On the idea of frustrating a faculty's end, see the comments thread here, where Pruss presses Feser to give a clear formulation of the frustration principle:

http://web.archive.org/web/20071014120434/http://rightreason.ektopos.com/archives/2006/10/reply_to_sulliv.html

At one point, Feser writes to Pruss, "Now, you say that the principle I'm using must be something like 'It is wrong to begin a process that cannot reach its natural conclusion.' Not so. As the examples just given illustrate, the principle is actually something like 'It is wrong to begin a process and at the same time positively act to bring it to something other than its natural conclusion.'"

Last edited by ML (7/20/2016 5:16 am)

nojoum wrote:

Regarding intention: to me sterile couple can only have sex for the purpose of unity. Now it does not follow from perverted faculty argument that they are doing immoral actions. It follows from common sense that sterile couples having sex are sinning as much as healthy people having protected sex are sinning. The reason is that this condemnation is based on the intention of these people which is the same in both cases.

Now the problem with the perverted faculty argument is that it does not take into account the intention of people. So to me an improved version of perverted faculty argument should also say that people who have the intention of perverting a faculty (yet are not perverting it explicitly, like sterile couples having sex) are committing immoral actions.

I'm not sure that this follows from "common sense," and I'm certainly not sure what would count as common sense in sexual ethics.

People using contraception generally intend to avoid having children; the exceptions to this are cases where, say, an anovulent pill is taken for health reasons, in which case the anovulent pill is consumed neither qua anovulent nor qua contraceptive. Sterile couples simply need have no such intention; a sterile couple can be open to have children in the sense that they do not intend not to have children. And one might think that is a morally relevant distinction, if one thinks that openness to children is a requirement of proper conjugality.

On the other hand, a sterile couple could be engaging in contraception; for example, if a particularly scrupulous Catholic sought out an infertile person to marry, because he wanted to avoid having children, he might be engaging in contraception when he has sex after marriage. This would require, I think, some continuing commitment to the intention; I think it is possible for someone who gets and cannot reverse a vasectomy to engage in non-contracepted sex if (after a religious conversion, say) he regrets the decision and no longer "delights" in its contraceptive consequence. So also for the man who had sought out an infertile wife but in his more mature years feels the pain of his induced childlessness.

nojoum wrote:

 

The point is that the perverted faculty argument starts with the final cause of Sex. Therefore, it is important to clearly establish what the final cause is.

For Feser, the foremost final cause of sex is to procreate in large numbers. Moreover, According to Feser, the unitive purpose of Sex comes second to procreation in large numbers. ( An analogy put forward by Feser is that when you eat, you are eating for the nutrition and the pleasure which is there in eating is second in priority)

Now with this final cause for sex comes two problems. First, it is not clear how many children one should have (what counts as large, should it be as much as you can perform the sexual act). Second, it implies that you cannot have sex solely for unitive purposes (you cannot have protected sex).


On the other hand, if you define the final cause of sex to be: Having enough number of children in the right circumstances as the main final cause and also unitive purposes as the secondary final cause . Then once a family has enough children, it will ok for the parents to have protected sex because you have fulfilled the final cause of sex which was defined as having enough number of children. Therefore, the perverted faculty argument has noting to say against protected sex in such families.

I think one problem is you are not starting at the basic biological level. I don't think the final cause of sex for Feser is procreation in large numbers. One final cause is simply procreation, and he infers this from the very nature of the sex organs​ - how they normally function. You cannot have sex in such a way that is not open to preproduction, because this would be to ignore the very nature of the sex organs. I don't see where the issue of procreation of large numbers comes in.
 

Regarding intention: to me sterile couple can only have sex for the purpose of unity. Now it does not follow from perverted faculty argument that they are doing immoral actions. It follows from common sense that sterile couples having sex are sinning as much as healthy people having protected sex are sinning. The reason is that this condemnation is based on the intention of these people which is the same in both cases.

Now the problem with the perverted faculty argument is that it does not take into account the intention of people. So to me an improved version of perverted faculty argument should also say that people who have the intention of perverting a faculty (yet are not perverting it explicitly, like sterile couples having sex) are committing immoral actions.

