Thursday, November 18, 2010

Are reproductive organs for reproduction?

It is interesting to me that when the question comes up of whether the purpose of sex is reproduction, there are some people who suddenly abandon all the language and logic they apply in every other situation where something's purpose is in question.

In the comments section of a previous post, one of the commenters got into this issue, and I remarked that it seemed strange to me that when we talk about general anatomy, or DNA, or animal behavior, we use blatantly teleological language to do it. But if we use that same language about human sexuality, all of a sudden the Tolerance Police show up and ask you for your identification papers.

We talk about the purpose of bodily organs all the time. The purpose of the heart is to pump blood to the rest of the body; the purpose of a kidney is to filter the blood; the purpose of the intestines is to digest food. Say these things and everyone nods earnestly in agreement.

But then you say, "and the reproductive organs are for..." (and you pause at this point to put up your deflector shields) "...reproduction."

As Mr. Bill was wont to say, "Nooooooooooooooooooo!"

No, indeed. Sex has become the great idol of our time. Malcolm Muggeridge once quipped that our culture has sex on the brain--which, he added, is a very uncomfortable place to have it. And if you add to that the fact that reproduction has become unfashionable among the denizens of our cultural elite, you get the the current aversion to saying that reproductive organs are for what they are clearly for.

So then we get into the debate about whether things have intrinsic purposes. Not a few people are willing to abandon the whole idea of things having purposes solely because they want to deny that sex has a purpose. Of course, the next day after they do this, you will find them once again using teleological language to talk about everything else.

The chief problem, of course, is that there is a whole contingent of otherwise rational beings who want to separate sex from reproduction and pretend the two aren't tied together in any natural way. If we saw this going on in the animal kingdom, we would hunt down the animal we saw engaging in this aberrant behavior, tranquilize it, and haul it into the laboratory to see what was wrong with it.

And then, after denying that sex has any intrinsic purpose, the same people will turn around and argue that the purpose of sex is pleasure. Well, that is the motive for doing it, but not the reason. Why do these people think that to say that the final cause of sex is reproduction is to somehow deny the role of pleasure in sex? As philosopher Edward Feser has pointed out, there is no more reason to think that the role of pleasure in sex is inconsistent with its reproductive purpose than to think that the role of pleasure in eating is inconsistent with its digestive purpose.

But the people who have a conniption fit every time someone mentions that reproductive organs are for reproduction are reductionists. They have cut themselves off from a whole view of the world by rejecting Aristotle's formal and final causation--the idea that things have natures and purposes--and so they must view things in very simplistic and one-dimensional way.

And they have to argue that reproductive organs are not for reproduction, which is a very strange thing to say.

86 comments:

Singring said...

Martin, I thought we had gone over this before. But since you seem to forget so fast, we'll have to tackle a few of the problems with your position once again:

a) When people say that something has a 'purpose' in common parlance they are not using the word in a teleological sense. Do you expect people to constantly phrase their sentences in a way consistent with philosophical definitions? This is would be absurd! Casually speaking even I would probably say 'The purpose of the genitals is mainly reproduction.'. But when you want to start basing policy and law on your idea of 'purpose' in a teleological sense then we have to be much more careful and think this through.

b) What is your evidence that the exclusive teleological 'purpose' of the genitals is to reproduce?
So far all we have heard from you are statements as trivial as 'I look at it and thats what it looks like to me.' or 'Sex usually leads to reproduction.' (in fact it doesn't, as OneBrow has pointed out - even if a foetus is the result the majority of them are aborted naturally). This from the man who told me I didn't have any right to make moral judgements because my morals were subjective. Priceless.

But that's not even half of it...

Remember your post on Jerry Coyne, Martin? You absolutely insisted that making deductive arguments from induction is not rational.

Oops.

So I guess that not only is your 'I look at it and I think this is the purpose' approach utterly subjective, even it you can muster some data to support your hypothesis it will have to be based on....

...yup, inductive reasoning (a penis has so far usually been necessary for reproduction, so that must be its purpose past and future).

You fail on two counts.

If you want to pontificate about the purpose of the genitals, then let's hear some objective reasoning based on external evidence (preferrably non-inductive in nature).

Isn't that a fair request based on your very own criteria?

Singring said...

Sorry, I just can't pass up on the ending to this piece:

'But the people who have a conniption fit every time someone mentions that reproductive organs are for reproduction are reductionists. They have cut themselves off from a whole view of the world by rejecting Aristotle's formal and final causation--the idea that things have natures and purposes--and so they must view things in very simplistic and one-dimensional way.'

So the people who think that a penis has multiple 'purposes' or functions or applications (whichever term you want to use) are one-dimensional but the folks who say that it is for exactly one purpose and one purpose only and everything else is an immoral sin are what...free-spirited progressives? Welcome to the upside-down world of VItal Remnants!

'And they have to argue that reproductive organs are not for reproduction, which is a very strange thing to say.'

When did I or anyone else argue that the genitals are NOT for reproduction? Of course they are used and perform an important, almost always essential role in reproduction. But that does not automatically imply that this is their ONLY function or 'purpose'. It seems you are incapable of writing a post that does not completely misrepresent the opposing side, Martin.

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

When people say that something has a 'purpose' in common parlance they are not using the word in a teleological sense.

Since you are always asking me for a scientific demonstration of everything I say, even when I'm not making a scientific statement, I'll return the favor: How do you know this? Do you have some kind of evidence to back it up?

I think the average person absolutely does use the term in this way. This is the normal, untutored way people think before they come into contact with people who make it their business to deny obvious things.

Now if you're talking about people in the academic community, then that's another story. It is simply not fashionable to belief this in such circles, since it smacks of the hoary old beliefs of the medievals--beliefs that were never refuted, but simply became declassé.

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

What is your evidence that the exclusive teleological 'purpose' of the genitals is to reproduce?

That is not my position, so I don't have to have any evidence for it.

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

Remember your post on Jerry Coyne, Martin? You absolutely insisted that making deductive arguments from induction is not rational.

From the way you have phrased this, I'm not at all clear what position your attributing to me here. What does it even mean to say you can't make "deductive arguments from induction"? That's not even a coherent statement.

Maybe you would care to state it again more clearly.

Martin Cothran said...
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Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

I don't have to have "data" in order to have a justified believe that reproductive organs are for reproduction any more than I have to have "data" to know what a nose or a mouth or my eyes are for.

My argument is that if we have no sufficient grounds for saying that the reproductive organs have a particular purpose, then we have no sufficient grounds for saying that noses or mouths or eyes have any particular purpose.

But we do have sufficient grounds for saying that noses and mouths and eyes have a particular purpose.

Therefore we have sufficient grounds for saying that reproductive organs have a particular purpose.

If you don't think we can have adequate grounds for saying that noses and mouths and eyes have any particular purpose, then you can deny my second premise and my argument has no hold over you. You are free to roam the world denying that reproductive organs are reproduction--and that your mouth is not for eating and your nose is not for smelling, and your eyes are not for seeing.

Have fun.

Singring said...

'But we do have sufficient grounds for saying that noses and mouths and eyes have a particular purpose.'

Oh really?

What woukd those grounds be?

The 'I look at it and it looks that way to me' reason?

Fascinating to see how subjective both our views of morality truly are.
'If you don't think we can have adequate grounds for saying that noses and mouths and eyes have any particular purpose, then you can deny my second premise and my argument has no hold over you. You are free to roam the world denying that reproductive organs are reproduction--and that your mouth is not for eating and your nose is not for smelling, and your eyes are not for seeing.

Have fun.'

Martin, I really do wish you would read my posts. Did I not say this:

'When did I or anyone else argue that the genitals are NOT for reproduction? Of course they are used and perform an important, almost always essential role in reproduction. But that does not automatically imply that this is their ONLY function or 'purpose'. It seems you are incapable of writing a post that does not completely misrepresent the opposing side, Martin.'

I don't doubt that one of the functions of the nose is to facilitate the uptake of air into the lungs. But does that mean we should immeadiately conclude that the teleological purpose of the nose is to do so and pass laws prohibiting any other use of the organ?

