I can not help myself but it appears to me twisted and schizophrenic.
Agreed.
I never said that I intend not to make my wife pregnant. I said that I lack the intent to make her pregnant, and that I want (NOT “intend”) her not to get pregnant. I’m not sure what you’re objecting to.
If you are engaging in an activity,
- for which you know that it would naturally have particular consequences,
and
- you do not want those consequences,
and
- you take steps to prevent those consequences,
and
- you know that it is not within your power to fully prevent those consequences,
then you are being inconsistent (schizophrenic).
Whether it is about engaging in sex and using contraceptives (using contraceptives is evidence that you wish to prevent conception); or whether it is about eating junk food, and then going on a bowel cleansing treatment because you don’t want to get sick from the junk food.
How is it twisted to do something without wanting a certain possible consequence to arise from it? :
I tell my children to empty the dishwasher every day, even though I don’t want them to get upset with me. Are you saying that, since I know they might get upset with me, my action is schizophrenic?
Some people getting upset over emptying the dishwasher is not in any way intrinsic or natural to the act of emptying the dishwasher, but the possibility of conception is intrinsic to the sexual act between a man and a woman. The fact that people use contraceptives is evidence that they are aware of this.
For comparison, consider what the Hare Krishnas belive about sex: they believe that sex should be engaged in only when the prospective parents want to produce children that they intend and are reasonably able to raise in proper religion, and even then sex is to be engaged in only at the time when the woman is fertile.
Survival, per se, cannot be the telos because it is entirely proper to ask, “Survival for what end?”
Why would survival for 85 years be a plausible moral end unless there was a good reason (end or telos) for doing so, no?
Besides, in the material sense, eventually, nobody survives anyway, so survial can never be the goal. The goal can be to temporarily get into a position of some power over others.
Such inconsistency would arise if the sex was had when the wife was known to be fertile, and arguably if the wife’s fertility were unknown. In the latter case, it’s a bit like gambling. [Arguably, if the aim is to make money, games of pure chance are unwise, as the odds are stacked against the gambler. Though with sex, randomly timing sex has the odds in favour of no pregnancy].
Since fertility cannot be fully predicted or known before it happens, any sexual act is gambling as far as conception goes.
Again, try to place yourself in the position of the woman, and consider the mental gymnastics, denial, gambling and anguish she must go trough if she is to engage in sex on the terms you have been describing.
