And if you consider the sexual organs themselves, then it is also blindingly obvious that if they were designed with any purpose in mind, then that purpose is procreation. More specifically, the purpose of a penis � again, if you assume that it was indeed designed with a purpose in mind � is quite obviously to deposit semen into a vagina (and also, of course, to urinate). That�s what it�s for, if indeed it is for anything, and whether or not it can be used for other purposes. You can use a corkscrew for all sorts of things � cleaning your fingernails, say � and you might for some reason even have a compulsion to use it only to clean your fingernails. The fact remains that what a corkscrew is for is opening bottles. And the purpose of sexual organs, if they have one, isn�t any more mysterious than that of corkscrews.

Let me pause to note that it is just not relevant at this point to object that the sexual organs are really just products of evolution, that many people want to do other things with those organs, etc. The point for right now is, again, just that if we consider sexual organs as having been intentionally designed for a purpose � and I realize that many readers will consider that a big �if� � then, in that case, it is not terribly mysterious what that purpose was. So if you think that sexual organs don�t in fact have a natural purpose, fine; the question here is just what purpose they would have if they did have one.

We can note further that given the way human beings are constructed � no built-in plugs or sheathes, no ejaculatory on/off switch etc. � it is very difficult to use a penis in a way that accords with its apparent natural purpose (i.e. depositing semen into a vagina) without also having children, and lots of them. The Pill just doesn�t grow on trees, nor is a supply naturally issued with every penis or vagina at birth. So, it follows that if sexual drives and organs were designed for a certain purpose, then that purpose was pretty clearly not just occasional procreation, but fairly steady procreation. Whoever designed them clearly wanted people to have lots of sexual intercourse, and to have it precisely so that they�d have lots of children. It�s almost as if he wanted to write into their very biological nature the message: �Be fruitful and multiply.� And of course, most human beings, for most of human history, have done precisely that: the self-inflicted barrenness of modern Westerners is an anomaly, historically speaking.

Again, let�s note that certain replies to this are irrelevant to the point at issue. If you�re horrified by the sort of view just described because you fear it might lead to keeping women barefoot and pregnant, or to a rationalization of �the patriarchy,� or whatever, fine and dandy. I�m not concerned with such issues right now. The point is, again, just to note that certain specific conclusions about function are indeed plausible if we interpret human drives and organs as having been literally designed for certain purposes.

Now there�s much more to be said about how the view in question understands sex � and contrary to a popular misconception, it goes far beyond a mere interest in plumbing, and comprises a rich conception of the nature of marital love and family life � but what has been said will suffice to make the point. And that point is that from the point of view of the theory I�m describing here, what makes a certain act �natural� has everything to do with whether it in fact involves using a capacity in a way consistent with its natural function or purpose, and nothing necessarily to do with whether or not someone has, for whatever reason, a strong desire to use it that way or some other way. It follows that whether or not someone has, for example, a genetic predisposition to want to engage in homosexual acts is, from the point of view of traditional natural law theory, completely irrelevant to whether such a desire is �natural� in the sense in question, and thus completely irrelevant to the issue of whether such acts are moral or immoral.

It is no good to ask, by the way, �Well, why would God give someone these desires?� because you might as well ask �Why would God give someone a genetic predisposition to alcoholism?� or �Why would God give someone a clubfoot?� The answer, from the point of view of the theory I�m describing, is that God did not in fact �give� people these things, but rather merely allowed these deviations from the norm to occur, for the same reason (whatever it is) that he allows people to suffer all sorts of trials. This is at most just a particular case of the problem of evil, and poses no special problem for natural law reasoning. And while a person is indeed no more guilty of wrongdoing for being born with such a tendency than he is guilty of wrongdoing for being born with a clubfoot, it does not follow that the disposition is �natural,� any more than a clubfoot is. Nor does it follow that the acts towards which he is disposed are morally licit. A person predisposed toward alcoholism is predisposed toward acts that are morally deficient, and even though he is not blameworthy for having the disposition itself, he still ought not to indulge in the acts in question.

It must also be emphasized that, contrary to another common misunderstanding, �unnatural� in the context of the view I�m describing does not mean �using something other than for its natural purpose.� It means �using it in a manner contrary to its natural purpose.� To borrow an example from Michael Levin, there is nothing unnatural about merely tapping out a little song on your teeth, even if that�s not what teeth are for. But there is something unnatural about painting little pictures on your teeth and then refusing ever to eat again lest the pictures be rubbed off, or pulling them out so as to make a necklace out of them. The former sort of act does not frustrate the natural end of teeth, but the latter acts do. And part of the idea in the traditional natural law understanding of the sexual act is that ejaculating into a Kleenex, or a condom, or into any bodily orifice other than a vagina, doesn�t just involve using an organ other than for its natural purpose (which is not necessarily �unnatural�) but that it uses it in a manner contrary to its natural purpose. For the �aim� or point of arousal and ejaculation, if they have an aim or point at all, is to get semen into a vagina, and the acts just described frustrate that aim.

For the same reason, not every human intervention in the natural order counts as �unnatural.� Putting eyeglasses on doesn�t �interfere with nature� in a sense that traditional natural law theory would take exception to, because what glasses do is remedy a defect that keeps eyes from performing their natural function. The point of glasses is not to interfere with an organ�s performance of its natural function, but rather to aid it in performing that function. By contrast, the point of birth control devices is to stop an organ from performing its natural function. So such devices do �interfere with nature� in a sense that is illicit from the traditional natural law point of view.

Now obviously, not everyone is going to be attracted to the view I�m describing, but the point, I fear I need to emphasize yet again, is not to prove that the theory is true, but just to explain what it says. So if you don�t like it, well, it�s a free country. But please understand that certain stock criticisms of the theory � �Some people like to do other things with their organs,� �God made me this way,� �If it�s genetic, it�s natural,� �Everything in nature is natural,� �Wouldn�t that mean that eyeglasses are unnatural?� and so forth � just completely miss the point. And if you�re interested in presenting a serious and intellectually honest criticism of the theory, you really should try first to understand what it actually says.

I�ve gone on long enough, and though the theory I�ve sketched obviously raises all sorts of questions, what I�ve said should suffice for the purpose at hand. For whether you�re inclined to accept this theory as true, it seems pretty obvious that it is not literally �nonsensical� in the way Herzog seems to think. That is to say, whether the theory is right or not, it is at least coherent and intelligible. If moral goodness involves choosing those acts that tend to fulfill the natural ends or purposes inherent in human nature, where �ends,� �purposes,� and �nature� are understood in the realist way in which the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition understands them, then it makes perfect sense to say that certain acts are unnatural and therefore immoral. Such acts frustrate the realization of the good for human beings, which is an entirely objective matter, determined by the content of our nature and thus by the form of a human being. Whether people always see the good for what it is, or whether instead � as a result of simple error, muddle-headedness, habituated vice, or whatever � their vision of it is distorted, is another matter. The good is not defined by our desires, whatever their source. Rather, right desire is determined by reference to the good � that is, by reference to nature. A drug addict may be absolutely convinced that his habit is a good thing, but he is simply mistaken, and blind to his true condition. From the traditional natural law point of view, the same is true of all sorts of other widespread patterns of behavior.

If someone wants to reject this whole theory, fine. But there is no good reason to deny that it is at least a coherent theory, whose various components fit together in such a way that its tying together of unnaturalness and immorality is perfectly intelligible. Maybe Herzog would concede this much. Maybe he would say that the problem is just that this sort of theory is too dependent on an old-fashioned Aristotelian metaphysics to be of much relevance in the context of modern mechanistic physical science. Whether he is right to hold this is something I�ll address in part II.

Comments

Ed:

I am sympathetic to your point of view. But let me raise a question concerning the natural purpose of sex organs. Could not someone say that they have two intrinsic purposes--one flesh communion and procreation? Thus, contraception, in fact, enhances the intrinsic purpose of one-flesh communion by allowing married couples to engage in conjugal acts that nurture intimacy and shared devotion. Surely, the procreative function is stymied, but it is stymied for the sake of the organs' other goods. So, perhaps, we can think of justifying contraception--along natural law lines--on the ground of the principle of double-effect: there are both good and bad results, but the good outweighs the bad and the intent of the actors is to will the good.

I am, admittedly, thinking out loud. So, don't be gentle to the typing philosopher. :-)

I appreciate your thoughtful post.

Frank

Posted by: Francis J. Beckwith | May 16, 2005 8:41 AM

Frank, I know you addressed your question to Ed -- and I, too, would like to hear his answer -- but let me take a stab at it (also off the top of my head). I see three problems with your suggestion.

1. It would justify sodomy.

2. It is far from clear that the good of sexual intimacy outweighs the bad of preventing the conception of a child.

3. I'm not sure the intimacy of "one flesh communion" can be made sense of apart from the possibility of procreation.

Posted by: Max Goss | May 16, 2005 9:23 AM

It strikes me that there's a simpler objection to Frank's suggestion than any of Max's: doesn't Frank's case for contraception depend on rejecting the principle that we must not do what is evil for the sake of a good? For example, an exactly similar justification could be given for the deliberate killing of civilians in wartime: sacrificing one good for the sake of maximizing the good in general. Granted that the sex organs have mutliple functions, it by no means follows that one may directly frustrate one of those function for the sake of the others.

The fundamental question is this: is nature a ground for deontological prohibitions, or only for the ranking of various values?

Posted by: Rob Koons | May 16, 2005 10:28 AM

Rob, it sounds to me like you are just denying the principle of double effect. A defender of this principle would say that it all depends on what you mean by "deliberately." If your aim is to frustrate the potential for procreation (in Frank's case) or to kill civilians (in yours), then your action is, according to the principle, wrong, but if your aim is something good such as intimacy or the toppling of a corrupt regime, and the good outweighs the bad, and there is no way to get the good without the bad, then the action might, according to the principle, be okay. Is there something wrong with this principle?

Posted by: Max Goss | May 16, 2005 11:02 AM

Rob may be correct that there's a more simple objection to Frank's argument for contraception. Nevertheless, Frank's post raises an important feature of natural law arguments about the nature of sex that is nearly always misunderstood.

Grant the standard natural law position that sex has two purposes, unity of the spouses and procreation. Frank and many others understand "unity of the spouses" as consisting in the intimate sexual pleasure that the spouses share. Whenever this sort of pleasure is felt, then unity is achieved. On this account it's clear that the unitive purpose of sex is separable from the procreative purpose: unity can be achieved when sex isn't procreative in type, and sex that's procreative in type (and that also happens to issue in procreation) need not be unitive.

As Max suggests, it's not too hard to see how this view tends to justify sodomy and most everything else. The correct view (I think) is that the unitive and procreative purposes may be separable conceptually, but they are defined in relation to each other as a local holism. Thus sex that isn't procreative in type cannot be unitive. This is why natural law talk about "one-flesh" union should be taken literally. It is metaphysically impossible for contraceptive sex to effect unity between the spouses. Neither the procreative nor the unitive purpose of sex can be "sacrificed" for the sake of the other, since one obtaining presupposes the other obtaining.

The best presentation of this view I've read is in an article by Alexander Pruss in _Logos_ and available on his website: http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/ap85/papers/notlust.html

Posted by: Matt | May 16, 2005 3:05 PM

Hi guys, thanks for the comments. Perhaps this won't add much to what Max, Rob, and Matt have already said, but in reply to Frank's question, I would say that while yes, the sexual act also performs a unitive function, it doesn't follow that this function can justifiably be performed in a way that frustrates the procreative function.

Part of the reason for this is the one Rob hints at. If it is indeed always wrong intentionally to frustrate a natural end, then it would be wrong to use contraception so as to carry out the unitive function in isolation. We cannot do evil that good may follow. (Incidentally, I don't see how what Rob said commits him to denying double effect: if I understand him correctly, he wasn't saying that you can never intentionally carry out an intrinsically licit act knowing that a bad effect might follow it, but rather that you can never carry out an intrinsically illicit act -- which contraceptive acts would be, on the analysis in question -- even though a good result might follow.)

Another reason, though, is that on the traditional view I was describing, the unitive function has no meaning apart from the procreative function. That is to say, the unitive function only exists to facilitate the procreative function. For without procreation, marriage wouldn't exist. You would still have strong bonds of friendship between people, but without sex (which is inherently procreative) you wouldn't have marriage per se. In brief: the unitive function exists to facilitate a happy marriage, which in turn exists in order to provide a context within which children can properly be raised, and where children only come into existence via the sexual act.

So the unitive function rides piggyback on the procreative function; the procreative function "wears the trousers," as J.L. Austin might have put it had he been a traditional natural law theorist. Trying to carry out the one apart from the other is like throwing up your food so as to have the pleasure of eating without gaining weight. There's nothing wrong with enjoying eating, of course, or even with eating just for the pleasure of it, but if we try to separate the pleasure from the nutritive function, we throw the natural order out of whack and end up with all sorts of bad results. Similarly with the unitive function of sexual intercourse. There's absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying sexual intercourse, or even with having it just for the enjoyment, but it doesn't follow that the enjoyment can safely be separated from the procreative function.