The Martin Cothran bill banning the smelling of flowers. What a great piece of legislation.

Seamus said...

The Martin Cothran bill banning the smelling of flowers. What a great piece of legislation.

This would be a legitimate point if smelling weren't also one of the purposes for which we have noses, or if Mr. Cothran (or anyone like him) were proposing legislation to make it illegal to use genital organs in a way that caused pleasure. (Using them in *certain* ways that cause pleasure, sure, but the reason for banning those acts (e.g., sodomy) isn't that they cause pleasure, but that they are contrary to the generative purpose of generative organs. You can even use your nose and ears to support your eyeglasses (which, unlike smelling in the case of noses, isn't actually their purpose), but that doesn't mean it's licit to use them in a way that makes them incapable of hearing, smelling, or taking in air.)

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

You seem to assume that no one can have grounds for believing something unless there is scientific evidence for it. But, of course, to say that things have a final cause is not a scientific statement at all, but a philosophical one, based on phenomenological observation.

I've seen man noses, and they all seem to smell quite well, whereas they don't seem to do other things very well. They're not too good for eating purposes, and they're not too good for hearing or seeing.

They can be used for other, accidental purposes, as Seamus has pointed out, but, while glasses seem to be designed to be propped up on noses, noses don't seem to be designed to prop up glasses.

Virtually everyone believes that these organs have the purpose of doing what they seem to be designed to do without ever seeing a scientific study. And I don't see the intellectual obligation of abandoning these beliefs just because scientists haven't come up with a purely scientific reason for it.

Are your beliefs on everything life strictly limited to what science has explicitly proven?

You seem to believe that there are no grounds for believing anything unless you have a finding from a study or something. Although I imagine that you believe many things you do not have scientific evidence for, and I bet many of these things are less obvious than that noses are for smelling, mouths for eating, eyes for seeing and ears for hearing--and reproductive organs for reproduction.

If all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.

Joe_Agnost said...

The purpose of the penis is obviously to expell urine from the body...

Martin Cothran said...

Yeah. That too.

Joe_Agnost said...

Did Seamus really just imply that sodomy somehow renders the penis unable to reproduce in the future?

Seamus wrote: "You can even use your nose and ears to support your eyeglasses (which, unlike smelling in the case of noses, isn't actually their purpose), but that doesn't mean it's licit to use them in a way that makes them incapable of hearing, smelling, or taking in air.)"

Does this mean he thinks that sodomy really makes the penis "incapable of" procreating in the future?? WTF??

KyCobb said...

This discussion seems kind of pointless. Of course the organs in question are useful for reproduction, but they are useful for other activities as well. As free people, we have the right to use them or not as we see fit so long as we aren't violating the rights of others.

One Brow said...

I think it's great Martin is acknowledging that his moral standards are arbitrary, relying on subjective terms like "obvious' and even changing from comment to comment, such as the purpose fo the nose changing from breathing to smelling.

Seamus,

Did you read comments of the previous post? Perhaps you can provide what Martin (and E. R. Bourne) did not: some non-arbitrary means to distinguish between different purposes for sexual organs. Since the opposition to homosexual marriage is based on the preference of exactly one of these options over the others, this is a non-trivial question.

How can we determine which of the following statements is correct:

1) The primary purpose of sex is reproduction (this is used to support the idea that only heterosexual marraiges can be sanctioned).

2) The primary purpose of sex is pair-bonding (this could be used to support the idea that a marriage should be recognized between any two insufficiently related adults regardless of sex/gender).

3) The primary purpose of sex is establishing a place in the community (this could be used to support notions such as plural marriage).

E.R. Bourne said...

KyCobb, your point misunderstands what an end or final cause is. To be useful for something is obviously an accidental quality, many things are useful for many things. Usefulness, however, is too vague of a word to use regarding final causality. It is not that the reproductive system is useful for reproduction, rather, it is the nature of the reproductive system that it be ordered toward reproduction.

If we can make an imperfect analogy with artificial things, I may find a brick useful for hammering in nails but that does not mean that a brick is made for the sake of hammering nails in, a hammer is. A brick might accidentally be useful for hammering nails in, but so may a number of other things. Usefulness, then, as a standard is too imprecise.

Joe, your comment about expelling urine illustrates that the denial of final causality ultimately makes one sound very unscientific. Doesn't physical science make a distinction between the excretory system and the reproductive system? In other words, to speak of the final cause of something simply can often be done carelessly if the objects of our study are not properly distinguished.

Also, your critique of Seamus rests upon a misunderstanding of act and potency. Obviously the act does not render one incapable of potentially reproducing in the future, but we are considering the act itself, which is certainly not order to reproduction.

Finally One Brow, your accusation of arbitrariness are, again, fundamentally mistaken. As I said before, even if we grant you premise, immorality still consists in using something contrary to its natural end. So even according to your own standard, heterosexual sex is the only morally licit option since all others violate your self-stated functions. Whether you are, in fact, correct in you assumptions is a different matter.

Singring said...

'but the reason for banning those acts (e.g., sodomy) isn't that they cause pleasure, but that they are contrary to the generative purpose of generative organs.'

In what way exactly is sodomy 'contrary' to the generative purpose of the genitals and how do you know the purpose of the organs?

'You can even use your nose and ears to support your eyeglasses (which, unlike smelling in the case of noses, isn't actually their purpose), but that doesn't mean it's licit to use them in a way that makes them incapable of hearing, smelling, or taking in air.)'

So in other words - it's OK to use the nose in a way contrary to its 'purpose', but its not OK to use a penis contrary to its 'purpose'.

This is getting more ridiculous by the minute.

'You seem to assume that no one can have grounds for believing something unless there is scientific evidence for it. '

Of course not. Anyone can believe whatever they wish to believe, its none of my business. However, the moment a person takes their opinion to the public square and especially if they want to force their view on others via legislation (as you do on this blog and via the Foundation you are part of) then we as the public have every right not only to question those opinions and positions, but to ask for rational, empirical evidence and argument to convince us that these opinions are not just arbitrary opinions but actually (at least to some extent) derived from reality and the impacts they would have on reality.

With regards to the morality of homosexual behaviour, the very very best you have come up with so far to support your claims is, I quote:

'based on phenomenological observation.'

In other words 'I look at it and that's the way it looks to me'. Now guess what that basically amounts to?

Inductive reasoning! (The penis will always be necessary for reproduction because it has always been so in the past!). The very process you yourself decried as 'irrational' not so long ago.

'They're not too good for eating purposes, and they're not too good for hearing or seeing.'

So...do we pass laws to forbid these uses of the nose? Is it immoral fopr a child to suck up milk via its nose. Is that a sin also? Equivalent to having sex with a man? You see, using 'purpose' as a standard for legistaltion and/or morality leads to patently absurd situations.

'noses don't seem to be designed to prop up glasses.'

They don't 'SEEM' to be? Oh, well that settles it then - cue the national ban on glasses. After all wearing glasses 'frustrates' the purpose of the nose.

Singring said...
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Singring said...

'Virtually everyone believes that these organs have the purpose of doing what they seem to be designed to do without ever seeing a scientific study.'

Lovely - just lovely relative language, Martin. Welcome to the world of moral relativists. It seems you weere one all along.

Imagine what you would say if Sam Harris wrote the following:

'Virtually everyone believes that murder is wrong without ever having read the Bible or heard about God.'

You would go ballistic and decry his shoddy, subjective moral standards. Now it turns out you live by exactly the same standards. Thanks for the admission.

From is to ought. Everyone does it - including you.

'Are your beliefs on everything life strictly limited to what science has explicitly proven?'

Science can't prove anything. And yes - my beliefs are based strictly on what science has shown to be the most probable.

'You seem to believe that there are no grounds for believing anything unless you have a finding from a study or something. '

Personally, yes I basically do have that standard for forming my beliefs. But I don't ask or expect others to hold the same standard (though I think it would be beneficial).

