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| Practical Philosophy » Thomistic Natural Law » 2/06/2016 2:12 am |
- darthbarracuda
- Replies: 53
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iwpoe wrote:I'm not a natural lawyer, nor is Daniel, nor are many of us. Why would I defend it? I get the idea, and I agree with some aspects of natural law, but I'm closer to a virtue ethicist than a natural lawyer.
And I don't find it personally reprehensible. I find it to be characteristically prone to certain vices. The idea that I should be unconcerned with the vices of others just as I am with mine is the real lack of "compassion" between the two of us.I apologize for assuming you were a natural lawyer. I assumed that since you were defending it you were espousing it.
I find virtue ethics to be redeemable to the individual himself but lacking when it comes to affirmative action and as a universal ethical law, in which case I adopt the negative preference prioritarian model.
I do not have any problem with other people living their lives as they see fit, and this seems to be the issue that separates us. Both virtue ethics and natural law theory propose that living by their normative ethics will lead to the eudaimonic life and by not doing so you are not eudaimonic and therefore doing something immoral.
The trouble I have with this is that the eudaimonia affects the person themselves. It is their problem if they fail to achieve eudaimonia, not ours. We can offer our assistance and our advice but we really shouldn't disparage them for living in a way that does not, in our personal opinion, lead to the eudaimonic life, so long as this does not harm anyone.
We may have this idyllic dream that everyone follows virtues and everyone conforms into these little cookie-cutter models which will allow society to run like a well-oiled machine with no problems, but this is absurd. People are unique and this needs to be respected.
| Practical Philosophy » Thomistic Natural Law » 2/06/2016 1:53 am |
- darthbarracuda
- Replies: 53
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iwpoe wrote:
I think he thought he was going to walk into a forum with a bunch of dime-store wannabe Catholic moralists. I've been moderating forums for nearly 2 decades.
Tell me more about your war stories.
iwpoe wrote:It's like he thinks I never heard the ole' "You think gays are gross, and that's the only problem you really have." chessnut. I heard it when I was an atheist and a half-ass liberal just like him. I didn't like it as a criticism when I was 15, and I don't like it now. It's lazy. I'm not even a practicing theist, never mind uptight.
First of all, I'm not a liberal nor am I am atheist nor am I fifteen nor do I try to be lazy.
Second, I have not seen any arguments defending natural law theory except for appeals to the mob and the fact that you personally find it to be reprehensible.
| Practical Philosophy » Thomistic Natural Law » 2/06/2016 1:48 am |
- darthbarracuda
- Replies: 53
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The picture is obnoxious.
iwpoe wrote:darthbarracuda wrote:Perhaps
In fact.
Obnoxious.
iwpoe wrote:darthbarracuda wrote:Rather, it would seem that there are far more complicated and complex variables involved in the success of a relationship, not merely whether or not it is heterosexual or homosexual. What are the age differences? What is the education of both spouses? What is the annual income? Do they have kids/adopt kids? How compatible are the spouses? It is not that successful homosexual relationships are the weird statistical anomalies, there are plenty of successful homosexual relationships.
I don't deny that. I'm a philosopher and a Marxist of some sort. You think I'm unaware that popular discourse and politics is woefully oversimplified and foolish?
Considering your prior posts I would say that I would have had no knowledge of your awareness of this.
iwpoe wrote:The challenge is to see what the simplifications mean. They are usually inarticulate stand-ins for more complex intuitions. The fact that you can't see that speaks more to your "armchair" qualifications than any of our metaphysics.
What do you mean by this assertion? I am confused.
iwpoe wrote:darthbarracuda wrote:It's not consequentialist per se. I think that Feser is right that the core argument is the perverted faculty argument.
I have difficulty wading through the polemic and rhetoric of Feser and his arrogance. Not to mention that is a one heck of a list to read for a the perverted faculty argument. Can you explain it?
iwpoe wrote:darthbarracuda wrote:Is there something "wrong" with the way these men act?
Yes. It's foolish because it harms the soul. Have more wreckless sex if you don't yet understand this.
Oh, do you have first-hand experience?
iwpoe wrote:darthbarracuda wrote:Do you, personally, have an issue wi
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| Practical Philosophy » Thomistic Natural Law » 2/05/2016 4:09 pm |
- darthbarracuda
- Replies: 53
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DanielCC wrote:darthbarracuda wrote:
If natural law is such an important thing to follow, one would think that god would make a little more effort in laying down exactly what laws are what.
No offense but you do realize that Theism doesn't follow from Natural Law?
Correct, but often natural law follows from theism.
