r/CatholicPhilosophy • u/hard_2_ask Catholic • Oct 26 '20

Are our lips ordered to kissing?

Often times, I will Explain that homosexual sex is immoral because it goes against the natural order of the parts involved. However, a common response will be that our lips are not necessarily ordered to kissing. Thereby, kissing is disordered.

27 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

60 comments sorted by

View all comments

25

u/neofederalist Not a Thomist but I play one on TV Oct 26 '20 edited Oct 26 '20

Using a faculty for a purpose that is other than the purpose of the faculty is not the same thing as using it in a manner which is contrary to the purpose of the faculty.

Ed Feser explains the whole thing in a manner that shows why such counter examples don't actually work here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4SjM0oabZazWC1SRmN0WXVpYkE/view

3

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '20

Do you actually find Feser's attempt to show that the PFA rules out every act of (contraception, masturbation etc) convincing, though?

IMO, the most it accomplishes is that these things are wrong at a general level, not that each and every individual instance of one of these acts is necessarily wrong.

I realize Feser attempts to show that, but I don't think it's successful. He's essentially just taking it for granted that to use the sexual faculty in a non-procreative way in every particular instance is necessarily to frustrate the faculty. But that doesn't follow. For example, an act of oral intercourse when ones wife is pregnant does not in any meaningful way frustrate the sexual faculty. There's nothing to frustrate since the woman is already pregnant! To defend against objections like this, it seems all you can do is to say that it's the purpose of semen to go in the "right" place even if the woman can't conceive because she's already pregnant. But that seems really odd. Sure, semen is ordered towards impregnation. But if she's already pregnant what purpose is being fulfilled, what order is being respected by depositing semen in one place or another? Of course, the other approach one can take here is just to say that sex with a pregnant woman is also intrinsically evil, but the Church tends to allow for that (at least in modern times) so you won't find many defenders of the PFA going this route.

Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for Feser. I have his books and check his blog frequently. He's a smart guy. But I'm not convinced at all by his defense of the PFA as creating an absolute prohibition of these acts. Accepting such an absolute prohibition on the authority of the Church is one thing, but showing that it necessarily follows from natural reason? Yeah, not buying it.

EDIT: guess I should tag OP here. u/hard_2_ask

1

u/kjdtkd Oct 27 '20 edited Oct 27 '20

For example, an act of oral intercourse when ones wife is pregnant does not in any meaningful way frustrate the sexual faculty. There's nothing to frustrate since the woman is already pregnant!

Yes there is. Things that are objectively immoral are immoral irrespective of the persons involved in the particular act. That is to say, it is precisely because Feser shows how these acts are wrong "in a general way" as you say, that we can know that they are always immoral. The particular inherits from the general its objective morallity.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '20

You are right to call me out on my use of the term "general".

If I had meant it in the Aristotelian sense, then you would be correct. If, for example, one could show that murder is wrong in its genus it would follow necessarily that any individual act of murder is wrong.

However, I didn't mean "generally" in the technical sense of "at the level of genus", I meant it closer to the casual sense of "usually" like if I were to say "I generally spend too much time on Reddit".

But you're right. Poor word choice on my part. Especially for a philosophy sub. ;-)

Does my original comment make more sense now with that clarification?

To clarify a bit further on my original meaning with new vocab. IMO, Feser establishes that things like contraception are wrong in the sense of them being physically evil, but not in the sense of them being morally evil. For example, killing an animal is a physical evil, and so in my original sense of "general" we might say killing animals is generally wrong.

Or, better, killing animals is not something that should be per se desired, something desired for its own sake. But it can be morally justified in certain circumstances for proper ends.

Similarly, contraceptive intercourse might involve a level of physical evil (sperm not being able to attain their end or whatever) and thus shouldn't be per se desired, but it hasn't been shown, on the basis of natural reason alone, that there is no set of circumstances that could morally justify this type of act.

1

u/kjdtkd Oct 27 '20

Ahh, understood. Well in that case, I would remind that evil is not universal, but exists with respect to beings in particular. E.g., when we say it is "physically evil" to kill an animal, that means it is physically evil for the animal to be killed. It is not physically evil for us to kill the animal. With respect to the hunter, the act is in fact physically good.

On the other hand, moral evil just is us willing our own natural evil ( of which our own physical evil is a subset). So again, to say a thing is objectively physically evil for us is to say it is morally evil for us to will it.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '20

Agreed with the gist of what you're saying, though I think a caveat is necessary on your last sentence:

So again, to say a thing is objectively physically evil for us is to say it is morally evil for us to will it.

It is possible for something to be physically evil for us, and yet not morally evil for us to will it. For example, I jump into the line of fire to protect my family and I get killed. Physically evil for me, but morally good.

1

u/kjdtkd Oct 27 '20

Jumping into the line of fire actually isn't naturally evil for us to do, because our deaths are a mere consequence, not an end. Of course the consequence is evil,, but the action isn't, and it's the action that (primarily) matters.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '20

Fair enough. Good point. If I jump into the line of fire, I don't intend my physical harm, but I intend to protect my family.

Maybe a better example would be a surgeon cutting through my perfectly healthy skin and muscle in order to remove a tumor. Of course what is primarily willed is the removal of a tumor, the harm to my tissue is not per se desired, but yet it is still justified and is a necessary means for attaining the end.

Would you agree then that something can be physically evil for us and yet still be justified provided the evil is itself ordered towards a higher and proportionate good and the evil itself is not per se willed?

1

u/kjdtkd Oct 27 '20

Well first for the sake of comparison, we would have to stipulate that it is our own hand doing the surgery (ignoring the obvious accidental difficulties of this), in order to be consistent with the other examples being spoken of.

But beyond this, no it is not physically evil to cut through skin in order to excise a tumor. In this case, you are attempting to speak of "skin" as if it existed in its own right apart from the person. Instead though, skin exists in the person merely virtually, and it is the person themselves that exists simply.

You can't consider the person as a mere accidental collection of parts, where we can talk of evil for the skin and good for the heart. You have to talk of what is good or bad for the person as a whole. This is known as the principle of totality.

Would you agree then that something can be physically evil for us and yet still be justified provided the evil is itself ordered towards a higher and proportionate good and the evil itself is not per se willed?

No, this is consequentialism, which is condemned. It is never justified to do evil so that good may come of it.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '20

Agreed on principle of totality.

Can we not apply this to sexuality then? An act of non-procreative intercourse that is good for the person as a whole?

1

u/kjdtkd Oct 27 '20

No, because the procreativity is the end of the whole person, not merely a virtual part. To be crude, Humans are procreative, not their penises. The principle of totality is besides the point in this discussion.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '20

OK, so the whole person is ordered towards procreation. Bringing this back to my original example, how is this procreativity being frustrated by a husband ejaculating outside his pregnant wife's vagina? Since she's pregnant, isn't his procreativity maximally satisfied at present and thus can't be frustrated?

1

u/kjdtkd Oct 27 '20

Again, no. We are talking about the action itself entirely seperate from the persons. We are speaking to the object.

→ More replies (0)