Come on over. You’ll look great in an orange jump suit. I might even visit you once a year. Just because you reject social standards doesn’t mean we all do. As Sair asked, why do you consider yourself to be inhuman? Or, do you think you are above the law? Maybe you are being too harsh with yourself.
Actually, I think Mudgely was pretty clear on the point of Michelleds’ post - it was yet another rehash of the “without God, anything goes” approach - human morality is only an invention of humans, for humans, therefore humans shouldn’t pay it any attention? Oh, please…
Don’t guests of the state wear orange jumpsuits in the US?
You’re confusing law and morality again. They’re not the same things. Laws exist, mostly, for the protection of personal property and wealth, and secondarily to protect human life and safety. Morality exists because we care about things like fairness and social relationships. If we were not subjective beings, then one person stealing stuff from another would just be something that happens - we wouldn’t feel compelled to do anything about it.
I didn’t point out any such ‘end purpose’ - I said it evolved as a means of reproduction, which is true - as true as pointing out that feathers evolved as a means of insulation. Evolved features of organisms can expand and change from the uses to which they were originally put.
I didn’t say my version was the standard narrative - that’s your version. Ryan and Jetha don’t deny anthropological and archaeological evidence - they question the interpretation of such evidence through modernity-tinted glasses. Do you just decide that every article with which you disagree is ‘poorly written’?
Where did I even make any suggestion at all about family ties? What do the family structures of foraging societies have to do with the separation of the various functions of sex as a supposedly ‘moral’ norm in settled societies?
Not to forget that in the middle ages and well into the modern period, well-to-do women farmed their children out to wet nurses so that they could fall pregnant more quickly following childbirth.
These would be the societal norms that kept rampant infidelity and spousal abuse under wraps, right? Just because it wasn’t considered proper to speak of these things, doesn’t change the fact that they still went on. Changes in social policy merely acknowledged the reality - they didn’t create it.
When did I mention urbanisation? The whole point is that property ownership and the resulting need for paternal certainty create a vastly different social dynamic to the more egalitarian arrangements subsisting in immediate-return foraging communities. The culture of monogamy stipulates that one man and one woman is the only proper arrangement - but it is neither the only possible arrangement nor even the preferred arrangement in certain societies. There is even biological evidence that humans did not evolve as a monogamous species.
However, we do have a breakthrough - you acknowledged the existence of a “norm”. Woo hoo…
What does a behavioural norm have to do with any concept of ‘objective’ morality? Norms, as you’ve stated here, are descriptive, not prescriptive - just like the laws of physics expounded by scientists. Behavioural norms are specific to time and place, and subject to change with circumstances - such as the shift from nomadic to settled living made by our ancient ancestors. There’s no reason to suppose that the behavioural norms we observe today subsisted in pre-agricultural societies - that was the point that Ryan and Jetha were making.
Sair;8536168:
, by South African Anthropologist George Silberbauer. The Bushmen were neither sedentary, nor agrarian. Same goes for the Australian Aboriginals. In both societies, family units formed the basis of tribal life. True, to a point. You forget that it is only since the 1960s that contraception has become widely available and it is only the spread of “fashion” that saw breatfeeding fall out of favour. Neither have anything whatsoever to do with a non-agrarian society per se. Your first sentence is exactly what InSearchofGrace was saying!! After that, your conjecturing goes to hell in a hand cart. Monogamy has been the norm all through history, as I have demonstrated above. The single parent/broken home scenarion you paint is a very recent feature of western societies and can be traced back to the introduction of social policies which undermined societal norms. Western urban and agrarian societies alike have been badly affected. The phenomena has nothing to do with urbanisation. However, we do have a breakthrough - you acknowledged the existence of a “norm”. Woo hoo…
Sair, you can’t base your argument around normative behaviour, supported by references and then question the objectivity of that norm. A ‘norm’, by definition is an objective conceptualisation of certain behaviours. You have accepted that categorisation and therefore you have accepted the objectivity of the philsophical argument. Variety is not denied, but it is exactly what allows us to discern the normative aspects of a given behaviour and objectively conceptualise it. You know, just like science does.
Who says that the only purpose of sex is procreation? Certainly not the Church.
However, they do say that the other purposes are only valid if they are accompanied by the willingness to have children, and tend to wink at sexual activity that is reproductive without being a pleasurable bonding experience. How long did it take marital rape to be recognised as a crime in our society? I doubt the Church had much to say about that.
