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There are a few philosophers who still push the “perverted faculty argument” to prove that contraception, homosexual acts and masturbation are immoral. This argument is based on classic natural law, which is itself based on a metaphysics that assumes essentialism and teleology (broadly Aristotelian).

Because of that, it's usually not taken seriously anymore. It would still be interesting to find out if such arguments even fail at a late stage, when a lot of heavy lifting has already been done (that is, the opponent has granted all the relevant metaphysical foundations).

One version is the 40-page article by Edward Feser: In Defense of the Perverted Faculty Argument (please read at least the twelve pages of part IV. before answering, thank you).

He states his key premise (full argument on page 403f) as:

Where some faculty F is natural to a rational agent A and by nature exists for the sake of some end E (and exists in A precisely so that A might pursue E), then it is metaphysically impossible for it to be good for A to use F in a manner contrary to E.

Since he doesn't want to condemn chewing gum as immoral, he grants that using a faculty F for an end “other than” E is morally neutral.

Hence examples like chewing gum (which is merely other than, rather than contrary to, the natural end of our digestive faculties) […] simply miss the point of the argument.

But chewing gum looks strikingly parallel to masturbation. It even decreases appetite, like masturbation temporarily reduces sexual tension. The digestive system prepares for food, but no food is taken. The reproductive system of a solitary masturbating woman prepares for heterosexual intercourse (or so claims Feser), but in the end, no man has sex with her.

So to finally get to the question:

In the article, is the differentiation between “contrary to” and “other than” really meaningful? If yes, then how exactly should we understand it? If not, can you go into more details how and why the reasoning here became fallacious?

PS: I'm genuinely just trying to understand how people manage to reach such strange conclusions – no intentions to make this an “am I right?” post.

viuser
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  • "In a manner contrary to..." is a somewhat antiquated expression, but the use here doesn't strike me as idiosyncratic. In context this is a use of *F* contrary (or opposite) to its intended end *E*, i.e., it's a *use* of *F* that is contrary to a use of *F* that produces *E*. Such a use would be one that interferes with the "procreative and unitive end of the sexual faculties", but may not in itself be "opposite" to *E*, just different from *E*. Similarly, one cannot speak of a "contrary child" without meaning an adult (or whatever the "opposite" of a child is meant to be. – ig0774 Oct 31 '17 at 12:06
  • @ig0774 *“a use of F that is contrary to a use of F that produces E.”* (immoral) is different from *“a use of F that is other than a use of F that produces E.”* (morally neutral) **how?** – viuser Oct 31 '17 at 13:46
  • This is a brilliant topic and I can't wait to jump in, but for the sake of the SE, can you clarify your specific question? – J. Tate Oct 31 '17 at 16:49
  • @J.Tate the central question is if Feser meaningfully and consistently differentiates “in a manner **contrary** to *E*” and “for an end **other than** *E*”. – viuser Oct 31 '17 at 19:46
  • @J.Tate I've edited to make it clearer and emphasize the main point. – viuser Oct 31 '17 at 20:54
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    The distinction seems to be of neutral vs harmful with all due vagueness in grey areas. It seems that chewing gum harms simply did not occur to him, he bites the bullet on p.406 "*if someone did so mutilate the ears or nose that their function was impaired, this would not be a counterexample to the perverted faculty argument but rather exactly the sort of thing the “old” natural law theory would condemn*". To me the main problem with PFA is the divining of "natural ends", whatever one's metaphysics is. – Conifold Oct 31 '17 at 22:44
  • @Conifold I'd say that *one* “natural end” of the sex organs is reproduction, if we grant that teleology on this level exists *at all.* But I agree with you that it is unclear how we be so confident that we have knowledge of *all* natural ends. What are the natural ends of the bonobo's sexual faculties? But then the argument is extremely confused what we do in the case of multiple natural ends anyway. – viuser Nov 01 '17 at 00:14
  • @Conifold by any normal meaning of the word, “harmful” doesn't apply to masturbation and chewing gum. I just tried to somehow reconstruct his notion of “contrary to” – it may be like “you manipulate the faculty *F* so that the teleological process in direction *E* gets running but you take care that the situation is so that *E* cannot be achieved”. – viuser Nov 01 '17 at 00:34
  • Another question is how extreme the anti-consequentialism is? Bone marrow donation harms the donor slightly (and by *itself* removal of healthy bone marrow would be just self-harm and so, as Feser would agree, immoral), but it helps the recipient immensely. If that's a valid “excuse” (come on, it must be!) then there may be others. Though Leeuwenhoek took great pains to defuse any suspicions that he got the sperm samples he studied under the microscope by “any sinful contrivance” … would Feser accept “expanding human knowledge” as “excuse” for masturbating? Ok, I'm getting sarcastic… – viuser Nov 01 '17 at 00:52
  • I'm a little bit lost in following your position here. The way I read what you're writing: (1) You seem to grasp the difference between *contrary to* and *other than*. (2) You merely deny the way he's categorizing things with respect to that. These are two completely separate issues. – virmaior Nov 01 '17 at 01:32
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    Let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/67989/discussion-between-wolf-revo-cats-and-virmaior). – viuser Nov 01 '17 at 03:04
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    Natural teleology is suited for a static world "created for a purpose". Evolution reproduces a surrogate of teleology but in a way fatal to any ethical applications. It is common to multipurpose and repurpose organs and behaviors, today's perversion is tomorrow's adaptation and vice versa. Who is to say that blowing off steam by jerking off is not to a "natural end". Limited time and blind manner mean that it optimizes function only locally, if that, and "function" or "fitness" are themselves ex post facto interpolations. – Conifold Nov 01 '17 at 19:13
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    As for harm, I think the vagueness approach is promising (perhaps not for moral absolutists like Feser). We do not need to classify into black and white with exceptions, but into shades of grey. Masturbation is a trifle sin or not at all in moderation (but doctors once thought that it leads to all sorts of ailments), incest is a graver one, and chewing gum is just a bad habit. Even Feser talks about trade-offs among different ends ("*the organ exists precisely for the sake of the human being as a whole*"), so we end up with cost-benefit analysis on shades. – Conifold Nov 01 '17 at 19:13
  • This requires a deep understanding of the first 3 sections, thus why he wrote them in this order. So reading just the 12 pages of section 4 will improperly prepare you to discuss this topic. The difference between "contrary to" and "other than," in this context, depends on the specific faculty, agent, and end. It seems that you either don't fully grasp the section on general sexual ethics, or you reject his reasoning. But this reasoning is the basis for his application of the PFA to sexuality so you have to at least assume his premises for the sake of understanding what you seek to understand. – J. Tate Nov 02 '17 at 12:24

