There's also another thing, that some people know that it is wrong and still do it. — Agustino

'tis what separates one who possesses character, and one who does not.

Why is it wrong to do something because it feels good? — Michael

Good feeling shouldn't be the foundation of one's actions, otherwise you allow for all sorts of vile behavior.

I'd presume he's not generalizing as that would entail the claim "For person A to act upon desire X purely because it feels good" is unnecessarily immoral, which would yield results like "For Joe to act upon his desire to drink water purely because it felt good" was unnecessarily immoral. That doesn't help to explain the necessary moral difference between sex and drinking water, but I imagine he has one in mind. — Baden

I'd probably argue that Joe's desire to drink water purely for its good feeling is in fact unnecessarily immoral. Considering myself for a moment, I don't drink water because it tastes good, or feels good, but because it satisfies a problem, the dilemma of thirst. Similarly, I don't eat meat merely because it tastes good, nor do I eat meat because I need to, because I don't, and thus I don't eat meat. If I didn't need to drink water, I wouldn't, just as I wouldn't eat any other sort of food were I not in need of worrying about the problem of hunger. It's just a poor excuse when someone does something merely because it stimulates them physically, and for no other reason than said stimulation. As I mentioned briefly to Agustino, most people are more concerned with how something, or someone, feels to them, what they can get out of it - if a steak tastes good, eat it, if sex feels good, fuck. Who cares about the animal one needn't have been slaughtered, or the person you needn't have been taken advantage of? I'd say that most people only think about those things until after they've done it, and only then, perhaps, find error in their ways. Although, probably not, for few are particularly willing in entertaining the thought of being wrong.

I prefer the gymnosaties, *ba dum tss*

?? What do you mean what will be "better" than the suffering you are currently experiencing? — Agustino

No, no, no. I just meant that I'm more apprehensive about the good things of the future, and less so about the bad.

But certainly what they're looking for isn't masturbation or merely orgasm. The horny beasts out there are looking to dominate the will of their partners - seduction. They're looking to get their partners to love them - to control their will. So the physical pleasure of it is irrelevant to the psychological pleasure they get from domination. — Agustino

Others - like me - are looking to have life-long intimacy and devotion with another person. — Agustino

If you're merely having sex because it feels good, then you're doing so purely out of ego.

Okay, I think I understand. — Agustino

My steak example assumes that slaughtering animals and eating them is always wrong, by the by :-*

If you mean that doing so doesn't diminish your own suffering or make it easier to handle and relate to, then yes I agree. But I only use it as an analogy - in the sense of "you never know if or when your situation may suddenly get better if you just hang on". That thought helped me the most when I was at my lowest moments in fact. — Agustino

I'm usually more pensive about what "better" will be than the suffering I already am experiencing, >:O

I don't know haha - could you explain this? — Agustino

The people who incessantly sing the praises of life have always been the most broken, shattered, and devastated of people in my experience. It has merely taken me a lot of patience and work in order to getting under someone's heart and realize that truth.

I've found that to chart and map out suffering on some list of "concentration camps>urban depression" doesn't make much sense to me, and hasn't served my understanding of the world in any productive way. I think it's more dangerous for someone to diminish their suffering than to misattribute love, if you know what I'm meaning.

I'm sure that the act itself isn't a desire though. You may mean that a desire leads to the act though. — Agustino

Sex is a desire acted upon, yes.

Why would this be necessarily immoral? What does "necessarily" add to the meaning of the sentence? — Agustino

To not indulge some desires is to set oneself on the slippery slope of creating future ethical dilemmas than need not be. It's an acknowledgment of the fact that masturbation (if one even needs that) is not enough for some people in sustaining a morally, and physically, healthy life. I may come to think this is false in time, but at the moment I'm attempting to give some leeway to the horny beasts out there.

But shouldn't merely the grounds for good feeling count as sex being necessarily immoral? — Agustino

No? It isn't necessary to eat a steak merely because you might find that it tastes good. That would be unnecessarily immoral. Eating a "steak" if you're starving in the wilderness would be a necessarily immoral decision to make because doing so works against future ethical dilemmas, such as you dying!

Well I took your saying "fuck bitches" as equivalent to simply having sex with women. Augustine didn't actually fuck prostitutes. He fucked bitches though >:O - more specifically only one bitch got that honour — Agustino

Not sure if I should feel sorry or proud for that bish.

Hmmm - okay but don't you think it would also be relevant to look at other people and how they also relate to the world? I mean Schopenhauer also did that - his analysis in WWR is from doing both.

