This is a great post - thank you! However, I think there's an important point re: religion and anti-contraception views that you haven't addressed, and I'm curious what you think about it. When people object to, e.g., an argument against contraception as covertly religious, I don't think they just mean that there may be religious premises that aren't being mentioned.
The other thing I think is often meant here arises from two features of arguments made for conclusions that are part of a person's religion. First, it's often the case, if someone is making an argument for a view that's part of their religion, they're not really open to changing their mind even when a very strong argument against their view is presented. This is partly because they might think the view has been taught by an infallible authority, and also partly because religion is often central to a person's identity in a way that makes abandoning a view held on religious grounds very psychologically difficult. Second, the conclusion being argued for (like the immorality of using contraception) is often one that would require the person to whom the argument is being made to drastically change their life.
Putting these two features together, someone who makes an argument for a conclusion they hold on religious grounds is often (1) asking their interlocutors to drastically change their lives while (2) those interlocutors reasonably believe the person is not really open to efforts they might make to persuade him/her to change his/her life. I think the perception of inequality here is a big part of the reason why people distrust religious arguments. (I'm mostly basing this on impressions from public exchanges on this sort of topic I've read or observed and personal experience, but here's a small piece of evidence: https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2014/05/otagos-gregory-dawes-interviewed.html
I'm thinking this through as I write this, but it seems to me that this style of argument implies that a great many things (that are not wrong) are wrong.
Take a martial art like Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (which I've done for many years).
Physical conflict is morally significant - it can only be done justifiably under certain circumstances, it matters a lot to people when they engage in physical conflict, many strong emotions are involved, non-consensual physical conflict is almost always wrong, and the stakes of physical conflict are often quite high.
In jiu-jitsu, we engage in consensual physical conflict until one person taps out, usually because they are in a choke or a joint lock. Between skilled practitioners this often happens before anyone is being strangled or the joint is in danger - we recognize that we've been 'check mated' and give up.
This seems a lot like your account of contraceptive sex - we are engaging in a facsimile of the real thing (fighting) but have agreements and methods in place to mitigate the consequences (death or injury). And I can't think of any reason why this is bad.
Hm, I don't think you adequately addressed the novel-reading analogy objection.
"But there’s an important difference between masturbation and reading novels: responses like joy, laughter, or sorrow aren’t necessarily a direct response to another person."
I don't see why orgasm is necessarily a response to another person. Orgasm simply is the response of the body to consistent genital stimulation. Sure, it may have evolved/been created for some other purpose, but orgasm itself just is the physical reaction. It's not common, but totally possible, for people to orgasm while thinking purely of the physical pleasure they are experiencing while masturbating, for instance. Compare, for instance, the bodily response of pain. The purpose of pain is to indicate bodily damage, that is clear. But we can experience pain just from nerve inflammation without any bodily harm. Yet I would say that experiencing pain due to nerve inflammation just is experiencing pain in a fully authentic and in now way illusory. Pain usually indicates bodily harm, but it mustn't always.
Joy isn't necessarily a direct response to another person, but the kind of joy experienced while reading a novel often is, and I don't see why it's not dishonest (under your framework) just because some other kind of joy is not a direct response to another person. Suppose I feel joy for two beloved characters in a novel getting married. Am I not deceiving myself? This is a joy I'm only supposed to feel when real friends are married.
Another objection to this point: if orgasm was necessarily a response to doing the babymaking act, how do you explain the fact that most women cannot orgasm during intercourse from intercourse alone? Sure, they can stimulate themselves during intercourse, but this is often cumbersome and not particularly natural from a physical perspective. If your argument only applies to male orgasms, than where does that leave female orgasms and masturbation?
"We can’t simulate the experience of being treated a certain way by others without damaging our ability to sincerely interact with them, our ability to receive actual expressions of forgiveness, love, etc."
Why? I sometimes play out detailed scenarios in my head about how a friend or relative might treat me, and I do feel something like the feelings I would in that situation, but it doesn't affect how I actually relate to them.
(BTW, this blog is fascinating and you're a very clear writer. I'm not religious and baseline unsympathetic to this view, I leave the train at premise #1, but debating my point of departure probably won't be productive, as you note! I find this very interesting nonetheless.)
