Procreation
This is an attempt at an intelligent blog. It probably won't be very good. It's going to look at procreation as a broader idea than just reproduction between a man and a woman.
In my Social Justice: A Christian Perspective class we had a speaker who talked about homosexuality. Some of the things he talked about were bibilical texts used to condemn homosexuality, texts that give us reasons to accept homosexuals as they are and to not condemn them, and various reasons that we might support homosexuality. One of these is procreation, which has been used as one of the biggest reasons why homosexual relationships are immoral in the Catholic Church. Procreation, in a traditional Catholic view, is seen as producing children through sexual relations between a man and a woman. This is the main function of marriage, or it has been for most of church history. Another function that has begun to override this is the unity and expression of love between husband and wife; however, procreation is still given as one of the leading reasons against not homosexuality but also birth control. (This post is not about causes of support for this but rather an idea of procreation that leaves an opening for wider acceptance of homosexuality and homosexual relations)
Instead of looking at procreation so narrowly as to say it is limited to reproduction, we should view it a a broader concept that includes support of creation such as adoption, volunteering with children or handicapped, or doing things that support life in a way other than creating new generations. Not every couple is called to or can produce children through "natural" means, and it is unfair to them as well as faulty reasoning to say that they are not completing their relationship because they don't "procreate" in the view that the church accepts. It is also demeaning to single people who don't have the opportunity to "procreate" but who are willing to support life through adoption or through community work, etc. This applies to homosexual relationships as well. Having children is not the only way to support procreation, nor is it the only way to fulfill a marital relationship, and we need to rethink what our view of procreation is in order to be more inclusive of non-traditional relatioships.
In my Social Justice: A Christian Perspective class we had a speaker who talked about homosexuality. Some of the things he talked about were bibilical texts used to condemn homosexuality, texts that give us reasons to accept homosexuals as they are and to not condemn them, and various reasons that we might support homosexuality. One of these is procreation, which has been used as one of the biggest reasons why homosexual relationships are immoral in the Catholic Church. Procreation, in a traditional Catholic view, is seen as producing children through sexual relations between a man and a woman. This is the main function of marriage, or it has been for most of church history. Another function that has begun to override this is the unity and expression of love between husband and wife; however, procreation is still given as one of the leading reasons against not homosexuality but also birth control. (This post is not about causes of support for this but rather an idea of procreation that leaves an opening for wider acceptance of homosexuality and homosexual relations)
Instead of looking at procreation so narrowly as to say it is limited to reproduction, we should view it a a broader concept that includes support of creation such as adoption, volunteering with children or handicapped, or doing things that support life in a way other than creating new generations. Not every couple is called to or can produce children through "natural" means, and it is unfair to them as well as faulty reasoning to say that they are not completing their relationship because they don't "procreate" in the view that the church accepts. It is also demeaning to single people who don't have the opportunity to "procreate" but who are willing to support life through adoption or through community work, etc. This applies to homosexual relationships as well. Having children is not the only way to support procreation, nor is it the only way to fulfill a marital relationship, and we need to rethink what our view of procreation is in order to be more inclusive of non-traditional relatioships.
posted by empeterson @ 9:53 AM
6 Comments:
At 3:52 PM ,
Matthew B. Novak said...
I think before you can deal with whether or not we should "rethink" our views on procreation you need to consider human nature.
Or rather, you can't determine your view about procreation by looking at the effects that view will have. You can't say "we want to include non-traditional relationships" and so change your view of procreation.
You need to first say "what is the proper view of procreation?" And then, you deal with the implications thereof. If you go about it the other way, then you're working backwards, and in unprincipled fashion. And for that matter, in a philosophically and theologically unsound way.
So, I'd say no, we can't just say we should change our view of procreation. We can re-evaluate the implications of a principled view of procreation, and I'd recommend that. In fact fact, I'd disagree with some of the conclusions you see to draw (or that this speaker seemed to draw) from current views of procreation. That's one of the biggest problems in this area - people don't follow the proper implications. Either because they want to set up a strawman argument to argue against or because they're just not thinking in a principled fashion. Does that make any sense?
At 9:18 PM ,
empeterson said...
no, it doesn't make sense. I'm not working backwards, I'm just saying that we need to rethink the idea of procreation, and by doing so it will end up in including more people. It's not wrong because it's exclusive, well actually it is, but it's not just wrong because of that. It's wrong because it's completely narrow and arbitrarily decided that it only means reproduction. Besides, what does human nature have to do with it?
At 9:49 PM ,
Matthew B. Novak said...
You're totally working backwards. You're saying "here's what I think the implications of procreation should be" and therefore "here's what procreation means." But you can't get the definition from what you want it to imply - you've got to get it from what it actually means. And that's why human nature matters - what is procreation? What does our very nature and existence say that procreation is?