4 Answers4

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" “contrary to” and “other than” "

Surely ig0774 is correct. That something is, or can be, contrary to an aim, is an uncomplicated idea, and free of difficulty. Aristotle spoke of people who overindulged in sexual intercourse, saying they had sagging buttocks. If such buttocks are bad for riding horses in war, then over indulgence in sexual intercourse is bad for riding horses, ergo, bad for waging war, for defending the polis, and so makes the man a bad citizen.

In fact this is the tacit reasoning behind most of our so-called mental disorders. Something is normativly wrong when it is generally held to be bad for civic life. For instance, so-called "hording", which, if a man is rich, one calls maximalism, or founding a museum.... Yet, with the poor, it creates a problem for the general welfare. And so is deemed a perversion. Even in the case the individual is not yet convinced by the power of the city to determine good and evil with respect to his doings (and a supposed correlation with his brain states). Closer, and more obvious, is something like bad breath. Or, as Ovid says, not cutting the hair in the nostrils.

The chief issue is that one tends to say that these are relative to the society, so far as one has a sophisticated grasp of the issues (or, as is more often the case, if one is speaking in vague abstractions, "philosophically"), and one who meets with them naively, tends to see them in Aristotelian naturalistic essential teleological terms. I.e., that bad breath really is "contrary" to the natural aim or telos of collective social life.

