Speaking of stories without children, I was struck by the fact that New York's fairly rote meditation on whether men should feel okay about committing adultery (blah blah Europeans are more sophisticated, blah blah evolutionary psychology, blah blah polyamory, blah blah porn) contained exactly three references to the fact that marriages often involve, you know, kids as well as spouses. There was one quote suggesting that women should put up with adultery because it's better for the children than divorce; one line noting that "recent analyses of genetic databases reveal that fully 10 percent of people have different biological fathers from the men they name as their fathers"; and one line mentioning "Congressmen Vito Fossella and his two families." Two families - why, it's almost as if the link between sex and children might be an important factor in the whole "why be faithful" debate ...
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Don't Think of the Children
20 May 2008 12:55 pm
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Comments (93)
I really wanted that piece to be good, interesting, or thought-provoking. And it was none of the above.
The lack of discussion of children is an interesting feature I hadn't noticed. My major problem with it was that it felt as though 60% of the story was about the navel gazing of the author and his five closest friends. If, as I suspect, none of those people have children, that may explain the deficiency you're citing.
I'd be interested to see data about if having kids makes couples think less about infidelity, more willing to "absorb" infidelity, etc. It seems like a sensible hypothesis to me.
I pity Fossella's kids more for having a warmongering torture-loving Bushpig for a father than I do for the fact that they now have another sibling.
But Ross, of course, is entitled to his genital-based version of morality.
Seems like a great hypothesis. With Children you not only have more to lose, you live in a reality where you have less time to ponder, get involved or even fantasize about any benefit of it (i.e. as a responsible father I find it reality that there is less time, energy, etc. one focuses (or even has to focus) on these things).
I find these types of articles pathetic excuses for backdoor arguing toward the reality one wants in their life - its simple rationalization I believe. At a basic level you make choices and good people should accept the responsibility of those choices -- the full responsibility, whether its easy or not. You get married and have kids you should have by those acts chosen to be faithful for the benefit of the children. In fact, by getting married (even without the kids), you make choices to dedicate your life to the other person and not cheat on them because it makes you feel good. My point is this - It should be simple, if you are too weak to live up to these promises DO NOT MAKE THE PROMISES -- no matter what the benefit...security, whatever.
Dont try to redefine your choice, argue that it is unnatural and therefore too difficult for you or try to take comfort and persuade yourself that others are doing it or thinking hard about it so it may just be allright.
You are not being responsible for your given choices, no matter how many Euopeans, politicians, neighbors may be in the same "to weak to live up to my responsibilities" boat.
And to think we wonder how fundamentalist thought gains any traction.
The “don’t think about the children” observation is hardly a one off. The inability to even enter the most vulnerable and impressionable among us into the dialogue is a hall mark of the cultural left.
Be it illegitimacy, abortion, divorce, same-sex “marriage”, pornography, polyamory or any issue even tangentially related to the unrestrained adult libido – children are not simply “forgotten”: No, their interests and adult responsibility toward them must be eliminated from the debate. (And so they have been)
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8569.html
This work only scratches the surface of how thoroughly the cultural left has eliminated any discussion of children’s interests from our public debate.
Heh.
People who "choose" to not have children or even get married perpetually cite the lack of options that having children inflict upon them.
Having children is a one way trip, and often adultery is the attempt to reroute the train, so to speak. It almost always fails, and inevitably hurts the children more than it helps the adulterer.
Much like divorce, it’s a selfish moment which keeps on giving and giving pain to all concerned.
Excellent point, Ross. Say, where does John McCain stand on this very important issue?
People who try to use Darwinism to prove that we aren't "intended" to do any particular thing really, really don't understand evolution.
Fitz says: "This work only scratches the surface of how thoroughly the cultural left has eliminated any discussion of children’s interests from our public debate."
What utter bullshit. The "cultural right" Fitz loves so much fights tooth and nail to preserve the right to beat the holy crap out of kids. It also does whatever it can, whenever it can, to avoid providing hungry kids with food. It's not the "cultural left" that opposes school lunch and breakfast programs - it's the bitter, evil cheapskates that Fitz loves to cuddle with.
Finally, it's not the "cultural left" which defends the Catholic Church for covering up an international pedophile conspiracy. It's the Fitzes that do that, and continue to do that. When they say "children's interests" one suspect that they're indeed interested in children, but not in a very healthy way.
"This work only scratches the surface of how thoroughly the cultural left has eliminated any discussion of children’s interests from our public debate."
Dear God, Fitz, pray tell us some more news from the Crab Nebula, or wherever it is you're living where there is no discussion of children's interests in the public debate. Here on Planet Earth, one can barely turn around without bumping into Amber Alerts, sex offender registries, standardized testing, FCC fines for indecency, anti-drug PSAs, school lunch nutritional requirements, raids on polygamist compounds, or nutbars campaigning against adoption and parental visitation rights for gays and lesbians.
LaFollette Progressive
As Ross observed about the NY article, the conversation about ill-effects on children is scruplously avoided.
Almost every example you cite about our "care for children" reflects an incompetent government trying to address problems of failing families and adult responsibility.
There are two ways government can provide for children. #1. It can directly create laws, subsidies & regulations protecting them. & #2. It can create laws that protect and promote the intact married family.- the most pro women & pro child institution in society.
If you actually took the time to read David Tubbs work & those like it, you would see a forty year campaign to eliminate #2 from our legal & social discourse. The law has routinely supported multiple initiatives that promote the natural family. The “interests of children” has been routinely & ruthlessly ignored as a legitimate state interest by the cultural left. (As a matter of established fact)
This of course (as the NY article reiterates) is done in the name of an ideologically blind fetishism for unrestrained sexual license.
If you actully took the time to read
One woman is hard enough to keep happy, why try for more?
“nutbars campaigning against adoption and parental visitation rights for gays and lesbians.”
I’m not aware of any of us “nutbars” campaigning against parental visitation rights for gays & lesbians- perhaps you can provide a link. If the child is the natural child of a gay or lesbian parent it is very much a part of our worldview to fight for that parents/childs right to know & be known by their actual parent. Perhaps you will elide this by pretending that a non-biological “parent” has legal rights to visitation. This has not been the case with step-parents and presents a tangle of legal problems the courts have avoided.
As far as adoption goes, it is well within the law & good social policy to promote placing children with intact married families so these children can have a mother & a father. Re Adoption
-When encountering such debates it is important to note….