It certainly isn't common sense that a sterile couple and one using artificial contraception are engaging in the same moral act. It is not the sterile couple's fault their sexual organs cannot function properly. They are following the natural ends of these organs as far as they can, whilst those using contraception are intentionally preventing their organs from completely the natural process of reproduction sex involves. Feser does argue the sterile couple should be open to reproduction, in the unlikely event it occurs. So, as long as the sterile couple hasn't made themselves sterile (or one member hasn't chosen a sterile partner with the intention of not having children), there is no immorality here and the situation is simply different from using contraception.

nojoum wrote:

The point about:
"Sterile couples simply need have no such intention; a sterile couple can be open to have children in the sense that they do not intend not to have children. "
is this. Assuming it is possible for these couple to have children, what could their motivation be for having sex? Could it be anything other than (in the best scenario) unitive purposes.

Well, I think it's true that their motivation for having sex probably will not be to have children (note that is different from saying that their motivation will be not to have children). I think that's fine and non-contraceptive. I don't think a couple has to intend to procreate every time they have sex, whether they are fertile or not. (An infertile couple might intend/hope to procreate, though; they might hope that the doc made a mistake, or that something unlikely will happen, as is sometimes the case.)

A further consideration: A fertile couple has not failed if they have sex but do not conceive. Sex serves their marriage even if in some particular instance it does not result in children. I think the same is true of infertile couples.

So what do infertile couples intend? That they may intend unity is one possible answer. The question is what sort of unity. In ST Ia IIae, q. 94, a. 2, Aquinas says that man has an inclination to "the union [coniunctio] of male and female," to which there corresponds a principle of the natural law. The new natural lawyers have argued that that good, the good of "one-flesh union", has a particular structure and comprehensiveness; it is ordered to and naturally fulfilled by procreation (and the rearing of children) but is realized even in those sexual acts that happen not to lead to conception. I think that is the good at which both fertile and infertile couples (typically) aim.

I don't think acknowledging it requires commitment to much else substantively of the new natural law theory. (It's arguably one of the points where they are at their most metaphysical.) And Anscombe seems to have gleaned the significance earlier in "Contraception and Chastity":

Biologically speaking, sexual intercourse is the reproductive act just as the organs are named generative organs from their role. Humanly speaking, the good and the point of a sexual act is: marriage.

I think the new natural law move of looking at what marriage is (a real, both social and biological, union ordered to the procreation and rearing of children) and only then finding the place of the sexual act in it (and qua ordered to its fulfillment), is a wise one, anticipated by Anscombe. It's more straightforward, often, to think about "goods" rather than "faculties" and "functions"; the latter have a sort of epistemological wideness and vagueness that make it tough to figure out whether the procreative faculty aims at children or at lots of children.

This approach is consonant with the old natural law and the perverted faculty argument, perhaps, since every faculty or function corresponds to some good at which it aims, and by acting contrary to the faculty one is probably in some sense disrespecting the good at which it aims anyway.

nojoum wrote:

In a sense, I do understand that sterile couple can be open to procreation but couldn't they in someway abuse their condition for justifying sex? Think like this, Suppose they say to themselves, we dont use condoms, so we are not sinning, but we can have sex for pleasure. Couldn't they act like this? If yes, what is the position of natual law and perverted faculty argument on this?

Well, I think they could abuse their condition in certain ways, though I wouldn't necessarily call it "justifying sex". Consider the person I conceived who married someone infertile in order to avoid having any kids. I posited that it is possible to regret such a move so that, eventually, one is not contracepting even though that was one's original motive in marrying her. One has to stop taking a certain sort of "delight" (which I'm conceiving of here in a fairly "cognitive" sense, as an enjoyment consequent upon the accomplishment of one of one's aims) in order to stop contracepting in that sort of marriage.

But what if someone else who just happened to marry an infertile person later begins delighting, in the same sense, in her infertility? Here, it is inevitable that sex will not result in children; since the man has decided that he does not want children, he has come to see his wife's infertility as means to that end (even though that end is inevitable). I think there is something bad and perhaps contraceptive about that mentality.

To think about such a case, it might help to think of counterfactual cases: if he found out that his wife were in fact fertile, would he take contraceptive steps? But the counterfactual thought experiment can only, I think, be a heuristic; he might intend not to have children even if in the counterfactual case he would not use contraception (because, say, he is convinced it is immoral while what he is doing otherwise is not; or because he finds a condom unpleasurable; or what have you).

