An argument for the illegality of condoms

[Calliso]

My point earlier was that if the government has the power to regulate the gun industry, why not condoms? I mean there is a whole amendment devoted to protecting the right to bear arms and people are all over trying to quench that right. Do you favor making prostitution legal in the name of the protection of individual rights? Are laws against prostitution also silly laws?

There is a big difference between guns and condoms. Condoms are harmless tools. A gun can kill a person.

 

[preferanonymous]

It requires no state resources to not ban condoms. Products are not illegal until proven otherwise.

Any legal product in the country has the protection of state resources in so far as it is a product sold on the market and held as property. If an institution sells condoms, they have the protection of the police should someone try to rob the place in which it sells them. If these condoms are transported, they are presumably done so via publicly supported establishments like roads or airports. All of these, it might be argued, are as public goods supported by state resources.

 

[preferanonymous]

I question whether its the duty of the law to protect us from ourselves though. The law should obviously never be an opponent of natural law, but I don’t believe its necessary for the law to take it upon itself to prosecute the natural law in instances where one person does no harm to another.

For instance should we outlaw masturbation in the privacy of ones own home? Is that the duty of the law? I do not think it is the laws duty to do so.

A case might be made for condoms though in that using a condom during sex is a crime against ones partner whether they willingly agree to it or not. A example of this already in effect would be prostitution where it doesn’t matter whether the prostitute is willing or not, it is still a crime. The law should go about regulating condoms though in the same way it regulates prostitution. Not by barging into people’s houses, but by going to the source of the problem and working to control the distribution of condoms.

Nate13: You say that we should not outlaw masturbation, but can I ask, if a married man masturbates, is this not a crime to his partner? How about an act of sodomy with her? I think some might say, for many of the reasons you might give, that it is. If so, why should it not be regulated? Could you give a reason as to why condoms should be regulated that would not also entail banning things like sodomy, oral sex, or masturbation?

Let me pull out some other quotes of yours:

“Contraception might lead to the destruction of the family unit, which might lead to the destruction of society. This assumes we agree of the importance of the family unit to society and civilization.”

“We don’t legislate based on how we believe people should act, we legislate based on how they do act. Does using a condom during sex automatically mean you are going to take her for granted and see her as an object? No, but the last 60 years have shown that it has had an effect to that end in many cases that is weakening the family, which in turn weakens society.”

Could not one say the same about any activity contrary to natural law? If this is the reason for banning condoms, I suppose I am not sure how you separate what should stand as positive law from natural law with respect to these sorts of issues. Further, the claims above strike me as empirical which, one might argue, could be invalidated over time. Would you accept then, if these are your reasons for banning condoms, the possibility that condoms at one point should be legal in that they might one day be beneficial to society?

Perhaps, you might say, that the empirical evidence is indicative of what might be the more crucial point: that contraception is contrary to man’s ordering with respect to sex and could never therefore prove to be beneficial to society. If you feel this charge is appropriate, can I ask, how does one know what man’s ordering with respect to sex is? What tells one that a penis and a vagina themselves, or engaged in intercourse, are ordered to procreation? What sort of ordering might this be? Biological? Furthermore, even if one could be sure of the ordering or purpose of these organs, particularly if it proved to be a rather exclusively biological one, how does one know that it would be morally wrong to act in a way that strays from such an ordering? Why would it be wrong for one to act in a way that is different from the way one’s organs are ordered? To put the point another way, it seems that at least by some standards the human body is not biolgically ordered to be thrown on a cross to be crucified, but does this mean that to do so could never be the right thing to do?

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

Any legal product in the country has the protection of state resources in so far as it is a product sold on the market and held as property. If an institution sells condoms, they have the protection of the police should someone try to rob the place in which it sells them. If these condoms are transported, they are presumably done so via publicly supported establishments like roads or airports. All of these, it might be argued, are as public goods supported by state resources.

Police protection is not provided to condoms, it is provided to individuals. Illegal goods are also transported via airplanes and roads. Does that constitute government sponsorship of illegal goods? No.

 

[AngryAtheist8]

This can be simplified radically by saying: civil law is always subordinate to natural law; natural law forbids the use of contraception; therefore, civil law must forbid the use of contraception.

There is literally no argument against this that doesn’t rely on misconception, error, falsehood, or an undue (and frankly sinful) elevation of the state above natural law.

