Natural (F)Law Theory..Gayness Continued and Concluded

sorry for the delay...i been sick and busy.
the spice moves on...
a last bit about gayness...and then????


Closely associated with the Divine Command theory I babbled about last time is Natural Law Theory. The two end up being linked because they both have a wee bit of common theistic history. Divine command is the morality of the church a long long time ago, Natural Law theory? The morality of the church a long time ago (and well to this berry day for some.). The name most often associated with Natural Law Theory is Aquinas. The problem is that the version that St. Tommy offered, if we are to read it generously, doesn't resemble the sort that your average person who is commited to the deal advocates today...

To over simplify Aquinas' account, the deal was this:
There is a divine law (because there has to be or the world just wouldn't make much sense).
God done gave us the key to understanding the divine law when he done gave us reason.
Reason is the key because we are the only things that got it and we alone were made in God's image, so it makes sense that reason is pretty darned special.
In that we have reason, a chunk of our purpose must be to use it (cause god wouldn't have done givin us reason for no reason).
It only makes sense (is rational) that things oughtta fulfill their purpose.
Therefore, in order to take full advantage of our faculties and rationality we must use reason to create our human laws because its the bestest tool for the job and part of our purpose is to be rational...(this is pretty darned much the natural law...we have to do what is natural to us the same way that beavers ought to chew wood).
The divine law is rational and to the degree that we formulate moral rules that are rational and in accord with god's word, our law (the human law) is in accord with the divine law and it rocks the moral hizouse...


Now this should remind all you wanna be philosophers out there of Aristotle's teleology based virtue ethic...Aristotle too woulda said fulfilling one's purpose is the way to go, he woulda also thought that reason was particularly important...but he wouldn't have put God in the picture. For Aquinas the natural law, the purposefulness of the world becomes a wee bit more important because rather that that purposefulness just being a consequence of the way the world works, it is handed down by God. So fulfilling one's purpose is pretty damned important (because, well God done gave everything it's particular purpose).

SOOOOO, what does that have to do with gay humping?
Well, quite a bit actually. It's not hard to see where the argument is gonna go. If part of our obligation is to act according to our divinely granted purpose, then anytime we deviate from that purpose we are doing a naughty thing. Obviously you have a willy or a puss for a particular purpose (to have babies) therefore any use of that willy or puss for any other activity is in violation of its intended purpose, is irrational, ungodly and morally wrong.

Now, although absurdly over-simplified, this version of natural law theory is roughly 4,328 times as sophisticated as the arguments you will hear regarding how gayness is 'un-natural'. Alas, even this slightly fleshed out version is pretty darned shitty. Because...well...no one who advocates it is willing or able to consistently adhere to it. Given that one of the premises in the whole deal is that reason is king, embracing a contradiction is going to be a pretty darned tough pill to swallow. Contradiction is one thing we can all agree is just plain irrational (and if you don't agree, you are using a definition of 'reason' that is so far removed from history and/or convention that you oughta stick to poetry).

The contradiction rears its ugly little head when we start considering purposes and nature...

If we are to stick to the simplified version of natural law provided above...we have a wee bit of a problem when we try to figure out the purposefulness deal because things have more than one purpose...one can use sex organs to make babies, for pleasure, to make cash, to help create intimacy in a relationship etc. Noone can claim that baby making is the only true purpose of the junk in your shorts, because there are just so darned many. However, if you are willing to commit to the notion that the baby making purpose is THE REAL purpose, and the use of one's naughty bits for anything other than that purpose is morally wrong then it MUST follow not only that diddling your own button is wrong but that I am doing something morally wrong when I wink at you or roll my eyes because certainly those aren't the REAL purposes of my eyeballs...in fact, if things can only have one REAL purpose then at least one (winking or rolling) MUST be at least as morally wrong as gay humping...and, well no one is trying to prevent eye rollers from getting married. No one will consistently commit to the notion that each organ that we have only has one real purpose and that any other use is morally wrong. If one cannot commit to that claim, then they cannot commit to the notion that gay humping is wrong on the grounds that it violates the purpose of your naughty bits.

Now, plenty of other seriously flawed reasons have been given under the name of natural law (more often than not unwittingly)...these reasons often differ from the account above in terms of the definition of 'natural'....some of those equally bad (if not worse) arguments to consider and dismiss:

The notion that 'natural' really means normal...or fitting within the realm of what is considered normal...
This is just ridiculous. Morality and normalcy don't have a damned thing to do with one another (and in fact we can prove that indeed they cannot have a necessary connection) BUT for the sake of brevity, all we need to do to effectively refute this idiotic argument is to point out that by these standards we'd get rid of anyone and everyone who happens to be exceptional as morally abhorrant. Noone wants to consider a prodigy or a smarty pants or someone who cultivates a partiucular talent morally wrong but practicing a particular skill all day is certainly abnormal. Unless you want to claim that every kid who is first chair in his schools orchestra is morally wrong because kids that age shouldn't practice their instrument so darned much you gotta give up on this absurd position...in order to hold this view, you just have to be an idiot or a liar.

Folks sure as hell don't think gay humping is unnatural in the sense that it violates the 'laws of nature' (this is what the person who calims 'animals dont do it!' is really getting after).
Since when have the laws of nature determined right or wrong? Never, of course. I have a bum ticker, naturally my heart is gonna give out by like forty-five...I sure as hell don't think i will be doing something morally wrong by putting in the artificial valve that is gonna keep me alive...and neither do you. You like man's accomplishments and creations...If 'natural', in this sense, is the standard for morality then you are going to have to give up on social convention in it's entirety, technology, medicine, art etc. because all of those things are inventions of man and consequently immoral. If you claim to want to get rid of all those things? Well you are just an idiot or a liar.

The 'it is icky' argument isn't going to hold either...'gayness seems gross so it is unnatural. dudes are naturally repulsed by dudes and women by women'. That is just plain stupid. Brain surgery is icky too, that doesn't mean it is morally wrong. If you claim to believe this? Yup...idiot or liar. This, by the way, is also why those of you who think icky pictures of blood covered baby monkeys are important to the 'abortion' argument are sorta jsut plain stupid too...just cause something is gross or difficult to looka t, sure as shit doesn't make it morally wrong. Fallacies are sure easy to come by, aren't they...

SOOOOO, having considered a handful of the arguments as to why gay humping is morally wrong I hope to have brought you to the only rational understanding one can have regarding the moral nature of the issue...there is no RATIONAL justification for the belief that homosexuality/homosexual behavior is in and of itself morally wrong...

Because the spice is here for you, I'll let you know that anytime you make (or attempt to make) an argument that gayness is somehow morally wrong you are sorta kinda advertizing that you are a thoughtless baffoon. However, i'll be happy to listen any arguments you've got and explain to you why they make you sound like a complete idiot before you say them out loud to anyone else.

other than that, i am moving on. i don't even remember what inspired the gay rant (i think it was general so and so saying such and such a month ago and the idiotic discussions the he inspired)...i got bigger and better things to worry about now. sooo, next spice report? either some poetry or some thoughts about crazy kids with guns.

smooch