According to statistics provided by both the National Survey of Family Growth and the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute there are approximately 120,000 children in the United States waiting to be adopted each year. About half of these children are adopted by family members, leaving about 60,000 children who are waiting to be adopted by non-related adoptive parents. By contrast, each year there are anywhere between 70,000 and 162,000 married couples in the United States who have either filed for adoption or in process of filing. That means that in any given year, there are between 1.2 and 2.7 married couples per waiting child. In other words, there is no child-centered need to open up adoption to homosexual couples.
This last little example of yours seems to be an attempt at portraying your adversaries as unscrupulous & unnecessarily harsh. I believe if you study further you will find that promoting the traditional family is in the best interest of men, women, children & society as a whole.
recent analyses of genetic databases reveal that fully 10 percent of people have different biological fathers from the men they name as their fathers
this is about as true as "10 percent of people are homosexual." for upper and middle class americans the true number is closer to 1%.
Dear Fitzy,
I understand quite well the point that Ross is making. And while I think Tubbs is a nut and his claims (e.g. liberals have waged a 40-year war against the intact married family) are generally specious, one can certainly make the case that relaxed divorce laws and openly promiscuous behavior are detrimental to the interests of children.
What one cannot say, without being completely and utterly dishonest, is that "children's interests" have been "thoroughly eliminated from the public debate." That's laughable. Our politicians and media talk about little else.
What really seems to be grinding you is that most Americans don't share your view that it's in the best interest of society to restrict the freedom of childless adults in order to protect your children.
As for gay adoption, you're overlooking the crucial point that most of the married couples filing for adoption are not looking for "a child." They're looking for a healthy, white (or possibly Asian) infant. And your numbers would be cold comfort to these children, to give just one example.
LaFollette Progressive
I am sure you have dismissed Tubbs as a "nut" without even reading his (or others) extensive documented case record. This is not an area up for interpretation. You have important legal precedent that points to the "interests of children" being overruled by new precedent that make absolutely no reference to the concept of “children’s welfare.” Rather it is passion of the left for adult sexual autonomy that has necessitated a complete abandonment of child welfare arguments.
Be it marriage, divorce, pornography or the like we have an established track record of leftist depraved indifference to the interests of children.
This is the specific and well documented truth that we point to - Not a spurious and easily asserted "Our politicians and media talk about little else."
As I state above it is the #2. “promotion of intact married childbearing” that the left is ideologically incapable of supporting. I am afraid at this point the evidence is clear & irrefutable. Certainly you have been to college and know the worldview of “all family forms are inherently equal”. As much as you would like (politically) to ignore this truth it is too well documented to try and paper over.
Re: Adoption: Catholic Charities of Boston had a well established track record of placing some of the most dependent and needy children within married mother/father families.
In the name of ideology they were stripped of the ability to promote their mission.
The answer for hard to place children is to promote adoption among married couples, especially special needs children. The common troupe that people only want healthy white children is simply another dodge. Presumably if adoption is opened up to same-sex couples they also will not accept special needs children (on the whole) and we will be back in the same position.
How does adultery "harm the children" if there's no divorce involved? If a businessman has a one night stand with a woman he meets at a sales convention 2000 miles from home, or a cop gets a "freebie" from a hooker, or even if a succesful executive in Westchester keeps a mistress in a Manhattan apartment, if the wife doesn't know, or in the latter case maybe doesn't care, how are the children harmed?
Of course the conservative family model seems to be that an extramarital affair of any sort is wrong, but it's just fine to divorce your first wife and marry a younger model. And that doesn't harm the kids?
Ross,
I agree with you that the Weiss article in New York ought to have discussed children and family more. But you’re shooting yourself in the foot in dismissing what it does include with your impatient summary (“blah blah”). Don’t you realize that the issue with which the article is concerned obviously causes a lot of pain for a great many people of both sexes who are trying to make their relationships work? Do you really think that examining these extremely common relationship struggles in detail is trivial or worthy of contempt—that saying “Children tend to be harmed by infidelity!” will, by itself, make the phenomenon disappear?
As someone who cares about how children are affected by infidelity, you can’t help but be frustrated by the article’s omissions; but in a way, the lengthy treatment Weiss provides (not particularly profound IMHO), ironically gives the very issue you regard as so grave a more careful examination than you do. You ought not to let moral indignation crowd out the responsibility to gather data, to listen, if you want to produce an effective analysis of a social issue.
Vanya is touching on the glaring flaw in Ross' post, which is the way it totally begs the question.
I'm not saying I even agree with the article, but Ross accuses the author of ignoring harm to children when the article's whole point is that maybe we shouldn't construct our social norms in such a way that adultery is an act with potentially terrible consequences like harm to children.
Despite my libertine leanings, I think Ross makes a perfectly valid point that you can't treat this issue without discussing how the children are affected.
I would note, however, that the assumption that the children are automatically better off if the parents stay married and keep their intense desires suppressed, even if they want to have sex with other people, isn't one that I would make. I would also not make the opposite assumption that it's great for the children for the husband to run off with the mistress or marry the trophy wife. It may also be that in some cases, a marriage that permits some extracurricular activity might be best for the children.
The point that I think the New York piece gets right and religious conservatives get dead wrong is that this stuff is really complicated. Sex is very important to a very large number of people. And different people have different expectations and different sexual desires. There is a tendency to assume that every person who isn't getting satisfaction from the person that they married or who bore their children is simply in need of therapy to repair their marriage. But that's just an attempt to avoid the deeper, harder truth-- that our traditional arrangements for containing sexuality don't really work all that well for many people.
The best approach to take on these issues is to try and create the cultural space where different people can live different lives, while at the same time encouraging people to act responsibly with respect to the children they bring into the world. The religious right and the couples therapy industry are two pretty big obstacles to us ever getting to that point.
"How does adultery "harm the children" if there's no divorce involved? If a businessman has a one night stand with a woman he meets at a sales convention 2000 miles from home, or a cop gets a "freebie" from a hooker, or even if a successful executive in Westchester keeps a mistress in a Manhattan apartment, if the wife doesn't know, or in the latter case maybe doesn't care, how are the children harmed?"
This is a very perceptive point.
The truth is under the logical positivism of the left one has to "prove" a "discreet & demonstrable harm" to argue against any number of topics from pornography & promiscuity to divorce & family breakdown itself.
You do a service by pointing out that (absent divorce) infidelity doesn’t hurt anyone in the way the left always insist that traditionalists prove.
The truth of the mater is that adultery in any form, be it prostitution or a kept mistress or serial divorce doesn’t discreetly harm an individual- rather it harms the institution. The institution is properly seen as the socially acceptable domain for sexual activity & child rearing. Any affront to that bond is (and has always been traditionally labeled in the law) a threat to family stability.
