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It seems to me like this argument is assuming some kind of Rule In The Sky about what's Right vs Wrong in a relationship, which seems silly. There's no god out there, remember? You have to figure it out as you go, which means in this case that the answer here is always going to be relationship-specific.
Thinking sexual thoughts about someone other than your partner can also enliven sexual energy for them. So it really depends, doesn't it.?
He was talking about fidelity, in particular between married people who have promised it for better or worse. If you want to be detailed he was talking about the implied (or express) contract between them about what fidelity means. And his 'continuum' is about what wives would think of as breaking the vows of marriage.
He may be wrong about whether paying a prostitute to have sex with you violates a commitment of fidelity the same way that paying people to have sex while you watch does, and that paying a video rental place for a movie so you can watch the same events. But that has nothing to do with your point that some people think unmarried people shouldn't have sex.
Douthat is talking about what kind of relationship two people chose for themselves when they get married, and you are talking about society not letting two people choose the kinds of relationship they want. It would be more interesting if you were to actually disagree with his continuum on the basis that spouses don't actually care about those types of things, or that they have no good reason to care.
Alex Pruss is a professor of philosophy at Baylor. He has a recent blog post discussing fantasies here:
http://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2008/04/fant...
It seems pretty reasonable to me, even if its false. Why dismiss people who think in this way but not social democrats? You're much less charitable to Catholic Natural Law theorists. I don't really know why.
I believe that Will's point was that fidelity is not a universally applicable rule. It seems to me that the point is that each couple would have to decide what does and doesn't count a infidelity. I'll agree that the senario Douthat posits is interesting, but to claim it should be true in all cases is wrongheaded.
I think it's also quite possible to see that pornography and watching people have sex is different in the same way that watching a movie and paying the actors to come to your home is different. One is much more labor intensive, the other simply a way to have fun or whatever. I would argue that the "filter" is important in this situation because it creates space. But again this is completely dependent upon the couple and I can't argue that my rule is correct in all situations or relationships.
Will, you may be right about what you discuss, but no one knows why you're right. Making statements like: "I do think Catholic natural law theorists are silly. Religions are false," and so on may be correct, but they are intensely offensive to many people, and so they necessitate explanation. Unless, of course, your purpose is simply to offend, and not to educate.
I admit that I'm skeptical of philosophers. As Caplan notes:
"Profs and grad students alike largely seemed to accept the following list of topics where members of their occupation actually have expertise:
1) Accurately describing the views of other philosophers, living and dead.
2) Checking arguments for logical validity/internal consistency.
No one claimed that the philosophy profession was good at figuring out true answers to philosophical questions. One even claimed the the primary product of philosophy is "broken arguments.""
I hope this is not correct, but I fear that it is. And your terse, sweeping statements have done nothing but convince me otherwise. Please prove me wrong. Explain your moral philosophy in a more cogent way, or at least point us to others who can.
Other than that, I enjoy the not-so-philosophical posts--especially the happiness research stuff. So, keep up the good work on that front.
Thanks Will!
In the scholastic tradition, natural law (universally valid, accessible to ordinary reason) was contrasted with positive law (valid because of local custom or as command from valid authority). It is perfectly possible for natural law in this sense to be the product of evolution-through-natural-selection. You would be denying the Catholic account of how we came to have access to nautral law (because God implanted it in us vs. it is a useful trick for solving nonzero sum games), not natural law itself.
Even stipulating that natural law is inherently teleological, I'm not sure the truth of Darwinism proves that we have no other end than inclusive fitness. "Genes fixate because they tend to promote inclusive fitness" is a true causal story, but that is efficient causality. It is consistent with the idea that our end is happiness, or interstellar travel or worshiping God.
I would, though, like to know how confident you are in your opinions, because you state them with supreme confidence. What do you think is the chance that you're wrong about your core beliefs?
