Відео

precisely what it is, which is why they need to use abstract concepts to come up with these "rules" and then unjustifiably deem it as real ethics.

its just long-winded, eloquent sounding, abstract rules made for their own sake... or in this case made for the sake of reinforcing preconceived religious beliefs about sex retroactively... with no real reference to actual pragmatic ethics

i read it, and most of the objections were strawmans of the natural law position, incredulity fallacy, and false analogies.

Foremost, thank you for reading, but I still believe that the natural law described by Feser only works within a very specific theological-philosophical paradigm. And that paradigm, I admit, may well be true. Who knows? But outside it, no one will take Feser seriously. For me, teleology is still only a necessary and not a sufficient condition for natural law.@@eapooda

I see it that way too. Deviation from form (frustration) is dogmatically associated with moral evil (harm). But there is no logically necessary link between the two. It is simply postulated (since it cannot be further substantiated) that frustration always entails harm. To be fair, ethical theories mostly have to deal with similar fundamental problems. A very persuasive ethics, in my humble opinion, I have outlined here: spirit-salamander.blogspot.com/2023/05/completing-kants-ethical-approach.html

well George is correct. theres no actual pragmatic harm with what he refers to as "frustration", thus his whole proposition of these being legitimate ethics falls on its face. It's just fancy sounding abstract rules for the sake of rules.

well said. re the positive vs negative counterexample, how about not saving a baby on train tracks? almost everyone would agree that doing nothing would be wrong, yet it would be a negative action. so i am curious how this system accounts for that. but it's pointless because i am convinced that this system is merely a grandoise justification to reach a pre-selected conclusion.

@@aisthpaoitht to your last point, thats precisely what it is. Its the only practical reason why anyone would desperately settle for such bizarre abstract rule-making as a theory of ethics.

yep. it clearly points out the stupidity in this whole framework. There's nothing actually pragmatically WRONG with "misusing" something for some other purpose other than what it was "meant for", and theres no actual clear unarbitrary distinction between "Other than" and "contrary to"

Can’t misuse what you don’t use.

Did you not listen to the first 30 minutes? He defines "perversion of the faculty" so as to exclude *disuse*; it only includes *contrary use*

@@awelotta well isn't that convenient. it's almost like the entire system is made up to justify a pre-selected conclusion...

@@aisthpaoitht precisely what it is. its all abstract rule-making thats just guised in this eloquent sounding framework. and probably done to retroactively fit in what they already want to believe is immoral, even though this has no bearing on real pragmatic ethics

Wow thanks!

having just looked up edward freser with no context and not know what he does and what this is about, these timestamp labels are really funny

under natural law theory the "is" is identical to the "ought" much like how when you get to the first cause of the universe "existence" becomes equivalent to "essence"

@@MZONE991 yes, thank you for putting it so clearly. I just don’t think that can be accomplished by fiat. The “is/ought” problem survives natural law attempts to dissolve it. Or so it seems to me.

@@friendlybanjoatheist5464 but if the "is" is identical to the "ought" then it makes no sense to say that natural law derives an ought from an is

@@MZONE991 Yes. And to claim that it really is that way is to beg the question. Please tell me how “stealing is the taking of the property of another without their consent” is “identical“ to “one ought not steal.”

@@friendlybanjoatheist5464 if you claim it then I agree it is begging the question, similarly if you only claim that God has to be simple without proving it you are begging the question however you can supplement it with Thomistic-Aristotelian ideas that things are oriented towards perfection and a position where full potential is reached

Pleasure is a subordinated end to that of procreation-which is really the ultimate end of sex. Take a comparison that I got from his book, The Last Superstition. Why do you get pleasure from eating (especially when really hungry)? Well, the pleasure is your mind and body’s subordinated calling for you to fulfill the natural end of getting nutrients in. Likewise, pleasure in sex is the way your body and mind calls you to fulfill the natural end of procreation. Merely eating for pleasure is obviously bad because it frustrates the primary natural end of eating (which is to get nutrients in), likewise, merely having sex for pleasure is bad because it frustrates the natural end of sex (which is procreation). But if pleasure complements the natural end of getting nutrients in or procreation then it’s perfectly normal. It isn’t wrong to have sex merely for procreation and neither is it wrong to eat merely for nutrients because these things are the primary natural ends of its distinctive functions. I hope I explained it well enough. I’m not a philosopher but I’m learning from intellectual giants for sure. God bless!

You can have sex for pleasure, it’s just immoral to deny the other purposes of sex such as by using contraception

@@mrepix8287 why?

