Hsiao should have picked a different example, since he apparently doesn’t understand botany.[1]
The end of an orange tree (if it even has one) is to propagate its species. The production of oranges is just a means to that end, not an end in itself. Had Hsiao used strawberries as his example instead of oranges, he’d have hit the problem that strawberry plants can also propagate using runners, so a strawberry plant that doesn’t produce any strawberries at all can, by producing lots of runners, fulfil its ‘end’ better than a strawberry plant that produces strawberries that don’t get eaten.
Hsiao (and Vinnie) are looking at ‘ends’ from the human perspective (and perhaps assuming that oranges were created to feed humans and animals) and ignoring the perspective of the orange tree itself.
Nor does Vinnie, or he’d not have used this extract. ↩︎
So using my thumbnail as a makeshift screwdriver isn’t just not very effective and liable to break my thumbnail, it is also intrinsically immoral???
Or maybe a ‘good thumbnail’ is one that functions effectively as a makeshift screwdriver - and that was the case for the thousands of years before screws were invented.
‘PFA’ seems entirely dependent on the opinion of the ‘philosopher’ as to the purpose of something. Since objects can be and frequently are repurposed, ‘PFA’ falls apart immediately on even cursory inspection.
I think you are still mixing up some aspects of teleology. It understandable because without digging into classical thought it can be confusing, It is built up from what things regularly and reliably do. What ends were subjective? I honestly did not see any examples presented in your response.
This is definitely a misunderstanding of telos or final causality. Our ends only exist for us. The intrinsic ends of an acorn only exist for the acorn. The ends of an orange tree can be different from a strawberry tree. Each substance has its own form and ends. In the A-T framework, the world is filled with competing teleologies. Many acorns do not form oak trees. What is good for the flourishing of the individual lion is not good for the flourishing of the individual zebra. What is good for the flourishing of humans is not good for the flourishing of a chicken. Sometimes the teleologies may be mutually beneficial as well. I have repeatedly mentioned that this has nothing to do with intelligent design. Saying the intrinsic purpose of an orange tree is to make fruit for humans should be rejected out of hand as complete nonsense. The ends or telos of something depends only on its nature. What is good for it and its flourishing. A good orange tree is one that produces oranges and reproduces. A bad orange tree is one that does not. Orange trees, unlike humans, cannot actually abstain from reproduction for a higher good as a human can. To clarify, there can be proximate and ultimate ends in something like an orange tree depending on the system.
The end of the roots is to gather water.
The end of the leaves is to photosynthesize.
The end of the branches is to produce fruit.
The end of the fruit is to propagate the species.
This is all fairly obvious. To claim that producing oranges aren’t an end in itself is like claiming chewing isn’t an end of teeth because the ultimate end of eating food is nutrition. And where Roy brought up a strawberry plant he simply proved Timothy correct when he said Goodness and badness… are species-specific concepts." You can’t judge the telos of an orange tree by a strawberry tree. You can’t judge what is good for a human based on what is good for fruitfly. Though I suggest the closer two things are on the evolutionary ladder, their ends will line up more. Humans are considered radically different from other animals given our intellect though. I note this is generally the critique Arroyo has of Feser’s limitation of sex to unitive procreation. The higher good of bonding and unity outweighs the lower sensitive good of reproduction.
That is imposing a foreign standard on the argument and it was addressed multiple times, including the introduction and the conclusion .
It should be noted that most philosophers disagree with the PFA but this is not due to evaluating it on its own terms. Following Hume, most philosopher do not accept final causality as a part of the world and are stuck with the is/ought problem and the problem of induction. The basis of the PFA is teleology in conjunction with hylomorphism. It attempts to bridge the gap between biological reductionism and ghosts in a machine Platonism. The argument does not have any force outside of that context.
It rests on Aristotelian-Thomist metaphysics, namely hylomorphism and the idea that final causality or teleology is intrinsic to the nature of things. We can critique or reject the PFA but it must be done on its own terms (as Arroyo attempted), or we must show how hylomorphism is false and/or things do not have baked in ends or telos given their nature. Most critiques of the PFA online are simply uneducated caricatures.
The idea that our (embodied, hylomorphic humans) biology is irrelevant to morality is Platonism. The whole idea is that what is good for us is based on our nature and certainly, our biology is a part of our nature. The entire point is that once you know the function of something you know what good means for it. If you dispute this, if you think we are souls pulling the strings of a meat puppet, then you can appeal to platonic ideas and reject anything to do with our biology. The PFA attempts to trace a middle path between physicalism and platonism.
