It's typically assumed that lust is a "shallow" emotion, in contrast to the platonic desires for companionship, affirmation, and so forth. Consider the old stereotype about guys "using" women for sex. Such situations are certainly possible, but isn't it just as possible to "use" a romantic partner for companionship or to boost one's ego? In either case, the "user" has only self-regarding desires, to which their partner is merely instrumental. Why the double standard?
Indeed, it seems that genuine lust is, properly speaking, other-directed. It is a form of aesthetic appreciation, a recognition of -- and hence attraction towards -- another's physical beauty. It is genuinely about them and their qualities. It thus seems as "deep" and appropriately flattering as any other form of romantic appreciation.
Perhaps what critics of lust really have in mind is the self-directed state of feeling horny. There the feeling is all about oneself. One wants sexual release, and doesn't much care where it's found. One's partner is then treated as a mere masturbatory tool, a "sex object" in the most derogatory sense. The other is merely incidental to satisfaction of horniness. But for lust, they are centre stage. This is a crucial difference, and one that makes lust rather more admirable, to my mind.
Even granting that lust is about the other, one might still worry that it is for oneself, and hence in some sense "selfish". This strikes me as doubly mistaken. First, I think there is an important sense of lust which drives one to seek not just one's own sexual pleasure, but also the other's. We might call this "unified lust", as the value it seeks inheres in the whole sexual union, not just the part of one lover alone. Secondly, we should not confuse selfishness with self-concern. Selfishness consists in an inappropriate disregard for others. But one can seek things for oneself whilst also caring about others and seeking their good too, so there is nothing necessarily selfish about this.
But the possibility is there, and perhaps this is the real complaint. It is certainly possible to lust after someone without genuinely caring for the person themselves. So lust may indeed lead one to "use" another for sex without having any intrinsic concern for them. This too is to treat the other as a "sex object", albeit in a slightly less derogatory sense than that previously described. (At least with lust they really are the focal object of one's desire. In the earlier case, they weren't even that. Perhaps "sex instrument" would've been a more accurate term!)
However, this possibility is also present with regard to the platonic attitudes. It is possible to "use" one's friends, after all. In the same way, a selfish agent might enjoy his partner for the way she brightens his life, without thereby caring for her or wanting to advance her interests or happiness. We might say that this is to treat her as a "platonic object".
(We can make a similar distinction to that noted above, between platonic "objects" and "instruments", depending on whether the agent's self-interested desire is directed at the other or merely themselves. Note that instruments are entirely replacable, whereas objects are not. For example, one could use one's partner as merely an instrument to boosting one's own ego. Here your partner is merely incidental to the desire's satisfaction. Anyone else might satisfy the desire just as well. Alternatively, you might have a self-interested "objectual" desire for the companionship of that particular person, in which case no replacement could satisfy that particular desire, and that person is centre-stage rather than oneself.)
I think it is plainly more degrading to be treated as an instrument than an object (though neither is very appealing!), but I see no basis for the double standard between platonic and sexual objectification. Am I missing something here?
Sunday, April 30, 2006
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Whoa, this is turning into the blog in plain brown paper. Simon Blackburn recently wrote a book on Lust.
ReplyDeleteHa, yeah, well. Philosophy of sex is a fascinating subject, I'm not sure why it isn't discussed more. (I'll have to read Blackburn sometime. Thanks for the pointer.)
ReplyDeleteI wasn't thrilled with Blackburn's "Lust" although I typically like his writing.
ReplyDeleteI like the distinction between lust and horniness. I agree that we use people in a variety of ways. The worst, in my experience, is being used as a listener. People will go on and on about their problems to me, but really don't want to know about my day or what's going on in my life.
I think to *not* treat someone as an end, is to ensure you're there for them too. Not in an economic tit-for-tat arrangement, but in a looser, more meaningful way. We can do this in conversation, in sex, and on blogs too.
Finally, I think sex is an important issue for discussion - it's where so much fear and anxiety hang out. Good to get it all in the open for debate, I think.