Gonçalo Mabunda
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  • You understand “contrary to” as “a use fostering the *opposite* of the aim” – for ig0774 it merely means “using it *and* interfering with the aim (so the aim is missed)”. – viuser Nov 01 '17 at 04:58
  • Well, if I am not mistaken, this phrase is merely a paraphrase of the more common translation "against". If someone wants to comb their hair so that it parts on the right side, instead of the left, as it does on its own, by its innate inclination or nature, that act is against nature. Contrary to nature. That isn't always a bad thing. Training of the body is also contrary to nature. Animals don't do gymnastics. – Gonçalo Mabunda Nov 04 '17 at 22:28
  • So "aim" means what something would do if outside influence wasn't exerted. The "aim" is not the telos, but the way of being, the so-called form. Example, the falling of stones, by nature. Lifting is therefor "contrary". The way to understand this is from the attempt to think through it the way Aristotle does, rather than giving formal definitions or merely citing examples. – Gonçalo Mabunda Nov 04 '17 at 22:28
  • Everybody understands “contrary to” differently, here! So it wasn't that absurd to ask for a clarification, right? IMHO it simply cannot be understood as “against” (in the Aristotelian sense) otherwise a *reductio ad absurdum* follows instantly: “gay is not okay” => “running on a treadmill is not okay”. – viuser Nov 05 '17 at 00:12
  • If someone is born a midget, that is the way they are by nature (congenitally), but one might say, it is not a healthy child (imagine the mother being informed, having expected a normal child), by Man as Man's (anthropos' or the human being's) nature. It's not a question of "okay", but, for Aristotle, sound judgment about what the whole is. For instance, from your claim it follows that a man born missing an arm is "okay". But, the actual opinion of most men, is that missing an arm is a defect. Aristotle is basing his thought on a empiricism of human judgment. – Gonçalo Mabunda Nov 07 '17 at 20:44
  • This is largely and deeply complicated by the fact that we aren't reading Aristotle, but are speaking of many thinkers with variegated modulations of this idea. Each peculiar. And, in addition, a generic "ideal type" (cf. Weber) in the style of a statistical average lurks in a textbook somewhere, describing no actually-existing-thinker's view. – Gonçalo Mabunda Nov 07 '17 at 20:46
  • addendum: I don't know if you are chiefly arguing passionately against the idea, rather than simply grasping the ineligibility of it. Understanding a argument properly, and being moved to accept it, must be distinguished. The word "against" or "contrary" are relatively unimportant, Aristotle didn't use such words. They are just translations. The thing is to see how the concepts were thought, where their ground is. One wants to avoid distorting, that is what training in philosophy lets one do. One can understand truly and properly, and not accept. Confront, as distinguished from debating. – Gonçalo Mabunda Nov 07 '17 at 20:58
  • Nope, it's one thing to call a certain condition a defect. It's quite another thing to claim a certain behavior is immoral. – viuser Nov 10 '17 at 11:33
  • That's not what I was talking about. – Gonçalo Mabunda Nov 13 '17 at 01:21
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An answer to your specifically stated question:

Yes, the distinction is meaningful. But it has to be understood within the context of the specific faculty, agent, and end. If you hold that sexual faculties have a different end than Feser's unitive and procreative ends, than you will see this argument as fallacious, especially in the comparisons Feser draws. Do you agree with Feser on the ends of the digestive system and sexual organs? If not (or if you cannot at least humor him for a thought experiment) than the comparison simply cannot be made, because he bases that comparison and the entire PFA on these assumptions about the ends of the faculties he mentions. That is why he takes the time to explain how he reaches that conclusion about the natural ends in the first sections.

There is further clarification of examples like you give (chewing gum, eating stevia) on page 408:

Yes, of course such things might be contrary to what is good for us, as even your doctor will tell you. And that is all that the perverted faculty argument is claiming. It does not follow that every frustration of a natural end is a grave sin. That depends on how crucial to the good for us as rational animals is the faculty in question is, and that is determined by such considerations as how fully it participates in our distinctively rational faculties, how significant it is to our nature as social animals, and so forth.

