I would bet large sums of actual money that your paper has far less effect than you anticipate it will. As one who once occupied the precise epistemological niche you’re trying to now reach, I can tell you with certainty that your argument (even fully fleshed out) would have utterly failed to move me, and not on account of any special obtuseness of mine.
Not only are there eloquent Catholic philosophers to reassure smart Catholics that NFP occupies a very different ontological niche than other methods of avoiding conception, but they will reject the claim that your formal argument is the essence of the Catholic rationale behind these policies.
Essentially, though, the real problem is that should you succeed, the goalposts will be moved, because the actual reasons why (many intelligent) people believe certain things are not encapsulated by the arguments they explicitly make.
Anyway, similar papers exist. My personal favorite was written by the Iowa State Supreme Court as their ruling in Varnum v. Brien, which is why gay marriage is now legal in Iowa (and will continue to be legal for the foreseeable future). They go through the list of secular reasons that people claim are why they oppose gay marriage—marriage is for making babies, marriage costs money to the state, etc. -- and debunk each one of them thoroughly. Then they say, essentially, “Gosh, those were weak arguments. Probably the real reason people are against it is religious reasons. Now gather ’round, children, because we’re going to patiently explain separation of church and state, and the distinction between civil marriage and the various religious marriage traditions.” It’s a solidly compelling argument for why gay marriage should be legal. Plus, the ruling was unanimous, which is a plus.
And yet, you can show that explanation to as many bigots as you like and it won’t do a damn thing, because bigotry usually isn’t something you can reason people out of. What we need aren’t reasoned arguments; we need propaganda. Here’s my idea: laugh at bigots. Laugh at their old-fashioned superstitious silliness. Laugh at them as if they were wearing funny hats and shouting about witchcraft. It’s not kind, and I feel a bit dirty for advocating this, but it’s a lot more effective than trying to argue with them.
The way I could see this paper being effective is if it offered an easy-to-reference list of every common argument and the standard rebuttal to it, sort of like Talk Origins. That could be valuable.
It is one thing to try to convince people that the government should allow gay marriage, it is quite another to convince people that homosexuality isn’t immoral.
It is fairly easy to make a libertarian case for marijuana legalization or gay marriage (it’s victimless, we shouldn’t legislate morality), it is much harder to convince people that gay marriage or marijuana (for example) are morally acceptable.
It is fairly easy to make a libertarian case for marijuana legalization or gay marriage (it’s victimless, we shouldn’t legislate morality),
But of course this is only a convincing argument to those that are already fairly “live-and-let-live”. Many think the that the government enforcing morality is perfectly justified.
Not only are there eloquent Catholic philosophers to reassure smart Catholics that NFP occupies a very different ontological niche than other methods of avoiding conception
It mainly does because it’s much less effective. A Catholic friend told me that if NFP improved to the point where it was almost as effective as the pill or condoms, where people could actually use it to be very sure they wouldn’t have kids, it would then become unethical.
She couldn’t pin down an exact probability for how ineffective birth control has to be in order to be ethical, but the idea was that influencing conception is all right, but controlling it (almost) completely isn’t.
Actually, well-trained NFP practitioners can do startling well (see, e.g. Wikipedia’s sidebar).
I always thought that there was a fairly easy way out of equating NFP with other forms of contraception—just pretend like everybody learns it so they can maximize their reproductive potential instead of minimize it.
What I’m trying to say is that if you were a Catholic, you could teach people Natural Family Planning and tell them that it is to be used for finding out which days are the best for procreation.
You clearly don’t know how effective I thought it would be. The purpose of the paper was to be a helpful tool, for others to use, I didn’t think it was going to be very successful by itself.
I would bet large sums of actual money that your paper has far less effect than you anticipate it will. As one who once occupied the precise epistemological niche you’re trying to now reach, I can tell you with certainty that your argument (even fully fleshed out) would have utterly failed to move me, and not on account of any special obtuseness of mine.
Not only are there eloquent Catholic philosophers to reassure smart Catholics that NFP occupies a very different ontological niche than other methods of avoiding conception, but they will reject the claim that your formal argument is the essence of the Catholic rationale behind these policies.
Essentially, though, the real problem is that should you succeed, the goalposts will be moved, because the actual reasons why (many intelligent) people believe certain things are not encapsulated by the arguments they explicitly make.
Anyway, similar papers exist. My personal favorite was written by the Iowa State Supreme Court as their ruling in Varnum v. Brien, which is why gay marriage is now legal in Iowa (and will continue to be legal for the foreseeable future). They go through the list of secular reasons that people claim are why they oppose gay marriage—marriage is for making babies, marriage costs money to the state, etc. -- and debunk each one of them thoroughly. Then they say, essentially, “Gosh, those were weak arguments. Probably the real reason people are against it is religious reasons. Now gather ’round, children, because we’re going to patiently explain separation of church and state, and the distinction between civil marriage and the various religious marriage traditions.” It’s a solidly compelling argument for why gay marriage should be legal. Plus, the ruling was unanimous, which is a plus.
And yet, you can show that explanation to as many bigots as you like and it won’t do a damn thing, because bigotry usually isn’t something you can reason people out of. What we need aren’t reasoned arguments; we need propaganda. Here’s my idea: laugh at bigots. Laugh at their old-fashioned superstitious silliness. Laugh at them as if they were wearing funny hats and shouting about witchcraft. It’s not kind, and I feel a bit dirty for advocating this, but it’s a lot more effective than trying to argue with them.
The way I could see this paper being effective is if it offered an easy-to-reference list of every common argument and the standard rebuttal to it, sort of like Talk Origins. That could be valuable.
It is one thing to try to convince people that the government should allow gay marriage, it is quite another to convince people that homosexuality isn’t immoral.
It is fairly easy to make a libertarian case for marijuana legalization or gay marriage (it’s victimless, we shouldn’t legislate morality), it is much harder to convince people that gay marriage or marijuana (for example) are morally acceptable.
But of course this is only a convincing argument to those that are already fairly “live-and-let-live”. Many think the that the government enforcing morality is perfectly justified.
It mainly does because it’s much less effective. A Catholic friend told me that if NFP improved to the point where it was almost as effective as the pill or condoms, where people could actually use it to be very sure they wouldn’t have kids, it would then become unethical.
She couldn’t pin down an exact probability for how ineffective birth control has to be in order to be ethical, but the idea was that influencing conception is all right, but controlling it (almost) completely isn’t.
Actually, well-trained NFP practitioners can do startling well (see, e.g. Wikipedia’s sidebar).
I always thought that there was a fairly easy way out of equating NFP with other forms of contraception—just pretend like everybody learns it so they can maximize their reproductive potential instead of minimize it.
(Edit: No longer applicable.)
There was an extra word, actually. Fixed, thanks.
What I’m trying to say is that if you were a Catholic, you could teach people Natural Family Planning and tell them that it is to be used for finding out which days are the best for procreation.
You clearly don’t know how effective I thought it would be. The purpose of the paper was to be a helpful tool, for others to use, I didn’t think it was going to be very successful by itself.