Objective Teleology

[Blue_Horizon]

If teleology in inanimate matter is simply what we otherwise think of as cause and effect then I don’t see how you get from there to moral conclusions like homoexuality or artificial contraceptives are unnatural and therefore immoral.

They aren’t immoral because they are “unnatural”.

Sometimes nature gets it wrong.
Corrective surgery to restore proper function is not unnatural.

 

[Oreoracle]

“And the end or goal towards which a thing naturally points is its final cause [purpose].”

This, in a nutshell, is why there is no such thing as objective purpose. Goals are normative by definition. The subject decides which goals are worthy of pursuit.

As for evolution using teleology, I think it’s mostly metaphor. I mean, when you hear a scientist use the term “natural selection”, they aren’t literally suggesting that nature has selected something in the same sense that you would select a breakfast cereal. It’s just a metaphor.

 

[tonyrey]

This, in a nutshell, is why there is no such thing as objective purpose. Goals are normative by definition. The subject decides which goals are worthy of pursuit.

 

[tonyrey]

…You could also known that for instance the natural end of an egg is to become a chicken. Or the natural end of a fetus is to grow into an adult. These things can be observed in nature without even knowing there is a designer.

Sceptics would retort that results don’t imply intentions but they fail to realise eliminating intentions makes all their arguments irrational!

 

[Oreoracle]

" which goals are worthy of pursuit" presupposes the existence of goals!

I don’t think anyone’s questioning the existence of goals. I’m saying that I don’t know what is meant by an “objective” goal. Even human tools only have purpose insofar as we treat them as tools and design them with that intention in mind.

The only difference, for example, between a (crude) cane and a fallen branch is that a human has decided to use the branch to support their weight. It’s not like such a cane has been imbued with a mysterious aura that gives it purpose; the purpose comes from human conception only.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

When Fesser says this:It seems to me that he is somewhat trivializing the final cause. Typically it seems to me that the final cause is understood in terms of purpose or intent, but there is none of that here. Instead we seem to be doing the following. We want to describe a change, represented by this arrow:

A → B

According to my reading of Fesser, the arrow’s efficient cause is A, and the final cause is B. In Fesser’s explanation, we seem to have reduced the terms “efficient cause” and “final cause” with simply “cause” and “effect.” In other words, what we need to explain a change from A to B is… A and B. Naturally, there is nothing objectionable about this, other than it seems to void the traditional understanding of what the final cause is.

That was my reaction, first to Blue Horizon and then to Fesser. It seems fine but how does it bring you to the moral inference about, say, homosuality or artificial contraceptives, that Scholastics want to infer?

They aren’t immoral because they are “unnatural”.

Sometimes nature gets it wrong.
Corrective surgery to restore proper function is not unnatural.

Don’t keep us in suspense. What makes homosuality or artificial contraceptives immoral if not merely that they are unnatural?

As I understood the traditional view of Thomas Aquinas, it was that God had an ideal form of sex and humanity in mind and infused this into the natural world in such a way that it would be obvious even to those who did not know God. Thus, for example, God’s concept of sexuality is that it be procreative while his concept of humanity is that it is a whole body. Surgery to correct disease is therefore ok. And it’s not only restoring proper function but function that the person may never have had since birth but which other human beings have, e.g. correcting a cleft lip and palet.

But if final cause is no longer God’s design but merely this inversion of efficient cause how does one distinguish the morality of correctie surgery from contraceptives?

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

I would say that we could only know the purpose for something for sure if we know what the intention of the original desiger was. Without knowing this we could be wrong about the purpose of something. For example, if you see a machine that has wheels and cogs, but the wheels fall of you can not say for sure that this machine is faulty, because it could have been designed to work that way. Perhaps, it was designed to have its wheels fall off. Thus, just looking at the physical processes alone can not necessarily give us its true function without knowing the intention of its designer.

Now, as far as human sensuality is concerned, one could look at what it does, and how children result and from that infer that it’s purpose is to have children with a reasonable assuredness that, that is its function. And observing that this is how it works and has also worked you can be fairly certain that this is how it is supposed to work. However, if you know that God created human sexuality for the purpose of being fruitful and multiplying, then you simply know for sure that is its purpose, since God is the designer of it. And if anyone knows how it is supposed to work it would be its designer.