Funny how you take the discussion on the incidence of pregnancy in human copulations (opposite sexed, producing opposite gametes, the only kind possible!) to segue to an irrelevant side topic, the morality of culling of animals, with a linked article on human / animal infanticide, the connection of which is unclear. Anyway, was it moral rule in play when authorities in China culled populations of chickens and ducks to stem the spread of the deadly Avian flu to humans?
… which is important but the longer view beyond the here and now is likewise important. Humans are much higher than all other creations, capable of shaping destiny, their own and those of other living things, the best scenario being men protecting the natural environment but also the human quality of life.
Unitive and procreative is Church moral teaching, yes. Is it hard to wrap your mind around such concept, that men and women are capable of exercising their wills and are better off when they think of consequences first before having sex? That pregnancy may not always result but the mechanics of sex if performed as designed without deviation or intervention leads to it? This Catholic philosophy does not translate to throwing caution to the wind!
The first sentence is indeed what the OP raised, and many have weighed in. The second sentence is not what people in opposition to your view have asserted here. Again, the Church and nobody here made the claim that the only objective purpose of sexual interaction is procreation. Procreation, primary; sexual pleasure, secondary. Get it?
Are you suggesting that the only people on the planet, and in the history of the planet, who have a moral compass are those who believe in the Christian Mythology? There have been many mythologies over the years, of which Christianity is just another one, and yet even those societies without the benefit of the Christian Myth have also had a moral standard, come to pretty much the same conclusions on morality. This would suggest that morality and mythology can operate independently of each other, and also in concert with each other.
Of course people are better off when they think of possible consequences before they act. But a lot of people exercise caution and forethought in ways of which the church does not approve. It is no less natural for humans that we have invented ways to have our cake and eat it too, so to speak, than it is that we desire the cake in the first place!
Yet the point made by the OP was that anything that doesn’t allow for the reproductive function of sex to operate is ‘objectively disordered’.
Designed by whom? As I’ve pointed out before, evolution goes with what works. If beauty and pleasure encourage organisms to act in ways that perpetuate their genes, then it will continue thus because it works, not because it’s part of any grand cosmic order or plan. Humans desire sexual pleasure, and it happens that in the pursuit of sexual pleasure, reproduction occurs often enough to continue the genes that code for sexual desire. It doesn’t matter that the pursuit of pleasure doesn’t always result in reproduction, as long as it does so sufficiently to propagate the species.
“Yet the point made by the OP was that anything that doesn’t allow for the reproductive function of sex to operate is ‘objectively disordered’.” I think the term must be reserved for specific acts, not some broadbrush category that includes some trivial acts. And it must from the Christian view take into account the essential differences between a man and a lower animal, such as the ability to reflect on his actions. Indeed, it might be applied to acts that seem essentially unreflective of his true nature, such as hurting oneself for the sexual pleasure it gives.
Yet it must be said, firstly, that not all humans have the capacity for reflective self-awareness, and secondly that it serves no purpose to claim that certain human activities are “against” human nature - clearly they are a part of it, by virtue of the fact that they manifest as human behaviours. Certainly behaviour that involves self-harm may be construed as self-defeating in an objective sense, but to claim, from a moral perspective, that it is “disordered” invokes the idea of an external moral order that does not arise from human activity and interaction. I’ve yet to see anyone demonstrate that there is such an external order.
I would distinguish between the mythological components, such as the story of creation, Noah’s Arc, etc… which are easily shown to be fantasy and in the Bible for allegorical reasons, and the religious components such as teachings on morality. No disrespect was intended. I certainly don’t think that the study of mythology is in any way demeaning, nor is the appropriate use of the word.
Secondarily it is demeaning; primarily it is inaccurate. Mythology and religion are not synonymous. Mythology, as a neutral term, is an element of culture and of most religions, but in itself it is neither central to Catholicism nor to most modern religions and philosophies. Religion, particularly one as developed and intellectually sophisticated as Catholicism is, includes morality, theology, and a spirituality which derives partly from direct mystical experience, with commonly shared elements of those experiences within its members and resembling experiences in some other religions. Thus, there is an element of empiricism within religion. Furthermore, in the case of Catholicism, a structured, consistent philosophy is also organic to the religion.