@@aisthpaoitht no good reason, just like theres no good reason to say why eating candy is simply evil even though it doesn't nourish you

We are expected to reproduce because Jesus called us to populate Heaven with His children so they might know His love. It is an act of charity and justice to give children the opportunity to know and to love God. It's up to the parents to teach them how and do everything in their power to guide their kids to Heaven. If the kids end up in Hell, it would be because they or their parents exercised their God-given freewill to make the wrong decisions. It's a Modernist worldview, not a Catholic one, that would say it's better to avoid life or to kill it than to run the risk of them going to Hell.

Evidently he believes that his children could only end up in Hell if they deserve it.

it really is just a fancy, nuanced Devine command theory view of ethics; don't masturbate, etc, because "nature" says so, instead of God.

Woosh

@@Unclenate1000 It's nowhere near Divine Command Theory as you can determine the natural end of most things without making direct reference to God. It also escapes the is/ought problem you're trying to imply, we don't have to follow it because "nature" says so. We have to follow it because reason and will also have teleology of their own. Reason determines what is good by determining the nature of things. The purpose of the will is to choose the good that reason determined rather than go contrary to it. Being contrary to nature isn't "disobeying a command" it's stating something like 2+2=5.

Wrong

Hmm... yes. But it's not such a bad thing to restate traditional beliefs in neutral terms. I'm thinking that it's like, axiomitization in mathematics.

Then don't have sex.

Well...it wouldn't be sexual would it? A celibate homophilic? relationship would probably be ok. If you were actually celibate. Seems like a risk

Yes

No because you have emotional faculties as well. Romantic and sexual desires have an end as well. Sexual desire is ordered towards getting us to engage in sexual activity that results in reproduction. Romantic feelings are ordered towards getting men and women to stay together and take care of children. Thus willfully directing your romantic and sexual faculties towards someone of the same sex is contrary to the purpose of sexual and romantic feelings and is therefore immoral on natural law theory.

@@MattNorth9811 homosexuals can be friends lol any relationship without sex or lust is just a friendship or fellowship no matter how strong it is

@@MZONE991 Friends yes. It just can't be romantic or sexual, on natural law theory.

Not according to them, for whatever, vague abstract reason

Nah it’s called natural law dude.

this is as elegant and intellectual as their philosophy can get with this absurd viewpoint

@@Unclenate1000 wow. Sick rebuttal. I need to rethink my entire religion now. Calling it absurd, why didn't I think of that?!

and his rebuttal of the counterarguments like the ones i noted fails horribly. There's no reason why contraception, masturbation and sodomy can't be interpreted as using the sexual faculty simply for a different purpose as opposed to "frustrating" and "going against" the primary end. It's all just word play.

This is a silly straw-man argument. Can you find a natural law theorist who would actually say these things?

You would still be eating the sweets. I think a better analogy would be putting food in your mouth, chewing, but never swallowing. As long as you eat the sweets I don't see how it's not nourishment? Also doing a handstand or temporarily walking on your hands doesn't quite hold up but I see your point. My rebuttal would be part of having a body is developing strength and coordination, both of those activities contributes to that. I don't think a handstand would qualify as sinning. Finally I think you're getting the order backwards. Good luck on your journey for truth.

@@veritawesome That is not the point, to the contraty, if there really where natural law theorist who would say these things his point would have less merit.

@@markbirmingham6011 What about chewing gum?

Your myth endorses rape,incest,genocide,infanticide,slavery and murder. It's a morally bankrupted myth, that is evil by any standards. Uts not even original, the jesus character is stolen from older myths.

Is it really surprising? Even on Dr. Feser's blog, which I'm sure you frequent, people regularly parade their ignorance.

​@@paradoxo9111 If I were to walk up to Feser and ask him "Why arent' you overwhelmingly depressed, since you believe in Hell?" and "How can you call a deity that allows something so boundlessly horrible as Hell to exist praiseworthy rather than a monster" how do you think he'd respond? And what if someone said "Stealing is wrong because it' hurts people and society, not because it's 'against teleology'".

