As a sad, but predictable instance of what happens when sheep stray from the Roman fold, Jeremy Pierce has just revealed his shocking extracurricular activities. I try my best to restore this lost sheep. Pray for him:
steve hays
November 24th, 2010 | 8:48 am | #43
Jeremy Pierce
“I don’t have all that much patience for the view that we should always have every natural purpose for an action or an organ with a natural purpose or else it’s immoral. I don’t really have a problem using my tongue to lick a stamp.”
I’m not so sure about that, Jeremy. Stamp-licking strikes me as a paradigm-case of morally disordered behavior. At the very least, stamp-lickers are on the slippery slope to mortal sin.
Perhaps stamp-licking is licit if certain mitigating circumstances are in play, like the double-effect principle. I guess it all depends on whether stamp-licking is the primary intention of the stamp-licker, or an unintended side-effect of his real goal (i.e. communication via snail mail). I do hope a Vatican spokesman will step forward to clarity this thorny moral conundrum before you cross the line of no return in your philatelic activities.
steve hays
November 24th, 2010 | 9:15 am | #44
Jeremy Pierce
“I don’t have all that much patience for the view that we should always have every natural purpose for an action or an organ with a natural purpose or else it’s immoral. I don’t really have a problem using my tongue to lick a stamp.”
But Jeremy, that overlooks the morally crucial distinction between philatelic intent per se, and philatelic intent per accidens!
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