Of coarse this same argument applies to any deviation of the marital standard from same-sex "marriage" to divorce, to promiscuousness and so forth.
The real human truth is that society through both law & culture needs to set high standards for everyone and build the kind of culture that encourages them to meet those standards.
Its good to see a thread were the legacy of divorce is finally brought up and assumed to be the social disaster it’s been.
However during the height of the "no-fault" divorce revolution a typical troupe dragged out by the libertines was...
"How do to people down the block getting a divorce effect YOUR marriage"
Well, at that time the divorce rate was below 10%.
The "we can have a menu approach" to sexual relations is a utopian fantasy of the left that has failed on multiple fronts. The social constructivist idea is that traditional standards are overly "rigid" & if we could just get past these silly taboo's we would have a world were different people could live different lives while at the same society could secure that they act responsibly with respect to the children.
70% illegitimacy rates among the underclass should have dispelled such fantasies a long time ago. However it was a sexual "revolution" and like all such revolutions it first needs to eat its young.
Look, everbody it's "I've read Freud AND Darwin, so everything is related to the genitals, don't you know" MoeLarryandDumbass, Vanya "If we only defined deviance down, you know made it so that [insert deviant behavior] wasn't against social norms, then there wouldn't be any negative consequences!! Yay!!!", and Dilan "traditional arrangements for containing sexuality don't really work all that well for many people, so let's just do away with them, duh"...Man, brilliant, guys, brilliant. You are a credit to armchair intellectuals all over the Internet.
Bushpig! That might be be funnier than Repiglicans!
Dilan "traditional arrangements for containing sexuality don't really work all that well for many people, so let's just do away with them
Philip, if you are going to mock my position, at least state it fairly accurately.
You won't see me advocating that we do away with heterosexual marriage. (Gays should also have marriage or a fully equivalent arrangement, because discrimination against gays is a grave evil.) I think there are plenty of good reasons why people should be able to form a stable legal bond with a domestic partner.
What I am criticizing is the view that marriage is the only acceptable, appropriate, workable, or moral form of human sexual interaction. So we have to make space for alternatives, because there are other ways to live that work better for some people.
In this debate, one side wants to enforce its religious beliefs on nonbelievers and make the heathens conform. The other side thinks marriage is great when it works but wants to make sure there are other models available for people whose sexuality doesn't neatly conform to what the religious right thinks is the only way.
Or more simply, one side lives in the realm of fantasy, the other side lives in the realm of reality.
Bushpig! That might be be funnier than Repiglicans!
I'm having trouble thinking of analogous terms for the other parties. DemoRats? LiberCanaryans? Damn, I'm bad at this.
So, because the reality is that many humans are weak and depraved (and that works for them!), we should make it socially acceptable for them to cheat on their spouses? Sorry, don't buy it. It's always nice to see secularists abandon any pretext of caring about virtue. But, wait, who am I kidding? Secularists have never given two shits about virtue.
Tom is LITERALLY the only person on this thread who is making any sense.....
So, because the reality is that many humans are weak and depraved (and that works for them!), we should make it socially acceptable for them to cheat on their spouses? Sorry, don't buy it. It's always nice to see secularists abandon any pretext of caring about virtue. But, wait, who am I kidding? Secularists have never given two shits about virtue.
Virtue has nothing to do with genitals, Phillip. It's not my fault that you believe that an imaginary being commands us to care about unimportant things more than actually important things.
Look, cheating on spouses, defined as betraying them by playing around without tacit or explicit consent, should not be socially acceptable. But again, what your side wants to do is use that as an excuse to deny any social space for ANY relationship other than a traditional heterosexual marriage. There's plenty of middle ground here, but because you want to impose your hallucinations about God on people who aren't required to accept them, you refuse to recognize the reality of varied experiences of sexuality.
Philip Marlowe is a big sheep: "Sorry, don't buy it. It's always nice to see secularists abandon any pretext of caring about virtue. But, wait, who am I kidding? Secularists have never given two shits about virtue."
For torture-loving warmongering cretins like you, Philly, "virtue" is a meaningless word. What you really are is a receptacle for the bilge your leaders pump your way on a daily basis, and nothing more.
Go suck the pus out of your dittohead, boy.
The sexual virtue you morons promote is the last thing you actually care about - it's just a tool you use selectively to bash your enemies. Thus when Newt Gingrich commits adultery you ignore it, as you did when Dumbya's pappy carried on a 20 year affair, and as you're doing with serial adulterer John McCain and his HOMEWRECKING WHORE Cindy.
(Note to cretinous wingnuts - I don't CARE that Cindy's a WHORE. I think it's funny and utterly meaningless as it pertains to the fitness of her Bush-sucking senile hubby's pursuit of the White House. But it's the sort of thing you'd convince yourselves was truly important if it applied to a Democratic nominee and spouse, so I'm rubbing your bestial snouts in it.)
But, MOOEEE, you forgot "REPIGLICANS"!!!
Hahahaha. Seriously, Moe, please don't ever tell your shrink about your posts on this site. He may up the meds, and then we would all be deprived of the insanity. That was fantastic.
Dilan, ol' boy, I'm just glad you admit that adultery should not be socially acceptable.
There are competing notions of virtue, not a single consensus standard. Yet certain passionate social conservative commenters who always post on here repeat the contrary narrative, which inhibits much in the way of communication or learning.
To cite only one possible conflicting account of the relevant issue, someone who cheats on a spouse in a mutually painful marriage, but is not ready to leave it, but badly feels a need for the solace and connection of the new, perhaps temporary relationship while still working on the marriage, is not necessarily doing the worst thing in the world. It may be a mistake; I would even venture to say that other things being equal, it is a mistake. But we on the outside do not know whether other things are equal.
Social trends one may deplore in the aggregate do not always lend themselves to facile judgments about individual cases, not at any rate among those for whom one important constituent of a moral life is a reticence or humility about judging others, grounded in respect for the sovereignty, privacy, complexity, and (to some extent) the unknowability of other human lives.
Ross must be proud he started such an intellectual conversation.
Seriously though, good topic Ross.
Others. If you seriously thought about what you wrote and your parents didn't have to unlock your computer for you to do it, you would probably wish you could erase it from the public record.
Dilan, ol' boy, I'm just glad you admit that adultery should not be socially acceptable.
The fact that you are surprised about this shows one of the great intellectual deficiencies of many devoutly religious people.
You guys assume that there's religious morality and then there's moral relativism.
