PHIL 200 Lecture Notes - Thomas Nagel, Paraphilia, Human Sexuality
12 Jun 2018
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hence immoral; for example, the penis, tongue, or fingers entering the anus.
Aquinas's criterion of a sexually natural act, that it must be procreative in form or potential, and
hence must involve a penis inserted into a vagina, makes no mention of human psychology.
Aquinas's line of thought yields an anatomical or physiological criterion of natural and perverted
sexuality that refers only to bodily organs, to where they are, or are not, put in relation to each
other, and what they might accomplish as a result.
Thomas Nagel denies Aquinas's presupposition that in order to discover what is natural in human
sexuality we should emphasize what is common sexually between humans and lower animals.
Applying this formula, Aquinas concludes that the purpose of sexual activity and the sexual organs in
humans is procreation, as it is in the lower animals.
Everything else in Aquinas's sexual philosophy follows more or less logically from this assumption.
Nagel, by contrast, argues that to discover what is distinctive about natural human sexuality, and
hence, derivatively, what is unnatural or perverted for humans, we should focus, instead, on what
humans and lower animals do not have in common.
We should emphasize the ways in which humans are different from animals, the ways in which
humans and their sexuality are special.
Thus Nagel argues that sexual perversion in humans should be understood as a psychological
phenomenon rather than, as in Aquinas's treatment, as an anatomical and physiological
phenomenon.
For it is human psychology that makes us different from other animals, and hence an account of
natural human sexuality must acknowledge the uniqueness of human psychology and its role in
sexuality.
Nagel proposes that sexual interactions in which each person responds with sexual arousal to
noticing the sexual arousal of the other person exhibit the psychology that is natural to human
sexuality.
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Document Summary
Hence immoral; for example, the penis, tongue, or fingers entering the anus. Aquinas"s criterion of a sexually natural act, that it must be procreative in form or potential, and hence must involve a penis inserted into a vagina, makes no mention of human psychology. Thomas nagel denies aquinas"s presupposition that in order to discover what is natural in human sexuality we should emphasize what is common sexually between humans and lower animals. Applying this formula, aquinas concludes that the purpose of sexual activity and the sexual organs in humans is procreation, as it is in the lower animals. Everything else in aquinas"s sexual philosophy follows more or less logically from this assumption. Nagel, by contrast, argues that to discover what is distinctive about natural human sexuality, and hence, derivatively, what is unnatural or perverted for humans, we should focus, instead, on what humans and lower animals do not have in common.
