Thought of the Day 07.25.08

In debates about the ethical standing of various sexual behaviors, it is fairly common for advocates of traditional morality to describe certain practices as unnatural. The response of those who believe that people are morally permitted to do anything which brings them pleasure is to point to the animal kingdom and demonstrate that every manner of sexual deviance is quite common in nature. Although this is interesting, it’s not very relevant.

In logic we have a term for the error being committed here: equivocation (or four-term fallacy, for you Aristotleans), the verbal slight of hand accomplished by using two different definitions of the word “unnatural.” When hedonists use it, they mean “not occurring in nature,” but when conservatives use it, we mean “contrary to design and purpose.”

Thus promiscuity and homosexuality can be either natural or unnatural, depending, of course, on whether you think morality is a matter of emphasizing our beastly nature or our divine nature.