Uranian Defense

And am I not right in asserting that there are two goddesses? The elder one, having no mother, who is called the heavenly Aphrodite—she is the daughter of Uranus; the younger, who is the daughter of Zeus and Dione—her we call common; and the Love who is her fellow-worker is rightly named common, as the other love is called heavenly. (Plato, Symposium, 180d–e)

In order to better serve the purpose of this blog, I collect some of my opinions about sexual relations, with special reference to gay relationships, into one place.

0. Contents

1. Reason
2. Faith
3. Culture
4. Politics

1. Reason

1. Ethics may be derived from human nature. This is assumed here, though in relation to my own metaphysics, I have proved it before. Here we may note that the only major alternative ethical theory that can judge consistently about all actions is utilitarianism, it is trivially demonstrable that all consensual sex acts are permitted within it, or at least not bad.

2. Human beings are, by nature, rational animals. By this, I mean the fact that human beings are able to explicitly refer their actions to known purposes, from which fact we know that they have, as we observe in ourselves, the power of reason, i.e., of defining and dividing concepts, judging, and deducing. Although none of them do this in every action, all of them do it in some circumstances, in which a failure to do so is understood as their falling short of their nature, whether by disease or by vice. In judging this power to be essential to human nature rather than accidental, I merely follow the crowd.

3. Rational animals may form special friendships. Rational animals are able to have rational goodwill for each other, i.e., to desire the other’s good; and having this, they are able to seek it sometimes to its fullest extent, namely by giving of all that they have. This is done, first, by one teaching the other so that they have the same knowledge; and when they have the same knowledge, they must have the same rational desires, which in turn allows them to control each other’s property without conflict, thereby having really given each other everything; and so it is that friends own all things in common.

4. Friendships are the best temporal good acquirable. Since to have a friend is the same as to have another human life; and since rational animals are, metaphysically, the best creatures on earth; it follows that there is no greater good to be acquired among material things than a friend. Further, a friend is of service to every end of a human being, since friends are sources of knowledge and helpful to every practical pursuit; so that the pursuit and maintenance of a friendship is truly a rational end of a human being, rather than a merely animal one.

5. The end of the sexual organs is reproduction. Although modern science may contribute to a reinterpretation of the natural purpose of the sexual organs, I am not aware of any attempts at doing so, and I will base my reasonings upon the traditional doctrine, which is, at any rate, how I understand them. It does not seem that any other use of the sexual organs is essential to the human nature, whereas the reproductive use is how the species is propagated.

6. Reproductive use of the sexual organs may not be lawfully engaged in outside of marriage. Marriage being defined as a heterotelic, voluntary relationship, oriented to the production and rearing of children, it is irrational for human beings to seek reproduction without first getting married. For reproduction, by nature, creates children and places them under the responsibility of both parents, who must then agree about raising the child, so that they may do so without conflict.

7. Animal ends may lawfully be subordinated to the rational end. The end of a creature being dictated by the end of its highest part, viz., the senses in brutes and reason in human beings, it may sometimes enter into conflict with the full perfection of some of its lower parts, which may then be sacrificed for the end of the whole. So it is that, taking the universe itself as an animal, the brutes may be slaughtered for the nourishment of human beings; and so it is that, in human beings themselves, the amputation of a limb may be justified to preserve the life of the mind.

8. Unreproductive use of the sexual organs may possibly be subordinated to the end of rational friendship. Sexual acts which are perverted from their reproductive end may nevertheless serve the end of maintaining a friendship between rational animals, since such acts are known to have such an effect on the emotions as promotes bonding and intimacy between the agents. In such cases, the reproductive parts are made to serve the end of reason, to the detriment of their particular ends.

9. Unreproductive use of the sexual organs is justified when subordinated to the end of rational friendship. This follows from the foregoing two sections. Although the natural end of the sexual organs makes certain acts with them intrinsically wrong, nevertheless the natural end of reason allows for such acts to be justified from an extrinsic consideration. This includes all acts except properly reproductive sexual acts, since such are also contrary to reason, as seen in the sixth section.