That doesn't mean that a married couple have to intend children whenever they have intercourse -- again, natural ends have nothing to do with the subjective intentions of agents, but rather with the purpose or function of psychological drives and organs themselves -- but only that when they have it, and even when they have it during infertile periods, they don't do anything that positively frustrates the function of the organs.

And I also hasten to add, for those readers who might be led into another common misunderstanding, that this does not entail that infertile spouses can never have sexual intercourse, or even that you could never legitimately marry someone you knew to be infertile. For in neither case are you actually doing anything that positively frustrates any natural functions -- it just so happens that for independent reasons outside your control, those functions can't in fact be fulfilled. (Though if you did marry someone infertile precisely in order to avoid procreation, this would be morally problematic from a traditional natural law point of view -- not because it involves actively frustrating the natural end of a capacity, which it doesn't, but rather because it manifests what from a natural law point of view would be a morally deficient attitude toward sex.)

Posted by: Edward Feser | May 16, 2005 4:05 PM

As you suggest, Herzog probably would not consider this a viable form of naturalism after Darwin. But I'll wait for part II to address that point.

In the meantime, I was struck by the analogy you used:
"...there is nothing unnatural about merely tapping out a little song on your teeth, even if that�s not what teeth are for. But there is something unnatural about painting little pictures on your teeth and then refusing ever to eat again lest the pictures be rubbed off, or pulling them out so as to make a necklace out of them. The former sort of act does not frustrate the natural end of teeth, but the latter acts do."

Of course, tapping a song on one's teeth does frustrate their natural end in the sense that one can't really eat in the midst of doing the tapping. You rightly point out that what matters is whether the end is permanently kept from being satisfied -- as in the example of taking one's teeth out.

Now consider two of the acts you call unnatural: using contraception and homosexual intercourse. Both of these seem more like the tapping one's teeth case than the removing one's teeth case, for neither using a condom nor having gay sex will lead to any permanent inability to fulfill the 'natural' function of the genitals. For instance, one could be bisexual and engage in both kinds of intercourse. Wouldn't this be as natural as tapping one's teeth?

Posted by: NB | May 16, 2005 4:36 PM

I am glad you addressed the common criticisms of the theory, and it does have some cohesion and appeal to it.

My question is whether or not free will has any meaning under natural law, because if we use it for anything other than the single moral good, we are abusing our own nature. My understanding of free will is that involves a decision between a minimum of three choices.

Posted by: Step2 | May 16, 2005 8:02 PM

I have two problems with this theoretical construct:

"For the �aim� or point of arousal and ejaculation, if they have an aim or point at all, is to get semen into a vagina, and the acts just described frustrate that aim."

Where is the proof of this? If sexual organs had, as their particular purpose, been designed for procreation, then: 1) every act of intercourse would produce the "natural" result (i.e., pregnancy) and 2) sexual organs would be constructed so as to preclude misuse (e.g., sodomy). Even electricians were able to produce designs that meet these 2 criteria and God presumably is more capable than they are. Why didn't he?

I would argue the case of Ms Schiavo using the very concept discussed here. Feeding tubes don't grow on trees and death is part of the natural process of life. In fact, if you believe in Heaven, Ms Schiavo was prevented from meeting her reward for many years by a technological intervention into her natural progression much more invasive than a condom.

I believe the way this argument is assembled begs the conclusions the author prefers and ignores the problematic aspects. Perhaps they will be addressed in Part II. Using biology to support theology is a dicey proposition unless you are a Judeo-Christian fundamentalist.

Posted by: wai | May 16, 2005 9:06 PM

As Ed correctly assumes, I didn't mean to deny the doctrine of double effect. But double effect can't be used to justify contraception, since contraception is by definition aimed directly at frustrating one of the natural functions of the sex organs. One can remove the ovaries or testicles when the resulting sterility is an unintended by-product of, say, fighting cancer.

Wai's suggested criteria for identifying proper functions are non-starters. Eyes have the function of seeing, even if they can't see in absolute darkness. Stomachs have the function of digesting food, even when this function is frustrated by deliberate vomiting.

There has been a vigorous revival of teleological thinking in contemporary philosophy, and not just by theists. See, for example, Millikan's _Language, Thought and Other Biological Categories_, Dretske's _Explaining Behavior_, Colin Allen's _Nature's Purposes_, Alvin Plantinga's _Warrant and Proper Function_, and MacIntyre's _Dependent Rational Animals_. (Caveat lector -- the last two are theists!)

Posted by: Rob Koons | May 16, 2005 10:09 PM

How about Mark Murphy's *Natural Law and Practical Rationality*? He defends a modified view of Aristotelian function/teleology.

Posted by: Clement Ng | May 16, 2005 11:51 PM

NB: The sort of "tapping on one's teeth" I had in mind was not tapping during eating (which doesn't seem possible anyway -- you're either eating or you're tapping, even if you're alternating between them). It was rather tapping in an absent-minded way while one is thinking (or whatever). And the point was that even though this isn't what teeth are for, it isn't illicit from the traditional natural law point of view because it doesn't frustrate the function of teeth. The context was the question of whether using something "other than" for its natural purpose was illicit (it isn't) or whether it is using it "contrary to" its purpose that is illict (it is).

So the basis or your question is misconceived. I was not making the claim that use of a capacity is illicit only if it is permanently disabled. It is illicit, on the view I was describing, even if it is only temporarily disabled.

Step2: I'm not clear on why you think this poses any problem for free will. Every moral theory says that we should do some things and avoid others. Obviously, it doesn't follow that these theories deny free will. So what's the problem?

Wai: I'm not sure what your problem is either. Do I need "proof" that corkscrews are for opening bottles? After all, you can do lots of other things with them -- cleaning fingernails, opening mail, drilling holes, etc. So does it follow that there's just no way to know what they're for? Obviously not -- even though, no, I never asked the inventor of corkscrews what he had in mind when he invented them. It's pretty obvious what he had in mind. Nor does the fact that corkscrews don't always work, or that there's nothing about them that forces anyone to use them to open bottles with, show that they don't really have a purpose after all.

Re: God's intentions, well, as I pointed out in my original post, he allows all sorts of bad things already, so the fact that he allows us to misuse our natural capacities isn't any special problem for traditional natural law theory. This is just the old problem of evil which, as you know, lots of people have said a lot about. One obvious point that is especially relevant here is that if God is to allow us any significant degree of free will at all, he's surely going to allow us to misuse our bodily capacities, and suffer the consequences, if that's what we choose.

Re: Mrs. Schiavo, again, as I pointed out in my original post, restoring a damaged capacity -- like the capacity to eat -- does not involve interfering with nature in an illicit way. You are, I'm afraid, still laboring under certain misconceptions about what "natural" means according to the theory I described.

So, your criticisms are, as Rob points out, just non-starters. Nor do I see any justification for the ad hominem stuff: I assume you wouldn't appreciate it if I suggested that your criticism of natural law theory "begs the conclusions [you] prefer and ignores the problematic aspects."

Posted by: Edward Feser | May 17, 2005 12:39 AM

Edward, in his reply to my comment, wrote:
"NB: The sort of 'tapping on one's teeth' I had in mind was not tapping during eating (which doesn't seem possible anyway -- you're either eating or you're tapping, even if you're alternating between them). It was rather tapping in an absent-minded way while one is thinking (or whatever). [...]"

But that was precisely my point. An act of sodomy or condom-use does not prevent one from engaging in so-called 'natural' sexual activity at any other time, and, thus, seems precisely analogous to tapping one's teeth (which, as you point out, makes eating impossible during the act of tapping, but doesn't prevent one from eating at other times). But if the analogy holds, then I just don't see why, say, occasionally using a condom is unnatural, but occasionally teeth-tapping not. Again, both temporarily block 'natural' use, but neither prevent 'natural' use at other times.

Obviously, I mean this as a reductio. It would be absurd to morally judge someone on naturalistic grounds for tapping their teeth . I just don't see how it's any less absurd to condemn sodomy and condom-use on those grounds, given the analogy between the two cases.

Posted by: NB | May 17, 2005 1:11 AM

NB: The analogy you keep insisting on just isn't there. Maybe you can't tap your teeth and eat at the same time, but that doesn't mean that tapping your teeth frustrates teeth in carrying out their function, any more than being unable to drink and breathe at the same time frustrates the natural function of either the esophagus or the windpipe. Being unable to do more than one thing at a time is just not the same thing as doing one thing and frustrating its point. There's nothing about carrying out the natural function of teeth that requires that once you start a meal, you must continue uninterrupted, without even a moment for tapping, until you're done. But there is something about the natural function of a penis -- getting semen into a vagina -- that requires that the semen not be blocked on the way in, aimed in the wrong direction, etc. If you pause for a little tapping, the meal is still consumed and the teeth have fulfilled their function. But if you use a condom, etc. the semen has not gotten where it's supposed to go and the penis has not fulfilled its function. Apples and oranges. And no reductio.

Posted by: Edward Feser | May 17, 2005 3:12 AM

Ed, Rob, et. al. Thanks for your thoughtful responses to my query about Ed's argument. Right now I'm not sure what to think about the moral status of contraception. So, appreciate your insights on this matter.

Posted by: Francis Beckwith | May 17, 2005 8:52 AM

Are MRI's natural,is Coco-Cola? This is similar to the long winded side tracking that occurred on Don Herzog's post. It bears comparison to the free will/determinism arguments of many years and skepticism in general. Everybody believes them until it comes to their own selves. Dig a little bit and you will find people who believe that at least some actions are both desireable and natural. I would clarify that in my reading Mr Feser only anticipates some common objections to concepts of a human nature. Regarding the vacuity of natural as anything that happens in nature,there may be a conceptual/semantic roadblock caused by a conflating of the terms unnatural and harmful. That which is harmful is to the detriment of human nature and potential with some acts being so deviant as to fall outside even common practices of sin or crime. These latter may be labeled unnatural and not merely immoral,unless we are wiling to toss language into the handbasket on it's way to hell.

Posted by: johnt | May 17, 2005 9:53 AM

"Do I need "proof" that corkscrews are for opening bottles?"

Absolutely, IF you assert that is their one true and proper function. Your assertion that corkscrews are intended for removing wine corks is supported by the fact that they are called corkscrews and the historical record shows they were invented for this purpose. You have no similar support with regard to the penis. In the case of the penis, your construct is particularly difficult since there is at least one other natural function for it (urination). To exclude all the other functions to which a penis can be put as "unnatural" is an arbitrary determination. God may very well have intended all those other uses as well. The penis may not be a corkscrew, it may be a swiss army knife. How do you know?

"restoring a damaged capacity -- like the capacity to eat"

Her ability to eat was not restored in any way. We used mechanical means to do the eating for her. What we interfered with was her ability to DIE and I assert that the ability to die is just as natural as the ability to procreate.

"Wai's suggested criteria for identifying proper functions are non-starters. Eyes have the function of seeing, even if they can't see in absolute darkness. Stomachs have the function of digesting food, even when this function is frustrated by deliberate vomiting."

Yet neither eyes nor stomachs are ever used for removing corks or commiting sodomy. You are comparing apples to oranges. The question is whether non-procreative uses of the penis (for which it is very well suited in all mechanical and emotional respects) are "natural" uses for it. Maybe God intended the ability to produce frequent and copious quantities of sperm specifically to allow these other uses without interfering with procreation.

What you refer to as "the ad hominem stuff" is not an attack on your integrity, it's pointing out that there are gaps in the construct that make it "leaky." If you insist all your logical arguments are, by default, air tight, and I'm rude to think otherwise, then discussion is impossible. If you maintain that I just don't understand you, then try explaining, rather than dismissing me.

Posted by: wai | May 17, 2005 10:11 AM

I'm a relative newcomer to natural law theory and find myself predisposed against it, but I've tried to read and understand your article without getting hung up on the possible objections and questions that you yourself have raised. In other words, I realize that my big objection is to the very idea that things are designed with natural ends, but I've tried to follow that the argument that if you accept that first principle, the rest follows.

I'm having trouble understanding, however, why masturbation (and sodomy) are "contrary to" the natural purpose of the penis, and not just "other than" it. The condom argument I can follow -- you are performing an act that, without the condom, would culminate in the ejaculation of sperm into the vagina. The condom frustrates that end.

But take your corkscrew example. I can accept (for the sake of argument) the premise that corkscrews are "for" opening wine bottles, and that using a corkscrew to clean your fingernails doesn't change that fact. But surely this falls into the "other than" category -- unless your corkscrew is hopelessly blunted by continual fingernail cleaning, it can still open wine bottles and its end hasn't been frustrated.

