An argument for analysis (about sex)

[Johannes]

One of my students discussed the following argument about sex with me. It is not my argument, and I don't know if my student was committed to it or only trying it out. I submit it to the philosophy forum because I'm interested to know whether any, some, most, or all of you think it is a sound argument, or even merely a valid one, and why.
It goes:


S1. Sex feels really good.
S2. Whatever feels really good is really good.
S3. Therefore, sex is really good.


Is it valid?
Is S1 true or false?
Is S2 true or false?

[Goat]

One of my students discussed the following argument about sex with me. It is not my argument, and I don't know if my student was committed to it or only trying it out. I submit it to the philosophy forum because I'm interested to know whether any, some, most, or all of you think it is a sound argument, or even merely a valid one, and why.
It goes:


S1. Sex feels really good.
S2. Whatever feels really good is really good.
S3. Therefore, sex is really good.


Is it valid?
Is S1 true or false?
Is S2 true or false?

No , it is not.

S2 can be proven to be false. It can be demonstrated that drugs can have a negative effect on someones relationships/ability to cope/health and well being.

However, drugs (including alcohol) feel good. But, the negative effects can be really bad. Therefore, S2 is falsified.

S1 is true in most cases. However, it can be shown that masochists can case sex to hurt.. and if they are psychopaths , the partner might not be voluntary. Therefore S1 is falsified, since it is not a universal.

On the other hand, although the logic is horrible, I personally think the conclusion is valid. .. just that the argument to get to that conclusion is not.

[wiploc]

S1. Sex feels really good.
S2. Whatever feels really good is really good.
S3. Therefore, sex is really good.


Is it valid?
Is S1 true or false?
Is S2 true or false?

It's valid.

The premises can be called generalizations or over-statements. They are not truths.

[Johannes]

One of my students discussed the following argument about sex with me. It is not my argument, and I don't know if my student was committed to it or only trying it out. I submit it to the philosophy forum because I'm interested to know whether any, some, most, or all of you think it is a sound argument, or even merely a valid one, and why.
It goes:


S1. Sex feels really good.
S2. Whatever feels really good is really good.
S3. Therefore, sex is really good.


Is it valid?
Is S1 true or false?
Is S2 true or false?

However, drugs (including alcohol) feel good. But, the negative effects can be really bad. Therefore, S2 is falsified.

You mean "false." Your argument is invalid, however. "X feels good, and X may cause evil" do not get to "some things that feel really good are not really good." "X feels good, and X causes evil" is a better candidate for a falsifier. Your unnecessary "can" modalizes your argument into invalidity.

Is it your intention to argue that objective goods exist in nature, so that we can be really mistaken about what is good for us?

S1 is true in most cases. However, it can be shown that masochists can case sex to hurt.. and if they are psychopaths , the partner might not be voluntary. Therefore S1 is falsified, since it is not a universal.

I actually asked my student if [s/he] meant S1 as a universal claim, and [s/he] said that [s/he] did not. My student said it was "true about human nature, just like its true that human beings can see, even though some human beings are blind."

ζητειτε,
_Johannes

[Hatuey]

[Replying to post 1 by Johannes]


The problem is oversimplification and meaningless generalization. "feels" isn't a valid reason. "Really good" isn't a valid measurement. Also, there's a missing "objective." ...or at least one that's poorly defined. It's not "wrong," it's just silly. Diaper change reasoning: An infant's diaper is wet; therefore uncomfortable; therefore he vocalizes a cry.

[Goat]

One of my students discussed the following argument about sex with me. It is not my argument, and I don't know if my student was committed to it or only trying it out. I submit it to the philosophy forum because I'm interested to know whether any, some, most, or all of you think it is a sound argument, or even merely a valid one, and why.
It goes:


S1. Sex feels really good.
S2. Whatever feels really good is really good.
S3. Therefore, sex is really good.


Is it valid?
Is S1 true or false?
Is S2 true or false?

However, drugs (including alcohol) feel good. But, the negative effects can be really bad. Therefore, S2 is falsified.

You mean "false." Your argument is invalid, however. "X feels good, and X may cause evil" do not get to "some things that feel really good are not really good." "X feels good, and X causes evil" is a better candidate for a falsifier. Your unnecessary "can" modalizes your argument into invalidity.

