Delete comment from: Edward Feser
Brandon,
"(1) Masticating, unlike the multi-part process of eating, has no pleasure associated directly with it; it is literally just a series of grinding, crushing, slicing actions with teeth."
Normally, masticating does cause pleasure, even if it is due to the taste of the food that is being chewed (or the sugar-free gum for that matter).
"(2) You keep going back and forth between mastication and eating. This contrasts with the argument you are trying to mirror, which explicitly makes a distinction between the larger-scale and the smaller-scale (""Let’s turn now momentarily to the small picture") in order to make a specific point; you not do this."
I do not go "back and forth". I point out that what is said that eating (in terms of the process) in the perverted faculty argument (namely, that its biological point is to "provide an organism with the nutrients it needs to survive", the "biological point of masticating is not to give pleasure, or anything else, but rather, to assist in the further function of providing an organism with the nutrients it needs to survive.".
"Not only do you not do this, you explicitly jump over it ("it is clear that") and do not provide any parallel to the actual argument given, despite that this is a crucial step in your parity argument. "One might say" does not suffice; you need "one would have to say". Otherwise you have established nothing at all."
I simply do not find the claims in the original argument any more plausible than those in the "one might say" parallel. If you do, well, you will not be persuaded by it, but clearly, it's a parallel, not a perfect match (else, it would be the same argument), and my claim is not that it logically follows from the perverted faculty argument against masturbation, homosexual sex, etc., that chewing sugar-free gum is immoral, but rather, that perverted faculty argument against chewing sugar-free gum is no less plausible than the other perverted faculty argument (i.e., their premises are no less plausible). If you do not find it like that, sure, you will not be persuaded. did not intend to persuade you.
"(3) You don't even bother to try to run a proper parallel in your third part. 'Putting food in the stomach' is neither the end of masticating (which is getting things chewed-up) nor the end of eating (the process of which is not completed by putting things in the stomach), so you've put a third thing on the table without establishing that it is relevant to the parallel."
I did not say it was the end, but rather, than one might similarly say that. It's not less plausible than saying tha "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." One might more plausibly say that the process begining with arousal and ending in orgasm has the biological function (in males) of causing an ejaculation, regardless of where it goes, and surely the process beginning with arousal and ending in orgasm did not fail if the semen does not go into a vagina. Or something else.
"So your "mirroring" is not a competent mirroring; parity fails at practically every essential point. It's as if you did not even bother to analyze the argument you were trying to mirror, and instead tried to wing it on the basis of a handful of verbal similarities and arbitrary assumptions."
Well, instead of mirroring, in that case I would have to say at every turn "There is no good reason to think that that is in fact the function. One might as well say it's X1, X2, etc., and none of those is less plausible". Then, we disagree, and that's that.
Nov 25, 2018, 5:32:35 PM
Posted to Byrne on why sex is binary