Ah so you do have knowledge about it. Why do you think it is false? Not having reasons to believe it isn't sufficient to have reasons to hold it is false. So what are your reasons for holding it is false? — Agustino

It can be. I don't need evidence that there isn't a cat in my kitchen to believe (and claim) that there isn't a cat in my kitchen.

And at the very least, I'm free to reject your claim that celibacy is morally superior given that it hasn't been justified. I think that in lieu of evidence to the contrary it's reasonable to assume moral equality (or even a lack of a moral value altogether). It's enough to justify my claim that not eating apples isn't morally superior to eating them every now and again.

But if you must know, when it comes to meta-ethics I'm an anti-realist, combining emotivism, prescriptivism, nihilism, and relativism. I interpret your claims as being of the realist bent, and moral realism doesn't make any sense at all.

It can be. I don't need evidence that there isn't a cat in my kitchen to believe (and claim) that there isn't a cat in my kitchen. — Michael

But you do have evidence in your knowledge that you don't have cats in your house + neither do you have a reason to believe that one could have gotten in. So you do have evidence - namely your knowledge about what is (or should be) in your house. The framework against which you judge - that is the evidence (which of course you built from experience etc.)

But if you must know, when it comes to meta-ethics I'm an anti-realist, combining emotivism, prescriptivism, nihilism, and relativism. I interpret your claims as being of the realist bent, and moral realism doesn't make any sense at all. — Michael

Ah good, now we're getting somewhere. Explain this more please.

... neither do you have a reason to believe that one could have gotten in. — Agustino

Exactly. And I don't have a reason to believe that celibacy is morally superior to casual sex.

Ah good, now we're getting somewhere. Explain this more please.

Sorry, can't be bothered with a debate on meta-ethics.

Suppose you're terribly wrong here and that the need for sex and the satisfaction of that need is a more mature response than a person who has successfully repressed that need. Suppose your premise is utter nonsense, that elimination of or simply lacking sexual urge is unrelated entirely to virtue, morality, maturity or any superior power? That does seem to be your underlying unsupportable premise.

It strikes me that those who go without are either (1) misled religiously, (2) asexually constructed, or (3) socially incapable. Advocating chastity therefore arises because you either (1) wish to convert others to your religion, (2) are incapable of understanding sexuality due to your own asexuality, or (3) are trying to justify your own social limitations.

Exactly. And I don't have a reason to believe that celibacy is morally superior to casual sex. — Michael

Yes but you need to have a background framework which makes this conclusion reasonable - such as you have knowledge about your house, with regards to not believing there is a cat in your kitchen.

Suppose you're terribly wrong here and that the need for sex and the satisfaction of that need is a more mature response than a person who has successfully repressed that need. Suppose your premise is utter nonsense, that elimination of or simply lacking sexual urge is unrelated entirely to virtue, morality, maturity or any superior power? That does seem to be your underlying unsupportable premise.

It strikes me that those who go without are either (1) misled religiously, (2) asexually constructed, or (3) socially incapable. Advocating chastity therefore arises because you either (1) wish to convert others to your religion, (2) are incapable of understanding sexuality due to your own asexuality, or (3) are trying to justify your own social limitations. — Hanover

:-} And suppose your premise is wrong? Suppose it is nonsense to say that giving in to your lusts is morally superior to being celibate?

Listen mate, the fact you maybe can't hold your dong in your pants isn't our fault. It's your fault for not cultivating the virtue of chastity.

A priest who has abandoned his sexuality under the false doctrine of the church and who has given up a family and the meaningful relationships that flow from embracing that sexuality is a lesser person than a person actually engaging in the world and occasionally (gasp) having casual sex.

A priest who has abandoned his sexuality under the false doctrine of the church and who has given up a family and the meaningful relationships that flow from embracing that sexuality is a lesser person than a person actually engaging in the world and occasionally (gasp) having casual sex. — Hanover

Why?

Yes but you need to have a background framework which makes this conclusion reasonable - such as you have knowledge about your house, with regards to not believing there is a cat in your kitchen. — Agustino

I have a background framework. I understand that it is good to be kind to people and bad to be needlessly cruel to them. I'm a capable moral agent who understands moral norms. And yet despite this understanding I cannot see how celibacy is morally superior to casual sex.

But if you must know, when it comes to meta-ethics I'm an anti-realist, combining emotivism, prescriptivism, nihilism, and relativism. — Michael

lawl, thuper thurprised

I have a background framework. I understand that it is good to be kind to people and bad to be needlessly cruel to them. I'm a capable moral agent who understands moral norms. And yet despite this understanding I cannot see how celibacy is morally superior to casual sex. — Michael

Morality doesn't involve just being kind to others and not being cruel to them.