In fact, there's plenty of secular morality out there. And when you see us arguing that, for instance, a wife who is no longer interested in sex and authorizes her husband to take a lover can be the correct move for particular circumstances, you assume that this must mean that we have no moral principle at all and that all cheating and adultery is perfectly ethical.
In fact, adultery is dishonest. It violates promises made to the spouse that were part of the inducement to form the marriage. Adultery can also lead to the transmission of STD's. It can lead to a child being conceived out of wedlock. It can lead to personal embarassment to one's spouse and children.
There's no need to bring organized religion, the Ten Commandments, that Catchecism of the Catholic Church, or the teachings of James Dobson into this to see this.
But you see, lots of other sex acts that you claim to be "unvirtuous" involve no dishonesty at all, no likelihood of STD's, no likelihood of pregnancy out of wedlock, and no likelihood of personal embarassment to the spouse and children. You just call them unvirtuous, which translates as "I hallucinated that a nonexistent supernatural being told me that particular uses of one's genitals are wrong".
It is perfectly possible to condemn dishonest sex acts and betraying one's partner while permitting a much broader space for consensual activities that fit the lives of particular persons better than the snake oil peddled by organized religions.
In the modern age in America, monogamous sex no longer kills women at the rate it once did. Think of the change: 150 years ago, in the time of Abe and Mary Todd Lincoln:
"if half of one's offspring survived adolescence, the couple was blessed. . . . The churchyards were crowded with headstones of women who perished in childbirth. It was terrifying to think that marital sex was often a death sentence; it must have given sensitive men pause."*
Technology has now mostly conquered that old problem of death in childbirth, and the attendant evolutionary and socio-psychological effects that might be related. Between birth control on the one hand and better OBGYNs on the other, and with video conferencing and vibrators for long-distance relationships, I'd say we're now the best-equipped for monogamy we've ever been.
Quit your zipper problems and be faithful, if that's what you've promised.
* - The Lincolns: Portrait of a Marriage, by Daniel Mark Epstein. Reviewed and quoted in the WSJ, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121124613390205785.html?mod=opinion_journal_books
Dilan writes: "In fact, adultery is dishonest. It violates promises made to the spouse that were part of the inducement to form the marriage. Adultery can also lead to the transmission of STD's. It can lead to a child being conceived out of wedlock. It can lead to personal embarassment to one's spouse and children.
There's no need to bring organized religion, the Ten Commandments, that Catchecism of the Catholic Church, or the teachings of James Dobson into this to see this.
But you see, lots of other sex acts that you claim to be "unvirtuous" involve no dishonesty at all, no likelihood of STD's, no likelihood of pregnancy out of wedlock, and no likelihood of personal embarassment to the spouse and children. You just call them unvirtuous, which translates as "I hallucinated that a nonexistent supernatural being told me that particular uses of one's genitals are wrong"."
You're a whole lot more patient with the wingnut brigade than I am, Dilan. How long have you been dealing with the freaks?
I've been at it since 1979, when I ran into my first Campus Crusader as a college freshman. It's been a long, strange trip ever since.
I admire your efforts but try lashing out every once in a while and see how you like it - the poor stupid beasts have thick hides, just like their skulls, and they won't be hurt by it.
Dilan, I don't see any of the social conservatives on this argument making recourse to religious arguments to defend their positions, so your shrill anti-religious ranting is off-base in addition to being uncivil. Christopher Hitchens is on line one, and he wants his illogic and puerile, offensive rhetoric back. And I say that as a fellow secular person (agnostic).
My two cents on this issue:
Firstly, let us dispense with the idiotic notion that because we have an evolutionary predilection to a certain behavior, it is therefore morally justifiable. Human beings have evolutionary predilections to racism, greed, aggression, selfishness, and many other behaviors which any reasonable person would agree are morally bad and which are indisputably socially disruptive and harmful to others. We cannot evaluate the morality of a behavior based on whether it is part of human nature; we must look at the effects it has on society and others.
So, does adultery qualify as a harmful behavior? You yourself admit that it does. It's a betrayal of trust which leads to broken marriages and broken homes. It is harmful to both individuals (betrayed spouses, children) and society (which is often left helping to pick up the pieces when it comes to raising the children of broken homes).
You suggest that it could be made less harmful by making it more socially acceptable. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that this is so. While the findings of evolutionary biology certainly support the conclusion that men particularly have a predisposition to promiscuity and often find monogamy difficult as a result, they equally well suggest that humans of both sexes are predisposed to desire a monogamous mate. Human nature is to want the freedom to screw around yourself while simultaneously denying your partner that freedom. This is borne out by the scientific data; one would expect there to be relatively few men and women who are willing to accept an open marriage or similar type of arrangement, and indeed it is so - even the great majority of those enlightened Europeans want their spouses to be faithful to them, and those who cheat do so on the sly. As such, most men who want to continue to sleep around after marrying are going to have a tough time finding a woman who will willingly allow them to do so (the opposite is true of women who want to continue to cheat, as well). This makes it, in most cases, impossible to be both polyamorous and honest.
So which should a moral person give up? Given that cheating harms other people - one's spouse, one's children, if one has any, and society - whereas sexual deprivation harms only one's self (and that much more debatably - there are lots of healthy monogamous or even asexual people), I think the answer should be pretty obvious.
People have a moral responsibility, when they marry or otherwise enter into a committed relationship, to remain faithful to their partner unless they can find one who doesn't have that expectation. If someone is too weak to control his or her sexual urges, s/he shouldn't get married unless s/he finds someone who's okay with being screwed around on. Period. There are no laws which say you have to get married, or that if you do you're not allowed to have an open marriage if the people involved so choose, so this has nothing to do with legal sexual freedom or what kinds of relationships the state chooses to sanction. It's all about personal morality. Entering an ostensibly monogamous union, breaking the promises thereof, and then attempting to rationalize bad behavior by appealing to Darwinian necessity, the naturalness of one's desire, etc. is nothing more than egocentrism and base moral cowardice.
I've been at it since 1979, when I ran into my first Campus Crusader as a college freshman. It's been a long, strange trip ever since.
I must say I'm surprised. Considering the non-stop vitriol, pique, and judgmental self-righteousness of your posts, I would have guessed that you couldn't be more than 13 years old, or 14 at the most. I guess age is no substitute for maturity.
Xeynon writes: "Dilan, I don't see any of the social conservatives on this argument making recourse to religious arguments to defend their positions, so your shrill anti-religious ranting is off-base in addition to being uncivil. Christopher Hitchens is on line one, and he wants his illogic and puerile, offensive rhetoric back. And I say that as a fellow secular person (agnostic)."
