Sexual Morality and Collectively Harmful Practices

Jason Brennan famously argues that the politically uninformed have a moral obligation not to vote. One of his arguments for this claim goes as follows (2011, 71):

1. One has an obligation not to engage in collectively harmful activities when refraining from such activities does not impose significant personal costs.
2. To cast an unexcused harmful vote is to engage in a collectively harmful activity, while abstaining imposes low personal costs.
3. Therefore, one should not cast an unexcused harmful vote.

Brennan defines a "collectively harmful activity" (CHA) as "a harmful activity caused by a group or collective, where individual inputs into the harmful action are negligible. [...] For instance, producing air pollution is a collectively harmful activity. As a group we do a lot of damage, but as individual polluters we do negligible harm" (ibid., 71).

Now, it is highly plausible that premarital sex qualifies as a CHA: it leads to out-of-wedlock pregnancy (thereby contributing to poverty, crime, and abortion), as well as being correlated with higher rates of divorce and infidelity and lower levels of marital happiness. Given that higher rates of social disorder and a weakening of the married family constitute significant societal harms, it seems that Brennan's argument against uninformed voting will also apply to premarital sex.

It is important to note that given Brennan's definition of a CHA, it is not necessary to show that every act of premarital sex leads to the aforementioned harmful consequences, or even that most such acts do so: the relevant thing is just that the widespread practice of premarital sex in general constitutes a CHA (in virtue of its harmful effects on society and the married family). Given that this is so, it follows from premise (1) of Brennan's argument that there is an obligation to avoid premarital sex when doing so does not impose significant personal costs (i.e. always or nearly-always).

This argument is very similar to one given by Alexander Pruss. In his book One Body, Pruss writes:

The significant number of children born outside of marriage in this country might arguably be a major contributor to poverty, poorer moral education, and other social ills. By engaging in premarital sex, one takes the risk of being a contributor to this serious social problem. It is true that, more likely than not, procreation will not happen in any given act. However, a significant number of children born outside of marriage are conceived despite the use of contraception. Thus, even engaging in contraceptive intercourse, one is risking being a contributor to the problem. And there one is at least presumptively doing wrong. (2013, 187)

Brennan’s principle concerning collectively harmful activities provides a useful way of precisifying this argument. It also provides a way of extending the argument beyond premarital sex to include other potentially wrongful behaviors. The use of pornography is a very plausible candidate: the porn industry is utterly rife with abuse and trafficking, and its proliferation has plausibly contributed to the general loosening of sexual morals in our society (which in turn makes it a contributor to the premarital sex problem). Furthermore, pornography use is correlated with lower levels of relationship satisfaction. Given all of this, it very plausibly constitutes a CHA. Since refraining from pornography use carries no significant personal costs, it follows that there is a moral obligation not to use pornography.

For theists, there is another potential dimension to this argument: even if one does not think that the aforementioned considerations suffice to show the intrinsic wrongness of non-marital sexual activity, they plausibly do suffice to give God very strong reason to prohibit such activity. This fits nicely with the accounts of Christian sexual morality given by e.g. Murphy (2002) and Swinburne (2007).

There are very probably other activities to which one could apply a very similar argument. Hard drug use comes immediately to mind.

Christophe de Ray's Conceptual Cosmological Argument

Introduction

This argument is due entirely to Christophe de Ray, and is presented in his excellent paper "Existence exists, and it is God" (2022). This post is effectively a summary of the argument as I understand it, and is written largely as a way to help me organize my own thoughts on the matter. I highly encourage all who read this to check out de Ray's original paper.

Summary of the Argument

The argument may be summarized as follows:

1. All particular things exist in virtue of their having or sharing in something, which we call Existence.
2. Existence could not enable particular things to exist unless it itself exists.
3. Therefore, Existence exists.
4. If Existence exists, then it is a supremely excellent being.
5. Therefore, Existence is a supremely excellent being.

(1) is motivated by the typical arguments for existence as a first-order property (e.g. the inability of the Frege-Russell view to properly analyze singular existence statements). (2) seems self-evident, while (3) follows logically.

