The goal of this post is bipartite. First: Show that it is intelligible to talk of new life as the purpose of human sexuality without believing that there is any entity which intended that human sexuality brings about new life. Second,: Show that judging new life to be the purpose of human sexuality is based upon natural facts just as much as is judging that human sexuality actually brings about new life.

Why argue for the obvious? What could be more obvious than new life being the purpose of sexuality? I am laboring the point that it makes sense to talk about some parts of nature being for another part of nature because I lived for over forty years in a philosophical culture in which, as I understood it, an underlying assumption was that if we thought clearly, we would not think, or talk, of there being purposes in nature other than those which of intention forming animals such as humans. Indeed, the materialists among us held that when we understood nature properly, we would realize that there are not even human intentions. This philosophical environment was that of the philosophy departments of the major secular universities. I experienced it primarily at the University of Minnesota and The Ohio State University. The assumption was not unmotivated although some motivations presupposed metaphysical theses which needed defense. The best motivation was that assumption of final causes in physics detracted from mathematical representation of physical laws. But that rationale for rejecting natural purposiveness, presupposed a metaphysical assumption that ultimately the only proper science of nature is physics. As noted, another motivation was that talk of purposiveness suggests that the reality of the mental, or at least, something capable of having intentions. That rationale for rejecting natural goals is based on the belief that somehow in someway it can be shown that there is only the physical. Another rationale is based on the fear that theistic arguments based on design in nature are tempting once it is conceded that there are purposes and, then, desgns in nature. Of, course, that rationale assumes atheism. Another rationale is based on a fear that moral arguments, especially arguments in sexual morality, will be based on showing that natural purposes are not to be frustrated. Here, I agree that recognition of natural purposes by itself does not support any moral conclusion. So, concern that recognition of moral purposes might lead some to commit a naturalistic fallacy is legitimate. I agree that only beings such as us who recognize basic goods and also recognize these goods as natural goals can draw conclusions about right and wrong from information about natural purposes.

The intercourse theory of conception provides a helpful starting point. The what? I recall from my teen years, wondering about the understanding of sexuality as expressed by many of my male acquaintances and many novelists. These stupid conversations occurred in last two years of high school and while in the army. I married shortly after release from active duty. I soon became well aware of the purpose of sexuality.

We talked and they wrote as if persuading a girl to engage in full coitus was an accomplishment and no more morally significant than holding hands. The implicit rules for these kinds of conversation forbade raising the prospect of untoward consequences. Many of those, along with me, participating in this self-imposed ignorance, were Catholics. We were well aware of Catholic teaching on sexuality which is not very difficult to understand. But the Catholicism and standard sexual morality in the 1940s and 50s was bracketed-off – pushed to the “back of our minds.” To myself, perhaps in an attempt to excuse myself, I would think “These people talk like they don’t believe in the Intercourse Theory of Conception.” There is an irrational pattern of excusing which runs “I know this is wrong or stupid so my doing it is not seriously wrong.”

I have never heard anyone ever use the term “intercourse theory of conception.” The intercourse theory of conception, if it be a theory, is so well confirmed that we call it “a fact of life.” However, for our primitive ancestors, there was a gap of some months between coitus and clear signs of conception. Also infertility made the correlation only statistical. How, did our primitive ancestors connect the two: coitus with pregnancy and birth?

I think an hypothesis of innate knowledge better explains its universal acceptance. It is hard to imagine, as I do below, how homomids like us, would be ignorant of the “facts of life.” I could engage in socio-biological speculation about innate knowledge. But I find speculating about it as learned knowledge, brings out how moral knowledge is grounded in factual knowledge. Many of us have to learn the intercourse theory of conception as we grow up. It also aids in making the polemical point that the contemporary view of the Moral Neutrality of Sexuality is an implicit theoretical return to a primitive ignorance.

By sexuality I refer to that whole range of courting, mating and bonding activities connected with human reproduction. I could not define sexuality without assuming the intercourse theory of conception

How might early homo sapiens have dealt with sexuality before they knew what sexuality brought about? There would be these strange, delightful but dangerously disruptive urges and activities which suddenly errupted in children as they reached teenage. Strange if for no other reasons than that they seemed to lead to a activities which made the participants vulnerable to attacks from man and beasts. Delightful, of course, but dangerous and disruptive . There would be what we now call rapes and perversions such as genital manipulation of the very young. Males seeking orgasms. especially in coitus, would be recognized as a central paractice within this cluster of practices.

