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icamhif
Guest
Thanks.
Did Aristotle say anywhere in his books that recreational sex, masturbation, and/or contraception is inherently wrong?
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Did Aristotle say anywhere in his books that recreational sex, masturbation, and/or contraception is inherently wrong?
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Peter_Plato
Guest
Janet Smith makes the case that recreational sex and contraception are inherently inconsistent with natural moral law, here:
goodmorals.org/smith5.htm
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Bradski
Guest
All she does is make a case that acting in accordance with nature is a good thing. Was anyone arguing against that?
However, not acting in accordance with nature is not, therefore, a bad thing. Her points regarding divorce, unwanted children, broken homes etc are entirely reasonable. They may well be the result of ill timed, unplanned and casual unprotected sex. But the problem is…ill timed, unplanned and casual unprotected sex.
I’m drinking a very nice whisky as I type this (a Glenmorangie if you’re interested). Now we all probably know that alcohol is one of the greatest problems facing society at the moment. If you suggested that drinking whilst driving or drinking until you are drunk on a regular basis or spending money on booze that should be spent on your family is immoral, I would agree. However, there is no way on God’s little blue planet that I would in any way agree that drinking whisky is, in itself, immoral.
Likewise, having sex just for the hell of it, just because you enjoy it, just because it feels good, if it causes no harm, is not immoral. It becomes immoral if, like anything else, it causes some harm.
Convince me that in a particular scenario that it would, and I will agree that, in that scenario, it would be immoral. That is, you need to start your argument with this:
Recreational sex is immoral if…
If you start it with:
Recreational sex is immoral because…
…then you have lost the argument before it starts.
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Rau
Guest
Can you tell me how you know that?
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Peter_Plato
Guest
Recreational sex is immoral because sex is an act of love not an act of leisure or recreation. To treat sex as merely recreational is to change the very nature of the act from other centered to self-centered, thus “completely missing the point.”
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Peter_Plato
Guest
The comparison is not ceteris parabis because drinking a whiskey “for pleasure” doesn’t involve another person. In other words, you are simply “using” another person as a means to an end. That illicit use of another person merely for one’s own ends may be bilateral or consensual, but it still is essentially about “using” another person as a means. That flies completely in the face of what sex is intended to be - a loving act where one person commits themselves entirely (mind, body and soul) to another person. Viewing sex as “recreational” completely undermines and destroys the very nature of sex and sexuality as a “two become one” reality.
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Bradski
Guest
Because there is nothing that doesn’t cause harm that is immoral. To be immoral, there has to be harm. Otherwise…it’s harmless.
You lost before you started,
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Rau
Guest
That seems to assume the point you are seeking to make. What is “harm” and how is it connected to morality?
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Bradski
Guest
My point is that I need to be convinced there is some harm done before I can accept that something is immoral. I’m absolutely certain that you cannot give me an example of something that you think is immoral that you don’t believe causes harm. It is immoral in your view because, in your view, it causes harm.
If it doesn’t in my view, then it isn’t.
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Rau
Guest
But what is “harm”?
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Peter_Plato
Guest
Nothing like begging the question.
You are claiming nothing is immoral that doesn’t actually cause harm. What about attempted murder? Not morally wrong if no harm caused and no one but the perpetrator knows about the attempt?
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Peter_Plato
Guest
No. Something that actually has a negative impact on someone would be more adequate, but still not a good definition.
Grounding a child or taking away a privilege or object like a toy would then be “harmful” according to you because it has a “negative” impact (or that they “believe” it does.) Would that be gross or net negative impact? If there was short term negative impact, but long term good, would that be “harm?”
Doesn’t “negative impact” require some kind of stipulation as to what it is that is being negatively impacted? What “good” is being harmed, in other words?
That in itself requires an accounting of what is good and why removing or negating that good would be considered “harmful,” no?
You have always seemed very reticent about defining “goods” in a positive way, resorting to an open ended “harm” as if “goods” were clearly understood. No so much, it seems, since you cannot even muster a good definition or list of definite “goods.”
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Peter_Plato
Guest
When are you going to stop beating your wife?