I guess you missed Marlowe bitching about the "secularists." And you also miss the fact that some of us have been arguning on this site for quite some time and we know how to read between the lines. The religious nuts don't need to drop the J word or cite Corinthians for us to know what's up.
Agnostics are just atheists with no balls, by the way. You either have a religious belief (which makes you a theist) or you don't (which makes you atheistic). Is that too complicated for you? Your inability to be honest with yourself is not my problem, and I don't respect it. If you were to say that for the time being you're an atheist, but you're open to evidence that would justify becoming a theist, that would be a position that would make sense.
In the meantime, shove this "shrill" nonsense up the chute of the nearest sky fairy. It's funny too how you can use such language while complaining about someone else being "uncivil." Grow up, you silly child.
And Hitchens may be an ass but he's worth 100 of you on this issue.
I don't agree with Fitz on much of anything, just wanted to make that clear. It's definitely a nice thing that the divorce rate back in the 1950s was 10%. But we also had less contraception, fewer rights for women, less female participation in the workplace, less personal freedom for both men and women, and no tolerance not just for extramarital but for premarital relations as well. DOn't forget that the flip side of the Victorian era was widespread prostitution. I don't think many people would want to go back to the 1950s sexual morality, and I would agree with them.
That doesn't mean that the opposite extreme is good either, nor does it mean that adultery is OK. I'm reasonably tolerant of the idea that if two people just cannot, in the last extremity, make a marriage work, they should be able to have a divorce, and I don't particularly have a problem with unmarried people in a committed relationship living together or sleeping with each other or whatever (hopefully in a relationship that will tend towards marriage eventually). There's no excuse for adultery, or casual sex, or pornography or prostitution and things of that nature. Whether they be 'natural' or not (and such things as pornography are definitely very un-natural.) If you enter a committed relationship with someone then you need to honor your commitment.
And if you are sleeping with your girlfriend and do get her knocked up then you really ought to make an appointment at the local church and get ready to stay together and raise the kid together.
"In fact, there's plenty of secular morality out there."
Oh - Indeed
"And when you see us arguing that, for instance, a wife who is no longer interested in sex and authorizes her husband to take a lover can be the correct move for particular circumstances."
"you assume that this must mean that we have no moral principle at all."
Situational ethics that have no moral resonance for the institution itself and no conception on how standards effect behavior.
What you have is no COHERANT collective ethic concerning sexual behavior much less one that you have been able to apply socially with any integrity.
You can’t “deliver the goods” as they say. Those very real discernable social goods like husbands for wives, wives for husbands – mothers and fathers for their children, security and certainty for the institution as a social reality.
This has been the reality to the point of 42% illegitimacy rates. This has been the reality that comes down with blunt force on women, children & the poor.
Half baked grasping at a half ethic in crafted hypotheticals has been no replacement for the world’s oldest social security.
http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Narcissism-American-Diminishing-Expectations/dp/0393307387
Fitz shits: "What you have is no COHERANT collective ethic concerning sexual behavior much less one that you have been able to apply socially with any integrity."
Talk to the fundies and your buddies in the Buybull Belt, Fitzy. They're the ones with the sky-high divorce rates, not us blue-state rationalists.
And it's "coherent." And your ethic isn't.
Look, cheating on spouses, defined as betraying them by playing around without tacit or explicit consent, should not be socially acceptable. But again, what your side wants to do is use that as an excuse to deny any social space for ANY relationship other than a traditional heterosexual marriage. There's plenty of middle ground here, but because you want to impose your hallucinations about God on people who aren't required to accept them, you refuse to recognize the reality of varied experiences of sexuality.
But note that if those people don't call those relationships marriages, almost no social conservatives I can think of have any interest in reducing the _legal_ space for those people. That is, nobody with any following wants to criminalize non-marital sexual relationships. That people fight to reduce _social space_ for arrangements that they find harmful to human dignity and happiness is not exactly surprising or controversial -- or avoidable, except via some sort of totalitarianism of tolerance. Many sexual liberals and conservatives try to reduce the social space for verbally abusive relationships, even if the abused in some case aren't particularly complaining (and there's no physical harm to make it a legal concern). You probably don't object to that.
TMoC writes: "But note that if those people don't call those relationships marriages, almost no social conservatives I can think of have any interest in reducing the _legal_ space for those people. That is, nobody with any following wants to criminalize non-marital sexual relationships."
While that may be true now, it's a comparatively recent development, and rationalists don't trust you knuckledraggers much in this department.
And while you may not want to criminalize it for now, you certainly want to stigmatize and marginalize them, and if an occasional head or window gets broken it's not something that bothers you much, if at all.
Meanwhile we've had gay marriage here in Massachusetts for a few years now, and there hasn't been any big rip in the social fabric, and families here are still more stable than they are in Asswater, Oklahoma, or Batpist Boil, Texas. How do you like them apples?
Moe --
I wasn't actually thinking of gay "marriage" (which I am not in favor of, unsurprisingly), but of the kinds of things Dilan is talking about more generally. Most social conservatives are opposed to creating "space" for people who (A) are "married" and (B) (openly) have sexual relationships with people other than their spouses. There is, of course, demographic and ideological reason to expect (see Andrew Sullivan's comments at times) that gay marriage is likely to increase this space, but in part it is an orthogonal issue.
My main puzzlement on gay marriage is the strategic blundering -- I suppose patience is not in the cultural left's bones, but it seems that in, say, California, left to their own devices the people would quite possibly have voted down the constitutional amendment and (in five or ten years, perhaps, or fifteen at most) voted in actual gay marriage in name as well as substance. After the court decision, I suspect the constitutional change will pass, and it'll actually be longer before the state has gay marriage. On this issue, where public opinion is trending liberal, I'm not sure why the push for the courts was seen as a good move by so many.
That is, Roe was probably a "smart" move -- it helped increase public acceptance of abortion in various ways, and it was at the Supreme Court level so there was no way to trump the raw exertion of political power by democratic means. While the gay marriage push in the courts looks to me to have the effect of creating a state or two (MA, maybe somewhere else) with gay marriage imposed by courts, and a sea of states with constitutional amendments that will be difficult to overthrow ruling out gay marriage. CA is quite likely to have a few months of gay marriage followed by a constitutional amendment. Why? It seems clear that a slower strategy had a much higher probability of maximizing states with gay marriage by 2020.
Ross Douthat is Maude Flanders in "Soldier of Decency"
Starts Friday everywhere.