If they had any sapiens, sexuality would be regulated. Trying to imagine a species of homo without social mechanisms for behavior control is to think of an animal too different from us to shed light on our sexuality. There would be rules for repressing all sorts of urges and activities. There would be punishments. Of course, they could not have surpressed all expressions of sexuality, for , then, in addition to missing considerable joy they would have disappeared. Utilitarian, i.e., practical considerations lead to the regulation, so it is not implausible to assume that the regulation of sexual expression would be based on utilitarian or consequential considerations.

In passing, note that I am assuming something like the collective consciousness of a group and, indeed of all humanity. This is not the place to examne that assumption. See Human Thought as a Fundamental Reality .

We need not assume that they made accurate assesments of what brought about a tolerable amount of satisfaction; let alone the greatest possible mount of satisfaction. Nobody has ever figured that out. There most likely would have been a diversity of regulations amongst different communities. It is also plausible to assume that some who thought about why things are as they are, early natural philosophers, would conclude that sexuality is for the special physical and emotional pleasures that it can bring about. We will evaluate this judgment that sexuality is for pleasure shortly.

I set aside a hypothesis that sexuality in our primitive ancestors did not contain any dangerous and disruptive practices prior to being repressed by regulations. If the sexuality of our primitive ancestors did not contain a great deal of the weirdness, “kinkiness” for lack of a better term, existing in our contemporary sexuality, it is diffcult to explain why it would have become regulated. Cartoons used to portray a caveman dragging a woman by her hair off to his cave.

Now, suppose they discovered the natural fact that sexuality brought about babies and frequently a male bonded to the female who bore the child to help her and the child. If this is how it happened, a woman was most likely to have discovered this scientific breakthrough, since women are closer to more of the relevant data.

Let us call this complex result “new life.” It is the new life of the infant, new life in the nuclear family, renewal of the life of the bonded mother and father and new life for continuance of the life of the community. Some but, but not all, and many, if only dimly, will recognize new life as a good in the The Common Good. In my moral theory, new life is the basic human good, i.e., common good, which is the obligatory good grounding sexual morality. See Basic Human Goods & Human Morality

How might the thoughtful people, now regard the well confirmed theory that sexuality centered on coitus brings about new life? Would they find it of interest primarily because it showed similarities between their breeding practices and those of many other types of animals or suggested techniques for preventing new life? If they had a value for human life, would they be mistaken in concluding that sexuality is for this value- this good? If they recognized new life as a common good, would it be a mistake to think that sexuality was for this common good? They would not need to be primitive animists who believe that they have discovered spirits who designed sexuality. They need not be clever philosophers who think they have explained this natural function as the plans of some superhuman rationality or the cunning of evolution. To discover a purpose, to introduce for, they need only think “now we understand what all that “stuff,” viz., sexuality, is about. Now we understand why we were doing all that crazy courting, mating and bonding.

There are two issues about use of for in this context. First, is it some fundamental misuse of intelligence, to think about something , call it X, being for something else, Y, without thinking about about some intelligent being, , intending X to bring about Y? Second, granted that it is intellectually legitimate to talk of the purpose of human sexuality, is the purpose discovered or invented?

I have already introduced my position on the first issue. We introduce for when we explain a human practice, frequently a socially regulated practice, to make sense of our so behaving. But judging that nature displays purposiveness extends beyond human affairs. Primitives would not be restricted by some philosophic strictures that nature shows only sequences of events; some of which are repeatable. For instance, their thinking that the seasonal change of fur coloring on deer is a provision of nature for the protection of the deer from predators.

One role of evolutionary theory, or the evolution paradigm, is to help us understand natural purposiveness. Perhaps, some philosophers hope evolution will show us how to eliminate any thought of natural ends or goals. But the goal of such philosophers is in nature and will not be eliminated if attained.

Consider that I have talked of natural purposes only in the most bland sense of being what some processes are for. Theism and evolutionary theory are examples of explaining the occurrence of natural purposes. Recognition of the legitimacy of FOR claims is foundational for these explanations.

