Or we could look at females that eat the males after mating.

Slats Grobnik,

Okay, let’s look briefly at masturbation by humans and animals. Traditional Catholic morality would say that masturbation by a human is wrong because the purpose of sex is procreation. The purpose of a human penis is to deposit sperm in a woman’s reproductive tract in such a way that she may become pregnant. It is wrong for a man to masturbate, because he is using his sexuality and his sex organ for a purpose they were not intended for. In a sex act with a woman, it is wrong to do anything short of depositing sperm outside the woman’s reproductive system in a way that she has no chance of getting pregnant. Masturbation or even a nonreproductive sex act with a member of the opposite sex is “unnatural,” since sexuality and the sex organs are being used for a purpose other than which they were intended.

Animals do not govern their behavior by reason. Nothing they do is “against nature,” since it is not in their nature to have reason. They could not violate the natural law if they tried to do so.

By saying this, it seems to me, you are making the violation of natural law dependent on the knowledge and intention of the person violating it. According to Catholics, contraception is against natural law because it interferes with the intended aims and objects of the sex act. Now, persons who do not know the Catholic teaching are not morally culpable for the “unnatural” act of contraception, but they have still gone against natural law. Similarly, an animal that masturbates or engages in homosexual sex cannot be held morally responsible. But if sex is solely for procreation, that animal is using its sexuality and sex organs in a way that is allegedly not intended by God (or nature), and is thus misusing the faculty of sexuality and its sex organs.

So human beings can do things that violate natural law unwittingly. I would say that animals can, too. Suppose an animal has some kind of brain disorder that causes it to attempt to mate with the same sex rather than the opposite sex. (When I was a kid, my father raised chickens, and a baby chick was born that could only walk backwards. Not every animal acts according to the way nature intended.) But when a behavior such as masturbation or homosexual activity is widespread, common, and adaptive in a species, how can it be said that the members of the species use their sexuality and sex organs in an “unnatural” way, or a way not intended by God or nature?

You seem to equate “unnatural” with “irrational,” but that is not what natural law is all about. One could make a perfectly rational decision to perform an “unnatural” sex act. I am wondering if you also equate animal behavior we regard as disgusting with behavior that would be morally wrong for human beings to engage in. There is no reason I can think of to do this.

Animals do not govern their behavior by reason. Nothing they do is “against nature,” since it is not in their nature to have reason. They could not violate the natural law if they tried to do so. Anything they do is a result of some other impelling force, and they cannot be judged morally in the same way human beings are. If giraffes go and rut against a tree, then they are not violating natural law. If a male forces a female to mate, he is not raping her. If a grown male bear eats a bear cub, he is not a cannibal.

If a human being does the same things with members of their own species, it is not natural, which as you say is a term of art meaning “violating the natural law.”

When we say something violates the natural law for humans we are not saying “no animals do x, y, or z”. The two categories (things we see animals do is one category we could see as “natural” and the other category is “what is proper to human behavior” as “natural” or in conformity with the “natural law” possessed by human beings really have almost nothing to do with each other.) Perhaps this is why the language has been dropped by those you identify as the new natural law theorists – because people (like you) no longer understand the distinction.

Slats Grobnik,

This doesn’t even begin to address the issue that I raised. Basically, since animals are not rational creatures, nothing they do is “rational.” However, there are generally very good reasons (or explanations) for the things they do, including the things you mention, which, by the way have no moral component.

My point, which you seemed not to grasp, is that in a general way, animals do not do things that they were not “designed” to do, and they do not use their organs in ways that nature (or God) intended them not to. While it still might be a leap to argue that because giraffes engage in homosexual behavior a great deal of the time, it would be moral for human beings to do so, it cannot be argued that the giraffe behavior is “against nature” and that giraffes are doing something that nature (or God) did not intend for them to do, or intended for them not to do.

Doing some reading over the weekend, I discovered that contemporary philosophers, including the “New Natural Law” philosophers, have generally abandoned the kind of arguments Aquinas made along these lines, although it still seems to me that Catholic morality as laid out in, say, the Catechism, still uses the line of reasoning I am rejecting here.

What is natural to human beings is to act according to reason.

Depends a lot on what assumptions you reason about. ‘The purpose of sexuality’ being one of ‘em.

Indeed, the idea that sexuality has one purpose, or even one purpose that’s always predominant over others, is at issue here.

Take eating, for example. It’s not just there to keep our bodies fueled – it has, and has apparently always had, a very important social dimension. Consider the phrase “breaking bread together” – a sign of friendship and peace. Consider how important many people consider having a family sit down and eat together. Practically every gathering of family and many (most?) meetings among friends involve eating. Does a meal at a wedding reception serve a purely utilitarian purpose? I recall a professor pointing out in class long ago, “In fairy tales, no one ever says ‘I love you’. Instead, they give food.”