Is it your intention to argue that objective goods exist in nature, so that we can be really mistaken about what is good for us?

S1 is true in most cases. However, it can be shown that masochists can case sex to hurt.. and if they are psychopaths , the partner might not be voluntary. Therefore S1 is falsified, since it is not a universal.

I actually asked my student if [s/he] meant S1 as a universal claim, and [s/he] said that [s/he] did not. My student said it was "true about human nature, just like its true that human beings can see, even though some human beings are blind."

ζητειτε,
_Johannes

Well.. not everyone has 'sex feeling really good'. There are medical reasons that cause exceptions. Do you know what 'phantom pain' is? There are cases where people who lost a limb feel extreme agony in the missing limb. There are some cases where this pain gets triggered off by sex.

Then, of course, there is the good old 'sadism verses masochism' ..

So, S1 can be demonstrated to have exceptions.

[iwpoe]

One of my students discussed the following argument about sex with me. It is not my argument, and I don't know if my student was committed to it or only trying it out. I submit it to the philosophy forum because I'm interested to know whether any, some, most, or all of you think it is a sound argument, or even merely a valid one, and why.
It goes:


S1. Sex feels really good.
S2. Whatever feels really good is really good.
S3. Therefore, sex is really good.


Is it valid?
Is S1 true or false?
Is S2 true or false?

S is FG.
For any X, if FG then RG.
S is RG.

QED?

I'm not sure they conditional is the proper rendering of S2.

Seems valid.

S1 is not simply (unequivocally) true. Not only does the act not always in fact feel good- trivial carping here -but the meaning of sex is unthought. Sex is importantly temporal in at least two ways that seem relevant when we talk about how it "feels" (and I may be equivocal about 'to feel' here): past sex- a one night stand for instance -may have a feeling of regret, present sex may feel divine, and future sex may feel exciting. 'Sex' however also seems to be a temporally extended act in essence. Even if one is referring to mere copulation, the copulative act is extending over a span of time lasing from say 5 minutes to 2 hours, and the "feeling" of the act is not temporally homogenous- now it feels okay, now it feels like nothing, now it hurts, not it's great, etc. But often 'sex' also means an entire process of courtship and seduction. That process can easily turn quite horrible. Failure to complete the act is my primary thought, but one can find that one's lover is horrific, scornful, treacherous, etc and this colors the feeling of the act in this extended sense.

I suspect that what your student means by S1 is that, 'On the whole, and all else being equal, copulation, while experienced (in "the present moment"), causes pleasurable sensations.'

That seems true enough- in my experience.

Your student could hedge his bets by simply changing the language of S1 to speak of "good sex" only (where 'sex' is specified as I have). That would limit the cases he's trying to show to be really good to non-controversial cases. After all, rape is sex, and it's strange to consider that it should be said to "feel good" for the raped partner (though some victims report having had pleasurable feelings and being disturbed by that fact).

S2 seems to be compelling only because there is a limited sense in which what is pleasurable can be said to be uncontroversially good. This is simply the sense of 'good' that's used when we say "This cake tastes good.' In that case 'good' seems to mean 'pleasurable'. On that meaning of 'good' the statement is trivially true: If X is P then X is P. but that rendering of good would make the whole argument trivially true: X is P. / If X is P then X is P. / X is P. Real gobshite stuff there.

The upshot of the 'really' in "really good". seems to point to some greater sense of 'good'. There are non-controversial senses of good, where S2 is clearly false. What feels good isn't always instrumentally good: Cigarettes are not good for health, though they feel nice. Pirated music is pleasurable to the ear but not a good (in the sense of 'goods and services') because it is not deployed in an economic system (sex being usually free is also such a case). I understand that there's a more interesting sense of good being gestured at, but I'm not sure how to assess it. The wisdom of the ages, and of experience, says that what feels good isn't always good, but the meaning of that is complex- sometimes it means that the pleasurable thing has bad effects, sometimes that it's worse retrospectively, sometimes that it violates personal principle, sometimes that it's prohibited as a matter of faith. So I'm not sure about the final truth value of S2.