Because the priest is living a lie and offering in part a piece of that lie to all who come to him, all at the price of needlessly sacrificing having a family and sacrificing the other relationships one has that are elevated by sexual contact.

And since you quoted my post discussing celibacy vs casual sex. Well let's see... you go do your casual sex and being socially integrated until your instrument rots and falls off, your wife divorces you because you can't hold your dong in your pants and she's disappointed that you didn't wait for her - you know. That sounds like a great life am I right? That's certainly a brilliant path to take. Or wait - your wife won't divorce you, because you won't even get to marry that kind of woman. You'll marry some slut who fucks left and right, just like you. And when she cheats with your brother - ehhh not a big deal - just some casual sex. Such a person will end like Bertrand Russell - having their wife openly cheating on them and not divorcing "for the kids" - >:O shameful - Russell should have been ashamed of himself. That big head wasn't enough to guide him, clearly.

The priest on the other hand lives a life being compassionate towards others, focusing on helping them develop spiritually, being unconcerned with sex or making a family because he doesn't want to be devoted just to a small set of people, but rather to everyone who needs his help. Going to Church, counselling people on their problems, being an agent of change in their lives... Let's see, which would I rather choose? The humiliated but socially integrated Russell or the tranquil but family-less priest?

Wow. That got stupid faster than expected.

Wow. That got stupid faster than expected. — Hanover

Great excuse not to deal with matters when they get real, not merely some "casual sex" in a beaker isolated from the rest of life. Sure it's difficult in real life. It's not that easy to walk the talk. There are costs to social integration - sometimes it's not worth paying the price. And you laugh maybe, but look at that divorce rate. I wish you luck beating the odds of your social integration mate, you'll need it.

Wow. That got stupid faster than expected. — Hanover

You have high expectations.

Let's see, which would I rather choose? The humiliated but socially integrated Russell or the tranquil but family-less priest? — Agustino

A charlatan who'd rather appease his desires of sex and procreative ownership than angle himself fully toward God.

A charlatan who'd rather appease his desires of sex and procreative ownership than angle himself fully toward God. — Heister Eggcart

>:O But certainly God must be happy in my happiness no? He made man and woman one for the other didn't he? Why would God have made sex possible if it wasn't meant to have some role to play? I've spent time with monks but the thing is, the vocation of being fully angled toward God isn't for everyone. God made a few like that, and the rest of us not so. It's important to distinguish which one you are. If you are capable of devoting yourself entirely to God, that's great! But not everyone has to live in such a way - it's not an imperative for everyone.

Each one has a role to play in this world. That's what the monks have taught me. You must seek out your role and play it virtuously.

Advertising sex as good for health is, for example, a way to get people interested in sex. — Agustino

Could you give us a sample of advertising "sex as good for health" or "a way to get people interested in sex"? If you think I was saying that, you are wrong. We are not conditioned to be interested in sex (at least between the ages of 15 and 45). We are conditioned, if at all, to associate products with sex, and the goal of the conditioning is sales of products, not sex. Proctor and Gamble, Lever, et al have no interest in sexual activity, only in selling products.

People having sex is a market - for condoms, for sex toys, for medication for STDs, for abortions, for contraceptives, for pornography, for dating agencies/websites, for alcohol, etc. So what you're saying isn't the complete truth, again. People having more sex = more business of all sorts - including psychotherapy, and whatever else people need because they fuck themselves up through improper actions. — Agustino

And condoms and sex toys, medications for STDs, etc. are such a huge business! As for alcohol, back in the sex-restrictive days of Victoriana, alcohol consumption was much greater than it is now. Go back to the 18th century, and the volume of alcohol drinking was amazing. (They weren't drinking large amounts of hard alcohol because the water wasn't any good, either.)

as you are hyping it up for example — Agustino

Actually, I have been employed to hype sex -- safer sex, safe sex, harm reduced sex, and harm-reduced IV drug use--in social marketing for AIDS prevention. You know what -- it's damned difficult to get people to change sexual behavior with advertising. People change sexual behavior (or they don't) much more on the basis of personal experience than public messages. Ten friends dropping dead from AIDS motivates more behavior change than all the advertising in the world. A pregnancy scare, an AIDS scare, an STD--all these things are more motivating than preaching.

Tinder or Grindr facilitates sexual partner finding, but it doesn't give people the idea to have sex. It doesn't need to.

