Re: The Douthat-Carter Continuum

thegarbageman — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:39:58 -0000

Will,

Alex Pruss is a professor of philosophy at Baylor. He has a recent blog post discussing fantasies here:

http://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2008/04/fant...

It seems pretty reasonable to me, even if its false. Why dismiss people who think in this way but not social democrats? You're much less charitable to Catholic Natural Law theorists. I don't really know why.

Re: The Douthat-Carter Continuum

thegarbageman — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:38:56 -0000

"However, for most people whose minds have not been addled by religious dogma, the distinction between touching yourself and touching someone not your spouse or committed monogamous partner is well nigh categorical."

You know, you might acknowledge that there's something to the idea that thinking sexual thoughts about individuals other than the one you're committed to makes acting on those thoughts easier and in general can habituate your sexual energies away from the person you're committed to. Jesus wasn't just full of crap when he suggested that thinking sexual thoughts about others has moral disvalue. You might think he's wrong, but its not "just silly".

In general, I love your blog. But you get on seriously disreputable ground whenever you talk about religious morality. You don't appear to be familiar with the arguments for your opponents' positions.

Probably Catholic natural law theorists (your primary intellectual opponents on these matters), for instance, deserve a seat at the table of the Reasonable - they've been making efforts at a rational defense of their position for millenia. They're certainly more serious thinkers on the matter than, I dunno, Richard Dawkins, Chris Hitchens, and other guys you (wrongly) take seriously.

Disqus - Latest Comments for thegarbageman

Re: The Douthat-Carter Continuum

Re: The Douthat-Carter Continuum