This is the route I took in the paper in taking about sexual ethics. This is also a paper on natural moral law and what can be known outside the context of Revelation or the Magisterium. So scripture is not pertinent to its purposes but I will address that below. Scripture actually disagrees with the conclusion I reached about same-sex relations. But even what is written above misconstrues the situation. No PFA advocate will say “the ONLY biological purpose is limited to bringing seed into vagina to get a child”. Human sex is described across the board as unitive and procreative. This was mentioned many times. The new natural law theorist go so far as to say the 2 humans literally become 1 reproducing organism for a time. The PFA advocate only says that since we should not pervert our faculties, or do things contrary to our nature, sex should only be done in the structure of a of male-female, unitive and procreative act. We should not thwart either end of this. They go further and attempt to link both ends together so they cannot be separate. I attempted to show how this is inconsistent using infertile couples, and why the double effect may permit it using a holistic approach from within the logic of the PFA itself. Whether I succeeded or not on that front is the only uncertainty I have about what was written.
So you think it’s okay for a Christian to watch porn and lust after unmarried women because Jesus seems to be referring to lusting after married women? I think we have to be careful here. Sure, masturbation may be an end for good. I am not denying that possibility. You can claim it releases old sperm (but regular sex does that as well). But everything that brings us psychological pleasure or relief is not necessarily morally good. For example, it might reduce sexual pressure for a pedophile to masturbate to children. I don’t see that as a good thing. Some modern people think of morality in terms of “if it harms no one its okay” but the PFA advocate is clear that given our embodied natures and our telos, what is good for us is achieving our ends and not thwarting them. If morality is objective, then it is objective, baked into our natures. The other alternative is subjective morality or platonism.
Jesus said to chop off your hand and gouge out your eye if it causes you to sin. He didn’t say it’s okay to do evil things that good may come. And neither did Paul. Since marriage is a good he said get married if you can’t resist. Paul never said engage in solo sex.That is projecting our desires onto him. Paul was huge on sexual sins being the worst kind because they are internal and show you don’t have control over your own body/self. Nowhere does Paul say masturbate and preach the gospel. Scripture is mostly silent on this issue. The story of Onan and seminal uncleanliness do not require us to view these acts as evil. The question is whether or not masturbation is sinful. This is the stock Christian answer in my opinion. Christianity is not consistent with lesser evils. We are told not to do evil that good may come. So if masturbation is a sin, we cannot justify it on account of “better solo sex or burn.”
I’m all ears for someone showing how masturbation is not sinful. With a wife who went through two rounds of vulvar cancer with surgeries, lets just say I have vested interest in the question.
So “an orange tree is good by producing fruit”, but a strawberry tree might not be good by producing fruit because “You can’t judge the telos of an orange tree by a strawberry tree” [which is backwards anyway] which leads to wondering (i) how anyone did judge the telos of an orange tree, (ii) why the telos of a strawberry tree can’t be judged in exactly the same way with similar results, and (iii) if Vinnie knows that strawberries don’t grow on trees.[1]
He also seems to think branches are for producing fruit rather than allowing leaves access to more light, and that fruit are for propagating trees rather than persuading animals to scatter and manure seeds. ↩︎
Action follows being. Ask a biologist why the orange tree produces oranges. Ask a biologist what a malnourished, diseased or defective tree is.
We evaluate with the same philosophical tools but if you judge a fish and a dog “in exactly the same way” you conclude the fish is meant to breathe water and the dog is meant to breathe air.
Sure, I mixed up plant and tree. You win the internet today.
Thanks for your answer. It clarified the basic approach although I do not agree with everything.
One difficulty in discussing this matter is that we have differing viewpoints and approaches. Your approach starts from a particular brand of philosophy (A-T) and you are correct in that rejecting the claims based on this brand of thinking should preferably be done within the same framework, that is using the same assumptions and methods.
My approach is so different that it means basically skipping the whole A-T framework of philosophy. We may end up to similar conclusions despite the differing approaches but it is like two persons trying to discuss using different languages and different concepts. I try to limit my questioning of the philosophical thinking you use to points that I do not understand - anything more would probably be fruitless. I hope that my questioning gives me a better understanding about your thinking.
