Kant thinks sex is in need of some moral justification. It is inherent in the nature of sex, he says, that we use another as a means and not as an end. If you grant autonomy and as a consequence Humanity as a corner stone of morality - whereby Humanity I mean his second formulation of the Catergorical Imperative which says we ought not treat Autonomous people as means - and if you grant that sex necessarily means using another person as a means, i.e., to get pleasure out of using their bodies, then it seems his conclusion holds.
One need not even hold on to the categorical imperative for the conclusion to hold. One need only, as a general principle, hold that people ought not be treated as a means, and sex seems to become problematic.
Everything that has moral worth proceeds from a “good will”. There are lots of things that do not have moral worth, that also do not need moral justification—such as taking a shit, wiping your ass, and flushing the toilet.
We do this all the time—and it is never problematic. You polish my shoes… I thank you, and get on with the day. You’re used as a means, but your inherent human dignity is respected by the “thank you”.
From his Lectures on Ethics:
“Human love is good will, affection, promoting the happiness of others and finding joy in their happiness. But is is clear that when a person loves another purely from sexual desire, none of these factors enter into love. Far from there being any concern for the happiness of the loved one, the lover, in order to satisfy his desire, may even plunge the loved one into the depths of misery. Sexual love makes of the loved person an Object of appetite; as soon as that appetite has been stilled, the person is cast aside as one casts away a lemon that has been sucked dry.” (163)
“If … a man wishes to satisfy his desire, and a woman hers, they stimulate each other’s desire; their inclinations meet, but their object is not human nature but sex.” (164)
And here’s when he brings in a moral justification of sex:
“…the sole condition on which we are free to make use of our sexual desire depends upon the right to dispose over the person as a whole – over the welfare and happiness and generally over all the circumstances of that person … [I obtain these rights over the whole person (and so have the right of sexual use of that person) I only by giving the person the same rights over myself. This happens only in marriage. Matrimony is an agreement beween two persons by which they grant eachother equal reciprocal rights, each of them undertraking to surrender the whole of their person to the other with a complete right of disposal over it.” (167)
“But if I yield myself completely to another and obtain the person of the other in return, I win myself back; I have given myself up as the property of another, but in turn I take that other as my property, and so win myself back in winning the person whose property I have become. In this way the two persons become a unity of will…Thus sexuality leads to a union of human beings, and in that union alone is its exercise possible.” (167)
Not really. A, “thank you,” doesn’t change the fact you used the other person as a means to satisfy your own “appetite.” Saying, “sorry,” after you kill someone doesn’t make murder morally permissible. Consequences don’t factor into Kant’s ethics, so he wouldn’t see the production of a kid as having any impact on the moral status of sex [outside of marriage.] You could fuck to save the world, and it wouldn’t make it any less objectionable to Kant.
That was my beef with it on first reading. Kant seems to think sex is only about getting pleasure out of the other person, but if you look closer, you see that he says sex is, (1) born out of inclination – which cannot be a source of motivation; reason must both set ends and move the will. Inclinations have to stay out of it, and yet sexual desire cannot arise from reason. However high you elevate reason, it cannot turn you on. Kant was a virgin, quite possibly because he was too rational. – (2) If in having sex your motivation is to please the other person, and hence to contribute to their end of being-pleased, you are being used. In other words, the other person would have to have an end of getting-pleasure-from-you in order for you to contribute to that end.
We are wired to want to spread our genes.
And it is argued that lust is Vacuum activity.
We did not control evolution.
Why should we morally justify sex as an act?
None of your quotes imply either (1) that sex is in need of a moral justification, or (2) that Kant thinks sex is in need of a moral justification. The broader issue is whether it is wrong to use a person as a means to an end—and clearly it is not, so long as their “humanity” is respected. Sex is just one particular case of this. If you “plunge someone into the depths of misery”—you’re likely not respecting their “humanity” (in Kant’s usage). That’s wrong—but most people would agree; there’s nothing problematic about that. On the other hand, if sex is free choice, autonomously chosen, then it can’t not respect their humanity because that’s just what “humanity” is, for Kant.
That was intended as a wink and nudge at Mo, intended in good humor (as he and I are not exactly on the best terms).
