As my first wife was fond of saying, illicit sex "fries the brains." Her mother was a Catholic philosopher from whose paper "Contraception and Chastity" (1972) Eberstadt sees fit to quote at length.
You were married to Elizabeth Anscomb's daughter?
Holy cow.
One of them.
Not to be intrusive, but I can't imagine why you would needlessly have to provide for alimony as I'm sure the Anscomb Estate would be sufficient to support the needs of your ex-wife.
But, whoa, having been the husband of but even a daughter of so great a Roman Catholic Thinker of the 20th Century -- I'm impressed!
e:
My financial obligations derive from my second marriage, not my first.
Best,
Mike
I feel for you -- sorry to have even brought it up in the first place.
Still, having been Son-in-Law to so great a Thinker; please forgive this line of inquiry, but did you manage any offspring from that marriage?
Given your intellect (at least, that which you've demonstrated here on your blog) and the great intellectual heritage of your first wife, I just wonder what became of your children (that is, if you had any by her)?
That contracepted sexual intercourse is gravely sinful is certainly infallibly taught by the ordinary magisterium.
I am not persuaded that it can be demonstrated by reason alone to be part of the natural law.
Also, we should be cautious about using pragmatic arguments against contraception. One can make similar arguments against TV and gambling. After all, abusus non tollit usum.
Actually, there is a paper (link below) that addresses the various treatments by several Christian denominations on the matter.
Procreation and Contraception in Twentieth-Century Christian Ethics
It would be quite interesting if Dr. Liccione devoted a post specifically wrestling with several of the compelling arguments made here for contraception.
Mr Williams:
Pointing out the baleful effects of the contraceptive mentality is not, per se, an argument that contraception is intrinsically immoral. It is evidence that some of the premises on which such an argument would be based are worthy of credence.
I do think it can be shown, without appeal to divine revelation, that contraception is objectively contrary to the natural law. However, I don't think that's sufficient to show that nothing could ever justify it. One must also show that it is always and necessarily unreasonable to do what is contrary to the natural law. I believe one needs theism to establish that.
Whether such a theism could be purely a product of natural theology, or also requires divine revelation, is an interesting and unresolved question. My own view is that, given human corruption, divine revelation is generally necessary for convincing people of certain things that could in principle be established without it.
Best,
Mike
e:
There is nothing new in the paper you cite. Its argument against HV is essentially the same as Charles Curran's.
In addition to the Anscombe paper I've already cited, I suggest you have a look at my Development and Negation VI: Contraception.
Best,
Mike
"I do think it can be shown, without appeal to divine revelation, that contraception is objectively contrary to the natural law. However, I don't think that's sufficient to show that nothing could ever justify it. One must also show that it is always and necessarily unreasonable to do what is contrary to the natural law. I believe one needs theism to establish that."
I think one needs more than theism to establish the gravity of contraception. Surely, it is unnatural to consume a sugar substitute. It separates the pleasure of eating from its primary purpose of nutrition. However, I think the worst that can be said about using Splenda is that it is a morally trivial expression of gluttony, similar in gravity to stealing a paper clip from the office.
Christ restored marriage to its original integrity and as such it is iconic of the Kingdom. The seriousness of contraception must lie in this and so it must be a revealed truth.
1. Being a C. S. Lewis guy, I've always seen Elizabeth Anscombe as a "bad guy," but I honestly don't know anything about her work. (I do think, though, that history has proven Lewis right, but that's another story).
2. Charles, that is something I struggle with, too. I can see the argument that contraception goes against the natural law (Lewis makes a great case for that in _The Abolition of Man_), but I don't see how NFP does *not* go against Natural Law, based upon reason alone. Every defense of NFP has to appeal to sacramental theology.
3. The big lie of contraception is that it is somehow pro-feminist. Ironically, notorious self-proclaimed AntiChrist Mary Daly *does* oppose contraception on the grounds that it objectifies women (she just hates heterosexual intercourse). I know men get sterilized, but, generally, the pressure to contracept is put on women, since men generally don't want to "lose" their virility.
Do you really believe that any of the things Paul VI listed as consequences of contraception didn't exist prior to its introduction? To use one example, was there any point in history where men DIDN'T 'treat women as means of their own pleasure?" Where men respected women?
JC,
I would recommend Alex Pruss's work on contraception. I do think that NFP does not go against the natural law. The question is whether the couple is the cause of infertility. Contraception is when the couple causes infertility. When couples practice NFP, they are not the cause of infertility but allows something "bad" like infertility into good "use."
Amplifying Apolonio's recommendation, I would recommend the work of Germain Grisez on the topic, specifically Contraception and the Natural Law. He discusses exactly the sort of objection presented here, i.e. the difficulty with believing that contraception is immoral merely because it is "unnatural." He agrees with your objection and provides, in my view, a more solid grounding for the Church's teaching.
