Natural law arguments against same-sex marriage

Jason Engwer and Lydia McGrew, among others, recently made several helpful comments about same-sex marriage and related issues. Their comments are well worth reading and taking to heart.

Lydia alluded to natural law arguments against same-sex marriage. Here's Tim Hsiao outlining the general argument:

Sacred cows

Here's Joaquin Phoenix's acceptance speech for his Academy Award for Best Actor:

We have to continue to use our voice for the voiceless. I've been thinking a lot about some of the distressing issues that we are facing collectively. I think at times we feel, or were made to feel, that we champion different causes, but for me, I see commonality. I think, whether we're talking about gender inequality or racism or queer rights or indigenous rights or animal rights, we're talking about the fight against injustice. We're talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one people, one race, one gender, or one species has the right to dominate, control, and use and exploit another with impunity.

I think that we've become very disconnected from the natural world, and many of us, what we're guilty of is an egocentric worldview — the belief that we're the center of the universe. We go into the natural world, and we plunder it for its resources. We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow, and when she gives birth, we steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable. Then, we take her milk, that's intended for her calf, and we put it in our coffee and our cereal, and I think we fear the idea of personal change because we think that we have to sacrifice something to give something up. But human beings, at our best, are so inventive and creative and ingenious, and I think that when we use love and compassion as our guiding principles, we can create, develop and implement systems of change that are beneficial to all sentient beings and to the environment.

Now, I have been a scoundrel in my life. I've been selfish. I've been cruel at times, hard to work with and ungrateful, but so many of you in this room have given me a second chance. And I think that's when we're at our best, when we support each other, not when we cancel each other out for past mistakes, but when we help each other to grow, when we educate each other, when we guide each other toward redemption. That is the best of community.

When he was 17, my brother wrote this lyric. It said: "Run to the rescue with love, and peace will follow."

1. For the purposes of this post, I'm going to assume - am I being naive? - that Phoenix is no longer in character as the Joker.

2. So a rich Hollywood celeb argues for speciesism and for veganism. I use "argues" very loosely. Frankly it's more like assuming and asserting rather than arguing. For starters, I didn't see an argument for why it's wrong to eat beef. Or an argument for why it's wrong to drink cow milk.

3. At best, I gather he's supposing "sentience" is somehow the reason not to eat meat. We shouldn't kill and consume cows because they're "sentient" and to kill sentient creatures would be immoral. However, he doesn't define "sentience", nor does he explain how cows are sentient, nor does he argue how a cow's moral status is derived from or relevantly connected to its sentience.

Is sentience indexed to self-consciousness? So would comatose humans be non-sentient? Would humans come in and out of sentience when they're asleep and awake? Is sentience indexed to intelligence? So that less intelligent people are less sentient than more intelligent people? Is sentience indexed to moral decision-making? Can animals like cows reason about morality? Is sentience indexed to the ability to feel emotions like pain? What about humans who have congenital insensitivity to pain? Are they less sentient than normal humans? And so on.

4. In addition, even if we accept Phoenix's argument (such as it is), it could prove too much, for it could apply to some plants as well. After all, there are scholars who argue some plants are sentient. So will Phoenix refuse to eat plants too? If he's not going to eat animals, plants, or their products, what's left? I guess non-sentient creatures like insects? But from what I've seen, there are some who argue insects might be sentient!

5. I notice Phoenix uses emotionally manipulative language like "steal[ing] her baby". In addition to anthropomorphizing animals (e.g. "even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable"). What makes Phoenix think animals feel pain like we do?

6. Of course, I'm not suggesting we should treat animals with cruelty. I'm all for treating animals well. Indeed, Christianity has a theology of creation care. However, why should we treat animals well according to Phoenix's worldview? Which, evidently, is the following:

I don't believe in God. I don't believe in an afterlife. I don't believe in a soul. I don't believe in anything. I think it's totally right for people to have their own beliefs if it makes them happy, but to me it's a pretty preposterous idea.

Nature is red in tooth and claw. Is it immoral for lions to hunt down and eat gazelles? Given Phoenix's speciesism, should lions turn to veganism too? Why only humans?

7. I don't have a problem with inventing novel food sources if necessary. But what does Phoenix have in mind? Vegan burgers like Monty's burgers in Koreatown? Sure, that's fine, and some vegan burgers taste alright, and I've eaten CPK cauliflower pizza crust that tastes like bread, but it's not like the average person has the time and resources to live a vegan lifestyle like Phoenix does. Besides, how far does Phoenix want to go? Does he want people to be able create artificial cows? There are limits even to human ingenuity.

8. As an aside, some might be interested in an earlier post I did on the same topic.

Child discipline

https://www.academia.edu/40552793/In_Defense_of_Spanking

1. I agree with Hsiao that spanking is morally justifiable, and I salute his courage in defending an unfashionable but biblical practice. 

2. I'm not a child psychologist, but I doubt that the effectiveness of spanking is primarily due to physical pain. Indeed, that view can lead to excessive punishment. In my observation, the impact is more psychological than physical. 

3. I agree with him that punishment should be defined in terms of wrongdoing, guilt, retribution, and just desert. To classify deterrent, corrective, or remedial action as punitive sows confusion by using the same label for different kinds of actions that may operate from opposing assumptions. It's best to reserve the term "punishment" from retributive justice. 

