The road less traditional is just as difficult
Regarding ‘Creative thesis slots highly prized by '09s,' (Tuesday, April 8, 2008):
I was quoted in The Daily Princetonian in an article expressing the opinions of students applying for a creative thesis. ...(back to the article)
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An anonymous commenter claims that Shivani was only appealing to a principle that dealt with sex, and that it wasn't supposed to apply to any cases involving instrumentalization or pleasure-seeking outside the context of sexuality. That is a strained reading of her article: "The pursuit of pleasure, when dissociated from the pursuit of other intrinsic human goods such as full marital communion, treats the body as a mere instrument and disrespects the fundamental worth of human beings." Maybe there's a good argument for why the pursuit of specifically sexual pleasure, when divorced from other intrinsic goods, is immoral, but the pursuit of other kinds of pleasure, when divorced from other intrinsic goods, can still be perfectly acceptable. But that argument hasn't been given, as far as I know. I suspect that the reason Matt Strohl made the accusation of intellectual dishonesty was that it seems like we're arguing against a moving target. Each time a relatively clear claim made by Shivani or one of her defenders is shown to have absurd consequences, we get the response: "that's not what we really meant, what we were actually saying was [insert some completely different claim]." It's frustrating to argue against somebody who keeps changing their rationales for the positions they hold, and it's easy to suspect that their arguments are mere rationalizations for positions held on independent grounds. If you think the accusation is shrill, tired, or useless, then stake out a position, defend it consistently, and admit defeat if it is shown to be absurd. If you instead disavow support for positions you previously endorsed, don't cry foul when your dialectical opponents accuse you of intellectual dishonesty.
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It's very puzzling to me that Strohl and others continue to miss the point by miles, despite the fact they seem to consider themselves experts on the matter in question. Shivani was NOT speaking GENERALLY about (a) instrumentalization as such, (b) seeking pleasure as such, or (c) seeking means for only some of their ends. She only mentioned their debatability in the CONTEXT of SEXUALITY, and nowhere else. The charge of intellectual dishonesty is a tired, shrill, and useless one. More importantly, it's unjustified. I might also claim that Strohl's position is founded on a non-theistic worldview. Would that get us anywhere? Intellectual dishonesty is a very serious accusation, and one he should not carelessly hurl about.
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So your only argument against mine is your declaration that it is "patently absurd?" That's not much of an argument. Do you really, honestly, hold the view that sex is in the same category as biking and drinking coffee? When you bring up reduction examples completely unrelated to sex, I agree that their absurdity is obvious. I'm not a naturalist or a biological reductionist, so I have a hard time relating to your analogies. In any case, my claim that sex ought to be pursued with openness to all its natural ends DOES indeed rest on the assumption that there's something especially meaningful about sexuality that allows me to make a distinction between it and drinking coffee.
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@Anon. 11:41: Neither you nor Shivani has presented a defense of the basic premise of your argument, that it is wrong to participate in an act with the intention to limit the consequences of that act. That is essentially what you mean when you say that sex must only be pursued if the couple intends to have a child, reach orgasm, gain exercise, and all of the other "normal" consequences of sex. I mean, this seems patently ridiculous. When I bike, the normal consequence is to get from point A to point B, and get some exercise but maybe this time I'm biking only for exercise and I'll just return to the starting point. When I drink coffee I usually want the caffeine pick-me-up and the flavor, but maybe this time I just want the flavor so I'll get decaf. And maybe in the future I will want to have a child but in the meantime I'd just like to reach orgasm and express my love for my husband, so I'll take the pill until I want a child. You have provided absolutely zero evidence, argument, or logic to support the claim that we must only participate in actions with the intention of achieving all of the normal consequences. Still waiting, but not holding my breath on that.
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To Stephanie Hill: It's easy to become frustrated with the student body for wanting things to be perfect, but maybe training people to expect systems of improvement isn't the worst thing to be encouraged at Princeton. Let the kids make demands! I hope in the future each student challenges their government and organizations to continually do more to make improvements. Perhaps now it's a trivial shuttle bus, maybe later it will be some law that eases the lives of millions that Princetonians are pushing for. Nothing wrong with being a demanding citizen.
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@anonymous 11:41. I'm not sure whether there's a coherent way of spelling out what you mean when you say: "The distinction Shivani makes is between situations where sex (and the participants' bodies) are merely used, and situations where sex is pursued for its own sake." How can sex be "used"? And what does it mean to pursue sex for its own sake? Do you mean having sex solely for the sake of having sex? That sounds like what nymphomaniacs do. If you mean pursuing sex for the sake of your partner's well-being, then why can't premarital sex be like that? You might say that premarital sex is contrary to your partner's well being and therefore you can't pursue it for the sake of their well-being, but then your argument begs the question. You also say that we should construe her view to be that "sex should be sought for ALL of its normal consequences, and not merely one of them (pleasure)." Is this supposed to apply to just sex or to all our activities? If it's supposed to apply to all our activities, then we're in big trouble. It will turn out that we're ding something wrong if we're fishing with the intention of throwing the fish back, or swishing wine around in our mouths to taste it with the intention of spitting it out. If it's just supposed to apply to sex, then you need to tell a story explaining why sex is different from everything else. Both when we have sex and when we play ping pong or get a massage, we instrumentalize our own body and the body of the other person involved in the activity. You might say that our sex organs are "meant" for reproduction (whatever that might mean) and so using them for pleasure with no intention of reproducing is somehow wrong. But our muscles were certainly not meant for playing ping pong. When we play ping pong we take abilities that we have for the purpose of surviving (assuming this teleological framework) and use them for idle enjoyment (don't say that ping pong involves exercise, because so does sex). You have said nothing that helps distinguish sex from the style of counterexample I've given. I don't think you'll be able to give any such argument without appealing to religious principles. This whole position strikes me as very intellectually dishonest, because REALLY it's a religious argument, but you're trying to mask it as a non-religious moral theory.
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The last comment, I am certain, was written by Robbie George himself. Mr. Anonymous, reveal yourself as the Catholic intellectual that you are!
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@Matt Strohl: Yours is a very common objection to the principle Shivani articulated. As you suggest near the end of your letter, Shivani's argument may need an extra premise, establishing what makes sex different from eating food seasoned with oregano. But first, it's important to establish (and I think Shivani would agree) that instrumentalization is not claimed to be wrong as such. Some instances of instrumentalization disrespect human dignity, while others (like the oregano example you give) surely don't. To show that sex is different or special, your interlocutor might point out that while activities like walking and eating both require instrumentalization of the human body, the behavioral aspect of these activities is wholly different from the behavioral performance of sexual acts. For one, sex requires two people to unite to perform its behavioral element and realize its consequences. The distinction Shivani makes is between situations where sex (and the participants' bodies) are merely used, and situations where sex is pursued for its own sake. It should also be noted, in light of some of the comments to her article, that Shivani's column does not express a puritanical disapproval of the pleasure that arises from sex. Her view, if I understand it correctly, is that sex should be sought for ALL of its normal consequences, and not merely one of them (pleasure). Whether or not those consequences obtain matters little, since sex sometimes does turn out to be unpleasant, infertile, and non-unitive. What matters for the ethics of sex is the way we evaluate its behavioral element.
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