Isn't this true of masturbation as well? If you never set out to deposit your semen into a vagina, then in what way has that end been frustrated? It's clear to me that you have done something "other than" the natural end, but I don't see anything contrary about it.

Posted by: Henry | May 17, 2005 12:37 PM

Wai wrote "To exclude all the other functions to which a penis can be put as 'unnatural'..."

Did you actually read what I wrote? Or did you just skim through it quickly so you could start criticizing it ASAP? I have explicitly denied several times now that using something other than for its natural function is "unnatural" in the sense the theory considers illicit. What the theory says is "unnatural" is just one kind of use, namely using something in a manner contrary to its purpose, i.e. in a way that undermines its intended aim. Other uses, even when they have nothing to do with natural function, are fine.

Nor did I ever say that organs only ever have one natural function; indeed, I denied it, since I noted that the penis has the function of urination as well as procreation. The claim of traditional natural law theory is not that you can only ever use a natural capacity for one thing and one thing only. It is that if that capacity has some natural function (and there may be more than one), then whatever else you do with it, you cannot use it in a way that stifles the fulfillment of that function.

And if you don't like the corkscrew example, think instead of archaeological examples like the cutting tool example I gave in my original post. Or do you think archaeologists are just taking a wild stab in the dark in concluding that certain stone objects were tools made for cutting? Does the fact that there is no record of what they were called really cast serious doubt on this conclusion? Does the fact that you can use such a tool as a paperweight or doorstop show that it wasn't really made for cutting after all?

And what about other bodily organs? Do you take umbrage too at the suggestion that the heart is for pumping blood, that hands are for grasping things, or that eyeballs are for seeing? Even an atheistic biologist recognizes that treating these things as if they were designed with a certain function in mind is indispensible to understanding why they evolved. Yet if you are correct, biologists are wrong to do so: in your view, I guess, they should not, even as a heuristic device or an appeal to a useful fiction, think of them as having a natural function at all, but should regard them as nothing but lumps of tissue and try to figure out on that basis how they evolved. But if you really think biology could proceed on that basis you are sorely mistaken.

You point out that "neither eyes nor stomachs are ever used for removing corks or commiting sodomy." Well, I am happy to acknowledge that this is perfectly true. What it supposed to show, however, is a total mystery to me.

Finally, regarding your reference to an "ability to die," there is no such thing, at least not in the sense of "ability" in question. Dying doesn't involve the fulfilment of a natural end in the sense in which using your eyeballs for seeing or using your teeth for eating do. It is instead just the cessation of life, and thus the cessation of all exercising of abilities. Yes, it is "natural" to die in the sense that it happens in the natural world and in accordance with the laws of nature, but as I apparently have to repeat yet again, that is not the sense of "natural" that traditional natural law theory has in mind.

Posted by: Edward Feser | May 17, 2005 12:56 PM

Henry:

Thanks for your comments. The point is that if the penis, and indeed the whole natural process of arousal and ejaculation, has as its natural end the depositing of semem into a vagina, then that end is frustrated by masturbation, etc. insofar as the semen doesn't end up where it should be. You've gotten the ball rolling, as it were, but kept it from reaching its natural destination.

Yes, this doesn't mean you'll frustrate this end at other times, since of course an act of masturbation doesn't destroy the penis's ability to do its job. But the theory doesn't say merely that you shouldn't always frustrate it. It says you should never do so.

johnt:

You ask "Are MRI's natural,is Coco-Cola?" Of course. Please read carefully what I wrote. As I've had to repeat many times now -- and I expected I would have to, since people seem absolutely hell-bent on reading all sorts of silly things into natural law theory -- the theory does not say that every interference of human beings with the natural world is "unnatural" in a sense the theory regards as illicit. So no, inventing things like MRI's and Coca-Cola is not "unnatural."

Posted by: Edward Feser | May 17, 2005 1:13 PM

Thanks for your promptly reply. What I'm really trying to get at is the difference between an action that is "other than" and one that is "contrary to" the natural end.

After all, the corkscrew's natural end, what it was clearly and exclusively designed for, was opening wine bottles. So when I pick up a corkscrew, haven't I "gotten the ball rolling" toward opening a bottle of wine, even if I never intended to do so in the first place? After all, I'm not intending to impregnate a woman when I start masturbating, either. So if the immorality of masturbation lies in the fact that you get the ball rolling on a process whose natural end is depositing semen in a vagina, but you deviate from that end, how is that different from picking up a corkscrew, which gets the ball rolling on the natural end of opening a wine bottle, but then using it to clean your fingernails? Are you arguing that that would be immoral?

Maybe one thing that would help clarify this point for me would be more examples of actions that are other than but not contrary to their natural end.

Posted by: Henry | May 17, 2005 1:56 PM

Hello again Henry:

There are some important differences between a corkscrew and a biological process that I think undermine the argument you're trying to make. A biological process like the one leading from arousal through to climax is an organic whole. Becoming aroused has as its natural end the climax. But merely picking up a corkscrew isn't essentially tied to opening up a bottle as opposed to moving it across the room, not even if you pick it up with the intention of opening a bottle. (Subjective intentions, remember, are not primarily what the theory is interested in in speaking of natural ends -- the ends are supposed to be objective in some sense, existing whatever our intentions are. So that's the level at which the analysis has to proceed.)

And no, even using a corkscrew in a way that frustrates its purpose -- destroying it, say -- is not immoral according to the theory. The purposes or functions that the theory cares about are human ones, since what the theory is is a theory of the good for human beings -- the corkscrew is just an analogy I was using to clarify the idea of function. The idea is that what's good for a human being is what's in line with his natural ends, and that morality requires us to act in a way that doesn't undermine those ends. Living in accordance with those ends is what human flourishing consists in. What undermines the ends or purposes of other things -- corkscrews, cockroaches, etc. -- isn't relevant.

Re: using something "other than" rather than "contrary to," there all sorts of examples. For instance, my knee is made for allowing my leg to bend, but if I use it to hold a picture up while I'm hanging it, that's not unnatural -- it involves using my knee "other than" for its natural purpose (since knees aren't made for holding up pictures) but not "contrary to" its natural purpose (there's nothing in the act of resting a picture on my knee that frustrates the purpose of the knee).

Posted by: Edward Feser | May 17, 2005 2:44 PM

What I meant by free will is that we should judge for ourselves the limits of functional design. You mention overeating as an example of misuse of a natural law. Assuming nature signals us when we are full to alert us to the harm of further consumption, why does overpopulation not fall under the same rubric? If a woman's primary function is to procreate repeatedly with the same man, this produces exponential population growth with the natural result of increased disease and poverty. Is it natural for parents to want children who are sick and poor? Is there ever a point free will can override the aim of the sex act without being immoral?

Posted by: Step2 | May 17, 2005 4:15 PM

Step2- just the point I wanted to make! some mammal mothers re-absorb fetuses in times of overpopulation. This is NATURAL in every sense of the word.
Also: doesn't this make the "rhythm method" as immoral as any other form of contraception? On this view it's surely not just "depositing semen in the vagina" that is the purpose of an aroused penis- it's procreation- and that's it. (I think in fact one could make a good fist of arguing that as well as urination and procreation, the penis was ALSO "designed" for pleasure. But that concedes too much to "design" already.)
(I'd be interested in the manuovering required for a teleological argument against rape- or indeed, violence- since we seem to have been designed with far too facile an ability in these directions.)
In fact this argument itself seems something like a reductio ad absurdum of the whole teleological enterprise! There may be a few priests who actually believe it all, but I wager even among conservative analytical philosophers it's a pretty small sub-group- (albeit one dedicated to at least the principle of multiplying!).

Posted by: rob stowell | May 17, 2005 5:38 PM

I'm inclined to side with Henry and NB. Edward, your distinction between the natural use of teeth and the natural use of a penis is too much of a "just so" story. Should I say that every time I open my mouth I should eat, or else be "frustrating its point"? Your identification of the purpose of the penis as "depositing semen in the vagina" is unduly narrow.

As a matter of experience, I know that my own penis often gets aroused (without my help) when there isn't a vagina anywhere handy. If we are to take the actual functioning of organs as a reliable indicator of their nature, doesn't this imply that penis arousal sans vagina is licit? And if it is, then why not employ fist, mouth, etc?

Posted by: craig | May 17, 2005 6:35 PM

Much earlier, Max wrote:

I see three problems with your suggestion.

Stop right there; you have the cart before the horse. As a matter of form, you can't reject an argument because you don't like the conclusion it leads to. You'll have to rely on your other two objections.

Posted by: craig | May 17, 2005 6:38 PM

How, within this framework, do you justify monogamy? Looking at the way men and women work, it seems obvious to me that a man should have as many wives as he can get, sometimes more than one. I know that a man is capable of keeping several women pregnant more or less continually, with plenty of semen to spare. I know that kangaroos work this way, as do horses, and lions.

Why not humans, I wonder aloud?

Posted by: craig | May 17, 2005 6:49 PM

It's worse than that- I think by this reasoning we all have a moral duty to impregnate as many women as possible, by whatever means we can. Indeed, we're "obliged" to do anything we can to realise our natures- and as we are demonstrably a violent and wasteful species- well, get outa the way!
More to the point- if one leaves aside any other prejudgement, and honestly studies our species for knowledge of what it was designed "for", I suggest you'd end up as baffled as the rest of us! It's ONLY after presuming we are the "tools" of a creator that this debate begins to make sense. And even then, it's only by importing a lot of other baggage- and discarding anything inconvenient- that the normative destination you were already hoping to arrive at comes into sight.
(and by the way Max- the "intimacy of "one flesh communion"" CAN "be made sense of apart from the possibility of procreation." Take it from a very happily married man who already has 5 children.")

Posted by: rob stowell | May 17, 2005 8:15 PM

That is an interesting question rob stowell poses about what we are truly designed for. Some elements seem to be: use tools to construct or destroy, make predictions and revisions, analyze and synthesize, communicate through language and art, compete for various types of advantage, self reflection and transcendence, fulfill biological needs, seek justice and forgiveness, feel fear and bravery, entertain hope and despair.

This long yet incomplete list was designed to demonstrate the many complexities and paradoxes built into our functional design. I am not sure what this means entirely, but I doubt it means we are limited to just one normative behavior.

Posted by: Step2 | May 18, 2005 12:28 AM

Well, as I tried to make clear in my original post, I had no intention of spelling out the entire traditional natural law theory of sexual morality. That would take a book. So it is a bit silly to raise all sorts of esoteric facts (e.g. those involving "certain mammals re-absorbing their fetuses") and complicated socio-economic issues (e.g. overpopulation) as if my failure to address each and every one of them in a single blog post showed that the theory has not in fact addressed them or could not address them. Give me a break, huh guys? Why don't you actually try reading a book or two written in this tradition before assuming you've just found the magic bullet that refutes it? It has, after all, been around in one form or another since Aristotle. And thus it is, you know, just possible that its defenders have already considered and offered answers to any objections you might think up over a can of Pepsi sitting in front of your computer.

Re: the mammals who re-absorb their fetuses, I fail to see how that is relevant to the question of whether human sexual organs have a natural function. Re: overpopulation, even supposing there really is such a problem, I again fail to see how that would show that human sexual organs do not in fact have a natural function. (As to whether there is such a problem, read Julian Simon.) You fellows really should make sure you've got all the premises in your arguments sorted out before you present them.

You should also go back and re-read (or maybe just read) what I wrote. I keep seeing, again and again, references in the comments to what is "natural" or "unnatural" that completely ignore the crucial distinctions between different senses of these terms that I have emphasized repeatedly. Everything rides on these distinctions. If you can't keep them straight, you shouldn't assume that you've succeeded in raising a serious objection to the theory. You also shouldn't assume that I'm going to waste my time replying.

But, to reply briefly to a few of the more significant points:

The point of sex, on the traditional natural law theory, is not just procreation in the raw biological sense, but in the richer sense entailed by our nature as rational beings, viz. the moral and spiritual formation of children. So what is best for children enters into the analysis of what kind of relationships between fathers and mothers are in line with the demands of the natural law. Here we get into complicated philosophical and sociological issues. But then, natural law theory doesn't rest entirely on appeals to natural biological functions -- that's just one of its starting points. Suffice it to say that for a whole host of reasons, some of them familiar even from current social science, the natural law tradition has favored monogamy.

The "rhythm method" is not immoral on the theory in question, because to have sexual intercourse during what you know to be a naturally infertile period is hardly to stifle a capacity's natural function. It is, you might say, precisely part of the nature of the capacity that it "shuts down" for a little while during infertile periods. Read Anscombe's famous essay "Contraception and Chastity."