What I do object to is having you, Martin, tell me that I have no right to make moral judgements about others because my moral system is subjective only to then be explained that your reason for judging homosexual behaviour as immoral does not require scientific data or any kind of empirical support but is simply based on your impressions and 'what most people believe'.

Reading your most recent post is like reading a moral relativist's manifesto. It's a pure delight. Now if only you would include this moral relativism in your blog posts I would have no reason at all to critique them.

The problem is, you don't. You write as if your opinion was the absolute gold standard for morality and us heathen plebs (especially Sam Harris et al.) are simply wrong, wrong, wrong with our moral relativism.

In this light, your admission to moral relativism is very welcome and I hope it marks a change in your blogging style and future policy advocacy.

One Brow said...

Finally One Brow, your accusation of arbitrariness are, again, fundamentally mistaken.

You may state this as often as you like, E. R. Bourne. Unitl you produce some non-arbitrary method of demonstration, it will remain unconvincing. Unconvincing arguments make for poor public policy.

As I said before, even if we grant you premise, immorality still consists in using something contrary to its natural end.

Homosexual sex is conducive to forming attachments leading toward marriage. Thus, homosexual sex results in using something to promote and enhance its natural end. Using your reasoning, homosexual sex is moral and good.

So even according to your own standard, heterosexual sex is the only morally licit option since all others violate your self-stated functions.

Homosexual sex promotes two of the three functions I mentioned, while have no negative influence on the third. So, it seems to violate none of the three, from what I can tell.

Whether you are, in fact, correct in you assumptions is a different matter.

One that I do not expect to see addressed any time soon.

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

In what way exactly is sodomy 'contrary' to the generative purpose of the genitals and how do you know the purpose of the organs?

So (how shall I put this?) inserting something in a place which is meant to expel things is not contrary to its purpose?

Martin Cothran said...

One Brow:

You may state this as often as you like, E. R. Bourne. Unitl you produce some non-arbitrary method of demonstration, it will remain unconvincing. Unconvincing arguments make for poor public policy.

Why do things known by intuition have do have demonstration? If I have seen acorns all my life, and I have seen them planted and turn into oak trees, and conclude from that that it is the purpose of acorns to grow into oak trees, why do I have to have a demonstration to prove that?

What proof would be more certain than the observation which I have seen all my life?

Martin Cothran said...

For a bunch of people who claim to be scientific, you all seem to have a very low opinion of empirical observation.

E.R. Bourne said...

While I concur wholeheartedly with Martin, I would like to add that I have not addressed your question, One Brow, because my argument was that, given your assumptions, if immorality consists in acting contrary to natural purpose, homosexual acts are still always immoral since they will always fail in at least one regard, which is sufficient.

But to answer your question more directly, the distinction between ends is not arbitrary if we consider things per se. Pair-bonding (whatever that means) and finding a place in community (whatever that means) do not belong to sex as such since they are achievable through means other than sex. This is why, scientifically speaking, sex is considered primarily as the means by which humans reproduce. For human animals, reproduction belongs to sex per se and therefore is prior to any other end, natural or contrived.

In keeping with questioning your fundamental premises instead of assuming them, the implication of this is that there is no such thing as homosexual sex if sex is used univocally. In other words, homosexual acts cannot fulfill any of the natural ends of sex because homosexual acts simply do not constitute sex at all. We may popularly call it sex in order to lend legitimacy to an essentially perverted act, but that does not change the fact that homosexual sex can only be identified as such if we are using sex in the sense of a privation, which ultimately amount to an equivocal use of the word.

KyCobb said...

E.R. wrote,

"If we can make an imperfect analogy with artificial things, I may find a brick useful for hammering in nails but that does not mean that a brick is made for the sake of hammering nails in, a hammer is. A brick might accidentally be useful for hammering nails in, but so may a number of other things. Usefulness, then, as a standard is too imprecise."

It is an imperfect analogy, since unlike a hammer or a brick, no-one made a penis or a vagina, they evolved. And it is the nature of evolution that a structure useful for one thing is co-opted for other uses. Obviously reproduction is right at the top of the list of things they are useful for, since differential reproductive success drives evolution, and a species which does not reproduce will rapidly go extinct. However virtually every structure in the human body has multiple uses.

Singring said...

'Why do things known by intuition have do have demonstration?'

Martin, you must understand that comments like this leave me just absolutely gobsmacked.

It is simply inconceivable to me how someone who routinely ridicules science and scientists about its claims which are based on observation AND repeatable, empirical testing against the hypothesis (the latter two elements are key) and has told those who openly admit to subjective moral standards they have no place to make any moral judgements at all and are not to be taken seriously in that area can possibly, with a straight face and no indication of irony whatsoever can state that he bases his morals on 'intuition'.

Its so bizarre its unbelieveable.

Just two blog articles ago you were telling me I was not the taken seriously on any moral jusgement because my morals were 'nothing but personal opinion', yet now you come out and tell us that you condemn homosexuality based on nothing but your intuition! Its moral schizophrenia! When we do it we can't be taken seriously, when you do it, there's plainly nothing wrong with it...

'So (how shall I put this?) inserting something in a place which is meant to expel things is not contrary to its purpose?'

First off, I don't think this is any such thing as 'teleological purpose', just to be clear. I have been engaging in this debate to show that even assuming that there are such 'purposes', basing any morality on them is absurd.

You want an example?

Earlier, you agreed with Joe that a 'purpose' of the penis was to excrete urine. As you might know, during sex, men especially can't urinate because their urinary tract is closed off by a sphincter muscle.

In other words, sex is contrary to the 'purpose' of urination.

Therefore, in your system of morality derived from 'purposes', all and any sex is immoral.

Let's see how long society lasts with that kind of moral system.

Martin Cothran said...
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Martin Cothran said...

KyCobb,

You assume that because things may have evolved, they therefore could not be governed by a design or a final cause. But these things are hardly inconsistent with evolution.

Plenty of people believe in evolution but think that there is some extrinsic designer involved in the process. This is mostly a Protestant position. You may think there is insufficient proof for this, but it is not strictly logically incoherent to believe it.

You also have people who believe that evolution may have occurred but who believe there is a final cause built in to the process intrinsically. This group mostly consists in Catholic thinkers and a few other stray Aristotelians. This is my position. It is not logically inconsistent either.

So I think the question is whether you have set up a false dichotomy here.

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

Martin, you must understand that comments like this leave me just absolutely gobsmacked.

I know, as a scientistically-minded person, how easily you become emotionally involved in these debates as evidenced by your prolific use of emotive language, and I don't mean to be mean here, but I really don't care about the emotional state you are in when you comment on my posts, and I doubt that many of my other readers care much either.

And, by the way, do you have a study showing that you are actually "gobsmacked," rather than, say, "outraged" or "scandalized"?

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

Sorry, I should not have assumed, knowing your unfamiliarity with philosophical language, that you would understand what the term "intuition" means. You seem to think that I was using the term in the sense it is used in expressions like "women's intuition"--as a sort of human equivalent of animal instinct. I can't think of anything else you could mean by calling intuition "subjective," when it clearly is not.

I suggest reading the entry on "intiution" in the Oxford Guide to Philosophy, which reads, in part:

Originally an alleged direct relation, analogous to visual seeing, between the mind and something abstract and so not accessible to the senses. What are intuited ... may be abstract objects, like numbers or properties, or certain truths regarded as not accessible to investigation through the senses or calculation...

They are perceived directly "in a way that is direct and entirely free from any mediation by the intellect..."

The article points as examples of this, space and time. Do you have some specific scientific proof of space or time as continua? If so, what is it? Or is the belief in space and time "subjective"?

In fact, under your naive scientistic view, I can't even see how geometry is possible, since there as some things that are taken as axiomatic in order for the system to work at all.

I'd bring up logic too--particularly induction--but I'm not sure I want to hear again how induction can be proved by appealing to induction. I am no more enthusiastic about that than I am about hearing how your personal opinions are based on your personal opinions.