Sex can be quite a few things and far be it of me to question the applicability of a man who never copulated, seeing as the virgin favors an overtly romanticized view of the entire sexual relation sphere. Let us not forget the time stamp–this coincides with the rise of feminism and every prude aesthete waxed poetic with priggish feminist panegyrics. If there is a mutual pleasure involved, and that is the ends both parties seek, no further rationale is necessary.
Sexuality is an expression of someone’s nature.
Some people appear to be good natured while others don’t appear to be good natured.
Whenever someone moralizes a subject, its default value is zero, then they make an
argument or even a sophism to excuse or support the act or the object.
Kant was all too human in moralizing things the way humans do.
Yea, I think they key for _____________ is understanding Kant’s ethics. I took myself to be explaining it.
I am a river.
Anyways, one formulation of the categorical imperative is “treat others always as an end in themselves, never merely as a means”. The key to that formulation is the word “merely”. It is perfectly fine to use another as a means to your end, as long as you respect their “humanity” (i.e., their free/autonomous/rational self-determination).
As a matter of fact, Kant thinks that masturbation is wrong, somehow, (I seem to recall). But that has nothing to do with his theory, apparently.
Might you be referring to this?
"[i]A lust is called unnatural when a man is stimulated not by an actual object but by imagining it, thus creating it himself unpurposively. For his fancy engenders a desire contrary to an end of nature and indeed contrary to an end more important even than that of the love of life, since it aims only at preserving the individual, while sexual love aims at the preservation of the whole species.
That such an unnatural use (and so misuse) of one’s sexual attributes is a violation of one’s duty to himself and is certainly in the highest degree opposed to morality strikes everyone upon his thinking of it. Furthermore, the thought of it is so revolting that even calling such a vice by its proper name is considered a kind of immorality; such is not the case with suicide, which no one hesitates to opublish to all the world with all its horrors (as a species facti). It is just as if mankind in general felt ashamed of being capable of such treatment, which degrades him even below the beast. Even the allowed bodily union (in itself, to be sure, only animal union) of the two sexes in marriage occasions much delicacy in polite circles, and requires a veil to be drawn over the subject whenever it happens to be mentioned.
However, it is not so easy to produce a rational demonstration of the inadmissability of that unnatural use, and even of the mere unpurposive use, of one’s natural attributes as being a violation of one’s duty to himself (and indeed in the highest degree where the unnatural use is concerned). The ground of proof surely lies in the fact that a man gives up his personality (throws it away) when he uses himself merely as a means for the gratification of an animal drive. But this does not make evident the high degree of violation of the humanity in one’s own person by the unnaturalness of such a vice, which seems in its very form (disposition) to transcened even the vice of self-murder. The obstinate throwing away of one’s life as a burden is at least not a weak surrender to animal pleasure, but requires courage; and where there is courage, there is always respect for the humanity in one’s own person. On the other hand, when one abandons himself entirely to an animal inclination, he makes himself an object of unnatural gratification, i.e., a loathsome thing, and thus deprives himself of all self-respect.[/i]"
Wanton self abuse…(of which, masturbation’s inclusion is insinuated)
I’m still undecided on Kant. On this particular issue I cannot agree with him, but I’m not sure he is an asshole–he certainly shows symptoms of psychoses.
As I stated in the OP, given Kant’s two premises, the conclusion follows. Saying nuh-huh is not enough.
The quotes I provided imply exactly that.
Sex is permissible only in marriage. It’s not even implicit at this point. It’s as explicit as Kant gets about this issue. Sex is morally objectionable, unless you are married.
A couple of things. For Kant, it is not an issue. There is no ‘whether.’ Humanity is respect iff in one’s ends one does not use another as a means. In other words, the only way not to violate the second formulation of the categorical imperative is if one never treats another as a means. It is always wrong to treat a rational human being, capable of autonomy, i.e., setting their own ends, as a means.
You don’t need to plunge someone into the depths of misery to disrespect their humanity, i.e., use them as a means. You only need to use them as a means to your end; as an object.
Sex can’t be a free choice. Kant grants natural necessity, and says that our desires, inclinations, instincts, etc, are determined. When we act out of any of these, we are not free; anymore than a dog or even a rock is free. Sex is a product of inclination. He calls it an appetite. The only way to be free in lieu of laws of nature is to exercise reason, but because reason inexorably leads one to the Categorical Imperative, freedom becomes the capacity to act ethically. You can’t be rational, unethical AND free. And you can’t act out of inclination AND be ethical, so you can’t act out of inclination and be an autonomous person. It is, Kant thinks, inherent in the nature of sex that the other is used as a means, as an object.
