Edward Feser's argument for the immorality of sex (that doesn't result in reproduction)

[Dekusta]

Hey. As I've been continuing my studies on medieval scholastic, Aristotle's principles and so forth, I saw this argument written by Edward Feser:

"If we consider the structure of the sexual organs and the sexual act as a process beginning with arousal and ending in orgasm, it is clear that its biological function, its final cause, is to get semen into the vagina. That is why the penis and vagina are shaped the way they are, why the vagina secretes lubrication during sexual arousal, and so forth … The point of the process is not just to get semen out of the male, but also into the female, and into one place in the female in particular. [144]


It cannot possibly be good for us to use them in any other way, whether an individual person thinks it is or not. "

I wanted to see your opinions on it. Feser's God is obviously the God from classical theism, and defined in terms of pure actuality. I don't think this thread is suited for a discussion on Thomism, though, so if I may ask, keep the discussion on the logical structure of the argument.

My opinion is that this argument is not valid, which means the conclusion does not follow from the premises, but if we add that it was a morally perfect being who created us with our nature, then things might get different.

 

[Angry Floof]

It cannot possibly be good for us to use them in any other way

I see no argument here, only a claim.

Is there any evidence presented to support this? Simply explaining one obvious utilitarian purpose for something says absolutely nothing about any other uses or purposes.

For one thing, pleasure serves human health and communities in myriad positive ways, too many to count, and our knowledge of how we operate as human beings is vast compared to medieval times. We also better understand things like addiction, where pleasure is abused for the purpose of escapism. The line between healthy pleasure and unhealthy pleasure is fuzzy for sure, but it isn't non-existent, and Feser seems to be speaking out of fear of what he doesn't understand.

If you hadn't mentioned that Feser was religious, it would still be obvious that he was. Such black-and-white views of right and wrong are almost always based in fear and ignorance, and moralizing is almost always based in fearful, ignorant religious belief. For his time, Feser had an excuse for his superstitious babble, but in the present information age, few people have an excuse for not seeking more information before blabbing out judgmental nonsense.

 

[Sajara]

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/news/a35142/i-used-a-penis-weight-and-it-was-weird/

So I guess this company that makes weights for penile weight lifting is also incorrect. Not for me either, but some people do it...

 

[Angry Floof]

I just realized that Edward Feser is currently alive and is, of all things, a professor of philosophy. For fuck's sake.

 

[bilby]

If we consider the structure of the human hand and the eating of a banana as a process beginning with grasping and ending in swallowing, it is clear that its biological function, its final cause, is to feed bananas to people. That is why the hand and banana are shaped the way they are, why the mouth secretes saliva during mastication, and so forth … The point of the process is not just to get banana out of the peel, but also into the human, and into one place in the human in particular.

It is therefore immoral to use one's hands for any purpose other than the consumption of bananas.

QED.

 

[Angry Floof]

If we consider the structure of the human hand and the eating of a banana as a process beginning with grasping and ending in swallowing, it is clear that its biological function, its final cause, is to feed bananas to people. That is why the hand and banana are shaped the way they are, why the mouth secretes saliva during mastication, and so forth … The point of the process is not just to get banana out of the peel, but also into the human, and into one place in the human in particular.

It is therefore immoral to use one's hands for any purpose other than the consumption of bananas.

QED.

Exactly. That this comes from a professor of philosophy is comical. At least, until you remember that he is religious, and to boot it's the kind of religion whose wacky tenets take priority over philosophical questioning. It pisses me off when such religious thinking (non-thinking) is presented as "philosophy."

 

[Dekusta]

If we consider the structure of the human hand and the eating of a banana as a process beginning with grasping and ending in swallowing, it is clear that its biological function, its final cause, is to feed bananas to people. That is why the hand and banana are shaped the way they are, why the mouth secretes saliva during mastication, and so forth … The point of the process is not just to get banana out of the peel, but also into the human, and into one place in the human in particular.

It is therefore immoral to use one's hands for any purpose other than the consumption of bananas.

QED.

Exactly. That this comes from a professor of philosophy is comical. At least, until you remember that he is religious, and to boot it's the kind of religion whose wacky tenets take priority over philosophical questioning. It pisses me off when such religious thinking (non-thinking) is presented as "philosophy."

I feel in need to agree with you. It's just that Feser has good, well written arguments for theism, and well written books, I couldn't imagine that this argument came from him.

So I thought I was missing something.