This is a great post - thank you! However, I think there's an important point re: religion and anti-contraception views that you haven't addressed, and I'm curious what you think about it. When people object to, e.g., an argument against contraception as covertly religious, I don't think they just mean that there may be religious premises that aren't being mentioned.
The other thing I think is often meant here arises from two features of arguments made for conclusions that are part of a person's religion. First, it's often the case, if someone is making an argument for a view that's part of their religion, they're not really open to changing their mind even when a very strong argument against their view is presented. This is partly because they might think the view has been taught by an infallible authority, and also partly because religion is often central to a person's identity in a way that makes abandoning a view held on religious grounds very psychologically difficult. Second, the conclusion being argued for (like the immorality of using contraception) is often one that would require the person to whom the argument is being made to drastically change their life.
Putting these two features together, someone who makes an argument for a conclusion they hold on religious grounds is often (1) asking their interlocutors to drastically change their lives while (2) those interlocutors reasonably believe the person is not really open to efforts they might make to persuade him/her to change his/her life. I think the perception of inequality here is a big part of the reason why people distrust religious arguments. (I'm mostly basing this on impressions from public exchanges on this sort of topic I've read or observed and personal experience, but here's a small piece of evidence: https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2014/05/otagos-gregory-dawes-interviewed.html
I'm thinking this through as I write this, but it seems to me that this style of argument implies that a great many things (that are not wrong) are wrong.
Take a martial art like Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (which I've done for many years).
Physical conflict is morally significant - it can only be done justifiably under certain circumstances, it matters a lot to people when they engage in physical conflict, many strong emotions are involved, non-consensual physical conflict is almost always wrong, and the stakes of physical conflict are often quite high.
In jiu-jitsu, we engage in consensual physical conflict until one person taps out, usually because they are in a choke or a joint lock. Between skilled practitioners this often happens before anyone is being strangled or the joint is in danger - we recognize that we've been 'check mated' and give up.
This seems a lot like your account of contraceptive sex - we are engaging in a facsimile of the real thing (fighting) but have agreements and methods in place to mitigate the consequences (death or injury). And I can't think of any reason why this is bad.
Hm, I don't think you adequately addressed the novel-reading analogy objection.
"But there’s an important difference between masturbation and reading novels: responses like joy, laughter, or sorrow aren’t necessarily a direct response to another person."
I don't see why orgasm is necessarily a response to another person. Orgasm simply is the response of the body to consistent genital stimulation. Sure, it may have evolved/been created for some other purpose, but orgasm itself just is the physical reaction. It's not common, but totally possible, for people to orgasm while thinking purely of the physical pleasure they are experiencing while masturbating, for instance. Compare, for instance, the bodily response of pain. The purpose of pain is to indicate bodily damage, that is clear. But we can experience pain just from nerve inflammation without any bodily harm. Yet I would say that experiencing pain due to nerve inflammation just is experiencing pain in a fully authentic and in now way illusory. Pain usually indicates bodily harm, but it mustn't always.
Joy isn't necessarily a direct response to another person, but the kind of joy experienced while reading a novel often is, and I don't see why it's not dishonest (under your framework) just because some other kind of joy is not a direct response to another person. Suppose I feel joy for two beloved characters in a novel getting married. Am I not deceiving myself? This is a joy I'm only supposed to feel when real friends are married.
Another objection to this point: if orgasm was necessarily a response to doing the babymaking act, how do you explain the fact that most women cannot orgasm during intercourse from intercourse alone? Sure, they can stimulate themselves during intercourse, but this is often cumbersome and not particularly natural from a physical perspective. If your argument only applies to male orgasms, than where does that leave female orgasms and masturbation?
"We can’t simulate the experience of being treated a certain way by others without damaging our ability to sincerely interact with them, our ability to receive actual expressions of forgiveness, love, etc."
Why? I sometimes play out detailed scenarios in my head about how a friend or relative might treat me, and I do feel something like the feelings I would in that situation, but it doesn't affect how I actually relate to them.
(BTW, this blog is fascinating and you're a very clear writer. I'm not religious and baseline unsympathetic to this view, I leave the train at premise #1, but debating my point of departure probably won't be productive, as you note! I find this very interesting nonetheless.)