Based on earlier testimony, we have already determined that you have no competence to pontificate about people's sexual behavior.

Could you give us a sample of advertising "sex as good for health" or "a way to get people interested in sex"? — Bitter Crank

Please refer to the article from Forbes that Baden has linked :P

We are not conditioned to be interested in sex (at least between the ages of 15 and 45). — Bitter Crank

Yes we are, because if we weren't, sexual advertising wouldn't work. We first need to be made to think sex of any kind is a great great thing, only then can we mindlessly start pursuing it. It's not just that we think sex CAN be a great thing - that arises naturally in us. We naturally think sex can be a great thing in love and marriage when it is directed towards intimacy and children. But that sex outside of those circumstances can be a great thing - that doesn't arise naturally. That's a perversion of our sexual instinct.

Let me put it this way. It would be strange to love a woman romantically and not want to have sex with her. Sex definitely has a role and purpose in human economy. But outside of those conditions, it malfunctions; it loses its purpose. The sexual instinct, in its natural and untainted conditions, isn't end in itself. It's a means to some other end. What is that end, tell me BC?

Tinder or Grindr facilitates sexual partner finding, but it doesn't give people the idea to have sex. It doesn't need to. — Bitter Crank

Yes they do - they also advertise for themselves.

Based on earlier testimony, we have already determined that you have no competence to pontificate about people's sexual behavior. — Bitter Crank

No, based on my earlier testimony we have determined that I'm not a sex-crazed freak, and therefore have all the right to encourage others to become more rational about their behaviour, and stop harming themselves in stupid ways.

Suppose you're terribly wrong here and that the need for sex and the satisfaction of that need is a more mature response than a person who has successfully repressed that need. Suppose your premise is utter nonsense, that elimination of or simply lacking sexual urge is unrelated entirely to virtue, morality, maturity or any superior power? That does seem to be your underlying unsupportable premise.

It strikes me that those who go without are either (1) misled religiously, (2) asexually constructed, or (3) socially incapable. Advocating chastity therefore arises because you either (1) wish to convert others to your religion, (2) are incapable of understanding sexuality due to your own asexuality, or (3) are trying to justify your own social limitations. — Hanover

Since when is sex a "need" instead of a "want"? Quite confused that people "need" it instead of wanting or desiring it.

Since when is sex a "need" instead of a "want"? — Question

I think this raises an interesting problem. Even the materialist and atheist Epicurus considered sex to be a natural desire, but not a need. He distinguished between three types of desire - natural and necessary desires (such as food, water, air, sleep - these we call needs today), natural and non-necessary desires (like sex, this we call a want), and artificial desires (like the desire for fame - which he claimed are empty and vacuous).

To consider sex a need is an entirely modern invention, and quite frankly it screams weakness to me from 100 miles. "woah woah I need my toy!" cries the kid. Really? I thought we're supposed to grow up and put behind childish things, but apparently not. Nobody dies from not having sex. Yet try to go without eating and drinking for a few days, and you'll see what happens.

Personally - I consider the sexual instinct, in its untainted form, to be nothing bad - like Epicurus said, a natural desire. For example, I consider it natural for someone to desire children, a family, intimacy and love. That's not a need, it is a want, although it is a natural want, as opposed to an artificial one. But this kind of sexual instinct doesn't find its fulfilment except in particular circumstances - love, and life-long commitment to each other and the children. However - these things aren't always possible, or at least aren't possible in just about any circumstance or in just about any point in time. And there's nothing wrong in living without them, because again, it is a want. The fact that it is a natural want makes no difference to this. Only the factor of necessity is relevant. It's immoral to deny yourself necessities - like food, water, and so forth. And if you think about it, by not engaging in casual sex you aren't even denying yourself anything, because casual sex wouldn't fulfil the end goal of sex anyway (neither intimacy nor children would occur). You're just recognising that at present your natural desire cannot find the object of its fulfilment. This recognition is the way you accept your sexual instinct without repression contrary to what BC and Baden think. Having casual sex would just make you feel guilty and frustrated at yourself - it would certainly not fulfil your desire. That's why it is irrational. It's not even helpful.

But you see, the moderns, in order to be able to propagate the idea of promiscuity and casual sex, must make sex into a necessity - otherwise how can they claim, as Hanover does, that to live a celibate lifestyle is immoral and inferior? Furthermore, the even deeper problem is that it's not the Churches tricking people into celibacy - even the materialist and atheist Epicurus advocated celibacy for the sage.