By looking at a principled source for a definitions you can come up with a non-arbitrary view. You say "looking only at reproduction as relevant is arbitrary and narrow", but you can't say that unless you first look at where that defininition comes from. Because until you do that, you've got no basis for saying it's arbitrary.
In fact, arguing from the results you want creates unprincipled and arbitrary results.
Take for example obesity.
Let's say I want to define what healthy eating is. How do I do that? Well, I should look to human nature, where I can find what is required in order to maintain human well-being and prosperity. The result is something like "eating enough so that you have energy for all of life's activities and can reasonably survive, but not so much that you post a health risk to yourself".
The same idea can be applied for defining proper sexual behavior (from which ideals regarding procreation stem). You must look at human nature to define proper sexual behavior because only proper sexual behavior will allow humans (both individuals and as a species) to thrive and prosper.
But let's say we go about it your way, and choose the implications we want before we define things. So say I've got an obsese friend, and I want to say that her behavior is ok, because she not in any immediate danger from her weight (though it'll reduce her life span), and if I say it's a problem that'll make her upset. So then, since I want to be inclusive, I define healthy eating as "enough so that you've got energy to do all of life's activities", and I leave off the second half.
Well, that's a worse definition. It might feel better initially, because it's more inclusive, but in the long run, we're not actually encouraging healthy eating, and we're not able to say obesity is a problem.
Likewise, with a results-oriented approach to "procreation" and proper sexual behavior. If I decide I want to be inclusive I might do what you suggest, which is to diminish the very important role that reproduction plays proper sexual behavior and a proper conception of procreation. But if I do that, it's gonna open the door to all sorts of things - it makes it a lot tougher to define birth control, premarital sex, homosexual behavior, adultery, and more as sinful.
You've also got the problem that anyone could just come along and change the result they wanted - Say I want sex to be only about procreation - and then you've got another problem. Someon with this view would say people who are infertile can't get married. But you don't have any way to combat their definition, because you've got no principled view from which to argue. All you can do is say "no, my definition is better" and they can say "no, my definition is better." But neither of you could point to a principled reason why their definition was correct.
If you want to do good thinking, you've got to work from a principled view point. Sure, it might be nice to be inclusive. But does that jive with the principled view of proper sexual behavior? You can't just change your view of proper sexual behavior to get the answer to be yes - you've gotta go out and look at human nature first.
At 11:46 PM ,
Eric Michael Peterson said...
I will just say this, sometimes working from an end to a mean is not always bad or in contradiction with philosophical teaching... it can serve as a way of discovering whether or not something is indeed possible. For example, is it possible for an obese person to be fulfilling healthy eating habits? You have your aim, and much the same as science you have something you want to prove; in this way you can look at your desired outcome, and try and shape the possibilities around it. Once you reach these, possibly new, possibilities however you must then subject them to scrutiny to see if they themselves can hold up as viable means, and if they are as a whole truthful means and in keeping with natural law. Working backwards is working forward insofar that you need a goal. That is not to say it is a way of justification in itself, but rather a way to seek out new understandings. So I would say that based on everything I have ever learned of philosophy and theology it is very possible to start at the end and work backwards, or rather, look at the overall end, and seek to discover a means to it. If you never looked at a desired end first you could never make a claim for the logic in science, politics, or even philosophy in some rights. Plato sought to address the problems of the people around him, in the Gorgias Socrates analyses rhetoric from the end to its beginning. Plato uses Socrates to work backwards to determine whether or not rhetoric is something worth learning. So in a very philosophical example backward thinking, or looking at an end to discover the means, is sound. Similar examples can be seen all throughout the bible in both Old and New Testaments. Take any example of Israel conquering another nation or winning a war, did the argument start out as how can we kill these people? No, I would contest that the argument stated in how can we best serve our cause, and then a means to that end were found. Whether or not I agree with the statement on procreation Emily is not doing anything unreasonable in her argument. She is addressing an end she wishes to reach, and then is exploring possible means to reach that end, and that is precisely what the argument on procreation is attempting to do. Her argument is sound, if anything can be argued it is whether or not the means are sufficiently scrutinized, but that is not really what you seem to have a problem with at all, or at least have thus far stated. So I suppose I would have to disagree with you Matt.
At 12:13 PM ,
CAL said...
Maybe this is getting a little far from the original question of procreation but...
If it takes a vilage to raise a child, shouldn't we be promoting group marriage too??
At 1:01 PM ,
Anonymous said...
woot for group marriage, then we could do confession and 'erthing else like that too. hehe
but really no....
i like babies....
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