The natural function of the muscles of the mouth, Craig, is not just to allow you to eat. It is also to allow you to breathe, talk, kiss a loved one, yawn, and so forth. So, to re-state a point I made earlier in reply to Henry, there is no essential connection between opening your mouth and eating, specifically, that would justify the claim that to fail to eat after opening your mouth frustrates a natural function.

And Max is not guilty of "rejecting an argument because he doesn't like the conclusion it leads to." What he meant, I'm sure, was that since the traditional natural law theory entails that sodomy is immoral, then it also entails that any view that would justify sodomy must be false.

Posted by: Edward Feser | May 18, 2005 2:19 AM

"The aim for now is just to show how at least on this picture, appeals to nature in the context of moral reasoning can be perfectly coherent. I also hope to dispel some very common misconceptions of what is meant by saying that certain actions are immoral because they are unnatural."

I guess, in my opinion (and perhaps for others as well), you've failed to achieve either aim. "Go read some books" is not argument, it's dismissal. My rejection of the imposition of morality in the formation of teleological arguments about nature is that the functionality attributed is defined by theism, not reasoning. Theism, dressed in philosophical clothes, is still theism. This was true in Aristotle's day and it's true now. The Hellenists would laugh at your morality. The Hebrews of the same era would probably support you. The Asians of that time would find you utterly confusing.

Posted by: wai | May 18, 2005 9:05 AM

Well, sorry. Shame on me for not being an expert.

Using Aristotle to support its legitimacy is not working for me, he was a brilliant logician yet his world view turned out to be so false that it took science over a millennia to disprove his multitude of mistakes.

If there is any perfect map of explaining human behavior: psychological, teleological, economic, why have none of them been completely accurate? Some maps work better than others and I was just trying to determine where this one ranks in the pantheon of other maps.

Posted by: Step2 | May 18, 2005 9:36 AM

Step2: I was not criticizing you for "not being an expert." I was rather criticizing people like Wai who dismiss traditional natural law theory while showing by virtue of the content of their comments that they do not understand it, and by the tone of their comments that they do not have the slightest interest in trying to remedy their ignorance by giving it a fair hearing. I don't think your own comments show this attitude, nor do those of others on the board.

Wai: If you peruse the comments section, I think you'll see that I have responded to various objections in great detail. So spare me the "'Go read some books' is not argument, it's dismissal" stuff. My comment about reading books on the subject was directed only at people who have not let their obvious ignorance of natural law theory stop them from making absurdly bold pronouncements about how the theory is decisively refuted by some pet objection they have. Most people who've commented here do not have this attitude. There are others, though...

Posted by: Edward Feser | May 18, 2005 10:19 AM

natural law theory entails that sodomy is immoral, then it also entails that any view that would justify sodomy must be false.

Hi, Edward. I don't think this answers my objection to Max. Sure, there is a chain of reasoning that goes: a1, a2, a3, ... therefore "sodomy bad". But if Frances or anyone then has b1, b2, b3 ... therefore "sodomy not bad", you have a conundrum. Saying that the a# argument is old and venerated doesn't by itself refute the b# reasoning, although it does make you suspect it.

Your argument about raising proper children is good for curtailing some of the sexual behaviors that raw biology might suggest. However, you'd have to then show that a polygamous household is worse for the kids than the alternatives. I know that there are studies that purport to show just that, but I suspect them, since I can see the large and obvious axe that the researchers are trying to grind.

As for mouth being good for breathing, yawning, kissing (I forgot that one), etc as well as eating, I know that. But I might say the same about sundry uses of genitals. This I think is the primary weakness of any kind of teleology: in the absence of a designer you can interrogate, how do you know which of several plausible functions of a thing are the real ones, and which are the false? For a corkscrew you can find the guy who invented it, and ask him. For a mouth or a penis, you can't as easily.

Thanks for the article; this is a better discussion than most I see.

Posted by: craig | May 18, 2005 10:30 AM

wai said:

"... that the functionality attributed is defined by theism, not reasoning. Theism, dressed in philosophical clothes, is still theism. This was true in Aristotle's day and it's true now."

Aristotle's argument in Book 1 of the Nicomachean Ethics may not be sound, but it's not manifestly underpinned by theistic assumptions.

P1 - The function of a thing is the set of activities it performs that nothing else can perform or that nothing else can perform
P2 - The good of a thing that has a function is performing that function well
P3 - Humans are unique in their ability to reason

C - The good of humans is reasoning well

This commits Aristotle to a teleological conception of nature, but one does not have to be a theist to accept said conclusion (even if one does not have a sound argument for it).

And so what if "Theism, dressed in philosophical clothes, is still theism"? Why have you precluded the possibility that moral conclusions compatible with more general theistic conclusions can be arrived at through philosophical deliberation? Feser may not have succeeded in convincing you, but you're wrong to insist that he hasn't been "reasoning" all along. Did the Greeks ever dismiss Aristotle on the grounds that he wasn't really philosophizing (and was doing revealed theology instead)? Of course not.

Posted by: Clement Ng | May 18, 2005 11:17 AM

Edward, maybe I have a misplaced chip on my shoulder since I'm not sure if you lump me in among the willfully ignorant or the possibly educable (sometimes even I'm not clear which group I inhabit).

Clement, my bad in being too glib. The reference was to Aristotle's time not his contribution to teleology, although I can see how my words could be ambiguous. As to your "so what," theistic teleology can only be discussed from the common ground of the particular brand of theism in use. I think my objection in this thread (one I infer is shared by at least some others) is that the theistic underlay is not an explicit feature of the argument (rather, it is implied). I don't mean to suggest that this is complicit dishonesty by Fesser but that it does not make for a "durable" argument in the sense of appealing to those not wedded to his particular theism. If we are searching for "large" truths here, then I believe the argument lacks legs since anyone holding a different theistic view will discard it at once.

Posted by: wai | May 18, 2005 11:55 AM

Back to my question of long ago - "Is there ever a point free will can override the aim of the sex act without being immoral?" Through the rhythm method to balance the marriage debt, according to Anscombe's account.

As for Julian Simon and overpopulation, my concern with his theory is that he conflates internal transformations and efficiency with external resources. On a large scale his model works fairly well (occasional market bubbles), but as the scale gets smaller it seems that exponential growth without account for available resources is a recipe for collapse. That does not mean economics is a zero sum game, but there is a line between sustainable growth and unsustainable growth.

Anyway, thanks for the references, they were very informative.

Posted by: Step2 | May 18, 2005 1:01 PM

I know it's irritating when a know-nothing scoffs at your sacred cow. I am sorry for that- but I'm also not going to head off on a long course of education in the superstructural details of an ethical and descriptive enterprise that seems to have very flawed foundations.
Even if one accepts that Aristotle's argument's can be (partially) stripped of theism, the central premise- that we have a particular purpose- tends towards the self-serving. (No? then how convenient for a philosopher that rationality should figure so highly. Why not plumbing, music-making or listening, mountain-climbing- or all of the above?)
(More importantly, are bad things not also part of our "natures"? And shouldn't we therefore work hard to AVOID the fullest realisation of some elements of our nature? I'm sure this is a number-one concern in the many books on the subject- what is the BEST argument against this view?).
I'm not unsympathetic to the notion that realising our "natures" has some role in human happiness. Just very resistant to what seems like an agenda in those who would define what our nature is. It certainly doesn't seem obvious to me. In this essay, the view seems to be that our "nature" is frozen in an amber that's curiously warped towards seeing what the observer happened to be looking for.
A central objection, already stated by others many times, is that a legitimate study of "human nature" is likely an empirical one. And if one accepts- as I do, but I'm sure most of our (kind and thoughtful!) blog-hosts do not- that we are an evolving animal species, and an incredibly adaptive and varied one at that, one is far less likely to assign us a fixed, necessary "essence".
As Craig has pointed out, the "hidden" agenda here keeps showing through- the premises can't be ALLOWED to lead to a particular conclusion. Thus a mouth can be perfectly employed kissing (though surely not an unrelated person of the same sex!) but a penis, which seems very well suited to the job, cannot morally be used for pleasure alone (well, but what if one didn't ejaculate?- the foolish nature of this hair-splitting is, I think, instructive). And- ahah! the rhythm method turns out to be THE ONE exception- NOT because it's in accord with papal decree- pure coincidence - but because it "balances the marriage debt".
In the interests of debunking nonsense (and 'cos anscombe is so often good), I will take a hard look at this article- and if it just happens to be convincing or NOT to have been written by a catholic, I'll eat my keyboard (frustrating the natural pupose of both mouth and keyboard- eek! No doubt I will be punished.)

Posted by: rob stowell | May 18, 2005 7:12 PM

Anscombe's article is short on relevent argument, but she does make a spirited defence of "humae vitae" teaching on contraception. Spirited but likely to alienate many reasonable people, as (I think?) she concludes contraception within marriage is a greater sin than adultery... and will open the floodgates etc etc.
The only relevant argument seems to be that the "rhythm method" is different in kind to any other sort of contraception, allowing the intention to be the same.
Frankly, it's unconvincing. She uses the analogy of a striker who's "working to rule" (the rhythm method) as opposed to one who is coming to work but sabotaging things so the job doesn't get done.
This is an unfair- and inapt analogy.
Assuming the "work" is procreation, our contraception user doesn't sabotage the means of production- just temporarily disables them (and he/she is not damaging the possessions of another, which is also morally relevant and makes the whole analogy more or less a sophistry) for the "task".
The rhythm method man is also organisedly disruptive; just in a diffeent way. He simply doesn't turn up when there's work to do; choosing, instead, to come in only when his best information indicates there's no "work" to be done (say, 4am to 6am monday morning), and to be absent when the job could be productive.
To be fair on Anscombe, this is just a way to illustrate a distinction many probably have difficulty with. And we have difficulty with it because it involves making distinctions that run counter to... dare I it?- our moral intuitions.

Posted by: rob stowell | May 18, 2005 9:03 PM

Mr. Feser,

There's something to be said for taking the primary objection head on, and the primary objection to natural law reasoning is an objection to chastity. But sometimes I wonder if this is the best course. The same guy who will never drop his arguments against chastity can turn around in the next breath and start defending, say, communism or socialism because it best accords with the nature of human society, or he might believe that we exist in such a way that we must defend or promote __________. Make a natural law argument for donating money, stopping tyranny, ending usury, and no one objects. Use the exact same sort of argument to talk about chastity, and all of a sudden this sort of reasoning is deemed vacuous, outdated, ideologically driven, hairsplitting, and refuted by mechanism (?!?!!)

Another observation: I wished that you would point out more that the primary problem with the natural law is not whether human beings have a nature- in one way or another everyone agrees on that. The question becomes if the nature is in some way a given (Aquinas, Aristotle, et al.) or if this nature is entirely a product of our own wills and desires (the more extreme existentialists, etc.) I am not interested discussing what way, say, sartre or Aquinas would answer this question, but merely in the truth of the matter: is our nature in some way given, or is it not? If given, in what way? There are consequenses to denying givenness from nature, which don't seem to be recognized by your objectors. The consequence of some of their arguments is a radical negation of humanity- they lead us in the direction of negating from human nature any natural givenness, and of making us, in ourselves, nothing. It is a high price to pay for unchastity to become, as Walker Percy said, "a ghost with an erection".

A few random, related points:

The natural argument for chastity ultimitely reduces to man being a rational animal, as does everything else in human morality. In other words, chastity is contained in the idea of rational animal.

Your opponents are big on negations, but light on positive accounts of what nature is.

The ediface of natural law reasoning stands on a solid basis of liberal learning. This makes it hard to teach. Aristotle knew that his pupils had already earned what a definition is, what natural science is, what form and matter and "that for the sake of which". The natural law reasoner speaks to a world that has none of these. Trying to explain natral law without classical philosophy (logic, natural science) is as hard as explaining physics without calculus.

Your opponents do have a shadow of a point about natural law being theist. Whereas the study of, say, geometry doesn't necessarily lead us to the existence of God, the study of nature does. Your opponents on this theist point, however, seem to be confounding "faith" with "theology". The first is an opinion (true or not) and the second is a science (again, true or not).

Posted by: shulamite | May 19, 2005 2:33 AM

Craig: Fair enough point about the debate between Max and Frank. Still, I assume that Max was thinking that Frank would agree with the natural law argument against sodomy more strongly than he would disagree with the natural law argument against contraception, so that if it could be shown that they stand or fall together, Frank would have to accept the anti-contraception view.

Re: polygamy, the questions you raise are fair ones, but they go beyond the narrow point about natural functions I was trying to make. Re: whether there's a mystery as to what function organs serve, I just don't see how it's plausible to doubt the specific functional claims I made. Even on a purely naturalistic Darwinian reconstruction of the notion of function, which appeals to the reason for which an organ was favored by natural selection, it is clear that the (or at least a) function of the penis is to get semen into the vagina. Whether or not it has other functions, as long as it is clear that that is one of them, that's enough for the argument to go through if the rest of the traditional natural law theory (including its conception of the nature of the good, etc.) works.