Something about Platonism: my thinking is quite far from Platonism. I am critical towards the doctrines that seem to stem from Greek philosophy rather than the Hebrew roots of Christianity. I even question the assumption of a separate ‘eternal soul’ that is temporarily living within a ‘less-good’ material body. I do not claim that we do not have a separate soul because I do not know it but the thinking is definitely closer to Greek philosophy (Platonism-type worldview) than the Hebrew worldview and thinking in the Hebrew scriptures.
I guess our differing interpretations about solo sex/masturbation/etc are not such that deserve to be discussed on this Forum. You seem to have some wrong impressions about my interpretations but I let them be.
I admit I was confused by “solo sex is better than burning.” It might be a sensitive subject for some so I understand if it is avoided and its technically, scripture is not pertinent to the specific argument.
Yes, I carefully led up to this with 8 other sections laying groundwork. The PFA is only one part of natural law. Section 8 which was more zoomed out is easier and less controversial. PFA is an attempt to get much more specific about objective morality. I tried to assess it fairly. It has a strong basing in Thomism but even many Catholics disagree with it (though somehow they end up with the same sexual ethics) My main concern is it may ultimately die the death of a thousand qualifications when it comes to sexual ethics.
Well, this would lead me to wonder how you view morality? Are you a pure physicalist? I know you reject Platonism based on past conversations. Just to clarify, in hylomorphism, the soul is the form of the body. The body is as integral to us as the wood is to a table. We just believe because the soul has an immaterial component, it can survive death but without a body the soul is in a radically diminished state. It is made to be in union with a body and though it survives death it is impoverished until the simply waiting for the resurrection.
As far as the disdain for Greek and high view of Hebrew, I would say the entire trajectory of Christianity goes the other way. Our entire New Testament was written in Greek to Greek speaking Jews and Gentiles. Our most defining beliefs (trinity and incarnation) are absolutely steeped in Greek Philosophy.
Greek became the lingua franca of the wider region well before the birth of Jesus and continued in that status for some time (crudely 300 BC to 600 AD in the eastern Mediterranean). Even many Hebrews used Greek in the daily life and could not understand Hebrew language. It is natural that any writings targeted to a wider audience would be written in the lingua franca.
That does not mean that the use of Greek language would have meant adopting the Greek worldview, although some part of the Hebrews adopted partly the Greek lifestyle and the Aleksandrian Jews were fans of Platonism. I guess it tells something that the Christians mainly used Koine Greek (lingua franca), not the Classical Greek that the upper classes and learned people used.
As long as the leadership of the new movement was in the hands of persons having Hebrew background, Hebrew thinking permeated the teaching despite the Greek language. Greek philosophy probably started to play a stronger role after the leadership was switched to persons with roots in the Greek-Roman culture. The transfer of leadership started during the first century, so the Hellenisms in teaching may have almost as long history as Christianity.
As @St.Roymond has explained, the roots of Trinity can be found from the Hebrew scriptures and theology. Incarnation also fits to the same background, although it may have been more easy to accept for those with Pagan background. In that sense, I do not agree that these doctrines are “absolutely steeped in Greek Philosophy”.
The concept of the ‘soul’ developed and partly changed among Hebrews during the long history from the times of Genesis to Jesus. IIRC, elements of a belief in an eternal soul started to pop up during/after the Babylonian exile, possibly due to contacts with the eastern religions. Alexandrian Jews that adopted Platonism into their thinking also introduced this idea into the Hebrew culture. Although the concept of an eternal soul was not completely strange to the Hebrews, the texts in the Hebrew Bible reflect a holistic understanding of humans. Humans did not have souls, humans were souls (living, breathing beings) - just like the other mammals.
In the NT, the Letters of Paul speak about soul and spirit. These expressions can be understood as references to the different capabilities or ‘dimensions’ of a holistic human. A bit like the texts speak about the ‘heart’ of humans. This is a matter of interpretation, so I understand that some try to use these expressions as evidence for a separate soul and spirit in humans (2-3 separate parts).
My current interpretation is that we are souls, instead of beings having souls. As I wrote, I leave this interpretation open to alternatives because I do not know certainly, so I do not strongly claim that we do not have a separate, eternal soul. In other words, I support the ‘nephesh’ thinking rather than the input of the Greek philosophy.