Sterile Discussion

I was a moralist long, long before I was religious, and for the reason given previously: the rules of morality can be deduced by any rational being, the same way the rules of geometry can be. This accounts for the high degree uniformity we see in the ethical maxims of all races and nations of history.

 

Indeed it was my moralism that led me to look favorably upon religion. My previous libertarian-atheist world view lead to logical absurdities according to the moral axioms of the Stoics. So I am religious, at least in part, because of my moralism; I am not moralistic because of my religion. If anything, my religion has made me less moralistic: there are certain things I harshly condemned as an atheist I now regard with pity and tolerance. 

 

I will add that the only “very specific belief system” we are discussing are the sterile maxims of the sexual revolution. These maxims are recent and unique in history: pagan sages and Christian saints are not the only ones who praise and promote chastity, but also Confucius, Mohammed, Buddha, and similar maxims are attributed to Vishnu and Odin. Every philosopher from Epicurus to Epictetus speaks against mere animal self-indulgence in the sexual appetite as offensive to natural reason. 

In any case, it takes no great moral insight to see that sexual reproduction without provision for the outcome of sexual reproduction is imprudent, nor great wisdom to see that the passions must be governed by the reason, nor long experience to notice that casual sex demeans both lover and beloved, and robs sex of its  romance, dignity, allure, sacred character, and meaning. 
 

But all this is irrelevant to your point. Unless it is your claim that all moralists are elitist or that all Christians are elitists? Even if this doubtful premise were proven, one could not from that conclude without a leap in logic that the sentence I uttered was elitist. Even if I were shown to be an elitist, not everything I say is necessarily snarky or elitist. If I say, “The commoners are morons because they like shiny cars” that shows elitist condescension; If I say, “please pass the salt” or “looks like rain” the comment is not elitist, even if uttered by someone who unapologetically supports special privileges for an established ruling class, or special standards of taste or behavior above the common ruck. 

 

You: (Me, I’m a fundamentalist atheist – Richard Dawkins is my man — and married. Just so you know where I’m coming from.)

 

Me: Congratulations. May your marriage be blessed. I was once an atheist, too, one who could argue forcefully and convincingly for my cause: although I read Tom Paine and James Ingersoll. What little I have read of Dawkins has left me not curious to read more: his stance of radical empiricism is self-contradictory. 

Yes, I suspect I know well where you are coming from. I come from there too.
 

You:  For more on the divorce rate among various groups, <a  href=”http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm“>click here</a>.)

 

Me: As I said, we have come across different data. Mine comes from a recent national survey (http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/nsfh) But I am not swayed by arguments from statistics: I don’t find them convincing when common sense dictates otherwise. We can take is as a matter of common sense  that a couple who adopts sterile practices, everything else being equal, will have fewer children than a similar couple in a similar situation that does not.

 

You: (quoting me) “The sexual revolution holds as its prime tenant that sex is meant for sterile entertainment purposes only, and not to reproduce the generations.” This is a straw man; I know of no “sexual revolutionaries” who overthrew the ancien regime back in the sixties.  Rather, two trends  converged: the availability of effective contraceptives (which had been  thin on the ground pre-1960s) with a media culture that actually started  talking openly about stuff that had been going on under cover before then. The 1960s didn’t invent sex, or orgies, or homosexuality: it simply happened to be the period when people stopped censoring their discussions of these subjects.

 

Me: A “straw man” is an argument where one side characterizes the other side in a position weaker than actually obtains. For example, if you were to say that I said that the 1960’s invented sex, orgies or homosexuality, this would be a straw man argument.

 

In this paragraph, you both deny that a sexual revolution took place, (in other words, you make my claim that a sexual revolution took place to be a straw man) and then characterize the sexual revolution as being merely the revelation openly of matters that had been taking place privately before. I trust you see that you contradict yourself here. If the sexual revolution did not exist at all, it could not be a revelation of a previously hidden set of maxims.