J. Tate
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  • For the sake of argument, I agree that the natural end of the sexual faculties is unitive & procreative. Try to define “contrary to” – what does it mean? – viuser Nov 02 '17 at 12:43
  • If the natural end of the digestive system is nourishment, is eating a zero calorie stevia cube immoral? – viuser Nov 02 '17 at 13:08
  • Eating a zero calorie stevia cube can be compared, in my mind, to having sex after menopause. You are not receiving nourishment (the end of digestion) and you are not procreating (the end of sex). Neither is immoral because you are not actively "frustrating" the end. Feser talks about this on page 401 when he compares enhancing the pleasure of eating and enhancing the pleasure of love making. So eating something with no nutritional value is not immoral, but eating poison would be. Poison is "contrary" to nourishment, whereas stevia (in so far as modern science can tell) is "other than." – J. Tate Nov 02 '17 at 13:45
  • I would argue that this is a weak distinction but I think it is strong enough to still be used and not considered fallacious. It is weak (in your example) because the lines on nourishment are not as clear cut as the lines on procreation (semen outside a vagina cannot be procreative whereas there is debate on what the benefits or harms of stevia and other foods are) – J. Tate Nov 02 '17 at 13:46
  • PS - I was not trying to insult you or assume you hadn't read the article. This is an excellent, well thought out question. I simply meant that this distinction is indeed a weak one, but if you read all 40 pages it is hard to call it fallacious. – J. Tate Nov 02 '17 at 13:48
  • If Feser *defines* “active frustration” or “use contrary to” regarding the (male) sexual faculties as “semen outside vagina”, *of course,* he can with his other premises prove that gay sex, masturbation, condom use are immoral. But that would be a petitio principii. “Active frustration” or “contrary to” has to be defined in a ***general way*** first. If one doesn't do that, the whole argument just becomes a smokescreen, giving an illusion of general reasoning while in reality we never really *derive* anything new, it's just “gay sex etc. is bad because ‘semen outside vagina’” – duh. – viuser Nov 02 '17 at 14:25
  • Regarding the digestive faculties you understand “contrary to” as “opposite to”. The opposite of “nourishing” would be “emaciating”, like ingesting a “draining” poison. But applying the *same* meaning of “contrary to” to the procreative and unitive end of the sexual faculties, we would get be anti-procreative (= reducing population, killing) and anti-unitive (= disruptive). Homo-acts, masturbation etc. are none of that. The problem isn't that the line is more blurred for digestion, the problem is that you are not consistent with the meaning of “contrary to” => special pleading => fallacy. – viuser Nov 02 '17 at 14:36
  • The opposite of life creating isn't killing necessarily, it could be life-preventing, e.g. contraception, ejaculation of semen intentionally outside of a vagina, etc. Feser assumes that masturbation is opposite of unitive in the way you describe it because it disrupts the nature of the sexual faculty because he holds that it is natural for a man and a woman to be joined through sexual faculties, so masturbation is disruptive of nature in that sense. Opposite works in that case. – J. Tate Nov 02 '17 at 14:50
  • Masturbation is contrary to creating life because it prevents viable sperm from inseminating an egg. Eating stevia is not contrary to nutrition because the body can still digest it - not real clear on the science of what it can make out of stevia but another example is that soda is known to be bad for you, but drinking soda is more nutritional and can sustain your body longer than drinking nothing. I imagine the same applies to eating stevia vs nothing – J. Tate Nov 02 '17 at 14:55
  • Why did you decide that "opposite" doesn't work here? It is a synonym of contrary in every dictionary and thesaurus I can find. – J. Tate Nov 02 '17 at 14:58
  • ***Other*** users (e.g. ig0774) claimed that “contrary to” was not the same as “opposite to”. And Merriam-Webster gives “destroy” and “impede” as “[near antonyms](https://www.merriam-webster.com/help/explanatory-notes/thes-near-antonyms)” to “create”. But why *must* we chose “impede” rather than “destroy”? This is not clear. But it should be, otherwise even premise 4 of Feser's argument is controversial. – viuser Nov 04 '17 at 10:11
  • From the sperm-centered view, it's true that male masturbation will prevent *those* sperm cells stored *right now* in the epididymes to create life. Of course, this life-preventing effect is very minute, basically existing only in theory, since they're so quickly restored. But more damning, there's no analogue to that in female masturbation. Here “preventing” must be interpreted differently again. – viuser Nov 04 '17 at 10:30
  • Let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/68195/discussion-between-wolf-revo-cats-and-j-tate). – viuser Nov 04 '17 at 11:11
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There is absolutely no empirical evidence that masturbation, anal, oral sex or homosexual sex diminishes the faculty to procreate. It could even be argued that, by releasing sexual impulse in a contraceptive fashion, it can help people who are already parents to keep their offspring at a sustainable quantity, securing the long term survival of the human species, which is after all the very goal of procreation. So that is teleology for you.

Given that procreation abilities are not diminished, it can't be argued that those sexual behaviors are "contrary" to the goal of reproduction in anyway, even granting the teleological premise. They are at worst leasurly use of a natural faculty, at best, as demonstrated above, a useful complement to the goal of reproduction.

Therefore, the distinction between chewing gum and masturbation looks very much like special pleading. "Masturbation I dislike, so not ok. But if I follow my logic a lot of other popular behaviors will be forbidden as well, and that will alienate support for my position. So, they are ok, because reasons."

armand
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The perverted faculty argument says that it is perverted to use the given faculty in a manner whereby it circumvents its intended end. What Edward Feser fails to explain is that it is not the sex that prevents the conception of children after i get my vasectomy. It's the method of contraception. Further the intended purpose of sex is pleasure. If you are achieving that without perversions such as homosexuality or such you are achieving the intended purpose of sex. I would venture to say that the true perversion is what happens when a child is conceived and carried to term. Honestly if there has been a time in recent history outside of primitive cultures where it would be sane to want a child I haven't heard of it.

Derik Yeager
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