Then again, that might be better than hearing about the particular emotion you feel when answering my posts.

Singring said...

Martin, just as you seem to kindly empathize with my emotional state, I empathize with your emotional state standing in front of the pile of shards your moral system has collapsed into these past two days.

Every time you resort to picking at my language or my 'emotions' or my expressions it is akin to someone trying to polish away a bird dropping from a car's windscreen as its chassis is being crushed in a compacter.

'I really don't care about the emotional state you are in when you comment on my posts'

I accept that. It still does not take away from my reaction to someone who told me my moral judgements are null and void because they are based on personal opinion is morally condemning homosexual behaviour based on 'intuition'.

'And, by the way, do you have a study showing that you are actually "gobsmacked," rather than, say, "outraged" or "scandalized"?'

No. But then again as you pointed out so nicely we are talking about emotions here, not beliefs.

I don't care what you base your personal morality on Martin, I really don't. I would care even less if you prefaced your posts on morality and what homosexuals ought to be doing with the disclaimer that your morality is based on 'intuition' and 'what most people believe'. That would be perfectly fine with me.

But you don't. I hope that changes in future, especially when you advocate on policy issues that affect the happiness of thousands if not millions of people. 'Intuition' is not a basis for sound policy-making, I'm sure you agree.

Singring said...

Stop digging Martin. Thsi is how you explained at your 'intuition' earlier:

'Why do things known by intuition have do have demonstration? If I have seen acorns all my life, and I have seen them planted and turn into oak trees, and conclude from that that it is the purpose of acorns to grow into oak trees, why do I have to have a demonstration to prove that?

What proof would be more certain than the observation which I have seen all my life?'

See that? OBSERVATION. Now let's look at your new definition:

'What are intuited ... may be abstract objects, like numbers or properties, or certain truths regarded as not accessible to investigation through the senses or calculation...

They are perceived directly "in a way that is direct and entirely free from any mediation by the intellect..." '

See that? INACCESSIBLE TO THE SENSES? So apparently you weren't quite sure what you were talking about yourself.

But not only that. in your latest effort to back your way out of thsi corner you now have gotten to the point where a policy advocate publicly and eagerly states that he bases his morality on principles that are 'inaccessible to investigation' and 'free from any meditation by the intellect'.

Frankly, that is scary.

But then again, I know you don't care about my emotional state, so let me rephrase that:

It is embarassing that a man who is highly educated and policy advocate admits that his decisions on morality are not only bypassing the intellect but are inaccessible to outside evaluation.

In essence, you are saying 'I'm right because I'm right and homosexuality is wrong because its wrong.'

Pure, utter moral relativism. Welcome to the club. Now all you have to do is be honest about it.

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

I guess you posted that last post before you saw the one I posted right before it, and so you are still confused about the difference between intuition and subjective beliefs.

In any case, along with describing to me your feelings practically every time you post, you also keep talking about policy prescriptions that I advocate on the basis of these teleological beliefs about sex.

Do you have some citation for policy positions I have taken on these grounds?

Or are you just intuiting this?

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

When you get over your latest self-induced emotional crisis about my position on this issue, you might want to actually analyze my position again.

I know this is hard to do without an adequate philosophical vocabulary and knowledge background, but you might want to think about the fact that the purpose of an acorn is no more empirical than the purpose of organs, and therefore the two positions you seem to think are different are exactly the same.

In both cases, certain empirical observations lead to certain non-empirical facts--nature and purpose--via immediate, rather than mediate, inference.

I guess you just didn't think about this long enough. We'll give you another chance to get it right.

Now that you have taken the position that all rational positions must be grounded on empirical proof, maybe you would care to tell us how the statement "All rational positions must be grounded on empirical proof" can be grounded empirically.

And where is that empirical evidence about space and time as continua again? And while your at it, you might want to point out where we can find the empirical proof for the existence numbers and abstract mathematical properties.

Singring said...

Martin, tenptinga s it may be I will not indulge your transparent attempt at changing the subject quite yet.

You also seem to have a poor short-term memory as you again use the word 'proof' in a context that I would never use it.

Just this much:

'In both cases, certain empirical observations lead to certain non-empirical facts--nature and purpose--via immediate, rather than mediate, inference.'

Changing your story again, Martin? This is not what you said. You described quite nicely how you arrive at your 'intuition' that sex organs have a particular purpose. Maybe a different, more pertinent quote will help refresh your memory somewhat:

'In regard to which of alternative options you gave for the purposes of sex, you determine it the same way you determine the purpose of a body part or organ. How do I know a nose is for breathing. Because I look at it, and not only does it for the most part engage in breathing, but its structure is clearly oriented toward doing it well.'

(This is from our earlier Sam Harris discussion)

Now if you can explain to me how you can use that method of to arrive at an 'intuition' that you then define as 'inaccessible to the senses' and 'free from any mediation by the intellect', maybe you can convince me that you are not just making stuff up as you go along.

Until then I will just have to make the latter assumption.

'And where is that empirical evidence about space and time as continua again? And while your at it, you might want to point out where we can find the empirical proof for the existence numbers and abstract mathematical properties.'

Here's an offer, Martin:

I will answer those two challenges if you will finally, finally answer my two questions from the earlier thread:

a) Would you save the girl or the canister of 10,000 four-celled embryos from the burning clinic and how would you derive that decision form your moral code?

b) Do you consider it moral for God to condemn the son for the sin of the father?

Here's your chance - deal?

KyCobb said...

Martin,

"You also have people who believe that evolution may have occurred but who believe there is a final cause built in to the process intrinsically."

You can certainly believe that theologically if you want to, but that's strictly a matter of choice. However even if reproduction is a purpose of our sexual organs, its not the only one.

If the sole purpose of our sexual organs was reproduction, one would expect females to only be sexually receptive when they are most likely to conceive, as is true with most mammals. Instead, human females have no heats or mating seasons, but instead are always receptive even when conception is unlikely. Thus a use or purpose of our sexual organs is to provide pleasure to each other even when conception is unlikely, which facilitates pair-bonding (the male has less reason to stray).

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

I think I've figured out the problem here, which appears to be that you have no clue what the issue is. This is the second time you have accused me of saying inconsistent things, and then you quote me saying things that are entirely consistent.

You don't give any reason that the two are inconsistent. You don't explain why both things that I said are not examples of empirical observations (of what noses and eyes and ears and mouths--and acorns--do leading to certain non-empirical facts (purposes), you just state two quotes and say "see, they're inconsistent.

Tell me why they are different. Both are examples of empirical observations leading to non-empirical conclusions through immediate inference. So what gives.

I have stepped down to the lowest rung on the ladder of philosophical sophistication to explain this to you, and there's no rung left.

If you're just going to feign ignorance of what I'm saying to score debating points, I'm not interested in furthering the discussion.

We always seem to end up at this point where I go to great pains to answer one of the many questions you propound on this blog and when I do you just start throwing up meaningless flak.

Now if you're going to continue to take the position that the two things I said are inconsistent, then explain logically why they are not both examples of empirical observations leading to certain non-empirical facts--nature and purpose--via immediate, rather than mediate, inference.

Don't just assert, give reasons for it. Don't just put up the two quotes, explain why they are inconsistent.

If you don't I have no more time for this and I'm going to force an end to your involvement in this discussion.

I exercise a lot of forbearance on this blog about what people say about me and what I say, but, as I have pointed out, this my own personal sandbox on the web, and I let other people play in it as long as they don't throw sand in my face.

So give me some reasons here or your going in the penalty box.

Martin Cothran said...

KyCobb,

Where did I say reproduction was the only purpose of reproductive organs?

KyCobb said...

Martin,

Where did I say you did?

Martin Cothran said...

KyCobb,

You can certainly believe that theologically if you want to, but that's strictly a matter of choice. However even if reproduction is a purpose of our sexual organs, its not the only one.