Your entire thread seems to be based on the straightforward misreading of the second categorical imperative. Let’s highlight it, for you:
“Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never [size=150]merely [/size]as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end”.
The highlighted word is important. Don’t you think Kant ever went out to dinner? He used the waitress as a means to serve him food. Don’t you think he had a cleaning lady? he used her as a means to clean his home. Don’t you think he went to the doctor? He used him as a means to heal the sickness. Don’t you think someone sewed his shirts? Again… a means.
The point: There is nothing objectionable about using someone as a means to your end, so long as you respect them as an end (i.e., a free, rational, autonomous person).
You freely choose sex when as a matter of practical reasoning you endorse it as a hypothetical maxim of your action. The desire to have sex might be due to natural necessity, but that no more makes you unfree when you choose the maxim than when you want to act virtuously, and act virtuously, so long as your motive is from duty.
Kant might say that sex out of marriage is wrong, and so is masturbation----but there’s absolutely nothing about a (not even very) subtle understanding of his theory that implies either of those.
What would Kant say about mutual consent? What if both partners use each other as means, but not for a personal/selfish end (i.e. self-gratification), but say to procreate (i.e. planning a family) or to please God (i.e. to be fruitful and multiply)? In fact, if it’s the former (i.e. procreation) you might say each party is doing it for the other person. If the other person wants to start a family (even if you also share in this goal), you would be using them to attain their goal, thus treating them as a means and an end at the same time.
I’ve always thought that Kant’s ethics could benefit much by some philosophy dealing with the unity of two or more individuals into a unity (a lot of problems in his philosophy would be wiped away, or at least re-thought, if this notion was figured in). In love and marriage - and particularly sex - there is good reasoning behind the notion of two souls becoming one. Where then does the means/ends distinction go?
Maybe you missed the part where I implied Kant thinks sex is motivated by inclinations. When you have sex, he seems to think, it is your inclinations that move the will, not your reason. Only those acts in which your will is moved by respect for the law (respect here understood as a rationally caused feeling) have moral worth. Even if you could respect another person’s ends, life projects, out of inclinations, as in the case of the benevolent person who acts in accord with duty, you would still not be moral on his account - your act would have 0 moral worth -, because there is no room in his theory for inclinations to morally move the will. I mean, he asks that we perform even our indirect duty to happiness out of duty, not inclination. You know what that means? It means sating some range of inclinations without permitting inclinations to set ends or move the will. Wrap your mind around that. Respect for another person’s ends in matters of sex cannot be a feeling produced by natural necessity. It must be caused by reason, and given that the feeling of respect for the law is basically the only feeling he permits in his theory, I think you’re shit out of luck defending Kant on this issue.
You can’t use someone as a means and as an end if your act is wholly motivated by inclinations, and if, as Kant thinks, in having sex you seek only to sate an appetite. As an appetite, he thinks you are only really capable of seeing the other person’s sex; not their autonomous individuality. If he did not think sex was in need of moral justification, he would not have clearly gone to lengths to justify it by making marriage the means to moral sex. Furthermore, the literature would not be full of articles discussing this very thing. It’s not like I’m not coming up with this shit out of the blue, or reading something in Kant that’s literally not in the text. It’s in Kant and in the literature about Kant.
You don’t freely choose sex. Sex is born out of inclinations, and inclinations for Kant are subject to natural law, to natural necessity. Only those acts born out of reason, where reason is understood as the faculty that pulls man outside the current of natural necessity and into autonomy/the kingdom of ends, can be freely chosen.
Yes it does. If your maxim is informed by inclinations, and your inclinations are subject to natural necessity, then your maxim is subject to natural necessity. Your motive is from duty only in so far as it is not moved from inclinations; if it is, then your reason is not practical, and being moral is merely incidental. It just so happen that nature cooperated to make your act moral; it just so happen that nature produced an inclination that supported an act in accord with duty. Kant was arguing against the deterministic current of his time. He saw the implications a mechanistic view of the universe had for human beings, and made reason man’s saving grace. Trust in reason and you’re free.
Right, lets now assume that we have a better grasp of Kant’s theory than Kant. Lets say when Kant draws implications from his own theory that his own theory does not imply them even a little bit. Lets say Kant did not have even a subtle understanding of his own theory.