DanielCC wrote:darthbarracuda wrote:...and? This supports my position; since sex is such an important a compulsive part of someone's life, they should be allowed to do whatever they want so long as they do not harm another person.
This 'should' has normative implications and you've previously denied or at least expressed skepticism re the existence of objective moral values.
My skepticism of objective moral values does not prevent me from voicing my opinion on morality. The lack of any objective morality does not prevent one from arguing and potentially changing someone else's ethical intuitions.
DanielCC wrote:darthbarracuda wrote:Are you assuming that gay sexual relations somehow have a tendency to lead to more problems than straight sexual relations?
NL accounts might expect something like that to be the case, but the real criticism is that homosexual activity does not lead to children.
So it is consequentialist, then?
DanielCC wrote:darthbarracuda wrote:The fact that there exists even one gay sexual relationship that is not plagued by these problems means that there is no causal connection between the two.
Unfortunately NL accounts often appeal to a notion of 'the Common Good' in such cases.
The Common Good is not affected by the personal sexual relations of a homosexual couple.
DanielCC wrote:darthbarracuda wrote:Because I'd appreciate it if you didn't act like a dick and had some compassion, which is, under my view, the source of morality (pace Schopenhauer).
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Because we are all fellow suffers on this godforsaken planet,
| Practical Philosophy » Thomistic Natural Law » 2/05/2016 3:52 pm |
- darthbarracuda
- Replies: 53
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iwpoe wrote:darthbarracuda wrote:
Are you assuming that gay sexual relations somehow have a tendency to lead to more problems than straight sexual relations?
The fact that there exists even one gay sexual relationship that is not plagued by these problems means that there is no causal connection between the two.Daniel got most of it, but it's also worth pointing out that this is patently false reasoning. I mean, for instance, were this formally correct the following would be true to say:
If there exists just one case of a smoker who doesn't develop lung cancer that means there is no causal connection between the two.Perhaps I made a poor statement when I said the existence of only one flourishing gay relationship disproves the causal connection.
Rather, it would seem that there are far more complicated and complex variables involved in the success of a relationship, not merely whether or not it is heterosexual or homosexual. What are the age differences? What is the education of both spouses? What is the annual income? Do they have kids/adopt kids? How compatible are the spouses? It is not that successful homosexual relationships are the weird statistical anomalies, there are plenty of successful homosexual relationships.
If you are going to argue that it is wrong for homosexuals to have relationships because they don't produce children (as DanielCC alluded to), then this is fundamentally a consequentialist argument that needs to be supported: why are children so important?iwpoe wrote:I am, however, utterly unconvinced that (at least male) homosexual relationships are, on the whole, as benign and vanilla in character as the popular sitcom image would have us believe. I mean, go watch a documentary like Gay Sex in the 70s or watch something like Queer as Folk (Brian Kinney is a predatory sociopath the show wants to pretend is lauditory) or visit a gay club or go on Grindr. I
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| Practical Philosophy » Thomistic Natural Law » 2/04/2016 11:33 pm |
- darthbarracuda
- Replies: 53
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iwpoe wrote:
I mean, among the reasons why sexuality is a public interest there is included:
1. It isn't even a "private" (not that "private" activities, either in the proper sense or in your broad sense are obviously deserving of public deference) but an interpersonal activity..Between two consenting adults, unless it is masturbation, in which case it is entirely personal.
iwpoe wrote:2. It is a core and often extremely even compulsively preoccupying part of a person's life.
...and? This supports my position; since sex is such an important a compulsive part of someone's life, they should be allowed to do whatever they want so long as they do not harm another person.
iwpoe wrote:3. It often causes physical and psychological effects that are difficult for the parties involved to either foresee or, at least at certain point, control.
Are you assuming that gay sexual relations somehow have a tendency to lead to more problems than straight sexual relations?
The fact that there exists even one gay sexual relationship that is not plagued by these problems means that there is no causal connection between the two.iwpoe wrote:4. Between heterosexual couples sexual activity is the genesis of children and family, which is obviously of public significance.
And also the cause of all suffering, might I add...
iwpoe wrote:That list goes on..
I would like to hear more of this list.
iwpoe wrote:Revealed law would amount to religious rules revealed in scripture and religious tradition. Something like "Don't take the host without having confessed your sin" is a revealed law.
Natural law is what follows from our understanding of the sort of things we are, from our understanding of what is good for us given our nature.I see. Could it be that homosexuals have a different nature than heterosexuals?
iwpoe wrote:darthbarracuda wrote:Because I'd appreciate it if you didn't act l
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| Practical Philosophy » Thomistic Natural Law » 2/04/2016 9:32 pm |
- darthbarracuda
- Replies: 53
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iwpoe wrote:darthbarracuda wrote:
I understand this, and yet you see religious people condemning homosexuals, for example, for sodomy, or religious people picketing abortion clinics.