If the sole purpose of our sexual organs was reproduction, one would expect females to only be sexually receptive when they are most likely to conceive, as is true with most mammals. Instead, human females have no heats or mating seasons, but instead are always receptive even when conception is unlikely. Thus a use or purpose of our sexual organs is to provide pleasure to each other even when conception is unlikely, which facilitates pair-bonding (the male has less reason to stray).


Was that addressed to me?

Singring said...

'I think I've figured out the problem here, which appears to be that you have no clue what the issue is. '

It is in fact you who has no clue, even after have made it as clear as I possibly could.

Let's do this step by step, just for you, so you don't have to write a third posts that completely misses the point:

Step 1:
You claim that homosexual sex is immoral

Step 2:
You claim that this is so because genitals have a purpose and it is heterosexual sex leading to reproduction

Step 3:
You claim that the method you decide what the purpose of the genitals is and therefore what is and is not moral to do with them is based on the following:

'In regard to which of alternative options you gave for the purposes of sex, you determine it the same way you determine the purpose of a body part or organ. How do I know a nose is for breathing. Because I look at it, and not only does it for the most part engage in breathing, but its structure is clearly oriented toward doing it well.'

Step 4
When pressed to supply any empirical evidence a to a) why your 'looking at something' is sufficient grounds to derive an absolute, 'purpose' for said thing and b) why this 'purpose' is indicative of how the organs should be used as opposed to all the other purposes One Brow and KyCobb have come up with by 'looking at them'), you say this:

'Why do things known by intuition have do have demonstration? If I have seen acorns all my life, and I have seen them planted and turn into oak trees, and conclude from that that it is the purpose of acorns to grow into oak trees, why do I have to have a demonstration to prove that?

What proof would be more certain than the observation which I have seen all my life?'

Which of course is fine and perfectly reasonable - IF it were not used to derive an absolute purpose that you then claim can be the basis for a morality that is not dependent on the IS!

Step 5
I point out the obvious hypocrisy in you having a wholly subjective, relative standard (an 'intuition') for deciding what 'purposes' are while criticizing me and others for their vapid and pointless moral judgements.

Step 6
In your patronizing way you tell me that i don;t know what 'intuition' really means and give a definition of the word:

'What are intuited ... may be abstract objects, like numbers or properties, or certain truths regarded as not accessible to investigation through the senses or calculation...

They are perceived directly "in a way that is direct and entirely free from any mediation by the intellect..."'

If you are deriving your 'intuition' by empirical observation, it can hardly be 'inaccessible to investigation' and 'free from any meditation by the intellect', now can it?

If you are trying to tell me that your intuition just is what it is - an idea that you base your morals on, then YOUR morals are just as subjective as mine!

I mean, Joe Shmoe could 'look' at a penis and 'intuit' that it looks like it would fit nicely into another man's anus.

How on earth would you be able to argue that his intuition is wrong if it is ''inaccessible to investigation' and 'free from any meditation by the intellect'?!

Do you get it now, Martin? You are a moral relativist!

I really don'tknow how to make it any more plain.

Singring said...

Just to make this clear:

'Tell me why they are different. Both are examples of empirical observations leading to non-empirical conclusions through immediate inference. So what gives.'

I don't know where you get this, martin. I never argued they were. In fact, as I hope will finally make it through, have argued that they are the same and have used the two examples you give interchangably to highlight the problem in your position.

Can you give me any quote, paragraph, post where I did?

KyCobb said...

Martin,

The first part was. I had a thought about another use, or purpose if you prefer, and threw that in. Since you apparently believe that human sexual organs have multiple purposes, we have little to disagree about.

Martin Cothran said...

KyCobb,

Okay.

One Brow said...

Responding to martin cothran...
Why do things known by intuition have do have demonstration?

They don't, as long as you don't care about making intuitions contrary to fact. You don't have to demonstrate any sort of arbitrary determination. It's basing public policy on arbitrary determinaitons that I disagree with. If you want to base public policy, and affect the lives of others, you need something more than an arbitrarily derived intuition. The demonstration removes the arbitrariness of the intuition.

... and conclude from that that it is the purpose of acorns to grow into oak trees, why do I have to have a demonstration to prove that?

If you plan on making it illegal to use acorns to feed squirrels, separate boards when you perform karate demonstrations, or any of five dozen other things a human might use an acorn for *because* you claim they have this purpose, you need to demonstrate why this purpose is valid.

What proof would be more certain than the observation which I have seen all my life?

Not that this is relevant, but doyou mean the type of proof that at one time led people to think the earth was flat?

For a bunch of people who claim to be scientific, you all seem to have a very low opinion of empirical observation.

Purpose is not an empirical observation. It is empirical to say that, under certain conditions, acorns often turn into oaks. Many more acorns get eaten by mammals, yet I doubt you would say the purose of acorns is feeding mammals.

In fact, under your naive scientistic view, I can't even see how geometry is possible, since there as some things that are taken as axiomatic in order for the system to work at all.

Geometry is not an empirical discipline, but primarily a formal discipline contructed to create useful approximations to reality.

Martin Cothran said...

One Brow:

It's basing public policy on arbitrary determinaitons that I disagree with.

What public policy are you talking about? You seem to think I am making some public policy argument here. Could you tell me where I have brought up public policy in this discussion?

One Brow said...

Responding to E.R. Bourne:
... I have not addressed your question, One Brow, because my argument was that, given your assumptions, if immorality consists in acting contrary to natural purpose, homosexual acts are still always immoral since they will always fail in at least one regard, which is sufficient.

You have failed to show how any homosexual act is contrary to a natural purose of reproduction. At most, it is not directly supportive of reproduction. You can fail to support something without being contrary to it.

Given that lack, I don't believe you can consistently maintain the position that any use of an organ that is not immediately conducive to its purpose is therefore immoral. In fact, you have already indicated the opposite on this blog. Of course, you are free to believe fifteen distinct, pairwise inconsisent things before breakfast each day. But they make a poor base for public policy.

But to answer your question more directly, the distinction between ends is not arbitrary if we consider things per se. Pair-bonding (whatever that means) and finding a place in community (whatever that means) do not belong to sex as such since they are achievable through means other than sex.

So, since you can achieve reproduction without sex, you would agree that reproduction also does not belong to sex?

This is why, scientifically speaking, sex is considered primarily as the means by which humans reproduce.

You are basing this of some broad-ranging study of the scientific literature? Because it certainly reads like you are simply pulling this from thin air, as a claim seems so obvious no one would bother to argue with it. However, as is typical, things that seem obvious rarely are.

For human animals, reproduction belongs to sex per se and therefore is prior to any other end, natural or contrived.

By your reasoning above, this is not accurate.

In keeping with questioning your fundamental premises instead of assuming them, the implication of this is that there is no such thing as homosexual sex if sex is used univocally.

The descision to elevate univocal causation as preferential in any way to equivocal causation is again an arbitrary determination. Your attempt to redefine words to suit this arbitrary preference is among the cheapest forms or argumentation.

One Brow said...

Whether or not to allow homosexual marriages.

Could you tell me where I have brought up public policy in this discussion?

I don't recall you bringing any public policy positions explicitly into this thread. Does it need to have been explicitly discussed by you in this thread to be a consideration? I inferred that your position on the purpose of sex was guiding your position on the public policy regarding homosexual marriage. Was that inference inaccurate?

E.R. Bourne said...

One Brow, your comments amount to a list of assertions and proclaimed failings on my part without any actual arguments in support of this. You say that homosexual acts are at most not directly supportive of reproduction. What does that even mean? This claim is laughable. No homosexual act, by definition, can result in reproduction. As long as you admit this you should be able to understand the argument being made.

And no, human animals cannot naturally reproduce without sex, and any artificial means is contrary to nature and therefore immoral as well.

If you need a broad range of literature in order to establish that sex is that by which humans reproduce then I am afraid that no further argument is possible. Better to stop trying to argue in a comment box.

And finally, my point about using the word sex univocally was that it is incorrect to do so. I do not know what this has to do with causation. Calling that a cheap form of argumentation is, well, not even a cheap form of argumentation. It is no argument at all.

Martin Cothran said...