Clement Ng: Thanks for that. Good points.

Wai: OK, fair enough. Peace!

Step2: Overpopulation, too, is a big topic. Important, but it goes beyond the narrow point I'm making about natural function. So, as with the question about polygamy, since there are only so many hours in the day (and not enough, it seems, for me!) I'm going to pass...

Rob Stowell: I'm sorry, and I really don't mean any offense, but I can't help but get a little irritated, and feel like I'd be wasting my time in responding, when I see ad hominem assertions made against serious thinkers (e.g. glib talk about Aristotle's views being "self-serving," accusations about "hidden agendas," etc.) as if they were serious criticisms. And once again you seem to be ignoring the distinctions between senses of "natural." It is, on the theory I've been describing, simply conceptually impossible for something "bad" to be natural to us in the specific sense of "natural" the theory is interested in.

Shulamite: Thank you for some very good points. What you say about the failure of many people to have even the rudimentary knowledge necessary for a serious evaluation of these issues is especially pertinent. Our intellectual culture is permeated, outside philosophy even more than inside it, by an extremely crude scientism, and also by a total ignorance of what traditional thinkers actually said coupled with an arrogant confidence that these thinkers have long ago been "refuted." So people don't know what they are talking about, don't know that they don't know, and therefore have no incentive to remedy their ignorance.

And there is, as you rightly note, also a very powerful incentive not to look into these matters too carefully -- it might threaten the self-image of the pathetic "ghost with an erection" (in the words of Percy you quoted) that is modern Western man.

But I'd better leave it at that, lest I too be accused of ad hominem attacks...!

Posted by: Edward Feser | May 19, 2005 3:34 AM

Now this is a little strange, because I like Walker Percy and I never gathered any inclination that his philosophy was based on an idea of naturalism. He instead offered the premise that humans are essentially trapped within the world of symbols and that we deal the psychic pain of that condition with myriad different strategies. Although he recognized the corruptive capacity of science upon the identity, he also did not seem to be eager to jump into theism.

I agree that overpopulation is beyond the scope of your argument, so I will try to stay more on topic next post.

Posted by: Step2 | May 19, 2005 3:11 PM

Ed and others,

What fascinated me most about this discussion within the comments section is the way that it understood the purpose of romantic love. Is it really the common understanding of natural law theorists that the purpose of romantic love is *solely* to produce a loving, nurturing environment for children?

I know that our culture makes romantic love into a God, severing it utterly from reproduction, but is ya'll's view really the right view? Nobody thinks that friendship is merely an instrumental good, why not go with what I think is at least a very broadly shared natural moral intuition that romantic love, like friendship, is also a kind of mixed good - good in itself and good for some further reason?

Perhaps this next point will sound too libertarian for a conservative blog, but there also seems to be something oddly collectivistic about thinking that the purpose of romantic love is not essentially for the good of the two parents but for the good of the children (although you might respond that the good for the parents comes in the successful raising of children - perhaps this line will work, I'm not sure - this is a bit off the cuff)? Why can't it have multiple beneficiaries? I do agree that it would be wrong to separate romantic love from a few of the natural purposes of the genitals that are used to express that love. And I think that recent history shows us just how destructive such behavior can be; in fact, I think that's obvious. However, I've been thinking about it for a few hours now and I simply cannot see what would be dysfunctional, destructive, sinful, etc. about engaging in a sexual act *simply because you love your spouse*.

I think Ed may respond by saying that he never claimed that this was wrong, as the fulfillment of the function of the genitals isn't dependent on people's subjective psychological states. However, I think this response would miss the point on two grounds:

1) On of the determining factors of just what act is being engaged in is partly determined by the people's intentions engaging in it; in fact, as I understand Catholic theology, this is a major theological component in determining whether a sin severs one's salvation. Thus, it seems that if the couple is having sex, as it were, "just for themselves" they're doing something different than they would be if they were having sex to have children.

2) Strictly speaking, this objection would get the argument backwards. At the beginning of the comments section, Frank suggested that furthering romantic love on its own could be a good, and then others objected that this was nonsense on the metaphysical account being laid out. But I never got clear on why exactly this was; it was simply stated that the purpose of sex was primarily for procreation. I'd be interested in seeing the argument for it. If you could establish that point then the objection about could go through, as the primary function would be being fulfilled.

In general, I was shocked at what I took to be a rather flippant dismissal by some of the regular bloggers at Right Reason of a *major* cultural assumption that has an extremely old tenure - that romantic love is a mixed good. It's all over the medieval period - it's in the Greeks and Romans - and it's with us today. I know it's hard to address everything, but I was rather shocked that this was not spoken to more directly.

Anyway, maybe that's just because I'm that sort of hopeless romantic conservative that sits around listening to old country music songs about love between a man and his wife, but anyway ...

P.S. Ironically, your blog's spell checker does not have an entry for "blog".

Posted by: Kevin Vallier | May 21, 2005 6:35 PM

Is it really the common understanding of natural law theorists that the purpose of romantic love is *solely* to produce a loving, nurturing environment for children?

Not solely, but inherently. A day care center is not solely about producing a loving, nurturing environment for children. It is also about providing a place of employment, producing a profit for the owners, etc. Indeed sometimes there happen to be no children at all at a day care center. But nevertheless a day care center with a "no children allowed" sign posted is both incoherent and inherently hostile to children. Just so, romantic love with a "no children allowed" sign posted is also incoherent and inherently hostile to children.

Posted by: Zippy | May 22, 2005 3:31 PM

...that romantic love is a mixed good.

It isn't a mixed good, it is an inseparable modality of the good of marriage. A man's hands are a good thing until you chop them off of his arms.

Posted by: Zippy | May 22, 2005 3:38 PM

Zippy that analogy doesn't do any logical work. I have friends who have chosen not to have children. Your bald assertion that their loving relationship is incoherent simply flies in the face of the facts.

Posted by: rob stowell | May 22, 2005 4:26 PM

Well, the "I have friends" argument is trumps every time isn't it? It can't be damaged and unnatural if it exists, can it?

Posted by: Zippy | May 22, 2005 5:27 PM

Very enlightening presentation of Nature Law Theory. It's in a squirrel's nature to run up trees and gather acorns. Yet this seems a lot like instinct to me. We have the instinct to eat and have sex. Yet strictly following our nature could cause us to overeat or over procreate, either of which could have negative consequences. We would do well to counter our nature in these cases, to eat less and use contraceptives to ensure that we have no more children than we are able to raise. Call it common sense, but that's what my moral system would tell me to do.

Posted by: Bill Ware | May 22, 2005 5:39 PM

Edward- apologies for any irritation. You may think of me as the New Guinea tribesman in New York; much of the purposive bustle and confusion seems meaningless to the uninitiated. I certainly mean no disrespect to Aristotle! (But does noone else find Plato's philospher kings just slightly hubristic? I'm afraid I regard being self-serving to some extent as part of our human natures... not necessarily morally reprehensible, but not by any means the best part, let me state.)
This enterprise does strike the tribesman as a particularly strange construction. If, as you indicate, statistics are bound to be SOME guide as to what is natural, it would seem far from clear that what is natural MUST be morally or in other ways "good". You indicate the limits of statisics; but they take us so far away from your end-point I think your argument would be stronger if you didn't brought them up at all! And even if one takes the big steps of acknowledging a theoretical designer and affirming free will and rationality as in our natures- without, I think, an assumption that the designer had "good" intentions, far from being "conceptually impossible" it's by no means clear fulfilling a natural end so described will be morally OR non-morally good for mankind. (Confession: I'm not particularly interested in this sort of metaphysical speculation.)
In fact even if one were to concede your all your points regarding sexual morality (an I don't) I don't think even heuristically consideration of a designer helps us with most moral or non-moral- questions about what is best, in both senses, for us.
And when one moves from physical to psychological functions, clarity of "design purpose" becomes more elusive.

Posted by: rob stowell | May 22, 2005 6:01 PM

Hello Kevin-

As you suspected, my response is that I never claimed that "engaging in a sexual act simply because you love your spouse" is wrong; indeed, I more or less explicitly denied it above in a response to another comment. The point isn't that you must always consciously intend to use organs and capacities for their functions; it is rather that, whatever your reasons for using them are, you must never use them in a way that frustrates the fulfillment of their functions. So if someone is suddenly filled with a burst of sublime feeling for a spousal soulmate, or is even just in a randy mood and feels like a tumble in the sack with the spouse, traditional natural law theory would say "That's fine and good. Just keep the condoms away, OK?"

You're right to say that intention nevertheless plays a role in the moral evaluation of behavior, in part because the intention often partially determines what the act in question is: sticking a scalpel into someone is murder if done with the intention to kill, but not if done in the course of surgery. But the claim of traditional natural law theory is not merely that a contraceptive act, say, is immoral if performed with a lascivious intention. It claims that it is intrinsically immoral because it frustrates a natural end. So it will not do simply to point out that intentions matter according to natural law theory; for it doesn't follow that intentions are the _only_ thing that matters.

You are also right, in my view, to say that romantic love is intrinsically good. But that doesn't conflict with the point I was making. Eating is also intrinsically good -- it is just pleasurable to eat good food, and that is, entirely appropriately, often why we do it. Nevertheless, eating only exists because we need to eat to survive. And since the organs associated with eating have a natural function, we shouldn't act in a way that frustrates that function (e.g. by binging and purging).

Similarly, romantic love is good and delightful in itself, but it nevertheless exists only because of some congingent facts about our biological make-up. Contingent and, according to the theological doctrines associated with traditional natural law theory, temporary. That is, presumably, part of what Christ meant in the famous saying about how those in heaven "neither marry nor are given in marriage."

Posted by: Edward Feser | May 23, 2005 3:05 AM

Mr. Feser, you write that "my knee is made for allowing my leg to bend, but if I use it to hold a picture up while I'm hanging it, that's not unnatural -- it involves using my knee 'other than' for its natural purpose (since knees aren't made for holding up pictures) but not 'contrary to' its natural purpose (there's nothing in the act of resting a picture on my knee that frustrates the purpose of the knee)."

So, tonight a man could use his penis (cloaked with a condom, despite its protests) to pleasure his lil' sweetypie and himself. Given that tomorrow night he can do the same thing, without the condom, and impregnate the ol' gal, how can it be that the first act "frustrates" the second one? My parents used contraception and somehow still managed to have six children--they simply had them WHEN they wanted to have them. An act of contracepted sex no more frustrates a subsequent act of uncontracepted sex than balancing a picture on my knee one moment prevents me from bending my knee the next.

A couple could use contraception in even-numbered years, produce a child in odd-numbered years, and before the wife was thirty could wind up with a big enough brood to make even Pope Benedict proud.

Your conception of natural law might a bit more sensibly ground an objection to couples choosing not to have any children, or not to have lots of children, but it cannot sensibly ground an objection to uncontracepted sex per se, since the use of contraception is entirely compatible with producing lots of children.

On another note, I notice that you believe it is immoral to commit evil in order to do good. On this point I agree with you--but I'm just wondering: have you read the Book of Joshua? What do you make of the way that the Israelites, at God's behest, slaughter all those thousands of Canaanite women and children? Is that kind of slaughter moral? Or is God immoral? Or does an action that would otherwise be immoral become moral when God commands it?

My own answer to the issue raised by these questions is that the mass slaughter of defenseless noncombatants is inherently evil, and that God could not have commanded such a thing, and that therefore the Bible, in presenting such slaughter as it does, without moral comment, is lying to us and hence an unreliable source of moral authority. Conservative appeals to both biblical authority and natural law are both failures--but when conservatives are looking for an excuse to hate people like me, such appeals sure do come in handy!

For a more thorough response to what I consider your laughably porous rationale for homophobia--yes, Mr. Feser, I consider you a slightly clever but oitherwise garden-variety bigot--see Ed Brayton's post at stcynic.com.

Posted by: David Mazel | May 23, 2005 9:04 AM

...how can it be that the first act "frustrates" the second one?

The first act doesn't frustrate the second one. The entire problem lies in the first act, inasmuch as it is performed in a fashion intentionally modified in order to frustrate its telos. The second moral act does not retroactively justify the first immoral act.

Posted by: Zippy | May 23, 2005 9:40 AM

Mr. Feser, if you really believe that sex is only for procreative activities, it is likely that, after your wife has gone into menopause you will have a number of years of living with her in which you will live in sexual frustration. Your choice. But, you know, some of us are not that ignorant. I'd be more graphic, but I'd probably be banned.

At some point, Mr. Feser, these "natural law" suggestions seem ludicrous. "Natural law" is a subterfuge designed by the Roman Catholic Church to defraud the rubes. You know that as well as I do. "Natural law" is nothing more than an excuse for "I don't want you to do that." In pseudo-scientific terms.