 

You statement also happens to be false. Every married couple I know cohabited or copulated before marriage: it is a practice widespread enough to be called the norm. I know two couples who cohabit without the benefit of marriage and with no intent to marry. My parents and grandparents did not behave this way, and knew no one that did; such behavior was rare or entirely unheard-of, in their community, if not elsewhere. If it took place secretly, it was in numbers small enough to evade widespread notice, and the secrecy was meant to avoid legal and social repercussions. But no matter what the real numbers, it certainly cannot be said to be the norm of that day and age. Ask your own parents and grandparents, or look at the surviving films, books, and magazines of the era. To take one example at random, 1930 is the first year the Anglican Church allowed contraception as no longer a grave moral error. Surely that is different from passing them out freely in school to minors. Even the dullest observer can detect a difference in the moral and manners of those times. The matter is too obvious to admit of serious contradiction.

 

Contraceptives were available before the Sexual Revolution: their use was discouraged by law and custom. Their spread is a result, not a cause, of the change in the manners of the people: or, at least we might say each cause prompted the other in a synergy.

 

While you and I might disagree as to the extent of the sexual revolution, I hope you will admit that the public morals and manners had indeed changed. Before, chastity was (at least in public) announced as the norm; violations were punishable by laws on the books in all fifty states of the US (I am not familiar with the laws of other nations); and virginity was not regarded as shameful: and after, these matters were reversed, either largely or entirely.  

 

And again, this is irrelevant to your point, which you have yet to support.

 

You:  Moreover, any assertion that sex is meant for some purpose is in  and of itself subject to the teleological fallacy (i.e. the idea that  there’s purpose). You probably disagree with me on this (if  you’re a follower of the Big Sky Daddy theory of everything). All we can reasonably know is that we’re descended from a long line of human beings  who reproduced, somehow or other. Whether we continue the chain is not  dependent on prior conditions (although Bayes’ theorem suggests that in aggregate it’s likely).

 

Me: This is an understandable confusion on your part. Human actions have purposes, whether or not we discuss the teleology of the universe in general.

 

If I say, “before the sexual revolution, copulation for merely entertainment purposes was discouraged both by custom and law” and “after the sexual revolution, copulation merely for entertainment purposes was lauded and celebrated” these statements are indicative of what the human purpose or aim of the act in question was. So far, you have not called these statements into question.

 

You are failing to make a distinction between teleology, which concerns the innate or natural final causes of things, and purposeful human action, which of necessity is concerned with final causes. As far as I can see, your talk of teleology is irrelevant to our discussion, a red herring.

 

To be blunt, you are using a straw man argument here. If I say “Men say sex is for entertainment only” it is no contradiction for you to say, “You are saying God says sex is for reproduction; but there is no God to tell what sex is for.” You are contradicting something I have not said, but which your imagination merely attributed to me. So far in this conversation, you have brought up religion half a dozen times, and I have never: I assume the topic absorbs your attention, and some inner urgency requires you to comment on it.  

 

As an aside, let me mention that I was an Aristotelian long, long before I was a Christian. I submit that no description of life is reasonable without a description of teleology or final causes. Only the narrow field of natural philosophy or empirical physics is unconcerned with teleology. Certainly ethics and economics, politics and aesthetics deal with final causes. We cannot rationally discuss a work of art, a public policy, or a moral code, without discussing the final cause it serves. For that matter, one cannot discuss something as simple as a hammer without understanding that it is meant to pound in nails, i.e., its teleology.  

 

You:  I think the decline in fertility over the past few decades is almost certainly due to something other than some nebulous “sexual revolution”

 

Me: Nebulous…? My dear Mr. Stross, here you cause me to question your seriousness. Come now. Let us not pretend reality is not real.

 

You: — most likely a bundle of causes, some of them operating independently. But if I had to take a stab at the primary cause, I’d look at urbanization. (etc.)

 

Me: I have no cause to doubt that urbanization is also a contributory cause to a drop in the fertility rate. One might even see a correlation between city use and the divorce rate, as the economics of life on a farm create more incentive to keep a family in tact than city life.

 

But again, I do not see the relevance to our discussion. You would have to argue it was not the primary but the only cause of the fertility drop: and even if this point were proved, it would not have any relevance to your point that it is elitist of me to attribute a drop in fertility to the culture of divorce in which we live.

 

In any case, to draw the thread of discussion back to the original point, you and I might agree that, if urbanization causes a relative increase in the rural population, Mr. Bova should be more afraid of the Marching Rustics than the Marching Morons.