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EOW & Paul VI: Common Ground

EOW refers to Paul VI & [[ASIN:0898707285 Humanae Vitae: Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Paul VI]] (HV) twice. [pp 192, 252-253]

In doing so, EOW demonstrates or enacts part of his own thesis about group selection: Group competition often involves stylized exhortation of the Excellent Us vs. the Demonized Them. [See, e.g., pp 57-58] Specifically, in his remarks about HV, EOW is like a politician flattering an appreciative crowd of his own New Secular Science Party while insulting the Old Religious Ignorance Party.

Fair enough. However, ...

Unfortunately, in his harangues, EOW betrays the values of his own Science Party: accuracy, objectivity & fairness.

Specifically,

1. After accusing Paul VI of ignorant, unintentional omission of "some important factor or other," [p 252] EOW drastically (but unintentionally?) misrepresents Humanae Vitae, virtually chopping it in half; but,

2. Ironically, upon examination, what Humanae Vitae has to say about what's good & right in marriage (albeit founded upon entirely different metaphysical grounds) is strikingly similar to EOW's claims.

Put differently,

1. EOW sets up a silly strawman to insult & rail against, committing the very sins he accused Paul VI of; but,

2. Amusingly, the real opponent looks a lot like EOW himself.

Those two points I will demonstrate below by: (1) summarizing EOW's caricature of HV; (2) summarizing EOW's own position; & (3) comparing EOW's position to what HV actually says.

[It might be useful beforehand to make a short list of what I am NOT arguing, what I am NOT saying:

- That EOW's misrepresentations of HV undermine his arguments about group selection.

- That either EOW or Paul VI is correct. Or not.

- That I am a good Catholic myself.

- Etc.]

I limit myself to the two points above: (1) EOW gets HV wrong, making the very mistake he says Paul VI made; & (2) EOW's position isn't all that different, practically speaking, from HV.

EOW's Caricature of HV

EOW paraphrases the reasoning of HV as follows: "God, [Paul VI] posited, intends for sexual intercourse to be limited to the purpose of conceiving children." [p 253]

Yea, but ... That "leaves out a vital fact." [p 253] It involves such an obvious omission that one wonders if EOW has even read HV! [IDK. I guess I'm willing to call it ignorance, an unintentional omission, to use EOW's words.]

EOW's Own Position

EOW goes on to say: Science, "has revealed that there is another, additional purpose to sexual intercourse. ... Both men & women, when bonded, invite continuous & frequent intercourse. The practice is genetically adaptive: it ensures that the woman and her child have help from the father. For the woman, the commitment secured by pleasurable nonreproductive intercourse is important ... [during the] ... long period of [an infants'] helplessness ... [in the] level of support ... she obtains from a sexually and emotionally bonded mate." [p 253]

(Although EOW doesn't say so explicitly, one assumes that his discription of "nonreproductive" savannah sex has nothing to do with artificial contraception. [Unclear. IDK what scientists have been unearthing with the spear points, etc.] I assume he's describing a period of infertility when young children are nursing? That is, I think he's describing something like an australopithecine "rhythm method?")

Now, Compare EOW's Position to What HV Actually Says

- §8 Husband & wife make a mutual gift of themselves, developing the union of two persons (personarum communionem).

- §9 Which leads to long-term fulfillment of husband & wife. (ut coniuges veluti cor unum et anima una fiant, suamque humanam perfectionem una simul adipiscantur.)

- §9 And it is also fecund, going beyond itself, leading to new life.

- §11 On the other hand (obviously), "new life is not the result of each and every act of sexual intercourse. ... wisely ordered laws of nature and the incidence of fertility [ensure] that successive births are already naturally spaced through the inherent operation of these laws."

- §11 In fact, conjugal acts "[do] not ... cease to be legitimate even when, for reasons independent of [the couples'] will, it is foreseen to be infertile."

- §12 Nevertheless, there is an inseparable natural connection between the unititve & procreative significance of conjugal acts. (unitatis et procreationis)

- §17 Prophecy (looking forward): Without the prospect of procreation, without a prospect of shared child-rearing responsibility, men tend to ignore the dignity of women, to view woman instrumentally.

- §18 Natural history (looking backwards): We shouldn't so disconnect our understanding of our own lives from the long centuries of our forbears. That is, given our long history, it doesn't make sense to say that real human flourishing, the true human good, has only emerged with a recent technical expedient, a new trick, viz., affordable artificial contraceptives.

Bottom line, common ground between EOW & Paul VI: It is a fact of human nature that sex is both unitive & procreative.

So what? What difference does it make that EOW did not do justice to Paul VI & HV? Not much.

However, a few observations:

- EOW is very clever in choosing his targets. I don't think it's a coincidence that EOW insults the one target, a faithful Roman Catholic, despised by both (a) the old-time Protestant folks back home in Alabama, & (b) the sophisticates in the Ivory Tower. It's not easy to please both those groups at once. In fact, a certain bad attitude about Catholics is probably the only thing they have in common.

- Apparently not one editor at the venerable Norton & Co. had enough knowledge of HV or Catholic moral teaching to see that EOW's statements are silly distortions. If EOW can mangle HV like this without one Norton editor noticing, what else did they overlook?

- HV was published in 1968 [252], not 1969 [192].

- HV text & commentary, etc: http://gmr.sourceforge.net/va/

- amazon.com