Grow up.

I might ask, who the heck is sponsoring this apparent plethora of web sites on which people post these silly ideas. Is Opus Dei really that wealthy?

Posted by: raj | May 23, 2005 9:44 AM

Mr. Feser, you write that "romantic love is good and delightful in itself, but it nevertheless exists only because of some contingent facts about our biological make-up. Contingent and, according to the theological doctrines associated with traditional natural law theory, temporary. That is, presumably, part of what Christ meant in the famous saying about how those in heaven 'neither marry nor are given in marriage.'"

Back before Christianity's first Big Disappointment--back when the followers of Jesus actually believed that Jesus would return in power and glory in their own time, "before this generation passeth away"--Paul famously said that "it is better to marry than to burn." That hardly sounds like a biblical endorsement of romantic love as "good and delightful in itself."

Rather, Paul's argument seems to have been that the emotional demands of one's partner in marriage would frustrate one's natural purpose of giving oneself over to God. (Please don't quibble with me on this point; you know as well as I do that it's the Church's rationale for the celibacy of priests.)

From a natural law perspective, Paul was saying that marriage is bad because it frustrates a natural end. Marriage is acceptable only to the extent that it prevents one from doing worse--say, engaging in sex outside of marriage. It's bad to marry, but better to marry than to burn (either in hell, as a result of sexual sin, or in one's own lust, which would distract one from loving God).

Sounds weird, I know. But that's the problem with natural law: garbage in, garbage out.

BTW, what do you make of the sexism of Jesus's comment? That comment alludes, of course, to the fact that in ancient Israel men (as grammatical subjects and as socially empowered beings) "married" women, whereas women (as grammatical objects and socially disempowered beings--note the passive grammatical construction) were "given in marriage."

Is it not possible that in saying in heaven they "neither marry nor are given in marriage" Jesus meant that, along with marriage itself, heaven would be free of the social inequity embedded in it? Or, more broadly, that the sort of sexism infesting the Church is bad?

Here I'm not just trying to demonstrate how liberals can quote the Bible, too. There's another point as well: You seem to think you are a conservative because of your reading of the Bible and your understanding of natural law. But it's pathetically obvious that you read the Bible as you do, and you understand natural law as you do, because you are a conservative. Scripture and natural law are not the foundations of your belief; they are rationales for your belief.

Posted by: David Mazel | May 23, 2005 9:58 AM

Zippy, you write in response to one of my posts that "The first act doesn't frustrate the second one. The entire problem lies in the first act, inasmuch as it is performed in a fashion intentionally modified in order to frustrate its telos. The second moral act does not retroactively justify the first immoral act."

Sorry, but you're cheating. You can't simply assume that the first act is immoral; that is precisely the point in contention.

My argument was that uncontracepted sex does NOT frustrate the reproductive telos of sex, any more than balancing a picture on one's knee frustrates the "bending" telos of the knee. The knee, once it is done propping up the picture, is unimpaired and available to perform its primary function. The same is true of the sex organs after an act of contracepted sex.

Remember, it's Feser's analogy, not mine. By using it, Feser appeared to be arguing that it's OK to "borrow" a body part for another function as long as doing so does not prevent it from performing its primary function. More specifically, Feser was implicitly introducing a point about time. During the time that the knee is propping up the picture, its primary function is indeed frustrated. But that's OK, Feser says, because at all other times it CAN perform its primary function.

My point is simply that Feser's own analogy demonstrates that contracepted sex is not immoral. During the time that the penis is being used solely to provide pleasure or deepen a relationship, it is indeed unable to perform its primary function. But that's OK, Feser's analogy tells us, because at all other times it CAN perform its primary function.

I then backed up my point empirically by citing the example of my parents, who used contraception as part of a family planning program that included deliberately having six children.

If you actually want to demonstrate that my argument is wrong (and if you want to explain away the empirical example of my parents), then do so. But don't present a pseudo-argument that begins by assuming that which is to be proved.

Posted by: David Mazel | May 23, 2005 10:14 AM

Raj, Opus Dei is indeed "that wealthy." But not as wealthy as the Church, which of course benefitted materially from the centuries of New World genocide that it countenanced. You would think that institutions like the Church and Opus Dei that consider themselves Christian would heed one of the most basic dicta of the man they profess to follow, to wit: "Sell your possessions and give the money to the poor."

Posted by: David Mazel | May 23, 2005 10:19 AM

My argument was that uncontracepted sex does NOT frustrate the reproductive telos of sex,...

It isn't some general "sex" that has a telos: it is particular acts which have a telos. To modify a particular act in such a way as to frustrate its telos is the immoral act. The second, later act is utterly irrelevant.

I didn't assume anything, I just pointed out that in bringing in a second, licit act you have misunderstood the natural law position.

Posted by: Zippy | May 23, 2005 11:05 AM

Zippy, you write that "To modify a particular act in such a way as to frustrate its telos is the immoral act. The second, later act is utterly irrelevant," and that in failing to see this point I "have misunderstood the natural law position."

I hear you loud and clear: each particular act must not frustrate the telos.

OK. But look at Feser's own example of using one's knee to prop up a picture. That modifies "a particular act in such a way as to frustrate its telos," for sure enough, I find that while thus using my knee I cannot use it to walk, etc. I must be sinning! Yet Feser himself tells us that I am not, that in this case it is not an immoral act. Your argument is with him, not with me. I was only pointing out that HE was (unwittingly) undermining the natural law argument.

If, in order to be moral, each and every use of a body part must avoid frustrating its telos, then it is NEVER moral to use one's knee for anything but bending the leg. That's clearly ludicrous--the absurdum to which your understanding of natural law immediately leads us. If that absurdum does not bother you--if you feel that in using my knee to hold up a picture I have sinned by frustrating its telos--well, you're welcome to the belief, and I wish you all the luck in the world convincing others of your profound doctrine.

Posted by: David Mazel | May 23, 2005 11:32 AM

If, in order to be moral, each and every use of a body part must avoid frustrating its telos, then it is NEVER moral to use one's knee for anything but bending the leg.

"Frustrating" may not be the best term if it is not clear that there is a distinction between an act modified to be contrary to the telos in question and an act that is neutral with respect to the telos. But Mr. Feser made that distinction so many times above that I presumed (perhaps imprudently) it to be obvious.

Posted by: Zippy | May 23, 2005 12:30 PM

But under certain circumstances having contracepted sex is NOT "contrary to the telos in question." The distinction is nowhere near so clear as you suggest; it cannot be made without considering particulars.

If a couple uses contraception at times but also deliberately has twelve children--so that the end or telos has in fact been achieved--why should those acts which temporarily contradict the telos (when considered individually) be morally suspect?

To put it another way: the natural law argument against contraceptive sex per se leads us into contradiction. On the one hand, if we are to claim that the act contradicts the telos, we must consider the act in the context of the telos. On the other hand, we must consider the act in isolation from the telos if we are to claim that the act is immoral even in cases where the telos itself is achieved. Which is it?

The telos of the knee is to contribute to a natural degree of human mobility. Humans do not, however, have to be mobile 24/7--indeed it is against their nature to be always in motion. Thus there are times when the knee is disengaged, as it were, from its telos and becomes available for other purposes--even for purposes that temporarily contradict the telos--without incurring sin. Ditto for sex.

Posted by: David Mazel | May 23, 2005 1:14 PM

On the other hand, we must consider the act in isolation from the telos if we are to claim that the act is immoral even in cases where the telos itself is achieved. Which is it?

I am not sure what is so complex about the notion that a morally licit act at time B does not justify a morally illicit act at time A. They are distinct acts.

A better example involving an act contrary to the telos of the knee would be when someone intentionally mutilates his knee as a fashion statement, destroying its capacity to function as a knee, and then later has it surgically restored. There is nothing wrong with using the knee as a fashion statement, but it is wrong to do so in a way contrary to its telos. The self-mutilation is morally illicit whether or not it is temporary, because mutilation of the knee is contrary to the telos of the knee.

Posted by: Zippy | May 23, 2005 1:40 PM

Zippy, please clarify something for me. You wrote that "It isn't some general 'sex' that has a telos: it is particular acts which have a telos." Yet Mr. Feser wrote this:

"If you consider the sexual drives that human beings have, then it is blindingly obvious that if those drives have any natural purpose at all � if they were, say, designed with a certain end in view � then that purpose is to get people to use their sexual organs. And if you consider the sexual organs themselves, then it is also blindingly obvious that if they were designed with any purpose in mind, then that purpose is procreation. More specifically, the purpose of a penis � again, if you assume that it was indeed designed with a purpose in mind � is quite obviously to deposit semen into a vagina...."

The "purpose of a penis"? Forgive me for reading these words and concluding that it is not merely particular acts that have a telos, but also other kinds of entities do as well--including, as Feser suggested, the sexual drive and sexual organs. I am trying to work with the information you folks provide me. It would help for me to know which of you (from a natural law perspective) is correct on this point.

You write as well that "To modify a particular act in such a way as to frustrate its telos is the immoral act. The second, later act is utterly irrelevant."

You're absolutely right--as long as one knows beforehand that the first act contradicted the telos. If, however, the moral status of the first act is still in question, as I hold it to be, the later act IS relevant if it establishes that the initial act did not in fact contradict the telos. The two acts are indeed distinct, but their moral implications cannot necessarily be separated from the larger question of whether or not the ultimate end is achieved.

Suppose I promise to mow your lawn by Thursday evening. I have a moral duty to fulfill that promise. Now consider two scenarios:

1. I spend Tuesday playing golf, Wednesday visiting my grandmother in the hospital, and Thursday mowing your lawn. (OK, you have a very big lawn.)

2. I spend Tuesday playing golf, Wednesday visiting my grandmother in the hospital, and Thursday staying at my grandmother's side as she takes an unexpected turn for the worse and finally dies; I fail to get your lawn mowed by Thursday evening.

So, how do we gauge the moral status of the "particular act" of my playing golf on Tuesday? Surely it is not intrinsically wrong for me to play an occasional round of golf; just as surely, it is wrong for me to do so if it prevents me from fulfilling some moral obligation.

So, how can we tell whether my golf day was wrong if we do not know whether in fact it prevented me from fulfilling my obligation? That becomes an empirical question, answerable only by reference to the "later act." If all goes well and I do mow the lawn on time, I feel no compunctions about my golfing day, but if in fact I don't mow the lawn, I will (justifiably) feel guilty about it....

So: the acts (playing golf and mowing the lawn) are distinct, but the moral implications of the first are not so distinct from the second. In typical conservative fashion, you want to decouple morality from context, but it just ain't that simple.

You present yet another analogy:

"A better example involving an act contrary to the telos of the knee"--and here I must admit once again to being confused, for I still remember being told that it is "particular acts which have a telos," and here you are speaking of a body part that has a telos: "the telos of the knee," much as Mr. Feser wrote (with more alliteration) of "the purpose of a penis." But let that pass. You write:

"A better example involving an act contrary to the telos of the knee would be when someone intentionally mutilates his knee as a fashion statement, destroying its capacity to function as a knee, and then later has it surgically restored. There is nothing wrong with using the knee as a fashion statement, but it is wrong to do so in a way contrary to its telos. The self-mutilation is morally illicit whether or not it is temporary, because mutilation of the knee is contrary to the telos of the knee."

This would be an excellent analogy were we discussing the morality of vasectomies, for then in each case the body part in question would have been modified in structure, would involve a mutilation. But contraception involves no such mutilation.

The better analogy remains Feser's, of using the knee temporarily to prop up a picture. It more closely parallels the use of the sexual organ for pleasure, in that neither body part is mutilated, both body parts retain their ability to perform their primary function, etc.

Analogies do not prove anything, of course; their purpose is to clarify. But your analogy serves only to confuse. (OK, rhetorically it serves also to inject into the discussion the decidedly negative connotations of bodily mutilation, no doubt in the hope that some of those negative connotations will warp the reader's understanding of contracepted sex. A cheap trick, and definitely out of place in a discussion of morality.)

Posted by: David mazel | May 23, 2005 4:29 PM

Zippy, please clarify something for me. You wrote that "It isn't some general 'sex' that has a telos: it is particular acts which have a telos."

Sure. The type of thing that we evaluate morally is an act. Acts involve agents and things; agents and things have purpose. The purpose transcends particular acts, but again, the thing we evaluate morally is particular acts. Strictly speaking, when we say "Bob's sex life as a whole over the last ten years is immoral" we mean "Bob has committed a large number of individually immoral acts." We don't say that Bob's good acts balance out his bad ones so the bad ones don't matter: that would be proportionalism, and the natural law tradition is not proportionalist.

OK, rhetorically it serves also to inject into the discussion the decidedly negative connotations of bodily mutilation, no doubt in the hope that some of those negative connotations will warp the reader's understanding of contracepted sex. A cheap trick, and definitely out of place in a discussion of morality.

