PHIL 200 Chapter Notes -Orgasm, Sexual Intercourse, Human Sexuality
12 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Although Masturbation: Conceptual and Ethical Matters 85 Finnis thinks that "pleasure is indeed a
good," he qualifies that concession with "when it is the experienced aspect of one's participation in
some intelligible good".
For Finnis's argument to work he must claim that pleasure is good only when it is an aspect of the
pursuit or achievement of some other good.
Perhaps he does not say it because he fears his readers will reject such an extreme reservation
about the value of pleasure; or, perhaps, he doesn't say it because he realizes it is false: the pleasure
of tasting food is good in itself, regardless of whether the eating is part of the goods of securing
nutrition or sharing table.
What if the friends say that they do have a common good, their friendship, the same way a married
couple has the common good that is their marriage? If "their friendship is not marital ... activation of
their reproductive organs cannot be, in reality, an ... actualization of their friendship's common
good," replies Finnis.
Finnis tries to explain, and in doing so reveals the crux of his sexual philosophy: the common good of
friends who are not and cannot be married has nothing to do with their having children by each
other, and their reproductive organs cannot make them a biological unit.
Finnis began with the Kantian intuition that sexual activity involves treating the body instrumentally,
and he concludes with the Kantish intuition that sex in marriage avoids disintegrity since the couple
is a biological "unit," or insofar as "the orgasmic union of the reproductive organs of husband and
wife really unites them biologically.
" In order for persons to be part of a genuine union, their sexual activity must be both marital and
procreative.
The psychic falling apart each person would undergo in nonmarital sex is prevented in marital sex by
their joining into one; this bolstering of the self against a metaphysical hurricane is gained by the
tempestuous orgasm, of all things.
At the heart of Finnis's philosophy is a scientific absurdity, if not also an absurdity according to
common sense, and further conversation with him becomes difficult.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