What if someone (such as myself) denies the validity of Natural Law and the Catholic Church’s right to define it for that matter?

Besides, you can’t make everything immoral illegal.
That would require the introduction of literal thought crimes, where people were punished under the law for having the wrong thoughts, feelings, or intentions.

 

[AngryAtheist8]

All legal codes are based on moral codes. The only question is: whose morality?

But let’s, for the sake of argument, suppose that today laws are accepted today purely practical reasons. It’s still a rationalization, rather than a reason, for the law: people didn’t get together and ponderously formulated that murder, rape, theft, etc., would cause chaos.

We have laws (i.e. rules) for society because without them society would fall apart.

 

[sw85]

What if someone (such as myself) denies the validity of Natural Law and the Catholic Church’s right to define it for that matter?

I would say you are ignorant.

Besides, you can’t make everything immoral illegal.

This is true and I don’t disagree. But what I have argued is not to make everything immoral illegal but to make that which scandalizes society’s moral consensus illegal. Masturbation, for instance, is done in private; it doesn’t really scandalize anyone. The manufacture, transportation, advertisement, sale, and use of condoms is necessarily a public phenomenon: at every step in the process, more than one person is involved.

That would require the introduction of literal thought crimes, where people were punished under the law for having the wrong thoughts, feelings, or intentions.

Well, as no one is endorsing that, I have to question why you would bring it up.

 

[preferanonymous]

Police protection is not provided to condoms, it is provided to individuals. Illegal goods are also transported via airplanes and roads. Does that constitute government sponsorship of illegal goods? No.

Police protection is provided for the protection of property, and one might argue that state resources should not protect individuals’ right to have property that when used constitutes an intentional action is intrinsically immoral.

I know illegal goods are transported via airplanes and roads and that this does not mean that the government willingly (emphasis) sponsors them. But this it seems to me, in turn, does not mean state resources do not go to those roads and airplanes nonetheless- even if it is not the intention of the state to do so. Hence, if something is made legal as a marketable product, it would still be given state resources in being transported even if it is the case that everything which benefits from state resources is not necessarily that which is legal.

 

[AngryAtheist8]

There is nothing “wrong” with it. Other religions are false. They may believe they’re not false but that’s because they are wrong.
I do not care if they try to misappropriate own logic to establish their own sort of society and therefore censor me. Not in the least. Their society would be founded on falsehood and I would continue to say as much until they martyred me.

I’m telling you I don’t care how things are. Things *are *suboptimal. You may be content with that; that says more about you than me.

That is again self-referential. You are saying laws exist to preserve the social order that allow laws to exist. At no point does this explain WHY laws should exist or WHY the social order that preserves them OUGHT to exist.

People like social order because they intuit (correctly) that it is good, and that the loss of social order is bad and leads to bad things. And they intuitively seek what is good and avoid what is bad.

Based on what evidence?
How do you know that you’re not the one wrong?
There are plenty of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. that are equally convinced that they are right.

 

[AngryAtheist8]

There is nothing “wrong” with it. Other religions are false. They may believe they’re not false but that’s because they are wrong.
I do not care if they try to misappropriate own logic to establish their own sort of society and therefore censor me. Not in the least. Their society would be founded on falsehood and I would continue to say as much until they martyred me.

**
I’m telling you I don’t care** how things are. Things *are *suboptimal. You may be content with that; that says more about you than me.

That is again self-referential. You are saying laws exist to preserve the social order that allow laws to exist. At no point does this explain WHY laws should exist or WHY the social order that preserves them OUGHT to exist.

People like social order because they intuit (correctly) that it is good, and that the loss of social order is bad and leads to bad things. And they intuitively seek what is good and avoid what is bad.

The facts on the ground don’t matter?
Are you claiming to be right by definition?

 

[AngryAtheist8]

Regarding whether they were good laws or not, even the two dissenters in the Supreme Court’s Griswold decision didn’t think they were good laws. In fact, Justice Stewart, called the Connecticut statue “an uncommonly silly law.”

You also used the words “society’s best interest”. However, the most important role of government is the protection of individual rights. The Constitution was designed to limit government, not individuals. The Bill of Rights was not directed against private citizens, but against the government—as an explicit declaration that individual rights supersede any public or social power. The Ninth Amendment declares that the fact a right is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution does not mean that the government can infringe on that right.