This is not what I understood Thomists to be arguing.

First of all, neo-Scholastics are at great pains to disginguish themselves from the Intelligent Design folks. The later, they claim, share with the atheist Naturalist/Materialists and the Deists the view of the cosmos as like a giant machine. Under this view the only question is whether God is not present, set things in motion at one time, or is constantly jiggling with it.

The neo-Scholastic view is that final cause is built into the universe itself. (See the above theories of final cause). As such, it ought to be discoverable even if one denies the existence of God. The cosmos strains in a particular direction, toward a particular goal, by its very nature.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Yet, even without a designer in mind one could at least come to the conclusion that things have purposes. You couldn’t for instance do medicine if you for instance didn’t know what the function of the heart or the liver was. If you could not say what the hearts purpose was to pump blood or to play the tuba. Which would be bad for patients!

You could also known that for instance the natural end of an egg is to become a chicken. Or the natural end of a fetus is to grow into an adult. These things can be observed in nature without even knowing there is a designer.

Material/Naturalists deny exactly that. They claim that all of this is simply an artifact of evolution and natural selection and that any apperance otherwise is anthroprmorphism. Yes, the egg will become a chicken but this is not it’s final end as if it were trying to become a chicken but merely the workings of the vast machinery of efficient causes. Eggs which did not produce chickens long ago were eliminated from the gene pool.

Sceptics would retort that results don’t imply intentions…

Yep.

…but they fail to realise eliminating intentions makes all their arguments irrational!

How so?

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

I don’t believe vocab and principles are separable. Changes meanings mean changed principles. A coherent system needs both and they are intimately related.
The fact that the modern word “purpose” is used to explain miedieval teleology is a strong pointer that the principle itself is suspect OR the principle is being given more meaning and import than it originally possessed.

I assume this is the fnal cause as reverse of efficient cause idea? See above.

As were the captains of the Enlightenment.

I think we have to begin by recognising equivocal uses. For example it makes more sense when dealing with living creatures, but less sense with inanimate objects (planetary motion, arrows allegedly purposed to a target).

Agreed.

As above, it makes best sense here it seems. But “sexuality” is pretty vague.
Even nature is pretty “blind” and “unpurposed” in this regard. Giraffe males regularly have sex with males as well. The sexual drive obviously does reproduce the species but its hardly a “purposed” activity, but more like an (Aristotelian) proper accident that was kept only because individuals that randomly had that accident lived to pass it on. Is that intelligent design? Well what is intelligence? Species arise and go extinct. Its certainly a potential that arises from the random changes of nature. Its probably unavoidable that 0.000001% of random changes end up causing a reproductive lifeform that endures for a time. That’s probably an inherent principle/potential of matter and its impossible for matter not to sometimes behave like this.

But why would we call it intelligent or somehow the individual actively seeking a reproductive goal for its species sake? Its simply that some causes give rise to a predictable on going chain of effects when a “critical mass” as it were is reached, like a nuclear explosion.

If I understand, I don’t disagree.

Where is this coming from?

Am I wrong about Aquinas using natural law to distniguish abstinence from homosexality? Aquinas view was not that people ought to procreate in order to propogate the species but that sexuality ought to be used as it is naturally inclined, i.e. toward procreation and that if it is not used (i.e. abstinence) that is not a sin.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

More Fraser:

“Ultimately” is the key word here. It is because secondary causes are real that natural science is possible. When we study the physical world, we are studying how physical things themselves behave given their nature, not the capricious acts of God. And it is because immanent teleology is real that natural law is possible. When we study ethics, we are studying what is good for human beings given their nature, not capricious divine commands. Ultimately the facts studied by science and the facts studied by ethics depend on God, because everything depends, at every instant, on God. In that sense, science, ethics, and everything else depend on God. But proximately ethics can be done at least to a large extent without reference to God, just as natural science can. In that sense, many moral truths would still be true even if, per impossibile, there were no God – just as the periodic table of the elements would be what it is even if, per impossibile, there were no God. (All of this is discussed in chapter 5 of Aquinas. And see the first half of this article for a sketch of A-T natural law theory.)