[iwpoe]

One of my students discussed the following argument about sex with me. It is not my argument, and I don't know if my student was committed to it or only trying it out. I submit it to the philosophy forum because I'm interested to know whether any, some, most, or all of you think it is a sound argument, or even merely a valid one, and why.
It goes:


S1. Sex feels really good.
S2. Whatever feels really good is really good.
S3. Therefore, sex is really good.


Is it valid?
Is S1 true or false?
Is S2 true or false?

S is FG.
For any X, if FG then RG.
S is RG.

QED?

I'm not sure the conditional is the proper rendering of S2.

Seems valid.

S1 is not simply (unequivocally) true. Not only does the act not always in fact feel good- trivial carping here -but the meaning of sex is unthought. Sex is importantly temporal in at least two ways that seem relevant when we talk about how it "feels" (and I may be equivocal about 'to feel' here): past sex- a one night stand for instance -may have a feeling of regret, present sex may feel divine, and future sex may feel exciting. 'Sex' however also seems to be a temporally extended act in essence. Even if one is referring to mere copulation, the copulative act is extending over a span of time lasing from say 5 minutes to 2 hours, and the "feeling" of the act is not temporally homogenous- now it feels okay, now it feels like nothing, now it hurts, not it's great, etc. But often 'sex' also means an entire process of courtship and seduction. That process can easily turn quite horrible. Failure to complete the act is my primary thought, but one can find that one's lover is horrific, scornful, treacherous, etc and this colors the feeling of the act in this extended sense.

I suspect that what your student means by S1 is that, 'On the whole, and all else being equal, copulation, while experienced (in "the present moment"), causes pleasurable sensations.'

That seems true enough- in my experience.

Your student could hedge his bets by simply changing the language of S1 to speak of "good sex" only (where 'sex' is specified as I have). That would limit the cases he's trying to show to be really good to non-controversial cases. After all, rape is sex, and it's strange to consider that it should be said to "feel good" for the raped partner (though some victims report having had pleasurable feelings and being disturbed by that fact).

S2 seems to be compelling only because there is a limited sense in which what is pleasurable can be said to be uncontroversially good. This is simply the sense of 'good' that's used when we say "This cake tastes good.' In that case 'good' seems to mean 'pleasurable'. On that meaning of 'good' the statement is trivially true: If X is P then X is P. but that rendering of good would make the whole argument trivially true: X is P. / If X is P then X is P. / X is P. Real gobshite stuff there.

The upshot of the 'really' in "really good". seems to point to some greater sense of 'good'. There are non-controversial senses of good, where S2 is clearly false. What feels good isn't always instrumentally good: Cigarettes are not good for health, though they feel nice. Pirated music is pleasurable to the ear but not a good (in the sense of 'goods and services') because it is not deployed in an economic system (sex being usually free is also such a case). I understand that there's a more interesting sense of good being gestured at, but I'm not sure how to assess it. The wisdom of the ages, and of experience, says that what feels good isn't always good, but the meaning of that is complex- sometimes it means that the pleasurable thing has bad effects, sometimes that it's worse retrospectively, sometimes that it violates personal principle, sometimes that it's prohibited as a matter of faith. So I'm not sure about the final truth value of S2.

[iwpoe]

[Replying to post 5 by Hatuey]Odd. In what respect is 'feels' invalid?

"I like to cum because it feels good."

seems every bit as intelligible as

"I avoid cutting myself because I feel pain when I do so."

You seem to have been seduced into rejecting personal explanation entirely by an overly restrictive lexical dogma.

Moreover, 'good' is a quality not a quantity, so asking that it be a measurement is a category mistake- akin to asking 'How wide is convenience?'

[Johannes]

One of my students discussed the following argument about sex with me. It is not my argument, and I don't know if my student was committed to it or only trying it out. I submit it to the philosophy forum because I'm interested to know whether any, some, most, or all of you think it is a sound argument, or even merely a valid one, and why.
It goes:


S1. Sex feels really good.
S2. Whatever feels really good is really good.
S3. Therefore, sex is really good.


Is it valid?
Is S1 true or false?
Is S2 true or false?

S is FG.
For any X, if FG then RG.
S is RG.

QED?

I'm not sure the conditional is the proper rendering of S2.