Not at all. Contracepted sex, masturbation, etc are indeed forms of moral self-mutilation in more than just analogy, under a natural law view. And physical self-mutilation is wrong under a natural law view.

I was not under the impression that anyone had claimed to have established beyond all doubt, in this discussion, that an act of contraception is morally wrong. What I think has been clearly refuted though is that the natural law reasoning behind such a conclusion 'is not merely mistaken, but �strictly speaking nonsensical.�'

What the telos is of particular things, particular acts, and particular agents, as a matter of fact, has not been catalogued. But that isn't a matter of establishing what we are, it is only a matter of arguing over the price.

Posted by: Zippy | May 23, 2005 4:53 PM

Zippy, you write that "What the telos is of particular things, particular acts, and particular agents, as a matter of fact, has not been catalogued."

So, when Mr. Feser writes this:

"if you consider the sexual organs themselves, then it is also blindingly obvious that if they were designed with any purpose in mind, then that purpose is procreation. More specifically, the purpose of a penis � again, if you assume that it was indeed designed with a purpose in mind � is quite obviously to deposit semen into a vagina"

he is NOT telling us "What the telos is of particular things"?

And when Mr. Feser writes this:

"For Aquinas and other medieval natural law theorists, of course, our ultimate end is the beatific vision"

I am to conclude that "What the telos is of...particular agents" has NOT "been catalogued"?

Okey dokey.

Posted by: David Mazel | May 23, 2005 8:30 PM

Posted by: David Mazel | May 23, 2005 8:32 PM

"What the telos is of...particular agents" has NOT "been catalogued"?

No indeed. One fact is not a catalogue. But I am having a difficult time extracting a coherent objection from your last post (or last few posts really). You did seem to be saying that a natural law case against getting a vasectomy has been shown to be coherent (not true, mind you, but coherent); but that one against contraception has not. And my reply, again, is that therefore we have established what we are and are merely arguing over the cost: that is, we are arguing over particular purposes and implications but rational coherence has been conceded to natural law theory qua natural law theory.

Posted by: Zippy | May 23, 2005 9:06 PM

Homosexuality is antithetical to Natural Law and Reason. It is also beneath human dignity. The rational man, when confronted with homoerotic desires, would say "This is damn peculiar; the person to whom I am attracted does not have complementary sexual organs" and then reject his irrational sexual desires. As far as I am concerned, there is no difference between a dog humping someone's leg and two men having sex, except for the fact that the men know better.

Posted by: Robert O'Brien | May 24, 2005 12:17 AM

Mazel writes:

"Rather, Paul's argument seems to have been that the emotional demands of one's partner in marriage would frustrate one's natural purpose of giving oneself over to God.

Sounds weird, I know. But that's the problem with natural law: garbage in, garbage out."

To which I reply:

Your understanding of Paul is as flawed as your understanding of Natural Law. Paul wrote:

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2:14)

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be (Romans 8:7)

Men are inclined to sin by nature; all sorts of wickedness flows from the human heart. Thus Paul writes that in our natural state, we are in enmity against God, which is a far cry from your paraphrase of him.

Moreover, living in accordance with Natural Law is emphatically not the same as living in one's natural state; Natural Law requires one to live rationally (i.e., with fortitude, temperance, justice, and prudence), which is at variance with man's visceral, "natural" state.

By the way, the comments you made at Brayton's blog about ideal forms and teleology being obviated by "evolution," are similarly bogus. I suggest bowing out now before you dig yourself deeper.

Posted by: Robert O'Brien | May 24, 2005 1:07 AM

"raj" writes:

"Mr. Feser, if you really believe that sex is only for procreative activities, it is likely that, after your wife has gone into menopause you will have a number of years of living with her in which you will live in sexual frustration. Your choice. But, you know, some of us are not that ignorant. I'd be more graphic, but I'd probably be banned.

At some point, Mr. Feser, these 'natural law' suggestions seem ludicrous. 'Natural law' is a subterfuge designed by the Roman Catholic Church to defraud the rubes. You know that as well as I do. 'Natural law' is nothing more than an excuse for 'I don't want you to do that.' In pseudo-scientific terms.

I might ask, who the heck is sponsoring this apparent plethora of web sites on which people post these silly ideas. Is Opus Dei really that wealthy?"

Don't mind raj, folks. He is just a pseudo-intellect who gets choleric whenever anyone suggests that he is not justified engaging in sodomy.

Posted by: Robert O'Brien | May 24, 2005 1:13 AM

Hey gang, I've noticed some direct insults are being hurled around on this thread by those on both sides. I know sexual ethics is an emotional subject, but please try to keep it civil.

Posted by: Max Goss | May 24, 2005 7:31 AM

Craig writes, "Stop right there; you have the cart before the horse. As a matter of form, you can't reject an argument because you don't like the conclusion it leads to."

Actually, as a matter of form, I can. It's called modus tollens.

Posted by: Max Goss | May 24, 2005 7:34 AM

The core of Mr Feser's argument's, I think, is not what form- or forms, ARE natural- we could argue fruitlessly there forever.
Rather it turns on the principle that moral goodness simply IS rationally chosing to live according to human purpose or design.
This identification of moral good with making choices that will lead to fulfillment of one's "human potential" is the premise I find myself most reluctant to concede on logical, rather than empirical, grounds.
Consider (heuristically, if you like) the case of a creator whose purpose for mankind is that we commit genocide. By this formulation, the man who rationally chooses to maximise his potential for genocide is the "morally good" man. It makes no sense to think of genocide as bad- it's "conceptually impossible", for our natural end simply cannot be "bad" by definition.
Why do we reject this scenario, and label such a creator morally evil?
I think it's because wherever the sense of "moral good" comes from, it's not simply from fulfilling the purpose of a designer. (In Herzog's words: "X is unnatural and X is immoral" may well be true, but "X is unnatural and THEREFORE X is immoral" never is). I don't think it's legitimate to counter that morality comes from "fulfilling the purpose of a BENEFICENT designer", because that implies some other standard by which one can judge "goodness" that is not "choosing to maximise one's potential nature/form/essence/whatever".
One could argue we find such a scenario wicked simply because IN FACT we don't have such a creator, but one that is beneficent and has given us other ends. But then the immorality of genocide (of course I'm using an extreme example here; insert any other you prefer) becomes morally contingent rather than necessary.
In the "natural law" tradition, I don't think this mattered much, because I'm fairly sure the moral arguments came AFTER a series of what were conceived to be sufficient proofs of a beneficent designer.
But there's still the problem of circularity, for we STILL need some OTHER standard by which to judge the goodness or badness of a creator. In a personal context, that might rest on faith, but in a philosophical one, it needs to be argued for.

Posted by: rob stowell | May 24, 2005 5:57 PM

So if my wife is at a fertile time in her cycle and we don't want to have children at this time we have several choices, abstain from sex, have some form of sex that can't lead to pregnancy, or use contraceptives. All of these choices frustrate the reproductive role of our genitals. Sex without coitus or sex with contraceptives exercise other roles of our genitals: pleasure, strengthening the pair bond, relieving tension, helping us sleep. Why is abstinence the only acceptable choice. It looks like the worst choice to me.

Posted by: David Holland | May 24, 2005 8:31 PM

Why is abstinence the only acceptable choice.

Because there is nothing wrong with refraining from sex, but it is wrong to engage in unnatural (in the teleological sense of this thread) sex.

(Though "taking your chances" in a natural act is another perfectly acceptable choice).

Posted by: Zippy | May 24, 2005 8:40 PM

To Rob Stowell:

Your post--a glimmer of intelligence in this otherwise benighted discussion--reveals the way that natural law cannot really be abstracted out of its theological context. You write that Feser's argument "turns on the principle that moral goodness simply IS rationally choosing to live according to human purpose or design," which claim simply cannot be meaningfully evaluated without knowing what that purpose is and who does the designing. The argument is much easier to swallow if our purpose is that of an omnibenevolent deity rather than that of a Cosmic Hitler. But which is it?

You correctly note that the answer is a matter of faith, not logical demonstration. I would add, however, that once certain professions of faith have been made, those statements themselves become subject to logical and empirical evaluation, at least as conditionals.

That is, IF it is true that the Bible is a reliable guide to the attributes of the creator with whose purposes we are morally bound to ally our actions, THEN we can confidently make certain judgements. Consider that most blatantly genocidal chapter in the Israelite epic, the Book of Joshua. On any fair reading of that text, and according to the natural law argument, it appears that the Israelites were acting morally: God's plan for the world required that the Israelites conquer Canaan, in the process of which (according to the text, which archaeologists say is wrong on this point) they slaughter Canaanite women and children by the thousands. During all of this slaughter, God rebukes the Israelites only for an instance when they FAIL to engage in absolute slaughter (when the soldiers save some young women for themselves instead of killing them).

That genocide is at least occasionally moral is the inescapable conclusion if you accept the premises of natural law and the authority of scripture. And while in theory that potentially deadly combination need not obtain, in practice it does.

You ask that we "Consider (heuristically, if you like) the case of a creator whose purpose for mankind is that we commit genocide." I ask, why "hueristically"? The fact is that the most prominent natural law proponents do in fact believe in such a creator: according to their own scripture, the purposes of their own God can indeed include genocide. And to this day, Joshua, a mass murderer, is honored by Christians as a "morally good" man. (Unlike, say, "Adolf," "Joshua" remains one of the most popular names for baby boys.)

In the context in which it actually moves and lives and has its being--that is, within certain conservative brands of Christianity--natural law cannot categorically hold genocide to immoral. The immorality of genocide (and any other action, for that matter) becomes contingent upon whether it's part of the creator's purposes. Many have thought they knew those purposes, of course, not just Edward Feser, not just the Pope, not just Joseph Smith, and not just Pat Robertson, but also Joshua, Torquemada, and Osama bin Laden.

Posted by: David Mazel | May 25, 2005 8:56 AM

You correctly note that the answer is a matter of faith, not logical demonstration.

I think this sort of positivism is self-refuting, and indeed has refuted itself enough times in the last century that the fact that it continually raises its head is testament to the dominance of humanity's irrational tendencies. There are some moral truths we perceive with as much intuitional certainty as we perceive that two plus two is four; for example, that gratuitous torture of an innocent child is wrong. There are some mathematical truths which are more complex and less intuitively clear, and there are some moral truths which are likewise more complex and less intuitively clear. But this logical positivist know-nothingism applied to the moral realm is a dog that won't hunt.

Posted by: Zippy | May 25, 2005 11:38 AM

Also bringing the Bible into a discussion of the natural law is literally beside the point, because the natural law doesn't have anything to do with the Bible and applied long before there was any such thing. Natural law morality is not at all about extracting morality from a textual revelation, it is about understanding the morality rationally implied by the purposes that inhere in things.

Whether the Bible can or can not be interpreted in ways that cohere with natural law is probably viewed as a critical topic to some people, I suppose, but I don't see its relevance here.

Posted by: Zippy | May 25, 2005 12:56 PM

Zippy, my insistence that natural law be discussed in the context of its actual historical development and application is not "logical positivism." And for goodness sakes--we don't "intuit" that two plus two equals four; we place two pairs of objects on the table, count them up, and OBSERVE that two plus two equals four, and construct a mathematics upon such observations. It's not the kind of knowledge gained by intuition. Nor is natural law; after all, as Feser himself tells us, an object's purpose can only be understood in light of our actual observation of it. All I'm adding is the idea that our evaluation of a theory should be at least partly based on our observation of how it functions in real societies. It's not merely logical positivists who feel this way--it's basically the same idea any time some Christian or conservative commentator tells us that communism or liberalism or secularism is suspect because, however good it looks on paper, it fails to deliver in practice.

I guess one could discuss, say, communism as a purely abstract political philosophy, and never once mention the forms in which it actually developed and expressed itself historically. And then, when someone DID consider it in its historical context, and suggested that the horrors to which it led might indicate its flaws, I suppose one could object to the contextualization as and insist that the actual history of communism is "literally beside the point"? But the grounds for the object would not concern logical positivism.

And in fact natural law has a great deal to do with the Bible, for the simple reason that the greatest impetus to its development was the attempt to use it to justify biblical morality without recourse to revelation. In the course of that development, ideas like "purpose" and "telos" were deeply colored by biblical notions of God and humankind.

When Feser suggests that we "ask what a designer might have had in mind" in creating different "capacities," are we really to think that our answers will not reflect the pre-existing beliefs rooted in our religion? People don't think in a vacuum.

By the way, I never said that natural law was "about extracting morality from a textual revelation." I said it was about constructing a rationale for that purported revelation. It is true that, for Aristotle, natural law was about "understanding the morality rationally implied by the purposes that (supposedly) inhere in things." But his Christian followers would not have cared less about it had they not sensed in it a way to co-opt Greek rationality in the service of their superstititon.