I've been listening to this Hanover type of rhetoric almost all my life, especially when I lived in the West. A rhetoric which is actually quite blind to many of the realities of life. I don't mean to insult Hanover, but I often find this rhetoric in those who are well educated, but not very well educated - they are superficial, they see just the surface of the issues.

Each one has a role to play in this world. That's what the monks have taught me. You must seek out your role and play it virtuously. — Agustino

I'd like to murder people, because that's what I think is virtuous.

Am I doing it right?

I'd like to murder people, because that's what I think is virtuous. — Heister Eggcart

No Sir, but that can't be the role God has created for you, can it?

How does this distinction make a difference in the context of my post? Suppose I said "desire" and not "need," how'd you've had responded? I get there's a critical difference between want and need, but in this context, your objection seems pedantic.

"Need" tends to be understood in a sense of human destiny, as if all human are programmed to perform sex by merely existing. It forms sort of an image of humanity under which there is no question of whether an individual desires sex or if it's an ethical action to take.

Within the context of debates about celibacy and sexual behaviour, it forms a significant prejudice against those who are interested in sex or refrain form having. They are effectively aren't considered human becasue the do not manifest interested and behaviour all humans supposedly "need."

Though "desire" isn't a good term here either because it ignores the issue at stake: empathy for those for whom sex is a good thing.

Suppose I said "desire" and not "need," how'd you've had responded? — Hanover

I would have said that desire and need are two different things, as they are. This changes things considerably.

I'm going to take a Buddhist/Stoic turn here and argue that a person who has mastery over every one of their desires is, by all means, a Sage or has attained perfection in self-mastery. Nothing could bother such a person.

People who are slaves to their desires/urges/wants are weak and slavish. I don't think I need to dredge up the multitude of philosophical positions in favor of this interpretation.

How does this distinction make a difference in the context of my post? Suppose I said "desire" and not "need," how'd you've had responded? I get there's a critical difference between want and need, but in this context, your objection seems pedantic. — Hanover

Oh common, as if the whole game doesn't change if they are desires and not needs? Really Hanover. Have some dignity man. This is philosophy, not your local pub, where you can take your anachronistic and medieval views against celibacy for granted.

I mean, don't you look at sages like Epicurus, Epictetus, Aristotle, etc. and what they said about sex and celibacy? Do you really take your own self to be above all of them, such that you can denounce their views without even mounting an argument against it, by mere prejudice and sophistry? Have you made yourself into a latter day Hume? I get that you like to live your life as part of modern culture and buy into the views that the media is feeding you. You think that's normal because that's how you grew up, you're like the man in Plato's cave, you know nothing else about what's outside. And you think celibacy is abnormal because you haven't been surrounded by it, so it is alien to you and strange. Therefore you are prejudiced against it. That's very unphilosophical, and it's sad to see that your argument ended with that - mere prejudice.

When I give you a hypothetical scenario to show you that the celibate priest can have a better life than the socially integrated man you proposed in your views, you refuse to answer and say that's stupid. Really - these tactics are shameful. When things don't go your way, you stop playing. That's not nice. You're doing precisely what the thread title says - idolising sex. You've made yourself a God out of it - you worship it, you NEED it, you can't live without it, and anyone who wants to live without it is crooked and sick. You complain about the celibate priest worshipping at the altar of God, and yet you worship with your tongue at the altar of pussy.

I'm going to take a Buddhist/Stoic turn here and argue that a person who has mastery over every one of their desires is, by all means, a Sage or has attained perfection in self-mastery. Nothing could bother such a person. — Question

Hmmm... I think this needs to be qualified in some way, and I find it to be more Stoic than Buddhist personally... Buddhism is more about the extinguishing of and limiting of desire (similar to Epicureanism) than the right-ordering of desire (I take Stoicism and Aristotelianism to be more about right-ordering). Certainly being imperturbable is a very good thing. However, there's two ways, largely, to achieve this. One could be imperturbable by limiting their desires, and focusing all their joys in the very basics - as Buddhism or Epicurus would advocate, or one could be imperturbable by understanding their real and true desires, and then seeking to fulfil only those desires which are possible to fulfil at the time being (Aristotle, Stoicism, Aquinas, etc. would advocate this). For example - I can seek to fulfil the natural desire of love and intimacy in a relationship all I want, but if the circumstances don't make this possible right now, all my seeking will be pure suffering and being perturbed at worst, and at best, they'll end up in failure. But if I understand this, then I will not seek it unless it is ready-to-hand, in front of me, guaranteed. I prefer this equanimity which is always at rest, but always ready to move, than the equanimity that results from the limiting of desire.

What are your views on these two ways of achieving a state of imperturbability?

Why not?