@@michaelflores9220 For some reason, when I came onto this video to respond, the system wouldn't show me one of your responses. According to my notifications, you said: _Nothing to do with religion?_ _His teleological arguments_ _are about what things are "for",_ _["for"] means "[Designed by] a_ _mind for a goal', IE God, and_ _God=[a] religious concept,_ _therefore his case is 100%_ _religious._ But that text is nowhere to be found on the thread anymore. I'm hoping it's not appearing because you were wise enough to delete that ridiculous argument. But in light of the other comments that I'll address shortly, I'll make no assumptions. Here are your mistakes in order: 1. Possible etymological red herrings aside, saying "X has a final cause (or telos)" is not the same as "X has a purpose." The former statement means that there is something about X such that it tends towards some effect or range of effects. The latter says that X tends towards some effect because somebody set it up that way. Clearly, the former statement doesn't assume that an intelligent designer endowed X with some purpose precisely because it is silent about "where this final cause comes from," and hence allows us to offer any reasonable explanation we please. This wouldn't need to be spelled out if you kept in mind that: (a) Feser is a Thomist, and therefore an Aristotelian, and (b) Aristotle believed in teleology, but saw it as an innate feature that didn't need an explanation, and therefore didn't appeal to it to prove that God exists. The only way to equate teleology with purpose is to show that the only way for something to tend towards any kind of behavior or effect is for some intelligent designer to have endowed it with purpose. And in that case, you'll made a good case that God exists, for this kind of regularity is present on all levels of the universe. Consequently, as can be seen, talk of purposes is a special case of talk of final causality, much in the same way that all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. I.e., "squares are a special case of rectangles." 2. The argument made in this video doesn't hinge on saying "X has a purpose." It will suffice to hold that: (a) Human nature includes a hierarchy of final causes, and (b) These final causes define what is good for us. If we accept these, we do not assume that God is somehow behind human nature. But we nevertheless arrive at: (c) If we want what is good for us, we will live in accordance with our final causes. The rest of the argument will get off just fine, at least if we accept what should be relatively non-controversial claims, such as: (d) The telos of sex is reproduction, and perhaps: (e) Stable families are the best way for furthering the end of reproduction. 3. "God" is not "a religious concept," unless your notion of "religion" is so broad as to be innocuous. You ought to define your term. Deism is not usually considered a religion, but deists believe that God exists, and for a host of different reasons, none of which amounts to "Because my holy book says that He does." Of course, if "God" is "a religious concept," it also follows that the Declaration of Independence is a religious document (our "Creator," obviously, means "God"), but nobody wants to say *that,* either. So the idea of "God" isn't just something from the domain of ignorant goat-herders. So, even if the argument amounts to "What we know implies that God intends for us to live this way, so this is how we should live," it doesn't amount to a religious argument. But, as seen above, the argument doesn't amount to anything like that. In an independent comment, you complained that Dr. Feser was using "nature" as a substitution word for "God." That's complete nonsense. The idea of "nature" that philosophers have in mind is better rendered as "essence," and in this context, it shouldn't be too hard to conclude that he was using "nature" to talk about "human nature." In other words, those first few minutes where he talks about "nature," he is talking about our essence as a type of rational animal. That's a far cry from talking about God euphemistically, even if we deny that humans have a nature, or say that he's wrong to construe it in Aristotelian terms. Now, in the response that I *can* see on this video, you said: _ If I were to walk up to Feser_ _and ask him "Why arent' you_ _overwhelmingly depressed,_ _since you believe in Hell?" and_ _"How can you call a deity that_ _allows something so_ _boundlessly horrible as Hell to_ _exist praiseworthy rather than_ _a monster" how do you think_ _he'd respond? And what if_ _someone said "Stealing is_ _wrong because it' hurts people_ _and society, not because it's_ _'against teleology'"._ That you raised this question to several other people without changing the wording suggests that your real problems lie here. But in this context, the first two points are obvious red herrings. Your third is just plain embarrassing. To say that theft is wrong " because it hurts people and society" is *not* to object to teleology per se. For one thing, the very suggestion that sexual intercourse, something that involves more than one individual, has a telos should've steered you clear of assuming that teleology is somehow always about individuals. It includes the individual, his family, his tribe, up the levels of social organization, precisely because humans are social animals; we need to cooperate with others to attain our good. For another, justice is one of our final causes, and to steal from others is always contrary to their due. To hurt others who have done nothing wrong is contrary to justice. We find, then, that your objection is not doing the hard work, here; a brute assertion of utilitarian ethics is doing the heavy lifting. Your objection only makes sense insofar as it begs the question against natural law theory and scholastic metaphysics. Coming back to the first two points: 1. I'm not terribly depressed about Hell because: (a) God has given us a way to keep out of Hell, and therefore I have hope for myself and others, (b) While I recognize that "many souls" will finally go there, I also recognize that: º It's not on me to if they reject salvation, which is easy to attain º It was their free decision to reject mercy and instead receive justice (c) God is infinitely better than anything else, and the thought of being able to see him as he is is a source of joy. 2. "Hell" is ambiguous with regards to *why* its torments are everlasting, but among the suggested explanations, I favor two: (a) Those who are down there continue to unrepentently sin, and so must continue to be punished for these new sins. (b) The sins of this life, insofar as they are against an infinite God, are infinitely grave, and so merit an infinite punishment. In both of these explanations, God acts justly. To say that God is "a monster" because he carries out his justice is ludicrous emotion-mongering of the worst kind, for it ignores the gravity of our offenses.