TMoC writes: "My main puzzlement on gay marriage is the strategic blundering -- I suppose patience is not in the cultural left's bones, but it seems that in, say, California, left to their own devices the people would quite possibly have voted down the constitutional amendment and (in five or ten years, perhaps, or fifteen at most) voted in actual gay marriage in name as well as substance. After the court decision, I suspect the constitutional change will pass, and it'll actually be longer before the state has gay marriage. On this issue, where public opinion is trending liberal, I'm not sure why the push for the courts was seen as a good move by so many."
Hey, it worked for interracial marriages. I'll bet we still have a state or three where it would be touch and go if a ballot question would allow THOSE.
Will this constitutional amendment pass in CA? We'll see. I hope the bigots aren't crazy and numerous enough to saddle their constitution with such an odious bucket of shit, but then I'm still stunned that Dumbya carried the 2004 election.
M of C
(You note)
"Look, cheating on spouses, defined as betraying them by playing around without tacit or explicit consent, should not be socially acceptable."
You bring up a important point regarding the level of legal enforcement social conservatives are willing to tolerate. In doing so however you miss Dilans tacit degenerate push when it comes to marriage. Here we are discussing the harm infidelity has on children and he has managed to slip into the conversation that "optional consensual marital fidelity" ought to be socially accepted.
There are only a small number of non-negotiable that make marriage "marriage" in any historical sense. One of those is its male female nature. Another is its exclusivity. Before the paint has even dried on their dream of genderless utopia already you have a cultural leftist calling for a social ethics of "open marriages". The open insistence that all sexual acts are socially harmless as long as consensual is an established orthodoxy in the leftist cannon.
They have not and cannot defend morality, the family, children or marriage against the forces of degeneracy.
You need to accept that your adversaries are not liberals who hope to explore intellectually what is in the common good but rather open social subversives looking for any opportunity to undermine the dominant paradigm.
&
"My main puzzlement on gay marriage is the strategic blundering"
It’s not a strategic blunder, you underestimate their respect for the rule of law when you write “and a sea of states with constitutional amendments that will be difficult to overthrow ruling out gay marriage” . They were well aware that the popular resistance to redefining marriage would lead to State Amendments. After all the 61% ballot initiative is less than ten years old in California.
Any sop to federalism is newly minted, erstwhile, and temporary. As in Row the Modus operandi is to drive it through by any means necessary and sit on the results (Mass.) As soon as a U.S. Supreme Court majority can be cobbled together the other shoe will drop and same-sex “marriage” will be imposed on the entire country. Perhaps there will be a Bowers before there is a Lawrence, perhaps not. The “revolution” gets its name because it keeps coming around again. The important thing is that any liberal discussion or intellectually sophisticated critique of the proposed change remains verboten in elite leftist circles.
Fitz shitz again: "There are only a small number of non-negotiable that make marriage "marriage" in any historical sense. One of those is its male female nature. Another is its exclusivity. Before the paint has even dried on their dream of genderless utopia already you have a cultural leftist calling for a social ethics of "open marriages". The open insistence that all sexual acts are socially harmless as long as consensual is an established orthodoxy in the leftist cannon."
Well, that would be "canon."
Fitz's congenital literacy makes me wonder who his real father was. He's a disgrace to the Irish, so I hope his true father was English.
Meanwhile Fitzy just has to go to his trusty Buybull to find plenty of non-exclusive marriages. Do the names Abraham, David, or Solomon mean anything to old Fitzy?
But that's DIFFERENT! Yahwho changed the rules when Mary dropped her frog in a manger, says Fitzy!
What a silly little mind you have, Fitzy.
Maybe I'll take your commentary on sexuality seriously if you can convince me you've ever been to second base. If you know what I mean.
The responses to my post from the social conservatives here haven't really advanced the ball any, so I am not going to make a detailed response.
Suffice to say that the problem with the social conservative position (other than its origins in theology that agnostics and atheists and non-Christians and Christians of other denominations aren't required to accept) is that it is just clearly wrong in particular circumstances.
For instance, let's say that Jane and John are married. John is a servicemember who then goes to war, and comes back a quadriplegic who is unable to have sexual relations. Jane devotes her life to taking care of his needs. Caring about Jane, and hearing her expressed concerns about the fact that they can no longer have sex with each other, he tells her that he'd like it if she found a lover who could satisfy her in that area. She does so.
Now, our social conservatives are going to say that there's no difference between that and a guy cheating on his wife without her knowledge with a prostitute picked up on Sunset Blvd. But there clearly is.
Indeed, our social conservatives don't seem to even be able to say that there is something different about two guys who love each other and want to marry each other and our cheating husband cruising Sunset Blvd. It's all "unvirtuous" sex.
So the problem here is what I said before-- 1 side actually cares about the actual circumstances people are in and wants to craft ethical rules that make sense in particular circumstances. (And by the way, somebody here completely blew the definition of the term "situational ethics". Tailoring ethics to particular situations is not situational ethics. Situational ethics is where you advocate inconsistent rules depending on whether it serves your interests to violate them.) The other side thinks that anyone who doesn't conform to their narrow conception of what it is acceptable to do with one's genitals constitutes someone with no "virtue", regardless of the circumstances.
Now, our social conservatives are going to say that there's no difference between that and a guy cheating on his wife without her knowledge with a prostitute picked up on Sunset Blvd. But there clearly is.
No, Dilan, at least not this one. What utter nonsense, what a piece of insulting, dishonest, nonsense. No difference? No, I'm not going to say that, St. Paul wouldn't say that, and Pope Benedict wouldn't say that. We might say _both are wrong_ but last I checked all wrong things are not equivalent. I have, once or twice in my life, improperly used office supplies in a way that was wrong. I have done much worse things. Charles Manson, Stalin, and Eliot Spitzer all did wrong things, but they're not cases where there is "no difference."
I'm not much a fan of the idea of people with "no virtue" or even the basic idea of "bad people" precisely -- there are things that are wrong, and sinners, and public policy should perhaps not be devised to endorse heartily and equally all approaches to life, but you're flat out a liar and a fool Dilan if you think you've described my approach to things, and I think you know that. Have you ever even read any Christian theology or moral thinking? Are you a knave or a fool? Or just uninterested in any debate beyond misrepresenting the other side unfairly?
I mean, come on, does your little caricature capture, say, Eve Tushnet well? She's a "social conservative" with policy positions (and views) not radically different from mine as far as I know.