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Rau
Guest
I guess I could elevate this a tad to say that moral behaviour requires “love of neighbour”. For the Christian, this is necessary, but not sufficient. We add Love of God which entails an acceptance of his offer to be children of God. I appreciate this takes the discussion to a point where the Christian and the Atheist, not sharing the same premise, can do little but “talk past” each other.
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Bradski
Guest
I don’t think that anyone would disagree that attempting to cause harm could be included in the definition. You don’t become a more moral person simply because you are a bad shot.
This is all in contrast to any suggestion that an immoral act is one that doesn’t fulfil someone ‘natural good’ so it’s not begging the question. It is defining immorality not as an absence of good but as an act that specifically includes harm. Or, as you have pointed out, the intention to cause harm.
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Bradski
Guest
I’m using the term ‘harm’ as it would be understood by any reasonable person. I’m not of a mind to constantly fine tune the meaning until you find it acceptable.
In any case, it’s a term I use myself to determine moral matters. I could care less whether you agree to the definition or not. You are free to judge matters in any way you see fit. if I disagree with you then you will know why.
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Bradski
Guest
I don’t think that we have to talk past each other. I’d assume that you’d have reasons for acting morally which wouldn’t require any belief in God. And good reasons for believing something to be immoral without recourse to anything divine. And those reason. I would suggest, would be the same as mine.
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Pallas_Athene
Guest
I used a cautious way of putting it, since we do not have a lot of information starting from the early stone age. The ones where we have some written documents certainly reflect the preference for it. But there were many violent societies where the rulers were those who could impose their preferences on the others.
It is obvious that our “moral” code reflects our preferences, or value system. In some circumstances the legal code (which is enforced) reflects our value system. Biologically, we are omnivores, and both individuals and social beings. The usual value system comes from this arrangement.
A society solely composed of carnivores, or another one composed of herbivores would be totally different in their approach. (I suggest some of the books of Larry Niven which describe such societies.) Not to mention a “flora”-based society (intelligent vegetation), which would also be completely different. Those who attempt to argue for a “universal” moral code are shallow thinkers. They try to substitute themselves into the category of “thinking beings” as if they were the “etalons or standards” among all the possible beings. They are not even the “standards” among humans.
Looking at the documents from those societies (where available) it seems that none of them had any taboo against these activities. The ancient oriental societies actually considered sex to be the highest form for “communicating” with the gods. No wonder that the Kama Sutra and the literature of the similar kind was not written in Dark Ages of Europe. In the oriental culture recreational sex is not “shunned”, it is practiced with great fervor. After all one would not expect some novice to pick up a violin and be an immediate expert on playing Paganini’s “Devil’s Violinist”. Sex is something to be learned, to be practiced. And the more “lessons” one takes, from different “teachers”, the more proficient one becomes. And, of course practicing at home.
This is the approach of the oriental cultures.Only some narrow minded people think that sex should always go hand-in-hand with procreation, and they consider any deviation from this approach to be an “intrinsically disordered” activity. Procreation is a built-in drive into any and all species - after all without procreation the species would die out. But from this fact (which is something no one disputes) it does NOT follow that one should ALWAYS be “open” to procreation. The fun part is at least as important, and looking at the number of actual procreations compared to the number of sexual encounters we can see that the procreation is miniscule, indeed.
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Peter_Plato
Guest
Yes, and in Russian Roulette, the fact that the number of loaded chambers in the gun is “miniscule indeed” must mean that getting shot in the head is inconsequential to the act of pulling the trigger.
Ah, yes. I see now. The “fun part” of pulling the trigger makes “miniscule” the fact that brains are blown out BECAUSE the number of actual deaths is “miniscule” compared to the number of times the trigger is pulled.
All quite “rational.”
And this says nothing of the fact that the “number of sexual encounters” of a “recreational” nature have resulted in the “miniscule” number of 1.338 billion abortions worldwide since 1980. Yes, procreation or at least terminating it is, indeed, a miniscule part of having sex. That’s 1,338,000,000 lives ended. Fun ain’t it?
Hey, Bradski, There’s your “harm.”:banghead:
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