Your distinctions between types of lust are a lot like Aristotle's distinction between utility friendships, pleasure friendships, and character friendships. Instrumental friendships, where the other person is merely a means to some end that does not involve them, are what Aristotle calls friendships of utility. If the benefits of the friendship depend on the other person and the relationship, but there's no concern for the other person, as in your "objectual" desire, then that's a friendship of pleasure. The highest form of friendship, according to Aristotle, is a character friendship, where the two people care deeply about each other as "another self".
ReplyDeleteI think that Aristotle's stance was that all three kinds of friendship have their place, but it's important for each person to have one character friendship because there are valuable ends that can only be achieved through this kind of friendship. So opposition to (instrumental and objectual) lust may derive from support for exclusivity, since, if you can only have one sexual relationship, then having one of these inferior lustful relationships prevents you from achieving the most valuable and intimate kind of sexual relationship. Some people would probably also claim that, without exclusivity, a person's lustful relationships would interfere with the formation of the higher form of sexual relationships with others because of human nature (which ties into the whole "exclusivity is natural" argument).
Personally I never saw lust as all that bad a thing (because philosophically I dont like to load my words with bad/good connotations) - But I have to agree with Don that you have cut the bad connotations out of it and then analyzed it and not surprisingly found it not to have bad connotations.
ReplyDeleteThis implies a sort of failure to see the world through the "other side's" perspective. I guess it probably helps in writing essays - makes for a clearer message.
Lust is like hunger, since religion hasn't demonised hunger we just think it it's a natural signal to eat. Oh how we complicate things by placing rules designed to engineer society around them.
ReplyDeletePlatonic relations and lust are not mutually exclusive. The lusting typically takes a short amount of time, and arsing around philosophizing can happen in all the long hours between. As burt suggests, it's about as immoral as wanting to eat or scratch or poo. And more fun than all of them, IMHO.
ReplyDeleteI think most of the bitterness on lusting out there is because those who are bitter lust after someone they think they shouldn't. In Plato's case it was probably Socrates or Alcibiades. In the case of moralizing priests it is pretty much anything, since their religion gives them the guilts about it.
Blar - that's interesting, thanks. (Perhaps I should also add Aristotle to my reading list!)
ReplyDelete"Some people would probably also claim that, without exclusivity, a person's lustful relationships would interfere with the formation of the higher form of sexual relationships with others because of human nature"
Curious. (This harks back to the old Open Relationships question.) I'm not too clear on how this "interference" is supposed to occur, though. What aspect of "human nature" would such critics have in mind, do you think?
Don - where did I make any claim to be "defining" lust? My second paragraph describes some features of lust. It does not claim to be exhaustive.
"Also, I don't see how caring for another's pleasure absolves one from wrongdoing."
If you care for the other person, then that obviously absolves one from charges of selfishness. And that's the only basis for considering lust "immoral" that I could think of. (It obviously doesn't harm its object like rape does, for example.) But if you have any other proposals, I'm all ears.
Don, you mistakenly assume that selfishness and selflessness are mutually exclusive. That's a mistake, as explained in my main post. ("Secondly, we should not confuse selfishness with self-concern...")
ReplyDeleteYou haven't provided the faintest hint of a reason why we should think that sexual desire is intrinsically wrong. (Unless your baseless analogy to rape was meant to have some kind of rational force!?)
If you have reasons for thinking it's wrong, then stop beating around the bush and state them already. If you have no reasons, then your position isn't worth engaging with.
Right, it's certainly possible for selfishness to override one's care for another. (It would indicate that one didn't care about them enough, as in your "wanting money more" example. My earlier comment should be read as containing an implicit "enough".) The question is what reason we have for thinking that lust (and yes, "sexual desire for another" sounds like an adequate definition to me) necessarily involves an inappropriate disregard for its object. I still haven't heard any reasons from you here.
ReplyDelete(I also think that what I called "unified lust" is probably entirely immune to such concerns, since an element of selflessness is indeed built into it.)
(I'd also be curious to hear whether you mean to be defending the double-standard here, or if your concerns about "selfishness" apply equally to platonic desires.)