One Brow,

I have not made a public policy argument on the basis of my teleological position because the people arguing against the traditional public policy view disagree with that position. When you're making public policy arguments, you make them on the basis of common ground arguments.

I have done that elsewhere on the issue of same sex "marriage."

Martin Cothran said...

One Brow,

To finish that last thought: what I was making the argument for was the moral position having to do with acts that are obviously associated with same sex "marriage" which if any acts are contrary in purpose to one another, they are.

Martin Cothran said...

One Brow,

Not that this is relevant, but do you mean the type of proof that at one time led people to think the earth was flat?

That's not irrelevant at all, and, in fact, it's a pretty good point. But I think it fails because, while the belief that the earth is flat is a scientific position which has since been shown to be false by scientific evidence, the belief that there are natures and purposes is a philosophical belief and not only hasn't be shown false by scientific evidence, but can't be.

If you believe that there is some scientific evidence that has shown this position to be false, I would love to know what it is.

Part of the problem in this whole discussion, as I have pointed out before, is that several people involved in it seem to think it is a scientific position, when, in fact, it is a philosophical position.

To ask for scientific proof of it is committing a category error. It's like saying, "Can you offer some sociological evidence that there is water on Mars?" Or, "I challenge you to produce historical evidence that proves that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the two adjacent sides."

You simply do not need empirical evidence for every position. If you did (as I have also pointed out), then you would need empirical evidence for the position that you need empirical evidence for every position, since it is a position.

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

Thank you for clarifying your position. I think I understand it better on the basis of your post, although I don't understand the following statement:

Which of course is fine and perfectly reasonable - IF it were not used to derive an absolute purpose that you then claim can be the basis for a morality that is not dependent on the IS!

What is "the IS"? If you could clarify that, I would appreciate it.

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

I'm not certain about this, but you seem to I am making an empirical statement in saying that there is final cause (or purpose) that is derived from intuition. You can correct me if I'm wrong.

But I'm not making an empirical statement, I'm making an immediate inference from an empirical observation.

Empirical observation (how things work or "function")==>purpose.

In fact, I don't see how this is any different from the act of inferring a cause from a correlation, which is the only way you can infer a cause. The correlation is not sufficient from an empirical standpoint to justify inferring cause, but we do it anyway.

Empirical observation (of correlation)==>cause.

If you reject my immediate inference from empirical observations about how things work to the fact that they have a purpose, do you also reject the immediate inference from empirical observations about the correlation of events to their cause?

The are both immediate inferences from something empirical to something transcendental (the word "absolute" I think is out of place here). If they are different, perhaps you can tell me how.

And if this inference from function to purpose is subjective, is the inference from correlation to cause subjective too?

Singring said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Singring said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Singring said...

'If you reject my immediate inference from empirical observations about how things work to the fact that they have a purpose, do you also reject the immediate inference from empirical observations about the correlation of events to their cause?'

I don't reject them per se. As I have said before, you can hold any old belief you want to and derive it any old way you want to - you just can't come to the public square and tell others that your way of 'looking at something' and deriving an intuition' from it is any better than anyone else's just on the face of it. You have to actually make additional arguments as to WHY your purpose derived from 'intuition' is a better guide to morality than anyone elses. This should be patently obvious - otherwise everyone could come to the table with their own 'intuition' and could claim it is in fact indicative of the true purpose of things and therefore dictates the moral imperative.

In pother words, I reject the way you bestow importance and validity upon your intuitions and derive moral positions from them and especially how you then critique the morals of others.

'And if this inference from function to purpose is subjective, is the inference from correlation to cause subjective too?'

It is not the inference from function that is subjective, it is the choice of one purpose over another as a moral guideline that is. I will illustrate this in point 2 below.

Singring said...

If I may elaborate:

We're discussing human sexuality. Now you have claimed that your 'intuition' is that a 'purpose' of the genitalia is to aid in reproduction. Fine. That would be an 'intuition' that can be derived from observation and even scientific study. (Why you then use the term 'intuition' as you define it is beyond me, as your definition excludes it from empiricism and even reasoning). You might then based on this 'intuition' say (as you do) that the moral use of genitalia is for reproduction exclusively. This is problematic in a number of ways, however:

a) I fail to see how you can derive an absolute moral value (homsexual activity is always morally wrong) from an empirical correlation (reproduction appears to involve the genitalia in the majority of cases).

b) It is a completely relative standard for making moral decisions - just as mine is. However, I admit that I am a moral relativist, while you do not and instead tell those who are that their judgements are not to be taken seriously in any way. Well, in this case, the same would go for you. Why? Let's consider our example. Let's say I 'look' at the genitalia and how they are used by humans and I see that the use of geniatlia far more often leads to generating pleasure in humans than it does to reproduction (for every intercourse a very small percentage results in offspirng and this number sinks even lower if you include homosexual intercourse and masturbation). I therefore derive the 'intuition' that the genitals are for generating pleasure and my moral standard is therefore 'any use of the genitalia that entails pleasure is moral'. Not only is my moral value derived by the same method you use - it is based on an even stronger correlation.

How on earth are you now going to argue that your moral standard in this case is preferrable to mine?

3.) If you derive your moral code from an 'intuition' that is based on emprirical observation, you are deriving an 'ought' from an 'is'. (It is moral to use the genitalia for reproduction because they have been and are being used for reproduction so far). This is inconsistent with your criticism of Sam Harris, whom you told that deriving an 'ought' from an 'is' is an impossibility.

Singring said...

So, in summary, you are left with two options:

a) Admit that your standard for generating morals is as arbitrary and subjective as that of any other moral relitivist suach as myself and Sam Harris and engage in a discussiona s to which model for deriving morals is most useful and beneficial for society.

b) Simply remain defiant in the face of reality and claim that you are right and that's that.

You decide.

'The are both immediate inferences from something empirical to something transcendental (the word "absolute" I think is out of place here).'

So you are saying that your moral value 'homosexuality is wrong' is transcendent, but relative (i.e. in some instances it is right to have homosexual intercourse). This would again put you in category a) above.

'When you're making public policy arguments, you make them on the basis of common ground arguments.'

Can you name one single common ground argument that would favour opposing gay marriage?

Singring said...

P.S.:

My apologies if your mailbox has been flooded with posts, Martin - that was not my intention. There was a problem with saving my comments once again, possible due to the length of the post.

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

Yeah. I always save the text before I press the submit button. I recommend everyone else do that too.

One Brow said...

One Brow, your comments amount to a list of assertions and proclaimed failings on my part without any actual arguments in support of this.

E.R. Bourne, when the failing under discussion is the failure to produce a supporting argument, I am not aware of any evidencde that can be provided which goes beyond essentially saying you have provided no evidence. When you provide evidence that homosexual activities are indeed contrary to reproduction (that is, that they somehow prevent or reduce reproduction), I will happily consider that evidence on its merits.

You say that homosexual acts are at most not directly supportive of reproduction. What does that even mean?

That they can be indirectly supportive. For example, when homosexual partners, which partenrship is encouraged adn enhanced by a monogamous sexual relationship, raise abandoned/orphaned children, donate to support civic entities, pay school taxes, etc.

As long as you admit this you should be able to understand the argument being made.

My understanding of the issue is sufficent to the point that, when I discuss the flaws in your position, you seem to produce conterfactual, arbitrary, and/or irrelevant declarations, rather than directly address the points.

One Brow said...

And no, human animals cannot naturally reproduce without sex,

My inference is that Martin Cothran wishes to not have graphic details in his blog comments, so I will not include any in this comment. Feel free to send me an email or make a blog comment if your knowledge, imagination, and reasearch skills are insufficient to the task of learning a couple of natural ways that insemination can occur without sex.

and any artificial means is contrary to nature and therefore immoral as well.

Now you are departing from natural law, as least the version presented on this blog. Using artifical insemination to remove a privation from an inability to conceive is no more immoral than using eyeglasses to see, as long as any developed embryos are properly cared for.