It appears that there is no limit to the power you would cede to government. Thankfully your views are in the small collectivist minority.

Unfortunately his views are all too popular.
Plenty of people would surrender all power to the government to make their biases law and based on the presumption that they would be one of the favored sex/class/religion/etc.

 

[AngryAtheist8]

I would say you are ignorant.

This is true and I don’t disagree. But what I have argued is not to make everything immoral illegal but to make that which scandalizes society’s moral consensus illegal. Masturbation, for instance, is done in private; it doesn’t really scandalize anyone. The manufacture, transportation, advertisement, sale, and use of condoms is necessarily a public phenomenon: at every step in the process, more than one person is involved.

Well, as no one is endorsing that, I have to question why you would bring it up.

Really?
Based on what, the compelling evidence that proves Catholicism is right about everything perhaps

 

[AngryAtheist8]

I would say you are ignorant.

This is true and I don’t disagree. But what I have argued is not to make everything immoral illegal but to make that which scandalizes society’s moral consensus illegal. Masturbation, for instance, is done in private; it doesn’t really scandalize anyone. The manufacture, transportation, advertisement, sale, and use of condoms is necessarily a public phenomenon: at every step in the process, more than one person is involved.

Well, as no one is endorsing that, I have to question why you would bring it up.

Because Catholicism regards a significant amount of thoughts, feelings, and intentions as sinful. If everything sinful (according to Catholicism) must be illegal, then the Introduction of Thought Crime seems required.

 

[preferanonymous]

AngryAtheist8, if you take issue with the stance the condoms should be illegal, perhaps you might point out a flaw in the argument made in the first post of this thread.

 

[AngryAtheist8]

AngryAtheist8, if you take issue with the stance the condoms should be illegal, perhaps you might point out a flaw in the argument made in the first post of this thread.

I did.
Its based on Natural Law.
And there is no reason to accept the Catholic definition of Natural Law if you’re not a Catholic. Therefore N.L. is too weak to reasonably use (by itself) as the justification for a ban on anything.

 

[preferanonymous]

I did.
Its based on Natural Law.
And there is no reason to accept the Catholic definition of Natural Law if you’re not a Catholic. Therefore N.L. is too weak to reasonably use (by itself) as the justification for a ban on anything.

Can you tell me, then, which premise could not be accepted unless one was a Catholic and why?

 

[sw85]

Based on what evidence?
How do you know that you’re not the one wrong?
There are plenty of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. that are equally convinced that they are right.

Are you legitimately of the opinion that there is no good reason to believe in Christianity or that I’m not familiar with them?

I warn you, before you go down this road, I can tell already that I am much, *much *smarter than you.

The facts on the ground don’t matter?

They are irrelevant to the present discussion. Saying “condoms won’t be banned under present political conditions” says nothing about the argument “condoms ought to be banned.”

Really?

Actually, I was being charitable.

The only people I’ve met who don’t believe in natural law are either (a) unfamiliar with it or (b) are familiar with a gross caricature of it that in no way reflects reality (or are intentionally misrepresenting it).

I have literally NEVER heard a good argument against natural law that didn’t hinge on either straw men or else straightforward denial of reality.

Now if you were attacking straw men your ignorance would be inexcusable, since you would be claiming expertise on something where you clearly have none. You would, in a sense, be a kind of liar. If you were denying reality so you could do whatever you want, then you would be intentionally *affecting *ignorance in the service of evil.

So you would be either ignorant, arrogant, or evil – charity demands that I give people the benefit of the doubt – so the logical conclusion would be that you are ignorant.

As I said, I was being charitable.

Because Catholicism regards a significant amount of thoughts, feelings, and intentions as sinful. If everything sinful (according to Catholicism) must be illegal, then the Introduction of Thought Crime seems required.

When you take umbrage to people suggesting you might be ignorant of what the Church teaches, it’s very hard to take you seriously when you go on to say **** like this.

Thoughts and feelings by themselves are never sinful. What is sinful is the disordered *will *that entertains or encourages them.

Please do your homework before presuming to comment on natural law. A good place to begin would be Edward Feser’s Aquinas.

 

[Nate13]

Could not one say the same about any activity contrary to natural law? If this is the reason for banning condoms, I suppose I am not sure how you separate what should stand as positive law from natural law with respect to these sorts of issues. Further, the claims above strike me as empirical which, one might argue, could be invalidated over time. Would you accept then, if these are your reasons for banning condoms, the possibility that condoms at one point should be legal in that they might one day be beneficial to society?