Unbelievably, you write, "Whether the Bible can or can not be interpreted in ways that cohere with natural law is probably viewed as a critical topic to some people, I suppose, but I don't see its relevance here."

Let's see, among the "some people" concerned about natural law and biblical principle would be, I dunno, Thomas Aquinas? A couple of recent popes? Nobody "relevant," I guess.

Posted by: David mazel | May 25, 2005 3:36 PM

At this late stage in the discussion you appear to still have utterly missed Feser's point, which is not that a particular concrete instance of natural law theory is true but that natural law theory qua natural law theory is in fact, contra critics, rationally coherent. It is as if you were arguing "Whitehead and Russel are wrong, so all mathematics as an intellectual practice is incoherent!" Whitehead and Russel might or might not be wrong, but the whole line of argument is beside the point.

There is no reason for you to know this, of course, and it is quite off-topic, but the irony of Bible proof-texting against me in this discussion makes me smile: I caused a minor blog-tempest recently when I argued that a significant swath of Bible-Christianity is irrational precisely because sola scriptura, taken seriously, is a form of positivism.

If you want to leave the discussion at a conclusion that natural law reasoning is perfectly coherent but that you think as practiced it has contained significant errors, I doubt anyone would object to that opinion. Or at the least that would be an entirely different conversation.

Posted by: Zippy | May 25, 2005 5:51 PM

Zippy said:
Because there is nothing wrong with refraining from sex, but it is wrong to engage in unnatural (in the teleological sense of this thread) sex.
I'm sorry but I don't understand this. According to this thread anything unnatural is wrong by definition. Saying it is wrong to do something unnatural is circular. My point is "unnatural" sex is only unnatural if you assume sex has only one legitimate purpose. I see no reason to assume that. In fact I know from my own experience it does have more than one purpose.

By the way, what is the purpose of the clitoris?

I have to thank Mr. Feser for this post. I had no clue to what Natural Law was, and worse I didn't know I had no clue. I find it unconvincing but at least I'm not totally ignorant anymore.

Posted by: David Holland | May 25, 2005 6:51 PM

My point is "unnatural" sex is only unnatural if you assume sex has only one legitimate purpose. I see no reason to assume that. In fact I know from my own experience it does have more than one purpose.

I think that somehow you must have missed the distinction Mr. Feser made between an act which is contrary to a purpose and an act which is not contrary to a purpose, and you must also have missed all the places where he discussed the fact that many things have more than one purpose.

In fact, sex in which the unitive purpose is intentionally thwarted could be every bit as immoral as sex in which the procreative purpose is intentionally thwarted. I have no doubt that a fertile sex act can be performed in a hateful way, and such an act would be immoral.

Posted by: Zippy | May 25, 2005 7:01 PM

I think one main problem is this:

Feser has pointed to a distinction between using something contrary to its purpose and using something other than for its purpose. But we natural law skeptics don't know what to make of this distinction. We have no idea how to apply it to a given case. As it stands, it's a very underexplained distinction, for us anyway.

We did give it a shot. Above, some natural law skeptics were trying to cash out the distinction as follows: To use something contrary to its purpose is just to use the thing such that it ends up being unable to perform its function anymore. Whereas to use something other than for its purpose leaves the thing fully operational. So the way to use a corkscrew contrary to its purpose is to dull it, or bend it, or break it in half. And the way to use male genitals contrary to their purpose is to mutilate them, or irradiate them, etc.

But the natural law boosters rejected this gloss on the distinction. After all, masturbation leaves the genitals fully operational, and is (on this gloss) not a contrary-to-purpose use. Unfortunately, we are left without any means of understanding this distinction, and hence of understanding why masturbation does count as a contrary-to-purpose use, as opposed to a mere other-than-purpose use.

So we skeptics end up nonplussed. Using one's penis for masturbation and using one's penis as a paintbrush both, as far as I can tell, bear the same relation to the purpose of a penis. But I take the natural law boosters want to say one is morally wrong and the other morally neutral. But until we understand how the distinction works, we won't understand how this position is supposed to work.

Posted by: Cole | May 25, 2005 8:01 PM

Unrelatedly, I think it's still unclear why performing one's natural function well, or choosing to perform one's natural function well, is something that has any normative force. Whether one has any good reason at all to (choose to) perform one's natural function well is still a legitimate question. And the answer might very well be: No, natural functions don't have any essential connection with normativity, reasons, oughts, etc.

So, given that natural law theory (I take it) tries to analyze moral concepts in terms of natural functions, and given that moral concepts DO have an essential connection with normativity, natural law theory might still be incoherent.

Posted by: Cole | May 25, 2005 8:09 PM

To Cole: Masturbation does leave the genitals fully operational, as you say. The natural law apologists say in response that an individual act of masturbation cantravenes the genitals' purpose, and hence violates natural law. Those of us who are critics say that if you take a slightly larger view you conclude that occasional acts of masturbation do not, overall, entail less reproduction, so that the genitals' purported purpose is NOT contravened. Just why we should privilege the narrow view over the broader has yet to be explained.

To Zippy: You write, that I "appear to still have utterly missed Feser's point, which is not that a particular concrete instance of natural law theory is true but that natural law theory qua natural law theory is in fact, contra critics, rationally coherent."

Actually, I HAVE dealt with precisely that question at some length (see Jon Rowe's blog, where I originally encountered Feser's post). My argument was that natural law theory IS internally inconsistent, in the specific sense that even if one accepts its premises, one can rationally draw conclusions that are diametrically opposed.

I also deal briefly on the fact that, in light of evolution, natural law's Platonic premises themselves can no longer be plausibly believed.

I'm sorry, but the Middle Ages are over.

Posted by: David mazel | May 25, 2005 8:18 PM

David Mazel:

I think your mistake (though a very natural mistake) is the move from "occasional acts of masturbation do not, overall, entail less reproduction" to "the genitals' purported purpose is NOT contravened". That inference goes through only if you take "contrary-to-purpose use" to mean use that somehow inhibits or lessens according-to-purpose use. And I think the natural law boosters would reject that gloss.

Now, to be sure, I'm not sure what exactly they mean by "use contrary to a thing's purpose". But I'm pretty sure (though I could be wrong) that they don't mean what you think they mean.

Posted by: Cole | May 25, 2005 8:36 PM

Just why we should privilege the narrow view over the broader has yet to be explained.

I did state the reason for this (though my brief gloss may not merit the title "explanation"): that moral evaluation pertains to particular acts, contra the proportionalist view that moral evaluation pertains to general trends and outcomes.

My argument was that natural law theory IS internally inconsistent, in the specific sense that even if one accepts its premises, one can rationally draw conclusions that are diametrically opposed.

But it is true of any abstract rational structure whatsoever that, if one accepts inconsistent facts as premeses, one can rationally draw conclusions which are diametrically opposed. To show that natural law theory is inconsistent you would have to show that it is inconsistent for any set of facts (in this case premeses about the telos of objects, acts, and persons). Showing that a structure of reasoning can in principle be irrational (stipulating for the sake of argument that this has been done on a blog I don't read) if we adopt irrational premeses doesn't show anything at all.

Posted by: Zippy | May 25, 2005 8:37 PM

I now realize that the a helpful way of jargonizing this discussion is: pro-purpose use, anti-purpose use, non-purpose use. E.g., "Feser, et al. think that masturbation counts as anti-purpose use of the penis, but we think masturbation is simply non-purpose use. After all, masturbation doesn't disable the penis for future pro-purpose use."

Posted by: Cole | May 25, 2005 8:40 PM

Cole wrote:
But until we understand how the distinction works, we won't understand how this position is supposed to work.

Perhaps we can fall back on the example provided to us inadvertently by Mr. Holland. Suppose that one of the teleological purposes of a sex act is to reinforce the loving pair-bond between a married couple. If a man intentionally were to prevent his wife from achieving orgasm in order that she not get the uppity idea that she is loved and cherished by him, that would be contrary to the unitive end of sex. That is a different matter than if, as a matter of accidental course, his wife does not achieve an orgasm. In the former case he has done something immoral; in the latter he has not.

Posted by: Zippy | May 25, 2005 8:42 PM

Dr Feser-
First, I am sorry for occasionally behaving like a troll here; it ill-becomes a guest, and your posts deserve better. (I'll leave my troll mask at home, where I hope the kids don't find it :-})
I'm particularly intrigued by this:
"Notice that there is no �is-ought� fallacy here. Such a fallacy is committed when one goes from premises that make no reference to �oughts� and/or to the good to a conclusion that does contain such a reference. But the premises in this case do make reference to the good and to what we ought to do."
It's true, you completely you avoid the "is/ought" fallacy at this point.
As I understand it, the so-called "naturalistic fallacy" doesn't turn on the particular use of "is" and "ought", but is more generally applied to a move from statements of fact to those of value. And such a move does occur- from the "not-yet-moral sense of good" to "moral good"; when you introduce the other premise, here: "A fully good human being, in the not-yet-moral sense of �good� used above, is one who has fully realized his natural potentials. And a morally good human being is just one who tends to choose to act in a way that will lead him to realize those potentials."
I'm not faulting your logic- you don't present this as the conclusion of a line of reasoning; in fact you specifically refer to it as "...the THEORY (my emphasis) of the good I�ve been sketching". But as it's the axle on which the wheel turns, so to speak, it's worth noting that one way or another, there is a move from "fact-statements" to a (theoretical?) "value-statement". I'm likely mistaken, but it seems prima facie that any later deductions of the form "x is unnatural, therefore x is immoral" rest entirely on this earlier move.
In fact I think you're best to take this on up-front, and deny that the naturalistic fallacy IS a fallacy. (I'm not wholly unsympathetic to this view: as a post-grad student I became fascinated and delighted by Spinoza, who while hardly in the mainstream of natural law theory, isn't a million miles away. But- (this WAS twenty years ago!) - I never found an argument that could quite shake off the simple logic of "Hume's Law".) What do you think?
You deserve kudos for nailing your colours to mast firmly in this post with regard to contraception. It was stimulating (if you'd talked of "eudaimonia" or followed the Stoic line, the argument might have looked surprisingly liberal- and we all might well have stayed asleep; criticise our marriages/sex lives and we're awake!). But while I think the morality of contraception is a philosophical distraction, it's made me realise that if one does accept that "a morally good human being is just one who tends to choose to act in a way that will lead him to realize those potentials" ALL moral arguments simply become arguments about what our "potentials/natural ends" are.
I don't think that's the nature of moral argument, but I do think it'd recast moral debate in an interesting way.
(I'm also sceptical of the place rationality holds in most moral arguments that spring from what our "natures" (slippery word!) are. Spinoza notwithstanding, my gut tells me rationality is not moral in itself- that love, empathy and honesty are more morally admirable qualities, and that for all their ability to lead us in the wrong direction, they are at least as likely to lead us in a right one as reason. But that's an entirely new avenue....)
Anyway- thanks for provoking this discussion, which I, at least, am finding immensely stimulating. (And I'm looking forward to some serious mind/body analysis in Part2)

Posted by: rob stowell | May 25, 2005 8:51 PM

Zippy:

I don't think that helps, just because perfectly benign uses of a thing (tapping one's teeth, penis as a paintbrush, etc.) can be intentionally undertaken so as keep the thing in question from engaging its purpose. Presumably, this doesn't render them anti-purpose uses, and it doesn't render them wrong.

So while it might indeed be wrong to actively prevent a partner's orgasm, what makes it wrong is not merely that it's an intentional prevention of a thing's fulfilling its purpose.

Posted by: Cole | May 25, 2005 9:21 PM

what makes it wrong is not merely that it's an intentional prevention of a thing's fulfilling its purpose.

The present question though is not whether you agree with natural law theory and its justifications for moral conclusions in general. The question is whether a legitimate distinction exists between a use that is contrary to purpose and a use that does not fulfill its purpose, and may even prevent the achievement of the purpose, but is not contrary to the purpose. The distinction between intentionally preventing the wife's orgasm in order to produce emotional distance and failing to provide her with one for accidental reasons is an example of just such a distinction; a legitimate factual distinction prior to any moral claims.

Posted by: Zippy | May 25, 2005 10:26 PM

Cole: where have you been, all this time?

You raise exactly my questions, crisply and without rancor. I hope that Prof. Feser is still listening in, though I wouldn't blame him at all if he's tuned out by now.

Posted by: Steve Burton | May 25, 2005 11:41 PM

"I also deal briefly on the fact that, in light of evolution, natural law's Platonic premises themselves can no longer be plausibly believed."

So sorry, but repeating this ad nauseum does not make it so. From my own experience in mathematics I know Platonic Idealism is alive and well.

Posted by: Robert O'Brien | May 25, 2005 11:52 PM

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Natural ends and natural law, Part I

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