Actually, perhaps I'm being unfair. Maybe DILAN's worldview is just too simplistic and idiotic to grasp that one might (A) think two things are both wrong but (B) not treat them the same or imagine there is no difference between them.
I mean, he seems to have this notion that if you can _understand why someone might do something_ (or think in the same case you might end up doing it yourself) you can't possibly think it is wrong. That seems to be a not uncommon (slightly insane) view of reality, not limited to liberals.
TMoC is dense: "I mean, come on, does your little caricature capture, say, Eve Tushnet well? She's a "social conservative" with policy positions (and views) not radically different from mine as far as I know."
Don't be an ass, TMoC. Dilan said "our social conservatives," by which he meant Fitz and you and that moron Marlowe. He may have been (slightly) wrong about you, but if there's some nuanced thinking going on with the other two dopes I've missed it.
BTW there's no "quadriplegic exemption" in Catholic teaching about adultery that I'm aware of.
And you left Pope Ratzinger, notorious accomplice to child rape, off of your list of people who have done wrong things. I would suggest that he's a much bigger scumbag than Eliot Spitzer ever has been. Though we don't know everything Spitzer has done, I don't think he ever reacted to the rape of children by issuing a cover-up plan. And you continue to defend the bastard, which is why I think your silly-ass claims to having a morality superior to that of anyone who posts here is a bad joke.
Moe, of course there's no "quadriplegic exemption" -- I think the scenario Dilan describes is wrong, but it's not as wrong as what he claims it has "no difference" from -- you're making the same idiotic assumption that saying something is understandable in the sense that we can see why it is done and have pity means we can't also say it's wrong. You guys must have trouble reading fiction and understanding these strange things called motivation. Tragedies must just drive your little minds insane!
If it wasn't the Catholic church, which reminds you somehow of your father or something, I really don't think you'd give a rat's ass about child rape, Moe. I mean, I guess you would in general (I don't think you're some horrible monster) but you wouldn't give it this level of thought. It's a little annoying. Someone like Rod Dreher who interacted with the bishops and the thugs in the American Church has every reason to obsess, and is right about many aspects of the scandal -- but you use it as a little football to avoid actually discussing things.
And Moe -- Hector and I are both, by Dilan's lights, social conservatives, and I think what he said above, with respect to us, is obviously false and flatly stupid and insulting.
"Actually, perhaps I'm being unfair. Maybe DILAN's worldview is just too simplistic and idiotic to grasp that one might (A) think two things are both wrong but (B) not treat them the same or imagine there is no difference between them."
I think your being to harsh.(& I believe the post was addressing yours truly)Rather than simplistic and idiotic a better pair of terms would be non-existent and opportunistic.
There’s no there, there. The cultural left has never posited ANY ethical stance on human sexuality beyond consent & adults. While simplistic it also has the added benefit of ease of use. What it can’t do is be accountable for their consequence, that’s the important thing.
It’s easier to destroy than to create. The opportunistic hypothetical abound while any sense of self sacrifice or integrity unravels.
That’s why the presence of the “child” as the natural product of sex is so problematic. Be it adultery, abortion, divorce or what not. It has to be a disposable commodity – disposable in the name of unfettered adult desire and felt need.
Marquis of Carabas
The above comment was addressed to you. Along with my response to your post at May 21, 2008 2:00 PM.
I was hoping you would respond directly to my observations about...
#1. Dilan's "optional consensual marital fidelity" (in general not his horrible hypothetical) The better hypothetical is the impotent, sterile loving husband who’s Wife yearns/has yearned for a pregnancy/child of her own.
#2. The strategy of same-sex “marriage” advocates via the judiciary.
The latter is studied and accurate.
Bingo, Marquis, bingo. It's hilarious how the bipolar Moe (or is it borderline personality disorder?...could be both, I guess) just thinks he can yell "Catholic Church!", "Pedophiles!", "Child Rape!", and the debate is over. Moreover, he assumes that I love Bush (never voted for him), support the Iraq War, condone torture, etc., which of course I do none of these things. It doesn't matter, this is why he's on medication.
As far as Dilan,again, Marquis, thank you. His silly, half-baked utilitarianism is really kind of laughable, if it weren't so damn sad.
I guess you missed Marlowe bitching about the "secularists."
That's an epithet that certainly has a certain connotation, and an unpleasant one. But it's not the same as appealing to an argument from the bible or some other religious source.
And you also miss the fact that some of us have been arguning on this site for quite some time and we know how to read between the lines.
Yes; you, in particular, seem to have nothing better to do with your time.
Agnostics are just atheists with no balls, by the way. You either have a religious belief (which makes you a theist) or you don't (which makes you atheistic). Is that too complicated for you?
This is formulation is so absurdly simplistic that I don't know that it's worth trying to explain this to you, and nothing in your posting history leads me to believe you've got the patience or subtletly of mind to understand these distinctions, but here's the thing: the world is not always, or even usually, divided into discrete either/or categories. There are millions of Buddhists, Unitarians, and Jains, among others, who do not believe in anything one could call a god, yet indisputably possess religious beliefs. They are atheists but not agnostics. Conversely, there are a lot of people who believe in a god but make a distinction between belief and knowledge - while they believe, they acknowledge that they don't know. Hence they are agnostics but not atheists. There are also people who don't believe, but who think it's foolish to equate the absence of positive belief with the presence of positive unbelief because they consider the question of whether God exists fundamentally unanswerable.
Your inability to be honest with yourself is not my problem, and I don't respect it.
Your respect is really the last thing in the world I covet (well, maybe it's not quite far down as gum disease or toenail fungus, but it's close). Hence, I take that as quite a compliment. Thanks.
It's funny too how you can use such language while complaining about someone else being "uncivil." Grow up, you silly child.
I hate to break it to you, but "uncivil" and "shrill" are not insults here in the real world. They're descriptors, albeit negative ones, but they're not insults. On the other hand, childish ad hominems, your stock in trade, are insults. As are contemptuous insinuations of the sort Dilan was engaging in.
Considering that by my calculations you must be nearly 50 years old, and your idea of a good time is going online to call people names, I think you could stand to take your own advice.
TMoC replies: "If it wasn't the Catholic church, which reminds you somehow of your father or something, I really don't think you'd give a rat's ass about child rape, Moe. I mean, I guess you would in general (I don't think you're some horrible monster) but you wouldn't give it this level of thought. It's a little annoying. Someone like Rod Dreher who interacted with the bishops and the thugs in the American Church has every reason to obsess, and is right about many aspects of the scandal -- but you use it as a little football to avoid actually discussing things."