I ask because I grew up in a religous family and became repelled by the unflinching certainty of it all. I started reading pop-atheists (including Harris), and found them equally repulsive in their certainty. I subscribe to the (of course, uncertain) belief that no one can really be certain of anything. For instance, there really is no way to prove that God does or doesn't exist.
So, out of curiosity how sure are you of the proposition that God doesn't exist? Or more generally, how certain can humans be about anything?
Joey, it seemss to me there really is no way to prove that unicorns do or don't exist. But would you think me unreasonable if I took the position that they simply don't exist?
No, I wouldn't think you unreasonable at all. Nor do I think Will unreasonable for not believing in God. The thing is, there are compelling arguments on both sides of the God debate, and none (to my knowledge) in the unicorn debate. However, there really is no way to prove one side is right and the other side is wrong with respect to the existence of God. Thus, my only complaint is the forcefulness with which both hardcore theists and atheists assert their superiority.
Look, this is Will's blog, and he can write whatever the hell he wants. I'm just making a minor suggestion.
On the other hand, this assumes a pseudo-{zero-sum} relationship: as one loves the third party more, one loves the party of the second part (or "Chico") less, or that the second party devalues the equal love felt for them [sic] because it is not exclusive. My polyamourous friends assert that this is not the case for them when all such activity is super mensa...I'd say, "I'll believe it when I see it," but I'm not interested enough in them or the practice to look, so instead I'll take them on their word for now.
On the whole, though, I'd avoid the word "adultery" because it's nuclear. I once in 2002 had an e-mail correspondence with a local, half-reasonable radio talk-show host over his use of the term "treasonous" to describe some opponents of Bush's Iraq policy. In the end, he retreated to calling them "morally treasonous", to which I objected on the grounds that using the word "treason" automatically brings more juice to the offence than consideration might well deem reasonable. It's used more as a way of deciding the outcome of an argument, rather than of arguing, tantamount to circular reasoning.
If you think comparing watching porn to having an affair is batshit crazy (and it is, of course), just be glad you didn't have to grow up learning that masturbation "is the most severe of all Torah forbidden sins", including not just murder, but "when one emits sperm to waste it is as if he destroys the earth." Which is, of course, "punishable by death."
So give Ross Douthat some credit here; at least he is only comparing masturbation to having an affair. His analogy could have been a whole lot batshit crazier.
It's not clear that one needs to prove that God doesn't exist in order to have best and sufficient reason to not believe in God. Probably, all one needs in order to have such reason is to think that the classic arguments for the existence of God aren't sound and that reference to God isn't needed in our best explanations about the world.
Also, it seems as though the most relevant (to this post and its comments) conception of God is something like the Judeo-Christian God. And there's great reason to think that that God can't exist, given what he's supposed to be like (all-good, all-loving, all-powerful, all-knowing, sends non-believers to hell forever).
Lastly, Will's certainty with respect to his position doesn't seem to be noticeably higher than yours about yours. We're often justified in making claims, with certainty, in cases where we have best and sufficient reason to believe the things we're claiming.
Also, I should've added the following sentence to the end of the last paragraph of the post: "And Will is merely making a claim about God, with certainty, in a case where he reasonably takes himself to have best and sufficient reason to believe the thing he's claiming."
There. It's still sloppy, I suppose. Just less so.
You know, you might acknowledge that there's something to the idea that thinking sexual thoughts about individuals other than the one you're committed to makes acting on those thoughts easier and in general can habituate your sexual energies away from the person you're committed to. Jesus wasn't just full of crap when he suggested that thinking sexual thoughts about others has moral disvalue. You might think he's wrong, but its not "just silly".
In general, I love your blog. But you get on seriously disreputable ground whenever you talk about religious morality. You don't appear to be familiar with the arguments for your opponents' positions.
Probably Catholic natural law theorists (your primary intellectual opponents on these matters), for instance, deserve a seat at the table of the Reasonable - they've been making efforts at a rational defense of their position for millenia. They're certainly more serious thinkers on the matter than, I dunno, Richard Dawkins, Chris Hitchens, and other guys you (wrongly) take seriously.