Perhaps, you might say, that the empirical evidence is indicative of what might be the more crucial point: that contraception is contrary to man’s ordering with respect to sex and could never therefore prove to be beneficial to society. If you feel this charge is appropriate, can I ask, how does one know what man’s ordering with respect to sex is? What tells one that a penis and a vagina themselves, or engaged in intercourse, are ordered to procreation? What sort of ordering might this be? Biological? Furthermore, even if one could be sure of the ordering or purpose of these organs, particularly if it proved to be a rather exclusively biological one, how does one know that it would be morally wrong to act in a way that strays from such an ordering? Why would it be wrong for one to act in a way that is different from the way one’s organs are ordered? To put the point another way, it seems that at least by some standards the human body is not biolgically ordered to be thrown on a cross to be crucified, but does this mean that to do so could never be the right thing to do?

Yes, but there is always the question as to what can be reasonably policed. You also can’t stomp all over all the other rights people have in the name of stopping natural law violations. You can’t do something immoral just because it has a moral end.

For one I would be truly content if we just got a point where the government stopped promoting contraception. Everything after that point is dependent upon what you believe the role of government is which is an entirely different debate.

Unfortunately his views are all too popular.
Plenty of people would surrender all power to the government to make their biases law and based on the presumption that they would be one of the favored sex/class/religion/etc.

If you had read all the posts you would see that my argument is based upon the fact that certain countries outlaw guns. If we ban guns, why not ban condoms? In my opinion it can be shown that condoms are more harmful to society than guns are. Guns also at least have some purposes that everyone can agree are moral. Yes, the Pope has said condoms can be used by homosexuals to prevent AIDS, but their supposed use only exists because of an immoral act. Guns have moral uses that are not dependent on immoral acts being in existence.

 

[preferanonymous]

Yes, but there is always the question as to what can be reasonably policed. You also can’t stomp all over all the other rights people have in the name of stopping natural law violations. You can’t do something immoral just because it has a moral end.

For one I would be truly content if we just got a point where the government stopped promoting contraception. Everything after that point is dependent upon what you believe the role of government is which is an entirely different debate.

If you had read all the posts you would see that my argument is based upon the fact that certain countries outlaw guns. If we ban guns, why not ban condoms? In my opinion it can be shown that condoms are more harmful to society than guns are. Guns also at least have some purposes that everyone can agree are moral. Yes, the Pope has said condoms can be used by homosexuals to prevent AIDS, but their supposed use only exists because of an immoral act. Guns have moral uses that are not dependent on immoral acts being in existence.

If the standard of making something illegal is relative to what can be reasonably policed, it seems that it would be a standard that would relative to existing technological conditions. For suppose we had the technology such that it would be quite easy to catch acts of sodomy such that it would be reasonable to police it? Should it then be illegal? Suppose that condoms were such that they could be delivered so effectively that it made it impossible to stop their distribution- would that make it the case the condoms should be legal? I agree that not everything that is immoral should be illegal, but I do not think your standard is one that can be accepted if we take this distinction to be one which holds regardless of what can be reasonably policed in a given society. If the government could reasonably police everything, it seems to me that, on your view, this distinction between what should be legal and what is moral might disappear.

Suppose we don’t ban guns- does this mean there no longer is a reason to ban condoms? I don’t think this is the case. The prohibition of condoms, I think, is an argument that can be made irrespective of whether guns are legal or not. Tying arguments to exisiting social conditions is not the best way, it might be argued, that arguments concerning what the law should be ought to be made. The Pope did not say condoms could be used to prevent AIDS, he said that an intention accompanying the act to do this might be a noble one. This, however, is not to say that he condoned the use of condoms for there might be, and I think are on his view, other considerations that discredit the act from being moral. A person can with an accompanying noble intention perform and intentional act that is nonetheless immoral.

 

[Geofarmer1]

Originally Posted by preferanonymous
“The only people I’ve met who don’t believe in natural law are either (a) unfamiliar with it or (b) are familiar with a gross caricature of it that in no way reflects reality (or are intentionally misrepresenting it).”

The concept of natural law only applies if you believe in a creator. Those who are atheist do not believe in natural law. No creator - no rules. Its as simple as that.

Your statement is false.