@@paradoxo9111 I know you wrote this a while ago but that was genuinely an amazing reply to him I hope you keep on your journey in scholastic philosophy

Your "metaphysical thesis" are based on the antiquated ravings of ancient Greek philosophers who believed in the five elements of nature and a geocentric universe. Maybe that should give you a clue why no one takes you seriously anymore?

Oooh, a stinging philosophical rebuttal.

epic and basedpilled. I tip my fedora to ye kind sir!

Wow. Such oompf. Such profound. I need to rethink my entire religion

nailed it, most especially with pointing out their contradiction with contraception and NFP

One word refutes Catholicism .....DESIRE . I assume that you believe this because people have the desire for sex wihich you think justifies gratuitous sexual activity .. Well most people desire other feeling too but are not justified for the mere disregard that arises from those feelings . This why Murder is wrong as an expression of hatred . So I suppose according to your understanding , we shouldn't punish people who murder others because they are only acting out their desire

Meta-character “there is no free will” (when you disconsider free will as a limited free will, limited by biological and neuroscientific limits, but still observed since the earlies times) “There is no moral responsibility” (yes, so if we finally measured the “dimensions” of free will, and they do not seem enough for my judgement of how and how much punishment is fair, such as none, and how much of our brains (us) are actually responsible for our own mistakes and impacts, I can say there is not moral respondability) “Punishment is irrational” (yes, no coercion, magically organized societies, happy life) “Atheism is the right answer” (no metaphysical or mystical events are actually real, because we did investigated any claimed one to understand its just fake, or know we have the absolute truth due to probability and logic derived methods). Even the French feel better than this. Baseless BS. And SOMEHOW I must comply to your Anglo post analytic, new atheistic, unfairly coercive, sage like, intolerant, oppressive and imperialistic neo enlightenment (and even the world slowly give out power to the same Anglo ethicists, law theorists and whatever with few actually seeing it, not bringing any risks within it, why would it), otherwise you play me as stupid or as a threat to humanism. Fuck you.

@@eduds6 I believe moral responsibility can exist without free will. If fate degreed someone stab my mom, I'd still want the person to go to prison so that others would hear about it and think twice before stabbing someone so that they don't do that and end up the same way. I'm not the only or first person to think this way.

@@michaelflores9220 Yes but you are far from the only who would know about a lack of free will, in the way that most people could misunderstand the implications of it, either ethical or behavioral, sociopolitical... Anyway, I'm not someone who believes in that.

Nature doesn't *want* in the way that we experience want. Rather nature *wants* insofar as it is said that things are ordered towards certain ends; as organs in a body are ordered towards certain tasks, which are ordered towards the good of the organism. One can observe this simply by noting that we can recognize sickness or medical conditions by the fact that certain things do not fulfill their function; liver failure is only recognizable as a *failure* because we have a sense of what a liver ought to be and do. In a similar way, natural law theory draws conclusions about human actions, including sexuality.

You got it. As far as I understand it is only morally wrong if you actively seek infertile people as sexual partners precisely because they can't have children.

But gay people don't seek each other out precisely because we can't have children. Lots of gay couples get married and ADOPT the unwanted children of straight couples, a clear social good.

Yet, Kyle, we are increasingly seeing the use of surrogacy and artificial insemination among homosexual couples, wherein a human life is created with the express purpose of excluding the biological mother (in the case of a gay couple paying a surrogate) or the biological father (in the case of a lesbian couple using a sperm donor at a fertility clinic). It is especially cruel (and, I would add, evil) to bring a child into this world for the purpose of not having his biological mother as his mother, yet that is exactly what is being celebrated in the LGBT community and in the media, as the recent example of Andy Cohen demonstrates.

I learned in Confirmation Class they can also have a "fertility' of great sacrifice.