 

[DBT]

A belief that's probably formed out of a deep seated puritanical streak related to religious beliefs...

 

[Dekusta]

If we consider the structure of the human hand and the eating of a banana as a process beginning with grasping and ending in swallowing, it is clear that its biological function, its final cause, is to feed bananas to people. That is why the hand and banana are shaped the way they are, why the mouth secretes saliva during mastication, and so forth … The point of the process is not just to get banana out of the peel, but also into the human, and into one place in the human in particular.

It is therefore immoral to use one's hands for any purpose other than the consumption of bananas.

QED.

I'm unsure about your analogy, Feser argues that the purpose of sex is reproduction and your analogy segues that the purpose of eating bananas is to feed bananas to people.

 

[Angry Floof]

I'm unsure about your analogy, Feser argues that the purpose of sex is reproduction and your analogy segues that the purpose of eating bananas is to feed bananas to people.

Considering that we enjoy eating, and often do it for pleasure rather than to satiate hunger or nourish the body, Bilby's analogy works fine in pointing out at least one aspect of what is wrong with the "argument."

We also enjoy a lot of other activities that can also be considered utilitarian. Are they all sins? Or just the one that Christianity has most deeply abused, twisted, and punished?

A belief that's probably formed out of a deep seated puritanical streak related to religious beliefs...

Ya think?

 

[DBT]

A belief that's probably formed out of a deep seated puritanical streak related to religious beliefs...

Ya think?

Seems obvious, but no doubt that there are some who would strongly disagree.

 

[Dekusta]

Considering that we enjoy eating, and often do it for pleasure rather than to satiate hunger or nourish the body, Bilby's analogy works fine in pointing out at least one aspect of what is wrong with the "argument."

We also enjoy a lot of other activities that can also be considered utilitarian. Are they all sins? Or just the one that Christianity has most deeply abused, twisted, and punished?

A belief that's probably formed out of a deep seated puritanical streak related to religious beliefs...

Ya think?

Wow, makes sense. It's interesting, I've been away from philosophical discussions for a while and so many things I would normally perceive now are going unnoticed. It's an exercise, a giant chess game, not only this but the entire war between atheism and theism. I'm also surprised by how much my thoughts are distanciating from the issue, but alright.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

"If we consider the structure of the sexual organs and the sexual act as a process beginning with arousal and ending in orgasm, it is clear that its biological function, its final cause, is to get semen into the vagina. That is why the penis and vagina are shaped the way they are, why the vagina secretes lubrication during sexual arousal, and so forth … The point of the process is not just to get semen out of the male, but also into the female, and into one place in the female in particular. [144]


It cannot possibly be good for us to use them in any other way, whether an individual person thinks it is or not. "

Here, Feser seems to be appealing to Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics (the "final cause" stuff), but I see no good reason to accept his metaphysical framework.
As for the claim the biological function of the sexual act:

1. Even if a biological function of the specific sexual act "A penis gets into the vagina" (PIV, for short) is to get semen into the vagina in question, that does not imply or suggest that that's the only biological function of such act. It may have other functions too, like giving pleasure. Why would that not be a function?

2. Even if a biological function of the PIV sexual act is to get semen into the vagina in question, that does not say anything at all about the biological function of other sexual acts, like - say - [different forms of ]oral sex, masturbation, etc. There is no particular reason to believe that only one specific sexual act (namely, PIV) has a biological function.

3. Even if an act A does not have any specific biological function, that does not imply or suggest that A is immoral. For example, playing a game of cards vs. a computer at home may well not have any biological function. Alice may play vs. the computer for fun - for example - or just to test the game because she is the programmer, or because a friend asks her to do so, etc. But none of that is immoral.
For that matter, if I just say "cuatro" aloud, that seems to have no biological function (I'm alone in my room, no one would hear it), but that would not be immoral. If I said something without even telling you or anyone else, that would still not be immoral.
So, even if sexual activities other than PIV have no biological function, that does not imply or suggest they're immoral.

4. Even if some act A has a certain biological function F, and only F, that does not suggest or imply it's immoral to use A for some other purpose. For example, the biological function of blinking is to "spread tears across and remove irritants from the surface of the cornea and conjunctiva." (ETA: okay, that's a function. Maybe there are others. But not to communicate using Morse code, or to control computers...well, unless one has a very broad concept of "biological function", but then, for that matter, one might as well say sex has the biological function of giving a person - or some other animal - pleasure)
But we can use blinking - for example - for communications - e.g., in Morse code.
We can also use blinking to, say, control a sufficiently advanced computer (think of a system in which we can pick things on screen by double-blinking while looking at them, or whatever).
There is nothing morally wrong with any of such usages.

