The perverted faculty argument

Question

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So to finally get to the question:

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

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

Answer 1

" “contrary to” and “other than” "

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

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

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

Answer 2

An answer to your specifically stated question:

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

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

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

Answer 3

There is absolutely no empirical evidence that masturbation, anal, oral sex or homosexual sex diminishes the faculty to procreate. It could even be argued that, by releasing sexual impulse in a contraceptive fashion, it can help people who are already parents to keep their offspring at a sustainable quantity, securing the long term survival of the human species, which is after all the very goal of procreation. So that is teleology for you.

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

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

Answer 4

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