And finally, my point about using the word sex univocally was that it is incorrect to do so.

From the nature of this discussion, I presumed you meant the univocal causal chain of humans creating more humans via sex, adn that the nature of this being univocal made it superior somehow to equivocal chains. If you intended some other meaning of univocal, I have no idea what that could be. If that is what you meant, it is completely arbitrary and cheap argumentation.

1:46 PM

One Brow said...

Martin,

I ws confused upon what you meant by the paragraph below. Could you clarify it, please?

To finish that last thought: what I was making the argument for was the moral position having to do with acts that are obviously associated with same sex "marriage" which if any acts are contrary in purpose to one another, they are.

One Brow said...

... the belief that there are natures and purposes is a philosophical belief and not only hasn't be shown false by scientific evidence, but can't be.

I agree completely with you here. This type of philosophical position can never be refuted by scientific evidence (and therefore, never be supported by it, either). In fact, this is one of the reasons I have been referring to the positions on the purpose of genetalia as being arbitrary: we don't have any non-arbitrary means of verifying such purposes, nor of choosing between two or more claims on what a purposes should be. Since different claims lead to different moral positions, claiming that the result of an arbitrary, relative choice leads to different non-arbitrary, absolute moralities is absurd.

Martin Cothran said...

One Brow,

You seem to assume that if something is a philosophical position it is therefore arbitrary. On what grounds do you say that?

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

You have to actually make additional arguments as to WHY your purpose derived from 'intuition' is a better guide to morality than anyone elses.

I did. I pointed out that the only way to even have a moral position is to assume there is such a thing as man-as-he-is and that there is such a thing as man-as-he-would-be-if-he-achieved-his-telos, and the morality consists of an account of how to get from the former to the latter.

That is simply the only coherent account of the science of "should". The words "should" or "ought" simply don't make any sense outside of this account of things.

Your choice is to either show me an account that makes sense of these concepts or to reject this account. But if you do the second and not the first, then you can't talk about morality in any coherent way.

And an account of morality that invokes Singring's "personal opinion" is not a coherent account of morality.

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

In pother words, I reject the way you bestow importance and validity upon your intuitions and derive moral positions from them and especially how you then critique the morals of others.

I'm not critiquing the morals of others; I'm saying that the positions called moral positions are not moral positions since they can give no coherent account of going from an "is" to an "ought."

I'm not saying that its a bad moral theory; I'm saying that it's not a moral theory at all.

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

I fail to see how you can derive an absolute moral value (homsexual activity is always morally wrong) from an empirical correlation (reproduction appears to involve the genitalia in the majority of cases).

I'm not deriving it from an "empirical correlation" I'm deriving the moral position from an account of men-they-are and men-as-they-ought-to-be. I'm saying that men are meant to be exclusively heterosexual and insofar as they are not, they are not men-as-they-ought-to-be.

Now you are arguing against my notion (not my notion, but the notion common to almost all thinkers before the modern period) that there can be such a thing as "men-as-they-ought-to-be," but if you do then you have no coherent account of morality.

But once you accept that there can be men-as-they-ought-to-be, and you determine that part of their telos is to be heterosexual (I have elsewhere argued that men and women are "meant" for each other), then the account makes perfect sense.

I think you better arguments are against those prior positions, not this general one.

Singring said...

'I pointed out that the only way to even have a moral position is to assume there is such a thing as man-as-he-is and that there is such a thing as man-as-he-would-be-if-he-achieved-his-telos'

Fine. But how do YOU know what the telos of a man is any better than I do? This is again just a game of semantics. You are pushing back your assertion one step, but it is still an assertion, no more. Your idea of 'telos' seems to be (correct me if I'm wrong) is that a man should only do things and use things in a way consistent with their natural purpose. We have already shown that your way of determining 'purpose' is arbitrary, so your way of 'telos' is arbitrary by proxy. All you are doing now is trying to polish over the nasty dent in your argument.

The only way you have to back up your idea of 'telos' is to say 'I intuited it. I made it up.' - just the same as I. Using your terminology, my position is that a man's 'telos' is to act in a way that minimizes harm to society. That's an arbitrary choice. But how is it any more arbitrary than your idea of 'telos'???

I would really love you to answer the moral questions I posed to you earlier about the child and the embryos and how you would derive it from your 'telos'. It is very simple to see how I would arrive at a moral decision in that instance (I have already laid out how I would do so based on empirical evidence and my 'harm standard'), but I really can't see how you would do that.

You are plucking a standard for morality out of thin air (the telos of a man), then arbitrarily assign a purpose to things (the genitalia are for reproduction) and then tell me that if I don't adhere to your made-up morality I have no right and no place to make any moral judgements at all. It is bizarre, to say the least.

If you want to honestly demonstrate how your method of deriving a telos and a purpose is superior to mine, let's go back to my previous post and adress an issue you conveniently ignore: how do you know that the genitalia are for reproduction and not for generating pleasure? My correlation is stronger, don't forget.

Singring said...

'And an account of morality that invokes Singring's "personal opinion" is not a coherent account of morality.'

As opposed to what? Martin Cothran's 'intuition' about the 'purpose' of the penis that then dictates the 'telos' of man?

Come on...how stupid do you think your readers are?

'I'm saying that the positions called moral positions are not moral positions since they can give no coherent account of going from an "is" to an "ought."

I'm not saying that its a bad moral theory; I'm saying that it's not a moral theory at all.'

1.) YOU are deriving an 'ought' from an 'is' also, as I have already explained earlier. You say 'the genitalia's purpose is to aid in reproduction' based on what? Your observation of the IS.

2.) I have clearly laid out how I would derive a moral decision in the case of the child in the burning building. You have so far neglected to do so. I would submit that that is not really indicative of your moral system being valid and useful while mine is supposedly not.

If you want to show me how my moral system is 'not a moral system at all', how about you point out particularly what stage of my moral reasoning process you object to, on what grounds and how YOU would decide in that situation based on your moral system. Good luck with that.

'I'm saying that men are meant to be exclusively heterosexual and insofar as they are not, they are not men-as-they-ought-to-be.'

How do you know how a man 'ought to be', Martin? Did it come to you in a dream? Did you 'intuit' free from cognitive reasoning? Why should anyone on earth listen to what you come up with as the 'way men ought to be'? Why should your personal opinion on what men 'ought to be like' be any more valid than mine? This is what I meant when I asked for additional arguments! I did not mean 'make more stuff up'. We do not base law and policy on what one person thinks men 'ought to be like' and thank goodness for that.

First you tell us you know the purpose of things. When that is shown to be an arbitrary and subjective standard, you just change the story and now you claim you know what men 'ought to be like'. Its a philosophical shell-game par excellence.

'But once you accept that there can be men-as-they-ought-to-be, and you determine that part of their telos is to be heterosexual (I have elsewhere argued that men and women are "meant" for each other), then the account makes perfect sense.'

The account is internally consistent, I agree. But it is completely arbitrary in relation to the external world.

How do YOU know what the 'telos' of a man is? How do you know your idea of 'telos' is any better or more valid than the 'telos' a gay man comes up with?

One Brow said...

Martin,

I don't think every possible philosophical position is arbitrary by virtue of being a philosophical position. However, at its heart philosophy is a formal system, and formal systems need starting positions upon which to work their calculus, which positions, by the very nature of a formal system, do not come from within that system. Such positions are commonly chosen arbitrarily, under the guise they are somehow "obvious" or something similar.

If you want to convincingly claim any individual assignation of purpose id not arbitrary, you need to find a non-arbitrary method of making that assignment.

Martin Cothran said...

One Brow,

So you would classify geometry as arbitrary?

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

If I say that the purpose of the eye is to see, would you call that arbitrary?

Singring said...

'If I say that the purpose of the eye is to see, would you call that arbitrary?'

That depends on how you define the word 'purpose'. If you use 'purpose' in the sense that the main biological function the eye provides is 'to see' (a very vague term anyway in my opinion), then no - that statement would not be arbitrary, it would be derived from observable reality and could be verified by scientific reasearch.