And

All the same, since to a large extent the grounds and content of morality can be known from a study of human nature alone, it follows that to a large extent morality would be what it is even if human beings existed and God did not. For, again, morality is not based in arbitrary divine commands any more than scientific laws are expressions of some arbitrary divine whim. From the A-T point of view, “divine command theory” (or at least the crude version of divine command theory that takes the grounds and content of morality to rest on sheer divine fiat) is, I would say, comparable to occasionalism, and similarly objectionable. (Cf. my recent post on Ockham.)

edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/07/does-morality-depend-on-god.html#more

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

One possible answer to the question of how to detect teleology is to focus say that purpose equals selective evolutionary advantage.

Suppose, for example, we ask what is the purpose of the heart. We might consider two functions: 1) the heart pumps blood, and 2) the heart makes sounds.

We can say, objectively, that the function of the heart is to pump blood because that is the function which provides selective evolutionary advantage. The noise is just a byproduct.

This, of course, presuposes that life is important but that ought not be controverisal to living beings like us.

Now when it comes to sexuality, procreation quite obviously a selective advantage. It makes total sense to say that the purpose of sexual organs is to procreate. We can also say that enjoying sex is also purposeful because it encourages people to do it.

This also answers better such problems as using fingers to type. Fingers obviously did not adapt for that purpose. But typing with fingers does provide a selective evolutionary advantage in our modern society. Fingers were preadapted to this method of communication. The adaptation of fingers to keyboards was, to a certain extent, fortuitous but that does not invalidate the utility. (Of course, keyboards are designed to accomodate fingers but that’s beside the point.)

This does not fully resolve the question, though. Even if we agree that the purpose of the heart is to pump blood, a purpose of fingers is to type messages, and the/a purpose of sexual organs is to procreate, does it follow that it is morally wrong to use them for another purpose. Is it immoral to thwart their natural purpose? And, still, why would abstinence (non-use) be ok but homosexuality (misuse) not?

 

[ffg]

So is the base question -

If there is a ‘right’ (or correct), does there have to be a ‘wrong’ (or misuse)?

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

So is the base question -

If there is a ‘right’ (or correct), does there have to be a ‘wrong’ (or misuse)?

I’m still stuck at the transition from natural, i.e. consistent with purpose, to moral or right. There may be many right uses (e.g. to use your fingers) that are all consistent with purpose as discussed here.

I’m also starting to wonder if teleology is just a big red herring, or at least an unnecessary intermediary concept.

As I discussed above, purpose is the function(s) that provide selective advantage. But why not cut out the middleman and just say that pursuing selective advantage is moral and winning the Darwin Award is immoral.

In the Christian context, the whole point of Natural Law is to discover God’s will. The presumption is that God has built his design into the fabric of the universe. Perhaps that can be stated simply as: God wills survival of the species.

 

[ffg]

Interesting.

I’m just going to do a little walk down a path here…

If someone asks me - what is the purpose of the reproductive system? I answer ‘to reproduce’.

If they ask me - what is the natural way to use of the reproductive system? I answer ‘in the way which could lead to reproduction’.

If they ask me - why it is ‘right’ to use the reproductive system in the natural way, I answer ‘it’s the purpose of the system in question’.

If they ask me - why it is ‘wrong’ to use the reproductive system in an unnatural way, I answer ‘see the purpose above’.

In reading through, I think there is some clarity that could be made on the purpose which could help you answer the SSA question. I believe someone had ‘pleasure’ as a purpose. I have to throw the flag there.

Pleasure is an effect, a quite purposeful effect, but an effect, not a purpose.

Take care,

Mike

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

If they ask me - what is the natural way to use of the reproductive system? I answer ‘in the way which could lead to reproduction’.

If they ask me - why it is ‘right’ to use the reproductive system in the natural way, I answer ‘it’s the purpose of the system in question’.

If they ask me - why it is ‘wrong’ to use the reproductive system in an unnatural way, I answer ‘see the purpose above’.

