Delete comment from: Edward Feser
AnonymousNovember 24, 2018 at 7:13 AM
"Angra MainyuNovember 23, 2018 at 5:24 PM
"chewing on a chew toy is also not immoral"
Why would it be under natural law?"
I do not know it would, but my point is that one can mirror the perverted faculty argument in a way that avoids the usual replies from its defenders. To give you a concrete example, I will quote from the argument linked to in the OP:
Feser: "Rather, sexual pleasure has as its own natural end the getting of animals to engage in sexual relations, so that they will procreate. This parallels the situation with eating: Even though eating is pleasurable, the biological point of eating is not to give pleasure, but rather to provide an organism with the nutrients it needs to survive. The pleasure of eating is just nature’s way of getting animals to do what is needed to fulfill this end. When analyzing the biological significance of either eating or sex, to emphasize pleasure would be to put the cart before the horse. Pleasure has its place, but it is secondary."
One might similarly say 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.
"Let’s turn now momentarily to the small picture, focusing on the sexual act itself. 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 organs fit together like lock and key. 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."
Similarly, one might say that if we consider the structure of the eating organs ('organs' broadly speaking here) and the eating process as a process beginning with meastication and ending in swallowing, etc., it is clear that its biological function, its final cause, its to get food into the stomach, just the biological function of the sex act is to get semen into the vagina (side note: I do not actually endorse these claims, but I'm mirroring them; I will do the same below).
Feser:
"Where some faculty F is natural to a rational agent A and by nature exists for the sake of some end E (and exists in A precisely so that A might pursue E), then it is metaphysically impossible for it to be good for A to use F in a manner contrary to E."; "For example, use of the birth control pill, or of condoms, or of any other contraceptive devices, would obviously involve using the sexual faculties while actively frustrating the realization of their procreative end.", and "Masturbatory acts involve a twofold frustration of the natural ends of sex. For one thing, they frustrate the procreative end insofar as the natural end of the physiological process in the male leading from arousal to ejaculation is not only to get semen out of the male but into the vagina, while the natural end of the physiological process of arousal in the female is to prepare the vagina for reception of semen."
Similarly, one might say that sugar-free gum chewing acts involve a frustration of the natural ends of mastication: They frustrate the nourishing end insofar as the natural end of the process is to put food in the stomach.
Now, I do not think the claims about the purpose of the sexual act, etc., are warranted. Different sexual acts may well have their own functions (or 'purposes' in this sense), as I've said before. But the sugar-free gum or chew toy analogy do not require that one challenges the claims about the function (or purpose) of the sexual act, or of sex, etc. Rather, the point is that similar claims about chewing appear no less plausible.
Nov 24, 2018, 10:16:04 PM
Posted to Byrne on why sex is binary