2. Faith

10. The Catholic Church has always allowed, implied, or taught, the doctrines 1 through 8, from which the ninth follows logically. The first six doctrines have been common since antiquity and have always been taught in the schools; see, for instance, [1,2,3,4,5,6]. The seventh doctrine is also commonly taught, although usually implicitly, such as in the moral justification of amputations, and of the human use of animals. The eighth doctrine is taught when the Church acknowledges, as in Humanae vitae, that the marital act has a “unitive end” which is fulfilled even when its “procreative end” is impeded by infertility; since antiphysical sexual acts differ from the marital act chiefly in their lack of intrinsic ordering to reproduction, they must be able to fulfill the same end. The ninth doctrine, though never explicitly taught, must follow.

11. Seemingly categorical condemnations of unreproductive sexual acts ought not to be interpreted in an absolute sense. Since the Catholic Church should not be held to be inconsistent, which the foregoing section proves that it would be, if it taught an absolutely comprehensive prohibition of unreproductive sexual acts; and since the Church herself has taught, in Vatican I, that “there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason”, and the doctrines in this post have been proved through reason; it follows that, although there have been seemingly categorical statements in condemnation of unreproductive sexual acts in the Bible and in various Church teachings, those statements should not be interpreted as applying to every case, but to the general case, viz., the case where the sexual act is not subordinated to rational friendship. When the act is justified by its ordering to reason, it must be clear that nothing can condemn it.

3. Culture

12. Marriage, while permissible, is not ideal. This is known philosophically, since marriage involves serving the animal end of reproduction to the detriment of contemplation, which is the end of the rational powers of man, and therefore his highest end. Scripture also supports this, since in 1 Corinthians 7, the Apostle warns that, while “it is good for a man not to touch a woman”, marriage is allowed “because of fornications”, and “by way of concession”, solely because “it is better to marry than to burn”. If someone is able to keep from lust, he ought to be unmarried, as the Apostle was.

13. Gay relationships, when justified, are superior to nongay relationships. Since gay relationships cannot reproduce, it follows that insofar as they are justified, they must be maintained solely by the rational end of friendship, and can never succumb to the temptation of derogating from their highest end in order to serve their reproductive parts. Evidently, this makes them more commendable and nobler.

4. Politics

14. All uses of the sexual organs which only involve consenting adults ought to be permitted by the state. Although not all such acts are morally permissible, nevertheless all such acts contribute to the general welfare, defined as the fulfilment of subjective desires. Since the state has little hope of using punishment to conduce citizens to moral behavior, it can best fulfill its duty by keeping its restrictions to securing the general welfare, which is objectively determinable by means of the demonstration of preferences in human action.

15. Legal marriage between persons of the same sex ought to be permitted by states. The state’s monopoly over contract enforcement is unjustified in principle, since it is incapable of serving the common good. So, the state ought to end its monopoly immediately, or at least in the meantime, recognize all intrinsically valid contracts. Although in 2003 conditions, the CDF thought that this recognition of same-sex legal marriage would lead to the social redefinition of marriage, it is unclear that it must do so any more than so-called “intellectual property” laws should lead to the redefinition of property, since legal fictions have always existed. At any rate, nowadays it seems that almost no one thinks of marriage as intrinsically connected with reproduction, so that the concept is already radically transformed and unlikely to be repaired, and the maintenance of this unjust restriction upon individual contract freedom does no good to the social order in that respect either. (If I had not given a definition of marriage in section 6, I think that the section would probably not have been understood.)

16. Couples ought not to be excluded from adopting children for the reason that they are of the same sex. Although there may be reasons, as the CDF alleged, to believe that children are raised better by an opposite-sex couple than a same-sex one, nevertheless the alternative for a child facing adoption is to have no adoptive parents at all, in which experience there is no “sexual complementarity” either. Since it cannot be shown that being adopted by a gay couple is better than not being adopted, there is no good reason to exclude same-sex couples from adoption, although such reasons as the CDF alleged, if well-founded, could support discriminating against them in adoption waiting lists.