I’m ok with establishing functional purpose from that which perpetuates life. (I’m open to alternatives but that is at least one reasonable interpretation of teleology.) I’m assuming that right/wrong and moral/immoral are choice inducements of some sort and not merely natural tendencies. That is, we can choose to go against nature or with nature.

But why should nature’s purpose be my purpose? Being the devil’s advocate here, why should I concern myself with nature’s goals absent some cosmic justice (i.e. God’s final judgement)?

In reading through, I think there is some clarity that could be made on the purpose which could help you answer the SSA question. I believe someone had ‘pleasure’ as a purpose. I have to throw the flag there.

Pleasure is an effect, a quite purposeful effect, but an effect, not a purpose.

I agree that pleasure is not a purpose of sexuality. It is a personal reward. Nature rewards us for behaviors which cooperate with procreation. (And obviously birth control frustrates that purpose while preserving the pleasure.) So pleasure is not merely an effect but it is not a purpose either.

Someone did argue for bonding and I do buy that. It’s part of CCC that sexuality is both procreative and unitive.

 

[tonyrey]

Sceptics would retort that results don’t imply intentions.

Unintended conclusions are usually worthless

..

.

but they fail to realise eliminating intentions makes all their arguments irrational!

How so?

They don’t have a rational origin.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

..They don't have a rational origin.

I think it’s quite reasonable to distinguish conscious actors from the rest of the material universe. There is a big difference between saying that a person has a purpose im mind when he does X and saying that nature had a purpose in mind when it evolved Y.

 

[ffg]

I’m ok with establishing functional purpose from that which perpetuates life. (I’m open to alternatives but that is at least one reasonable interpretation of teleology.) I’m assuming that right/wrong and moral/immoral are choice inducements of some sort and not merely natural tendencies. That is, we can choose to go against nature or with nature.

But why should nature’s purpose be my purpose? Being the devil’s advocate here, why should I concern myself with nature’s goals absent some cosmic justice (i.e. God’s final judgement)?

I agree that pleasure is not a purpose of sexuality. It is a personal reward. Nature rewards us for behaviors which cooperate with procreation. (And obviously birth control frustrates that purpose while preserving the pleasure.) So pleasure is not merely an effect but it is not a purpose either.

Someone did argue for bonding and I do buy that. It’s part of CCC that sexuality is both procreative and unitive.

I suppose we could use nature’s wrath as a purpose for being aware of nature’s goals, if we punt on concern of a divine purpose.

Disease - People do things that cause themselves harm.

Destruction - People build houses on cliffs for the great view, before the house falls into the water.

That’s not to say the wrath is avoidable completely, just available for a purpose to support concern.

To be sure ‘if God’, then nature and God are aligned in goal setting.

Take care,

Mike

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

I suppose we could use nature’s wrath as a purpose for being aware of nature’s goals, if we punt on concern of a divine purpose.

We don’t need to literally “punt on concern of a divine purpose”. I’m only suggesting that we restrict ourselves to knowledge available from the natural order so that we can make moral arguments to atheists and fellow travelers. If Thomas Aquinas is right, if nature dictates a moral code, then that would be a good way to present Christian ideas to athiests. (And if they are stuck with Chrisitan morality anyway, they might be more open to Christian theology too.)

Disease - People do things that cause themselves harm.

Destruction - People build houses on cliffs for the great view, before the house falls into the water.

That’s not to say the wrath is avoidable completely, just available for a purpose to support concern.

To be sure ‘if God’, then nature and God are aligned in goal setting.

To put it more simply: life has consequences and it behooves one to avoid the worst of them.

There are some nasty consequences of unprotected homosexual sex. And perhaps there are some psychological problems as well.

But are there wrathful consequences for, say, contraceptives? Having fewer or no children? How is that worse than a life as an abstinent cleric?

 

[tonyrey]

I think it’s quite reasonable to distinguish conscious actors from the rest of the material universe.

I agree.

There is a big difference between saying that a person has a purpose im mind when he does X and saying that nature had a purpose in mind when it evolved Y.

Only pantheists believe nature had a purpose in mind! It is more reasonable to believe God transcends the universe instead of virtually equating them.