If you use the word 'purpose' in the sense that the only morally right purpose an eye can be used for is 'to see', then yes, your statement is completely arbitrary and also very vague and basically useless.

For example: Even if, for the sake of argument, I were to accept that the sole 'purpose' of the eye in the latter sense is to see - how would that lead to an 'ought'? In other words, how would that inform any moral decision?

I can 'see' a tree - I can 'see' a pornographic film. I'm quite sure you belive the latter would be immoral, the former not. But how would you decide that? It would have to be by some arbitrary standard.

This is exactly what you are doing regarding the 'purpose' of the genitals. Firstly, your derivation of the 'purpose' of the genitals based on observation and empirical correlation is arbitrary - because the genitals have multiple purposes (in the case of the penis urination, extrection of semen) and their use may have even more purposes (pair-bonding is an example OneBrow has given and I have given the example that the correlation of genital use and pleasure derivation is much stronger than that of genital use and procreation).

Secondly, your ranking of these purposes is arbitrary and not even supported by the data. I would have a stronger case based on your very own criteria of morality for arguing that the moral rule 'any use of the genitals to derive pleasure is moral' is superior to your rule that says they are only to be used for heterosexual activity! This is aptly illustrated by the fact that I have directly challeneged you to give any argument why the reverse should be true and you have failed to do so.

Singring said...

Martin, you are mistaking an internally consistent moral system (though I would argue that it does not even fulfil that criterium) for an objective and absolutely valid moral system.

It is not. It is rooted in relative, arbitrary decisions - just as mine is (only I have the guts and intellectual integrity to admit it).

This would be wonderfully illustarted if you had answered regarding the moral scenario I have laid out (girl and embryos in burning fertility clinic), but for some reason you seem to just not want to go there.

As it stands, I have clearly demonstrated and laid out my method of arriving at what I would call a 'moral' decision in that scenario and you have not even begun to do so. I doubt that reflects positively on the 'clarity' of your moral system that you have boldly claimed to make 'perfect sense'.

One Brow said...

Martin,

Geometry, in and of itself, has no components to be referred to as arbitrary. It's a general idea to study things in terms of physical placement.

Now, you can add all manner of arbitrary components to geometry. For example, Euclidean geometry adds in some 20+ axioms, whiel projective, Riemannian and Lobachevsian geometries use a slightly different list. We can arbitrarily choose which axioms we do or do not want to include in the geometry we are creating.

Some of these geometries will be more useful than others, but O don't think you want to make a connection between usefulness and absolute truth. Am I mistaken?

Martin Cothran said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Martin Cothran said...

One Brow,

It sounds like you are saying that axioms are not essential to geometry. Is that what you are saying?

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

the genitals have multiple purposes

I'm trying to square this remark with your earlier assertion that things don't have purposes at all. Maybe you could help me.

Singring said...

'I'm trying to square this remark with your earlier assertion that things don't have purposes at all. Maybe you could help me.'

Martin, I really am losing the impression that you are interested in any kind of rational or honest debate when you try picking at my posts in such a completely disingenuous fashion while completely ignoring their drive.

As I have expresed very early on in this discussion, I don't think there is any such thing as a teleological purpose (though I have never asserted that there are no purposes, please don't misrepresent me, Martin), especially not one that will allow us to derive morals. For example this remark I made in the Sam Harris thread.

'...the 'frustration of natural purpose' canot be a yardstick of morality in this case (never mind the fact that a 'natural purpose' is a somewhat arbitrarily chosen criterion and there is no reason to grant it any authority in my opinion).'

Now either you did not read that or chose to deliberatly misrepresent my position once again.

The reason why I am now using this word rather frequently and in this context is because I am going to gerat pains to use your terminology (becuase you seem so emphatuated with it) and because the moment I stray from it you will snarkily remark on how I am not getting your positions right. I just can't win, can I?

In the case you cite, I was arguing a HYPOTHETICAL, which is abundantly clear when the quote is seen in context (which you omit, naturally). Take a look:

'IF you use the word 'purpose' in the sense that the only morally right purpose an eye can be used for is 'to see', then yes, your statement is completely arbitrary and also very vague and basically useless.'

Was then followed by:

'This is exactly what you are doing regarding the 'purpose' of the genitals. Firstly, your derivation of the 'purpose' of the genitals based on observation and empirical correlation is arbitrary - because the genitals have multiple purposes (in the case of the penis urination, extrection of semen) and their use may have even more purposes (pair-bonding is an example OneBrow has given and I have given the example that the correlation of genital use and pleasure derivation is much stronger than that of genital use and procreation).'

See those words an that punctuation, Martin? 'IF' and 'purpose'? I then don't use the apostrophes the next time I use the word 'purpose' (assuming that you would understand the context) and you pretend as if I'm being inconsistent.

Now let's see which of the points in my recent post you have responded to: None.

You're good at playing circus games, Martin, but very poor on argumentation.

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

I'll accept your professed reason for using the term, but if you were merely trying to use it as I was using it in the context of my argument it would be helpful if you actually articulated what I was arguing.

As it is, you mischaracterized my argument. I never said I thought that reproduction was the only purpose of the genitals. In fact, I specified this in an exchange with One Brow. I maintain it is the primary purpose, not the only purpose.

Singring said...

'I maintain it is the primary purpose, not the only purpose.'

I understand that. My point in this regard was the following:

1.) How do you decide which is the 'primary' purpose when you are presented with multiple options? It can't be correlation - I have given an example of a 'purpose' that would trump reproduction or heterosexual activity (pleasure).

2.) If you are able to give a cogent line of reasoning for how you choose one purpose over another as being 'primary', how does that then allow you to derive a 'transcendent' moral value or rule from this and not the other purposes?

For example: Let's say reproduction actually is the 'primary purpose' of the genitals. A secondary purpose may still be the generation of pleasure. On what basis do you then decide that it is only and excludively moral to use the genitals in accordance with the 'primary purpose' but not any of the other purposes?

How do you do it?

One Brow said...

It sounds like you are saying that axioms are not essential to geometry. Is that what you are saying?

Euclidean geometry has axioms. Without those axioms (or some equialent set) it is not Euclidean geometry. If you are looking to perform calculations over a flat surface, you can use the assumptions (aka axioms) of Euclidean geometry to make calculations.

Lobachevskian geometry has axioms. Without those axioms (or some equialent set) it is not Lobachevskian geometry. If you are looking to perform calculations over negatively curved space, such as in a gravity well, you can use the assumptions (aka axioms) of Lobachevskian geometry to make calculations.

Riemannian geometry has axioms. Without those axioms (or some equialent set) it is not Riemannian geometry. If you are looking to perform calculations over positively curved space, such as the surface of a sphere, you can use the assumptions (aka axioms) of Riemannian geometry to make calculations.

If you use the assumptions of Riemannian geometry, then teh calcuations will not match Lobachevskian nor Euclidean geometry (and the same is true all the ways around). They present fundamentally incompatible descriptions of the world.

I could (and have) add to the list of geometries above.

There are no axioms of "geometry", per se. There are axioms for each type of geometry, and we choose which axioms we need in a given situation to make the calculations we need to perform. We create the geometry we need to use.

Similarly, like any other philosophical contruction of morality, natural law uses arbitrary decisions chosen to make its determinations. One such example is the purpose of various organs.

Martin Cothran said...

KyCobb,

So geometrical axioms (regardless of the particular kind of geometry) are arbitrary?

One Brow said...

Martin,

I'm not KyCobb, but I assume that was addressed to me.

Geometric axioms, like purposes in natural law, are chosen to achieve the results we want to see. In the sense that we guide our choice by the desired result, the choice is deliberate, which I suppose means not arbitrary, as least in the sense of not haphazard. However, since we do not choose them from some natural necessity, but only so we can see the results we need, they are indeed arbitrary in the sense that they are chosen for convenience, not the internal sturcture of geometry. Choose another set of axioms, you get a different geometry. Choose another set of purposes, you get a different morality from natural law.