ReplyDelete"since it can maintain that murder (of innocent children mind you) can even be right"
ReplyDeleteActually it can't, no moral viewpoint can say "murder is right" because murder is defined as wrongful killing, ergo "Murder is wrong" is a tautology.
Don, recall I'm an indirect utilitarian. I'm quite happy to appeal to other moral principles in practical ethical discourse, as should be plain from my main post (and most of my other posts too).
ReplyDeleteTo respond to your substantive point, I'm not sure why you think that to desire someone is ("by definition") to treat them merely as an object and not as the person that they are. Lust doesn't entail that one is merely "using" the other person, any more than a desire for their companionship or affirmation does. (As previously explained, you "use" another when you pursue self-interested desires to the detriment, or with an inappropriate disregard, for another. The mere having of a self-interested desire is not in itself selfish. (Perhaps you are specifically worried about the "other-directed" aspect of the desire. I think this betrays a confusion on your part between being objectified (i.e. treated as a mere object) and being the object of a desire. Recall, I argued that other-directedness made the desires in question more admirable rather than less!) Selfishness is rather an imbalance in one's values that gets expressed through inconsiderate actions.) Surely one can be an object of desire whilst being recognized - and treated - as more. Indeed, as suggested in the main post, it would seem plainly flattering for a person to be the object of another's desire, if that desire arises from an appreciation of the qualities of the person. One still wouldn't want to be treated as just an object, of course. But to be desired by someone who also recognizes and values you as a person seems entirely desirable to me.
Nested parentheses can be confusing. I'll rewrite the previous paragraph in footnoted form:
ReplyDeleteTo respond to your substantive point, I'm not sure why you think that to desire someone is ("by definition") to treat them merely as an object and not as the person that they are. Lust doesn't entail that one is merely "using" the other person, any more than a desire for their companionship or affirmation does.* Surely one can be an object of desire whilst being recognized - and treated - as more. Indeed, as suggested in the main post, it would seem plainly flattering for a person to be the object of another's desire, if that desire arises from an appreciation of the qualities of the person. One still wouldn't want to be treated as just an object, of course. But to be desired by someone who also recognizes and values you as a person seems entirely desirable to me.
* = (As previously explained, you "use" another when you pursue self-interested desires to the detriment, or with an inappropriate disregard, for another. The mere having of a self-interested desire is not in itself selfish.** Selfishness is rather an imbalance in one's values that gets expressed through inconsiderate actions.)
** = (Perhaps you are specifically worried about the "other-directed" aspect of the desire. I think this betrays a confusion on your part between being objectified (i.e. treated as a mere object) and being the object of a desire. Recall, I argued that other-directedness made the desires in question more admirable rather than less!)
Not really
ReplyDelete1) As Tim states murder is generally defined as wrongful killing.
2) Even if that wasn't the case there must be something utilitarian are trying to prevent (or optimize) one of the big things is murder itself. Even if there was a case of murder that was for the greater good (e.g. killing a Nazi soldier in self defense or stoning goliath) the killing itself would be something you wished you could avoid. Presumably the same is true in most other philosophies.
People often attack utilitarianism for things that are also true but possibly slightly more hidden, in their own philosophy.
Hello all. It seems to me that the bugbear of "objectification" is raising its confused, furry head here without anyone making the important distinction of where this phenomenon is taking place. I'll explain.
ReplyDeleteIf I lust after (desire) someone, they are the object of my desire. That's not even a tautology - it's just grammar. However, the word "objectified," by contrast, is loaded and emotive; it describes either a social or psychological state.
I may consider a person to be or have been "objectified," but it's not really my impression that's important - it's theirs. And their impression - whether they feel themselves to be "objectified" or not - depends on my behavior and/or the social situation my lust has put them into (i.e., if I ask my girlfriend to wear sexy clothes in public for me. And she might like doing that or she might not). So it's not about some abstract category of "subject" or "object" that lust creates; it's about the thousand little things that my words and actions - or my neighbors' words and actions - convey to the potential "object" in question.
By they way, I'm pro-lust, especially requitable lust. :)