Also bring out that claims that sexuality brings about new life are empirically distinguishable from claims that sexuality is for new life. There could be two societies. Both recognize that sexuality brings about new life. But only one believes that sexuality is for new life. Sociological predictions could be made about moods and attitudes of the respective cultures.

If a process or practice naturally brings about, for the most part, something which is good, it is perfectly intelligible to say that practice is for this good. For instance, regulating behavior by rules and sanctions brings about order, which is presumably good. So, we can say the practice of regulating is for order. Humans may have practices which are pointless – are for nothing. Warfare may be such a practice Perhaps, warfare doesn’t promote human welfare; but it is not yet so destructive as to eliminate humanity. If so, we could say that warfare is not for anything. In this use of for, judgments about what a practice or process is for are supported or rejected by natural facts. Of course, amongst these facts are facts about what human judge to be good. And, I submit that it is a fact that humans hold as good the common goods.

So it is intellectually respectable to talk about purposes in nature. In particular, it is not obscurantism to claim that new life is the purpose of human existence sexuality. I do not know how or whether our primitive ancestors discovered the regular result of sexuality and its purpose. I do know that for many individuals, myself for sure, learned the purpose of sexuality

f people think that sexuality is for pleasure or on the contrary think that sexuality is for new life are both parties thinking unintelligently about what sexuality brings about? Are they somehow imposing upon the facts a belief, unsupported by any evidence, that something intentionally created, or at least arranged, sexuality to bring about pleasure or new life for us?

What is the difference between claiming that sexuality brings about new life and claiming that sexuality is for new life? Use of “for” expresses taking new life as a purpose of sexuality instead of merely a result of sexuality. What, though, is the difference between a result and a purpose? It is the difference between thinking factual about sexuality and thinking morally about sexuality. It is not an assumption of some entity having the intention of sexuality producing new life. The “for” comes from asking “What is that for us?” Thinking of what the facts are is no more rational than thinking of what the facts are for us. To be sure we cannot ask what the facts are for us prior to getting the facts, however asking both questions are equal as parts of rationality. We ask what are facts for us only if we have values. Hence, having values is no less a part of being rational than thinking of what the facts are.

We first make a judgment that sexuality is for us. Then we infer, perhaps hastily, that since fact patterns can be intentionally arranged to be for something by us, then always when a fact pattern is for something, someone intentionally so arranged it. However, if we correctly recognize that a fact pattern is for us, it is not foolish to keep open a hypothesis that something so had that result as an intention.

We think evaluatively that X is good. We have the basic law: Do good, avoid evil. Evaluative thought is independent of factual thought. If fact patterns produce what we value we link fact patterns with what we value by concluding those fact patterns are for this value. This linkage grounds moralizing those fact patterns to specify activities which ought not be done, which may be done and which must be done.

When I write “They take new life as a basic good” I am using “they” in the way in which it is used in “they say girls mature sooner than boys.” The referent is a community, which is usually not well defined and the opinion is attributed to the community regardless of whether many do not hold the opinion. Acceptance of communal thought is not an assumption introduced solely for to find a place for the value judgment that new life is a basic good. Communal thought is presupposed in claiming that they found that sexuality brings about new life.

For any community it is rational to judge that for it to be is an ultimate value – new life is what it is to be. However, it is not inconceivable that a community chooses not to be. For instance, they commit suicide rather than be enslaved. Better we vanish from the face of the earth than endure servitude. However, suicide, individual or communal, is not a judgment that being is not good. It is a decision that evil prevail or at least a recognition that evil is prevailing

Granted that recognition that sexuality is for what is good is a foundation for moralizing sexuality, what, though, shows the moralizing is not only human invention? Ultimately, the judgment that morality is not only a human invention, is taking a realist stance. The realist stance is not irrational even if it is not a logical truth. Here, I want to note that a realist acceptance of factual truth also presupposes a supernatural which leads to nature being as it as regardless of whther we know it or think it. So, thinking as a realist about the intercourse theory of conception is no better founded than thinking as a realist about the value judgment that sexuality is for new life.

The value judgment that what sexuality brings about is what sexuality is for is giving sexuality a moral purpose

Sexuality is for pleasure vs. sexuality is for the good of human life, i.e new life, we want to continue after we die.