Gentlemen:
I discuss the question of contraception's being "unnatural" in this post. What makes contraception "unnatural" in an objectionable sense is not that it suppresses something that would ordinarily occur "in the course of nature"; otherwise, all sorts of licit therapeutic treatments would be unnatural in an objectionable sense. Rather, contraception is against the natural law because the intentional suppression of the procreative in favor of the unitive aspect of the conjugal act necessarily corrupts the latter. Any moral philosophy according to which the use of artificial sweeteners is always and necessarily a venial sin of gluttony, being "unnatural," is using a distorted conception of natural law in the moral sense.
Grisez's error is to argue that the wrongfulness of contraception is akin to that of homicide, in virtue of suppressing potential life. Paul VI and John Paul II offer a much more sensible explanation, which I defend. However, and along with John Ford, SJ,, Grisez did the Church a great service by making the case that the wrongfulness of contraception had been taught infallibly by the ordinary and universal magisterium.
As for the old Lewis-Anscombe thing, I have it straight from her that he agreed with her criticisms and altered the second edition of Miracles accordingly. They certainly did not dislike one another.
Best,
Mike
Karen:
I think what Pope Paul meant was that all sorts of bad things, including male disrespect for women, would increase if the contraceptive mentality became widespread. That's what the last several decades have borne out. But he was not so stupid as to believe that no such bad things had pre-existed artificial contraception.
Now if you want to argue that men in general have always disrespected women in general, more than vice-versa and apart from the question of contraception, then you're promoting the chief premise of "second-wave" or "gender" feminism, which I believe is and has been very destructive in our society. I hope that's not what you're doing.
Best,
Mike
Dr Liccione -
I am not aware of Grisez making an argument in Contraception and Natural Law similar to the one you cite, i.e. that contraception is "akin to homicide." Admittedly, my recollection here is based solely on memory and a brief flip through the book, but such an argument sounds more like the "conventional natural law" argument which he thoroughly opposes. I am an amateur here, though, and am not well-versed in Grisez's larger corpus or the academic literature in general. Can you provide any further guidance on your critique of Grisez?
The old fasting laws of the west, which are roughly the same as those still in effect in the east, offer another organic approach to the issue. If a couple includes in their preparation for communion the refraining of intercourse the night before receiving the Eucharist (and they are regular communicants, ie. every Sunday and major Feastday) and during fasting periods (Lent, Advent, Apostles' fast, Dormition fast), you've eliminated a good number of days out of the year. The upside, of course, is that one is given a decidely joyful expectation at the end of the fasting period with which to better endure the fast. Before anyone dismisses this as rubbish, they might want to try it together. It brings to life so much of what the Church teaches, making real the truths within the doctrine. That the fasting laws have been lessened over the last 1000 years or so might go a long way to explaining the massive disconnect between the teaching and the reception of it.
Michael and John,
Alex Pruss deals with Grisez in his forthcoming book.
Apolonio -
I'll have to look for the book once it comes out. I'm not familiar with Dr Pruss' work, though I follow his blog intermittently. If 30 seconds worth of googling is any sort of a reliable indicator, he refers to a concept of "Thomistic natural law" which seems to be more consonant with "conventional" or "modern" natural law, which Grisez critiques. It's possible I'm reading too much into Grisez's argument (and I do have objections to several of his claims), but I find that his theory is consonant with a more classical idea of Thomistic natural right, in the manner of Leo Strauss and Alasdair Macintyre. It seems to me that Grisez's formulation of the problem in terms of human goods tracks more closely with traditional virtue ethics and escapes the various deficiencies of modern natural law theories and the "ought-is" problem. Still, a closer reading of Grisez may reveal shortcomings that I have not yet uncovered. My thanks for the suggestion.
John,
The problem with Grisez's approach when it comes to contraception is that there are many counterexamples to his principle.
I think Pruss's approach is better because it goes into the nature of sex, erotic and romantic love, etc in a way that is consistent with Catholic tradition as well as the new developments made by John Paul. I also think that he has shown the link between the unitive and procreative dimension of the sexual act.
Apolonio -
Some of the counterexamples I've seen offered in critique of Grisez's theory seem to me to be not counterexamples strictly speaking, but rather examples where fundamental human goods are in conflict with each other. It's not clear to me how this defeats Grisez's approach, since such conflict is a hallmark of "classical" virtue ethics.
We're quickly moving beyond the scope of my reading on the topic, though, and I can't really comment on the merits of Pruss's approach. Do you have any idea when his book will be released?
"That contracepted sexual intercourse is gravely sinful is certainly infallibly taught by the ordinary magisterium."
Nothing certain about it at all... When the bishops gave their response to Humanae Vitae, it was quite clear that they wanted to leave it to people's conscience. Hence the Vatican's policy of undercutting bishops' conferences and appointing yes men worldwide.
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