So? While I don't necessarily agree with the political value of either fight, it is entirely understandable why one might conclude abortion a grave moral failure (indeed considering the gravity of abortion if they're right, picketing is a rather civil and upstanding response) and while less obvious I agree with Roger Scruton that the traditional prohibition against homosexuality has been dismissed in a foolish and jejune way on the back of typical and equally foolish modern ideas about how to conduct one's life- as if it were just obvious that we should encourage others to act in any way they might be inclined sexually.
I would like to know why you think it is problematic that people are able to conduct their own private sexual affairs in any way they want (so long as they do not physically or psychologically harm others). From my perspective, this is merely an appeal to a "because I said so".
iwpoe wrote:darthbarracuda wrote:If natural law is such an important thing to follow, one would think that god would make a little more effort in laying down exactly what laws are what.
Whether you think the core aspects of natural law obscure- and I don't think they are -it's by no means obvious that they even require special effort on the part of God to be known. That is, natural law is not ecclesiastical law: is not revealed.
What's the difference?
iwpoe wrote:Two, what you mean by the word normal manifestly will not adequately account for notions of health. You are supposing a strictly quantitative notion of normal when you talk about health. This would be as if to pretend that in a population where everyone has cancer, cancer is normal, and therefore healthy. You are relying upon an ambiguity in the word normal to make your account sound plausible. It i
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| Practical Philosophy » Thomistic Natural Law » 2/04/2016 6:36 pm |
- darthbarracuda
- Replies: 53
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iwpoe wrote:darthbarracuda wrote:
Perhaps if you're omniscient and omnipotent...
Which the state isn't? You do understand that religious people don't think themselves God, correct?
I understand this, and yet you see religious people condemning homosexuals, for example, for sodomy, or religious people picketing abortion clinics.
If natural law is such an important thing to follow, one would think that god would make a little more effort in laying down exactly what laws are what.iwpoe wrote:darthbarracuda wrote:Health is an adjective we use to describe a state of being that many of us commonly share a desire to want to be.
Health itself, not the mere word. 'Blue' and 'circular' are also adjectives...
I do not think there is a property of "health". There are properties of a liver functioning "normally" with a certain pH and what have you, and a nervous system operating "normally" without "excessive" neurotransmitters and what have you which lead you to feel happy and desire to stay in this state of being. But someone can lose a kidney and still be "healthy". Someone can be paralyzed and still be "healthy" even though in other definitions we might say they aren't "healthy" because they can't walk or operate "properly". All of these adjectives are placed within quotations marks because they are referencing the majority, the ones who survived. This does not mean it is moral. If we were on a desert island filled with paraplegics, it may be that we would be the ones who would be outside of the norm.
Simply because it is the norm, simply because it has worked in the past and helped people survive, does not make it moral.iwpoe wrote:darthbarracuda wrote:I am skeptical of any "oughts" at all.
No you're not, or you'd be unable to even argue. You're simply skeptical of anything that would contradict your secular intuitions.
Do not put words in my mouth.
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| Practical Philosophy » Thomistic Natural Law » 2/04/2016 5:15 pm |
- darthbarracuda
- Replies: 53
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iwpoe wrote:darthbarracuda wrote:
Perhaps it is troublesome, though, to call one's ethical theory natural law, then, if one isn't implying that there is any kind of justice applied.
There are an infinite number of reasons why a moral imperative might not become a political one. The most usual one is resources. How, for instance, would it even be possible to police all lies?
Perhaps if you're omniscient and omnipotent...
iwpoe wrote:If health is not normative in character- if it is not a concept of the proper function of the body, or mind, or what have you -then what is it? Your general talk about it does very much seem to be a preference account, which I think is absurd, but I want you to commit to some view or another before I bother to criticize it.
Health is an adjective we use to describe a state of being that many of us commonly share a desire to want to be. I am skeptical of any "oughts" at all.
| Practical Philosophy » Thomistic Natural Law » 2/03/2016 10:01 pm |
- darthbarracuda
- Replies: 53
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Greg wrote:
Being in pain or distress is not being unhealthy; someone who stubs his toe and feels pain is considerably healthier than someone who stubs his toe and does not. Lack of pain is an indication of health only in the appropriate circumstances. But that's to bring a normative notion back in.
If someone is "unhealthy" in what you are saying here, they will experience suffering. For their own sake, they "ought" to do something about it so they don't suffer.
Say I get a migraine. Say I have ibuprofen pills right next to me. Should I take these pills? Yes, for my own well-being. But not in any "normative" sense.
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