Motivating (4): "If Existence exists, then it is a supremely excellent being"

(4) is the most substantive premise, and obviously stands most in need of defense. The idea here is that we need to give some account of how Existence itself is able to exist. After all, if all particular things receive their being from Existence, then how can Existence itself exist? Surely it cannot bestow being on itself, for this would require that Existence be ontologically prior to itself (which is surely incoherent). Hence, it seems that we must say that Existence itself exists in a different way from how other things exist: while all other things exist in virtue of their standing in a certain "sharing" relation to Existence, Existence itself is a paradigm existent, the existence of which consists in its self-identity. De Ray proposes the following account of existence:

Paradigm Theory (PT): x exists if and only if either x is identical to the paradigm existent, namely Existence, or x bears the ‘sharing’ relation to Existence.

In order to make sense of this account, de Ray proposes an analogy. There are two ways in which something might satisfy the predicate "is a The Starry Night painting": one way is to be a copy or imitation of the original van Gogh painting, while another way is simply to be the original van Gogh painting. The copies satisfy the predicate in virtue of their standing in the "being a copy" relation to the original painting; however, the original van Gogh satisfies the predicate simply of virtue of its self-identity. Similarly, while all other things exist in virtue of their standing in the "sharing" relation to Existence, Existence itself exists in virtue of its self-identity.

So, Existence is a paradigm existent. But what kind of thing would a paradigm existent be? Plausibly, to be a paradigm F is to be a "perfectly good or true instance of F. [...] Obviously, no particular F could be better or more truly F than the paradigm F, since if it [was], then it would be the paradigm. For example, it is impossible for any painting to be a better or truer The Starry Night painting than van Gogh’s original" (de Ray 2022, 6). "

This analysis implies that there can be better or worse ways of existing, with the paradigm existent being a perfect instance of existence. "This accords with our intuition that while both humans and oysters are real, the existence of the former is superior to that of the latter, in virtue of some of the attributes that humans have and that oysters lack, such as self-awareness, creativity, the ability to form relationships, etc. [...] But if the paradigm existent is a perfect instance of existence, and thus exists in a perfect way, then it follows that Existence must possess all the excellence that it is possible for a being to possess. This must surely include consciousness, intelligence, rationality, and indeed maximal power, knowledge and moral goodness, to name only some. Whatever the exact nature of such a being, it is surely appropriate to call it a supremely excellent being" (ibid., 6-7). Hence, (4) is true, while (5) follows logically from (1)-(4).

A Potential Objection (and its Resolution)

Are there any objections to all of this? Here is one: before an object can instantiate a property, it must first exist. But on this account, objects exist in virtue of their standing in a certain relation, i.e. that of imitating the paradigm existent. "It could therefore be objected that our account is incoherent, because imitation can never be prior to the existence of the imitator" (ibid., 12).

De Ray argues that this difficulty is best resolved by considering more carefully what it means for a particular thing to imitate the paradigm existent. Consider again the van Gogh case: what it is for a copy of The Starry Night to stand in the imitation relation to the original painting is simply for it to be modelled on the original, i.e. for it to be created in a certain way by a creative agent. It does not have to exist before it can be a copy of the The Starry Night; rather, it just is a copy of The Starry Night for as long as it exists, in virtue of its having been made in a certain way.

Returning to the case of existence, if we think of the imitation relation as a kind of creation, "the objection at hand vanishes, because it is clear that the existence of a created thing is not ontologically prior to its being created. It would be strange indeed to argue that ordinary existents are created by the paradigm because they exist, and far more plausible to say that they exist in virtue of being created" (ibid., 12).

It is also useful to note that while in the van Gogh case the creation is done by a "third party" (i.e. the painter), who is distinct from the paradigm case (i.e. van Gogh's painting) and the created imitations, in the case of existence there can be no third-party, since everything other than the paradigm existent is an ordinary existent. Any creative agent other than the paradigm existent itself "would thus need to create [itself] to resemble the paradigm existent, which is absurd. Thus, it is the paradigm itself that would need to do the creating, modelling ordinary existents after itself" (ibid., 12). We thus have the result that Existence is a supremely perfect being, which is responsible for creating all other things. "And this," as Aquinas put it, "everyone understands to be God."

My paper "Two challenges for 'no-norms' theism" has been published

As the title says. The paper has been published Open Access, so there will be no paywall to deal with. Links to the paper are included below.

Journal site: Link

PhilPapers Archive with PDF: Link

My Forthcoming Article in Religious Studies

My paper "Two challenges for 'no-norms' theism" has been accepted for publication in Religious Studies. I will post a link on this blog when it becomes available.