Pretty much. You're not acting to frustrate the natural end of your own faculty just because that end does not end up being realized. It's your moral act that is subject to judgment, because you have reason. You act contrary to reason when you do two things 1) use a natural faculty you have and 2) try to frustrate the natural end of that act. When you have sex with a spouse who happens to be infertile, the situation that causes the faculty to fail to achieve its natural end is not something you have done or even willed, so you have not acted contrary to reason. I don't even think it's wrong to marry an infertile person knowing children are practically impossible so long as you are actually lovingly committed to that person, willing and able to have sexual relations with them, and open to any children who may miraculously be conceived. But if you are just marrying someone to obtain sexual release from their body, that kind of lust could destroy charity and cause you to fail to live up to the unitive end of marriage even if they are fertile. But I'm not an expert.

How does a pacifier frustrate the natural end?

its clear that these people only refer to this type of abstract reasoning when they have no pragmatic ethical arguments against doing such things (in this case sex for a purpose other than procreation), and they don't follow these abstract logical conclusions to their true ends. For example; eating candy would be always evil, because the real purpose of eating is for nourishment, not pleasure on it's own. Or doing a hand stand, since your hands are made for holding/grabbing things, not walking like your feet.

You would be hard-pressed to find a Catholic natural law theorist who would actually say this, though. There is, of course, the vice of gluttony which concerns, not the desire for the pleasure of food per se, but an *inordinate* desire for the pleasure of food. And the point about a *pragmatic ethical argument* is moot. Do you mean pragmatic as in following the school of pragmatism? Then of course natural law theory wouldn't have recourse to such reasoning.

@@Unclenate1000 Not at all. You're confusing the distinction between using a faculty for an end *other than* its natural one, and using it for some end *contrary to* it. You haven't shown that 'eating candy' is contrary to this end. Your example about standing on your hands is even worse, for the same reason. But even supposing you did that your examples succeeded, that wouldn't suffice to show that these acts are *gravely* wrong, rather than only little evils which can be tolerated to an extent...

@@paradoxo9111 who is to say the end of eating is nourishment? Different types of food are made with different ends in mind, Candy for pleasure, though a steak and salad is for nourishment. If we speak of sex, nature's end is a child, the pleasure associated with the act is simply nature's way to urge animals to engage in it.

What a load of pseudo-intellectual Jebus deluded bullshit. The universe began. Therefore you are a fucking moron.

+Andrew Jeffery Because homosexual couples, by the nature of their relationship, cannot procreate, whereas an infertile heterosexual couple is not infertile by nature but by accident, through an external factor (disease, injury, etc.). So the act of sex between an infertile couple is still procreative in nature even if the end of procreation cannot be realized.

In cannon law surgical sterilization, or concealed knowledge of infertility gained before marriage, can be ground for an annulment. Additionally the inability to consummate a marriage is grounds for annulment.

Cannon law is pretty irrelevant. I quite consciously married a post-menopausal bride.

that is called a false equivocation fallacy. they are conflating meaning to mislead the audience. btw, homosexuality would still be natural by that definition as well.

louis cyfer are you fucking stupid? Did you ever read classical philosophy? You didn’t.

+Andrew Jeffery This question is answered around the 31-minute mark. The argument Feser presents does not entail that you can't use something in a way *other than* its purpose is, only that it is immoral to frustrate the natural end of the thing. So using your mouth to kiss someone else (which can be good or bad, depending on the context) is not frustrating the mouth's purpose of taking in food and oxygen, so there is no moral dilemma in whether or not kissing is permissible.

Vinicius, by the "union of a man and a woman" do you mean conjugal love, as in the relation between husband and wife, whether or not the married couple is fertile? I would argue that that was a sufficient end for sexual love, with or without procreation. Couples that know they are infertile can marry, there is no wrong in that. It cannot be assumed that they copulate for pleasure only.

Clinton Wilcox Nice 👍

@@clintonwilcox4690 However, nobody has yet really figured out Feser's distinction between "in contrary to" and "other than". In both cases the natural goal is consciously not aimed at, and yet only in the case of "in contrary to" somehow something evil comes along. Even an intellectual companion of Feser, who follows the same moral line, i.e. argues very similarly, can not make anything of Feser's distinction: "Feser relies upon an unclear account of contrary use and other than use, which is either ad hoc or cannot grant him the conclusion he desires." (John Skalko - Disordered Actions)

@@demergent_deist I'd have to read Skalko's paper or book to see why he thinks this is the case, but I've never had much difficulty understanding the difference between contrary use and other than use. Maybe with Feser it's more difficult because he's a philosopher and has to come up with some strict definition to adhere to, but any definition can be picked apart by someone sufficiently clever. In ordinary use, I don't find much of a problem distinguishing between the two.