Seems valid.

S1 is not simply (unequivocally) true. Not only does the act not always in fact feel good- trivial carping here -but the meaning of sex is unthought. Sex is importantly temporal in at least two ways that seem relevant when we talk about how it "feels" (and I may be equivocal about 'to feel' here): past sex- a one night stand for instance -may have a feeling of regret, present sex may feel divine, and future sex may feel exciting. 'Sex' however also seems to be a temporally extended act in essence. Even if one is referring to mere copulation, the copulative act is extending over a span of time lasing from say 5 minutes to 2 hours, and the "feeling" of the act is not temporally homogenous- now it feels okay, now it feels like nothing, now it hurts, not it's great, etc. But often 'sex' also means an entire process of courtship and seduction. That process can easily turn quite horrible. Failure to complete the act is my primary thought, but one can find that one's lover is horrific, scornful, treacherous, etc and this colors the feeling of the act in this extended sense.

I suspect that what your student means by S1 is that, 'On the whole, and all else being equal, copulation, while experienced (in "the present moment"), causes pleasurable sensations.'

That seems true enough- in my experience.

Your student could hedge his bets by simply changing the language of S1 to speak of "good sex" only (where 'sex' is specified as I have). That would limit the cases he's trying to show to be really good to non-controversial cases. After all, rape is sex, and it's strange to consider that it should be said to "feel good" for the raped partner (though some victims report having had pleasurable feelings and being disturbed by that fact).

S2 seems to be compelling only because there is a limited sense in which what is pleasurable can be said to be uncontroversially good. This is simply the sense of 'good' that's used when we say "This cake tastes good.' In that case 'good' seems to mean 'pleasurable'. On that meaning of 'good' the statement is trivially true: If X is P then X is P. but that rendering of good would make the whole argument trivially true: X is P. / If X is P then X is P. / X is P. Real gobshite stuff there.

The upshot of the 'really' in "really good". seems to point to some greater sense of 'good'. There are non-controversial senses of good, where S2 is clearly false. What feels good isn't always instrumentally good: Cigarettes are not good for health, though they feel nice. Pirated music is pleasurable to the ear but not a good (in the sense of 'goods and services') because it is not deployed in an economic system (sex being usually free is also such a case). I understand that there's a more interesting sense of good being gestured at, but I'm not sure how to assess it. The wisdom of the ages, and of experience, says that what feels good isn't always good, but the meaning of that is complex- sometimes it means that the pleasurable thing has bad effects, sometimes that it's worse retrospectively, sometimes that it violates personal principle, sometimes that it's prohibited as a matter of faith. So I'm not sure about the final truth value of S2.

Hello iwpoe,

I was going to say nice to meet you, before I realized we've met. Nice to see you here.

I think that she meant S1 more or less as we've analyzed it. To mean "good sex," or what did you say? 'On the whole, and all else being equal, copulation, while experienced (in "the present moment"), causes pleasurable sensations.'

Yes, just so. Although there might be some more analysis about whether "good sex" is something like "closer to perfect sex," which would bring up the question "perfect sex" and thus "what is the telos that perfects sex?"

Of course S2 is the real rub (no pun). Is pleasure either simply good (a kind of good), or is it THE good (as early utilitarians and all hedonists at all times think), or is it a thing that is sometimes good and sometimes evil? Or is it always evil? That last isn't an idea congenial to we moderns, but some heresies (I emphasize) taught that all pleasure is evil as did some of the Hellenistic pagan sects, some of the Gnostics, etc.

So what is the link between pleasure and the good?

1. All pleasure is good, and all good is pleasure. Pleasure = the Good.
2. All pleasure is good, but not all good is pleasure. Pleasure is one among several goods.
3. Some pleasure is good and some evil.
4. All pleasure is evil (but not all evil pleasure).

[I suppose a 5. Pleasure = Evil simply is a logical possibility, but I can't think anyone ever has argued that pleasure is the same thing as evil as such.
Which, by the way, is a refutation of that silly saying "There is no position so ridiculous that some philosopher hasn't held it." (I of course invite anyone who cares enough to find some philosopher who argues that "pleasure" and "evil" are identical.]

ζητειτε,
_Johannes[/b]