Imagine the kind of ‘logic’ that people apply to homosexuality being applied to eating. Overweight Christians would be forbidden from taking Communion until they’d gotten their weight under control, or at least would be religiously compelled to adjust their meals to take the bread and wine into account. (I mean, come on – if Communion isn’t an example of eating taking on a social and religious dimension, what is?)

And sex is not just a procreative act. Even in a monogamous (and monandrous – how come that isn’t a more common word?) marriage, it forms a critical part of the relationship. It’s not just for making babies, it is also a vital way of saying “I love you,” and a way of giving pleasure to one’s spouse, and fun in and of itself. We have utterly clear examples of sexual behavior forming important social, non-procreative roles in other species – most famously in one of our two nearest relatives, the Bonobo chimpanzee.

So, just because homosexuality is non-procreative doesn’t automatically mean it’s ‘wrong’, and David’s pointed out that it’s certainly not ‘unnatural’.

This is a straw man argument.

What is natural to human beings is to act according to reason. It is natural for my dog to eat its vomit and lick its butt. It is un-natural for me to eat my vomit or lick my butt.

Slats Grobnik,

You missed my point. It is my understanding that according to natural law reasoning, masturbation or homosexual acts are wrong because the purpose of the sexual faculty is reproduction. The following is from from Chapter 1 of The Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings:

Based on a comparison of the sexualities of humans and lower animals (birds, dogs, etc.), Aquinas concludes that what is natural in human sexuality is the impulse toward heterosexual coitus, which is the mecanism designed by God to insure the preservation of animal species, including human species. Hence, engaging in this activity is the primary natural expression of human sexual nature. Further, this God designed each of the parts of the human body to carry out specific function, and on Aquinas’s view, God designed the male’s penis to implant sperm into the female’s vagina to effect procreation. It follows, for Aquinas, that ejaculation elsewhere than inside a female human’s vagina is unnatural: it violates God’s sagacious design. For this reason alone, on Aquinas’s view, such activities are immoral, a grave offense against the Almighty.

Sexual intercourse with lower animals (bestiality) sexual activity with members of one’s own sex (homosexuality) and masturbation, for Aquinas, are unnatural sexual acts and immoral exactly because unnatural. If they are committed intentionally, they disrupt deliberately the natural order of the world as created by God and which He commanded to be respected. In none of these activities is there any possibility of procreation, and the sexual and other organs are used, or misused, for purposes other than that for which they were designed . . . .

I am not arguing that animals are capable of moral or immoral behavior. My point, however, is that something like masturbation is morally wrong, according to natural law arguments, because it uses the sexual faculty and the sexual organs in an “unnatural” way—a way contrary to their intended purpose.

I am not making an assertion that “animals do it, therefore humans can do it, too.” I am raising the question of whether animals are capable of using their sexual faculties or their sexual organs in an “unnatural” way. If a behavior like masturbation or homosexual behavior is common in an animal species, and if it is adaptive—that is, if it works toward the survival of the species—can it be reasonable said to be “unnatural” or contrary to what God intended? Since animals don’t have reason, how could they decide to act according to the way God intended them to? I am not raising a moral question. I agree animal behavior is neither moral nor immoral. I am raising the question of whether it makes any sense to say, for example, that an animal that masturbates is using sexuality or its sex organs in an “unnatural” way, or a way for which they were not intended.

Certainly an individual animal could have some physiological problem (say, a brain tumor), that caused it to function “unnaturally.” But how could a behavior that was widespread in a species, a behavior that was adaptive and enhanced rather than harmed the animals’ flourishing, be contrary to nature or to the intended purpose of the animals’s faculties or organs?

This is not to say that what is “natural” for animals would be moral for humans. For example, some species eat their own young. There may be evolutionary reasons for this, and it may be adaptive for the species overall. But one would never recommend this for humans! However, animals who do this cannot be said to be doing something that is “unnatural” or that goes against their natural purpose, survival, or flourishing.

If it’s natural, it must be good.

This is an argument I did not make. The argument I did make is that if it’s natural, it’s not unnatural.

You are wrong. Natural law reasoning in the Catholic moral tradition does not proceed as you suggest. If you think I am going to go through and explain 2000 years of that tradition to you, you are also incorrect. Look it up. The short answer, however, is that there is no violation of the natural law by animals possible because animals lack reason (don’t bother telling me they are intelligent, or clever, or good at surviving – all of those are indeed signs of some kinds of intellect, but not of reason). They can’t be morally unreasonable, because they don’t have reason to deploy about abstract moral questions. They can’t commit murder (even if they kill one of their species) because they don’t have reason. We shouldn’t copy their judgment about moral behavior because they don’t have reason-based judgment about the morality of their behavior. But if you want to go ahead and take animals of your behavior — good luck. First lesson: What becomes of the weak, injured or ill members of an animal species? If it’s natural, it must be good.