This all leaves me uncertain about what to say about natural family planning. I am still working out my views on this topic.

nojoum wrote:

Here I want to criticize some points in Dr. Feser's article "In Defense of Perverted Faculty Argument" which appeared in his book named" Neo-Scholastic Essays".

I start from general sexual ethics based on natural law and take a quote from the book stating that the end of sex is procreation in large numbers.

"So, sex exists in animals for the sake of procreation and sexual pleasure exists for the sake of getting then to indulge in sex, so that they will procreate. And were built in such a way that sexual arousal is hard to resist and occurs very frequently and such that it is very difficult to avoided pregnancies resulting from indulgence of that arousal. The obvious conclusion is that the natural end of sex is (in part) not just procreation but procreation in large numbers."

I disagree with the final conclusion because it’s limited in its vision. It does not take into account that large number of children is favorable as long as they can be raised properly and benefit humanity.  Therefore, for example in cases where large number of children hinders raising them, having more children is not beneficial and so on. Therefore, reproduction must be limited.

I agree, nojoum, but that is a purely rational restraint and condition and not part of the natural end of sex just qua animal. Mother nature is baby crazy and cannot even possibly lack faith in this regard: she wants more being, and she is intrinsically opposed to that which tries to negate being.

nojoum wrote:

Dr. Feser also adds that the key to understanding sexual faculties is that they have unitive and procreative end. Considering this statement and the last paragraph, Can't we say that in a family with enough number of children, protected sex between parents is beneficial and therefore morally right as long as it strengthens the bonds between them?

No because it can't do that. And "protection" against what? Originally condoms were called protective to the extent that they were supposed to minimize the risk against STDs. Presumably this isn't a factor in a marriage, where the spouses are either STD free or are already aware of any STDs. Regardless, by wearing a condom, for example, one is actually refusing to give oneself freely to the other or be wholly received by the other. This contradicts the unitive end. Mother nature has no regard for faithlessness here. It is better to practice abstinence voluntarily than to mock mother nature and try to play God. The uniting of male and female is by nature procreative and trying to limit family sizes by wearing or using artificial devices is to divorce our given nature. It is on the side of non-being, not being. This is partly why the sexual revolution has lead to radical transhumanism: the denial of the goodness of humanity as such and the vain presumption that we can make something better without necessarily destroying ourselves in the process.

nojoum wrote:

Dr. Feser mentions that according to perverted faculty argument there is nothing with wrong with sterile couples having sex because the sterile couple are not actively frustrating the nature's end. However, this seems to be problematic. If it is impossible for the couple to conceive a child, what intention other than unity they have for having sex?

They are still open to procreation, however. This problem is rather famously addressed in the Holy Bible.

nojoum wrote:

Therefore, the couples are intending to have sex for unitive purpose not the procreation which seems to be morally wrong. Moreover, we can add that, it is in fact the fault with their reproductive organ that is acting as a contraceptive

It is definitely not.

nojoum wrote:

and they are using sex merely for unitive purposes which seems to be against the perverted faculty argument (one might say that they are not actively frustrating the nature's end but this objection does not seem convincing to me, because I do not see any difference between sterile couples and normal couples who have protected sex).

But this contradicts your above argument where you included man's rational faculty in the equation about limiting families. Suddenly now man's knowledge and will are discounted; whereas, previously, it was made a vital part of the equation. So which is it to be?

nojoum wrote:

Adding to the case of sterile couples, we can go to homosexuals. First, Dr. Feser does not show that homosexuality is a grave sin as it is viewed in Catholicism. Moreover, suppose that homosexuals adopt enough number of children. Therefore what is wrong for them to marry each other and have sex because they fulfilled the nature's end of having sex-which is suitable reproduction- by adoption  ( just like the couples who have enough children or can’t we say that or just like the sterile couples who have sex )? or at least can't we say that they commit much less sin if they adopt children?

Okay it is not simply "wrong" for homosexuals to "marry each other." It's a transhumanist delusion. Two men cannot marry each other or found a family together; therefore, they cannot adopt anyone into their family because they are not a family. This means a homosexual can voluntarily leave a homosexual legal union anytime they like without moral consequence. They are not and cannot be bound to such a relationship or union. That is their human, God-given right and freedom.

Last edited by Timocrates (7/23/2016 3:50 pm)