4. One problem with the classification is that it begs the question of whether spanking is fundamentally punitive. If you define punishment in retributive terms, and you classify spanking as corporal punishment, then by definition, the nature, aim, and justification of spanking lies within that moral framework.

This is not to deny that spanking is sometimes punitive. But it prejudges the nature, aim, and justification of spanking to classify it as corporal punishment. I think we should drop that classification as the umbrella under which we analyze spanking since wrongdoing and culpability are not always the salient consideration. Rather, we should classify spanking under the broader, generic rubric of corporal discipline. This isn't a euphemism, but allows us to avoid a reductionistic understanding of its nature, aim, and justification. 

5. We might differentiate between two objectives for child discipline:

i) Moral conditioning

ii) Deterrence conditioning

Everything is not about morality; some things are about prudence. Teaching kids to be prudent. To avoid hazardous activities when they're too young to appreciate the danger. Where children are concerned, retributive punishment isn't the only justification. When you swat a little child who plays around the stove, that's not about just desert or exacting retribution but deterrence, and that's due to the cognitive immaturity of the child. Due to his condition of diminished responsibility, his hazardous action in that situation can't be blameworthy. It doesn't merit blame. He doesn't deserve punishment. 

Don't automatically shoehorn the warrant for spanking into a retributive paradigm. The warrant for the corporal discipline of children does not require guilt or wrongdoing on their part as a necessary precondition. Although children can do willfully malicious things, that's not the only motivation for their misconduct, and so it's an overgeneralization to assume the only defense of spanking is just desert for wrongdoing. In some cases, spanking conditions a child to avoid risky behavior when he's too young to appreciate the danger. It teaches him to associate the behavior with unpleasant, memorable consequences–spanking! Although he's too young to perceive and fear the danger of the action, he's not to young to fear discipline. That provides a disincentive until he's mature enough to appreciate the risk. He's too young to directly gauge the danger, but he's not too young to indirectly associate the forbidden action with discipline. 

Gun rights don't depend on statistics

https://fee.org/articles/gun-rights-don-t-depend-on-statistics/

Let's ban everything!

https://armedacademic.org/2019/08/05/priorities/

Armed academic

Tim Hsiao's new website focuses on gun rights.

Veggie tales

1. I'm not against vegetarianism or veganism per se, but I'm not against meat-eating either. However, humans are omnivorous. Ideally we should have a varied diet (e.g. lean meats, green leafy vegetables, Butterfinger cookie dough cheesecake bars fried in a vat of lard).

2. That said, some strict vegetarians and vegans act like they're morally superior to people who eat meat. They turn their personal choice into a moral crusade against people who aren't vegetarian or vegan. They become zealots for vegetarianism or veganism.

On that front, Tim Hsiao has defended eating meat. Speaking of Tim Hsiao, I just want to note it's hard not to appreciate his artful photos taken at fine dining institutions across the nation such as (to pick a random example or two) steakhouses and burger joints.

3. What's more, some strict vegetarians and vegans act like the medical science is on their side. That vegetarianism and/or veganism represent the side of the intellectual sophisticates. I've even heard some argue humans evolved to eat plants. That we're fundamentally herbivores. That sort of thing. It's usually at this point when I roll my eyes and order a hamburger: In-N-Out, give me your double-double please. On second thought, let's make it a 5x5. Thanks!

4. As far as the medical science goes, strict vegetarians and vegans can often suffer from nutritional deficiencies. For example, take vitamin B12 deficiency. That's one of the most common deficiencies in strict vegetarians and vegans.

a. Plants don't make B12. At best, some plants can absorb B12 like Venom absorbing Spider-Man, but that alone wouldn't be sufficient enough B12 for a strict vegetarian or vegan diet. Not unless we're talking about chowing down forests! (Save the animals or save the rainforests - a moral dilemma for vegheads?) The primary reason is because plants don't have the necessary enzymes for B12 synthesis.

b. B12 comes from animals and animal products. Meat, eggs, cheese, dairy, and the like.

c. If humans are fundamentally herbivores, then (to take one issue) why do humans lack the gastrointestinal fermentation processes which support the growth of B12 synthesizing microorganisms (e.g. bacteria, algae) when these are present in herbivores? Also, where's my extra stomach? (Ruminates the illusive ruminant.)

d. B12 is needed for the body to make DNA, red blood cells, nerves, among other things.

e. B12 deficiency can be pernicious. Strict vegetarians and vegans often don't realize they have B12 deficiency until it sneaks up on them after it already caused some damage (e.g. anemia, tingling or numbness in hands or feet, memory loss, losing the ability to keep veganism to yourself).

f. Hence strict vegetarians and vegans need to supplement their diet with B12 (among other things). Typically that comes in the form of higher doses of multi-vitamins with B12, foods fortified with B12, and/or weekly B12 injections. However, after age 50, give or take, it becomes more difficult for the body to absorb B12 through fortified foods.

5. Obtaining B12 (among other necessary nutrients) without eating meat or animal products is typically something a Westerner living in the comparatively affluent West can afford to do. You don't see too many people in developing nations who are vegans. And the ones who are vegans typically happen to be the ones who are likewise comparatively well-to-do in their own nations.

6. In fairness, some people overeat meat. (So says the guy who orders 5x5s at In-N-Out.) However, that's a separate issue.

We have a moral right to own guns

Hsiao, Timothy. (Oct 31, 2018). "Natural Rights, Self-Defense, and the Right to Own Firearms". Public Discourse: The Journal of the Witherspoon Institute.