Well, no, TMoC - I bring it up with you because you're still defending the rapist-enablers i your Church, just as you did (quite ineffectively) in the first interaction I recall having with you. You know, the one where you claimed I couldn't substantiate Ratzinger's involvement in the cover-up effort. When I immediately did so, you cravenly ignored the significance of it.
Like almost all conservatives you have a special ability to dismiss as unimportant the atrocities committed by your leaders. Ross can't even bring himself to address the Iraq war on most days, and I think you two are very much alike.
Xeynon replies: "This is formulation is so absurdly simplistic that I don't know that it's worth trying to explain this to you, and nothing in your posting history leads me to believe you've got the patience or subtletly of mind to understand these distinctions, but here's the thing: the world is not always, or even usually, divided into discrete either/or categories. There are millions of Buddhists, Unitarians, and Jains, among others, who do not believe in anything one could call a god, yet indisputably possess religious beliefs. They are atheists but not agnostics. Conversely, there are a lot of people who believe in a god but make a distinction between belief and knowledge - while they believe, they acknowledge that they don't know. Hence they are agnostics but not atheists. There are also people who don't believe, but who think it's foolish to equate the absence of positive belief with the presence of positive unbelief because they consider the question of whether God exists fundamentally unanswerable."
I actually agree with some of this, but equating atheism with "positive unbelief" is equally simplistic to anything I said. I don't positively state that there is no god - ever. But I still refer to myself as an atheist, not just because of my lack of belief in a god (or gods) but also because of my lack of adherence to any religious system.
And of course most Unitarians do believe in some sort of god, as do many Buddhists, even if these conceptions of god are limited or unusual by mainstream standards.
I'll hold by my opinion of the label "agnostic" as essentially useless.
"I hate to break it to you, but "uncivil" and "shrill" are not insults here in the real world. They're descriptors, albeit negative ones, but they're not insults. On the other hand, childish ad hominems, your stock in trade, are insults. As are contemptuous insinuations of the sort Dilan was engaging in.
Considering that by my calculations you must be nearly 50 years old, and your idea of a good time is going online to call people names, I think you could stand to take your own advice."
"Shrill" is most certainly an insult in the real world, chuckles, but then I've seen your haircut and that's also an insult.
I don't think I call people names that are unjustified - I think "Repiglican" is highly descriptive and grounded in observation, for instance. Whining about "ad hominems" is a tedious activity, but if it floats your boat, enjoy. And use the word "vitriol" some more, the Repiglicans love it.
"I think 'Repiglican' is highly descriptive and grounded in observation, for instance."
Moe, it is also uproariously funny! I tinkle my pants almost every time I see it!
Moe, of course there's no "quadriplegic exemption" -- I think the scenario Dilan describes is wrong, but it's not as wrong as what he claims it has "no difference" from -- you're making the same idiotic assumption that saying something is understandable in the sense that we can see why it is done and have pity means we can't also say it's wrong. You guys must have trouble reading fiction and understanding these strange things called motivation. Tragedies must just drive your little minds insane!
Moe, calling someone an idiot is not an argument. You want to hold onto the notion that the quadriplegic is acting wrongly, but there's no basis for that. Indeed, it is quite clear that it would be wrong to force Jane in my hypothetical to make a choice between her marriage and her sexual fulfillment.
The point of the hypothetical is that the only reason it strikes you as wrong is because you are assuming that there is an ironclad rule that has no give in it as to how one's genitals may be used.
But I have a suggestion to you-- when your rule yields repugnant results, that isn't a situation where you congratulate yourself on standing on principle in the face of a bad result. Rather, it's a good indication that your rule is a bad rule. (This, by the way, is a great fault of Antonin Scalia's jurisprudence-- he is very self-congratulatory about screwing people over, because it shows (to him) that he is willing to stick with his principles no matter what.)
Excuse me, that last post was directed at Marquis, not Moe.
Dilan says: "Excuse me, that last post was directed at Marquis, not Moe."
I would hope so. For one thing I've never thought that publicly labeling an idiot as such was a form of argument. It's more of a public service.
Arguing with a Fitz is totally pointless. He's no more capable of serious communication than a nematode is. Treating a Fitz rudely is an investment in the future - just in case some proto-Fitzes are watching, they may catch on to the fact that becoming a fully-vested Fitz has no future in a civilized society.
Dilan,
I don't know anyone who would say that the case of the quadriplegic and the case involving the prostitute have 'no difference'. God judges each of our actions in light of our strengths and weaknesses, and our temptations, and our circumstances. All sins are not equal in God's eyes nor in mine. I don't even know _for a fact_ that your quadriplegic case is a sin- God is more merciful than we can imagine- but I'm not prepared to say it isn't a sin either.
Your quadriplegic couple have legal recourse, you know. Divorce is legal in all 50 states. And even before no-fault divorce, denial of conjugal rights or impotence was a ground for a divorce (at least in Puerto Rico, not sure about the mainland US).
I don't think it's OK to stay married and cheat however. I don't think you should have your cake and eat it too. If you can't be faithful then don't get married, and if you can't stay faithful then get a divorce. (Not that divorces are good things). Nor do I think hard cases and exceptions are what we should base our laws and moral systems on.
Dilan,
Sorry I was rather cranky and insulting yesterday, but your characterization of "social conservatives" moral systems was such nonsense that it really irritated me. On reflection, I think your comments on the quadriplegic case show that our differences here may boil down to two points that are somewhat "we can't talk to each other and get anywhere"ish.
You are, as far as I can tell, nearly a pure utilitarian, with some few random principles tossed in (women's rights may be a point you'd defend even if somehow convinced it made people on average less happy -- other freedom-as-primary points might also get this treatment). I will use consequentialist reasoning once in a while (it can be narrowly useful) but its not the basis of my morality. I'm more "after virtue", so we're not going to have much to talk about there.
And perhaps, rather than just dishonest mischaracterization, your "no difference" arose from what I think of as a Protestant understanding of these matter -- long ago, when I was a little Protestant boy, I'd hear adults in church say that "all sins are the same in the eyes of God." Now, at the time this seemed nonsense to me, and it still does. It's not Catholic teaching, which judges matters on the gravity of the offense, the freedom of decision, and the degree of reflection involved. It's not common sense, and it's not scripture. I'm not really sure where it comes from, other than as a weird distortion of a narrow point of Calvinist theology. B
I am so sick of being told to "think of the children". There's a reason this type of "concern" is satirized on shows like the Simpsons through characters like Maud Flanders.
Posted by TH | May 20, 2008 1:17 PM