That's why I asked you what you think about a few other men, who didn't experience life the same way you do - who, for example, enlarged their own love and this enabled them to disagree that love is in short supply. I do agree that many people are unloving but it's kind of what you'd expect. Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare, as Spinoza would say — Agustino

Not sure what you'd like me to respond with, here. No one I've ever met or read about who has praised life and all its wonders have not also suffering immensely. Some prefer to retreat into delusions and build walls around them so that reality seems farther away. I probably sound very ungrateful of what I do have in my life, but don't mistake me for being a nihilist emo!

Sex is a desire. If one's sole intention is to alleviate the suffering that comes about from sexual longing, then such would be necessarily immoral. Sex that is unnecessarily immoral would be what is acted upon on the grounds of it merely satisfying the desire for good feeling.

Only Augustine. — Agustino

I wasn't aware he directly fucked bitches, only that he lived a seedy lifestyle. I suppose one does suggest the other...

So then it's about you - it's not really a universal situation? — Agustino

I have no doubts about the rarity of love in the world. I believe it was Schopenhauer who said that if one finds a truth within themselves, then they've found the truth at the heart of the world. Most things I have doubts about, so I don't assert that they're truths. One of these is God, say. *shrug* I don't think I wrote this out very clearly, but it is what it is.

Okay but why do you think love is in short supply? — Agustino

Because I suffer more than I love or am loved.

Why God or his hand when the bit that I quoted you on spoke about bitches? — Agustino

Wait, which one, or both, of Aquinas and Augustine fucked bitches?

At present, I think that sex is either necessarily or unnecessarily immoral, depending on one's intentions in its doing. I believe we've discussed this similarly in some other thread, I think? And by inherently I mean that sex is always immoral.

I read electrician as erection. I guess you'd have called him Yonder Dong, then, :P

Failing to be "paranoid" has not served me very well. I've simply chosen to be more reserved, so deal with it, Yon!

Yes, I agree.

I never said that sex is inherently necessarily immoral.

The written world is a nasty place, man.

No.

Once you've posted it it is effectively published. If you saw that someone had plagiarized it, it would be easy enough to demonstrate that you had already made it publicly available on this forum. — John

Not at all.

In any case what makes you think your poetry is so great that anyone would be tempted to pretend it is theirs? There's little money in poetry even for those most highly regarded. — John

It's not about whether it's good, bad, or mediocre. I have merely found it the most wise to keep my writing and "intellectual property" close to myself, and to not let it dangle out for all to see.

Yes.

The degree to which it is not moral.

I asked you that first, you nutsack. You answer!

Why?

It's not published merely by being on a philosophy forum. I am not, yet, a published poet, so I keep my work close to my tits, for good reason.

What's the point? :-|

Yes it is, although I won't discount there being instances where sex can be necessarily immoral.

What do you mean, Yon?

That which is immoral is not an opportunity. To resist it is to do the good.

What about some one that does not have sex because they do not have opportunity, are they virtuous? — m-theory

No.

Right, so there's a difference between legal code and moral code - justice and values. — darthbarracuda

Morality precedes legality.

Some might argue that justice is a value, but for a consequentialist, justice is merely an instrumental value of a rather ritualistic and vindictive nature. — darthbarracuda

Okay? Tell me more.

Who, really, 'understands reality'? — Wayfarer

Maybe Cioran?

Sure so? This isn't to say that life is long and love is short... So I'm asking you what in particular grounds your belief regarding this. — Agustino

Life is hollow without love. Were this not true, then I'd have long ago rolled back over and into the grave from whence I came.

As far as I know he really only fucked one properly — Agustino

I don't get this joke. He fucked God? His hand? dafuq?

Why do you think they ignored those in their life who supported them? — Agustino

I didn't say that they did, only that priorities can be hard to straighten out.

what would you have had St. Augustine do — Agustino

fuck bitches

Those men did not live entirely solitary lives. One might like to think that they've nothing but "God's love" in their life, yet I'd argue they've merely ignored those tangible people in their life that actually support them.

Life wouldn't suck so much ass if love wasn't a rarity.

"The Trouble with Being Born" (if you want a more mature work) or "On the Heights of Despair" if you want an introductory work (also happens to be his first work). — Agustino

Ah, I've heard of that first one. I'll look into it (Y)

You should read Seneca's "On the Brevity of Life" then :P you said you liked Roman philosophy — Agustino

I have. I think that he'd agree with me that love is short and life is long. Seneca's gall is rather inspiring to me.

Have you read something by Cioran homeboy? :P I'm actually curious what you think of him if you have. — Agustino

I haven't, though he seems like someone I'd like. What do you suggest I read first?

Life's too short. — Wayfarer

Life's too long in my estimation!

No excuse not to read him. Judging a thinker upon how he is labeled is kinda lazy.