My opinion is that this argument is not valid, which means the conclusion does not follow from the premises, but if we add that it was a morally perfect being who created us with our nature, then things might get different.

Different how?
Let's consider an argument not against non-reproductive sex, but against communicational blinking. Do you think it would work under the assumption that a morally perfect being created us with our nature? If it did, right there you would have a pretty good argument against the hypothesis that a morally perfect being created us with your nature, since it's obviously not immoral to use blinking to communicate, either with another person or with a computer - i.e., it's not immoral per se; specific acts might be immoral if the communication is, say, part of a murder plot. But that's an entirely different matter, and has nothing to do with whether the communication is by blinking.

 

[bilby]

If we consider the structure of the human hand and the eating of a banana as a process beginning with grasping and ending in swallowing, it is clear that its biological function, its final cause, is to feed bananas to people. That is why the hand and banana are shaped the way they are, why the mouth secretes saliva during mastication, and so forth … The point of the process is not just to get banana out of the peel, but also into the human, and into one place in the human in particular.

It is therefore immoral to use one's hands for any purpose other than the consumption of bananas.

QED.

I'm unsure about your analogy, Feser argues that the purpose of sex is reproduction and your analogy segues that the purpose of eating bananas is to feed bananas to people.

Both are equally ignorant non-sequiturs. One may sate one's hunger by using one's hands to eat bananas; and one may reproduce via sexual intercourse. but neither statement contains any indication that the outcome is the purpose (singular) for the act.

Manual manipulation of objects has many possible actions with many possible outcomes, and many 'purposes'; hands are not solely for peeling bananas, and to suggest that they are, or that other uses for them are immoral, is insane.

Sexual relations include many possible actions with many possible outcomes, and many 'purposes'; sex organs are not solely for reproduction, and to suggest that they are, or that other uses for sex organs are immoral, is equally insane.

 

[Bronzeage]

The claim:
"It cannot possibly be good for us to use them in any other way, whether an individual person thinks it is or not. "
The response:
There are stranger things in this world than are dreamt of in your philosophies, Horatio.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Just a clarification point: I'm replying to the argument as presented in this thread. I know that some theologians make a more sophisticated argument - probably Feser too -, addressing some of my points.
Those arguments fail as well, but the reply would have to be modified to some extent (e.g., different examples, limiting the number of objections), and be tailored to each variant.
But if you bring a specific variant of the argument, I'll debunk it.

 

[Angry Floof]

Exactly. That this comes from a professor of philosophy is comical. At least, until you remember that he is religious, and to boot it's the kind of religion whose wacky tenets take priority over philosophical questioning. It pisses me off when such religious thinking (non-thinking) is presented as "philosophy."

I feel in need to agree with you. It's just that Feser has good, well written arguments for theism, and well written books, I couldn't imagine that this argument came from him.

So I thought I was missing something.

As Angra said, if the quote in the OP out of context and more thoughts about this from the author were provided, that could change our responses. As it stands in the OP, though, I don't think there is a philosopher on the planet who could consider that an argument worth a second glance.

 

[Bronzeage]

Just a clarification point: I'm replying to the argument as presented in this thread. I know that some theologians make a more sophisticated argument - probably Feser too -, addressing some of my points.
Those arguments fail as well, but the reply would have to be modified to some extent (e.g., different examples, limiting the number of objections), and be tailored to each variant.
But if you bring a specific variant of the argument, I'll debunk it.

When someone claims something is impossible, one only has to present one example to refute the claim. This claim is a simple value judgment, not a logical proof.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

A hand can be clenched into a fist, which can then be used to punch people.
Therefore, the sole purpose of a hand is to become a fist, and the sole purpose of a fist is to punch people.
QED

 

[Dekusta]

Just a clarification point: I'm replying to the argument as presented in this thread. I know that some theologians make a more sophisticated argument - probably Feser too -, addressing some of my points.
Those arguments fail as well, but the reply would have to be modified to some extent (e.g., different examples, limiting the number of objections), and be tailored to each variant.
But if you bring a specific variant of the argument, I'll debunk it.

Thanks, Angra, your response was very helpful. So far as I know, Feser has not given this more context, but I don't always read his blog so I'm not sure. But thanks again.