{"id":891,"date":"1996-06-23T20:37:43","date_gmt":"1996-06-24T01:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marshner.christendom.edu\/?p=891"},"modified":"2016-10-05T10:13:20","modified_gmt":"2016-10-05T15:13:20","slug":"can-a-couple-practicing-nfp-be-practicing-contraception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marshner.christendom.edu\/?p=891","title":{"rendered":"Can A Couple Practicing NFP Be Practicing Contraception?"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Can A Couple Practicing NFP Be Practicing Contraception?<\/h1>\n
W.H. MARSHNER<\/h6>\n

<\/a>GREGORIANUM
\nPONTIFICIA UNIVERSITAS GREGORIANA ROMA
\nVol. 77, Fasc. 4, 1996<\/p>\n

Among Catholics who follow the Church\u2019s teaching, it is well accepted that a couple practicing Natural Family Planning (NFP) with an intention of a certain kind is doing a morally good act, quite different from contracepting. It is also accepted that a couple practicing NFP with an intention of a different kind is doing a morally wrong act, similar to contracepting.[1]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> These two intentions \u2014 how exactly do they differ?
\n<\/p>\n

The best way to answer the question is to take up a related one, posed by the title of this essay. When a couple practices NFP in the wrong spirit, what kind of action are they doing? Would it be correct to say that they are contracepting? This is a question of act classification. Some moral theologians answer it in the affirmative, and they add that NFP, if willed in the wrong way, is a \u201cmethod of contraception\u201d. The purpose of this paper is to challenge their answer. I shall argue that no couple choosing to abstain periodically, regardless of their reason for doing so, is ever practicing contraception. I shall argue by-the-bye that this answer yields a better, clearer account of the intentions by which morally good choices of NFP differ from morally bad choices of it.<\/p>\n

The best reasoned case for the position with which I disagree is put forward in a work with whose larger contentions I fully agree. That work is a defense of Humanae Vitae offered by Germain Grisez, Joseph Boyle, John Finnis, and William May.[2]<\/a><\/sup> <\/sup>I shall refer to these authors hereafter as GBFM. They state that \u201cNFP can be chosen with contraceptive intent\u201d.[3]<\/a><\/sup> <\/sup>The authors argue at length that a contraceptive intent, precisely as con traceptive, is the will that a baby not-be; and they call this a contra-life will.[4]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> Their remark about NFP therefore amounts to saying that NFP can be chosen with the very same contra-life will with which contracepting is chosen. I take the authors to mean that NFP practiced with this will is an act of contraception<\/em> \u2014 a way of practicing contraception. If GBFM mean to say something short of this, they give no sign of it. In fact, the signs point the other way, as we shall see.<\/p>\n

The present writer agrees with GBFM on three essential points. They are (1) that the human good most centrally at stake in reproductive choices is the good of life, (2) that this good is violated in choices made with a contraceptive intent, and (3) that the malice of contraception therefore consists in the contra-life resolve which it embodies.[5]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup><\/p>\n

My disagreement comes from how the \u201ccontraceptive intent\u201d is more precisely analyzed. This analysis determines where the \u201ccontra-life will\u201d of contraception-users is located, so that a slight mistake in the former results in a mislocation of the latter by GBFM. The reader will see where I think the mistake lies, if a few words about action classification are presented.<\/p>\n

Sorting Human Actions into Kinds<\/h3>\n

Aquinas provides two major texts in the Summa Theologiae<\/em> on the classification of human actions. The first is 1-2 q. 1, a. 3, where he says that an action is put into its kind by its proximate end (corpus<\/em> and ad<\/em> 1). This end is the agent\u2019s most immediate purpose in acting. Oftentimes, a statement of one\u2019s most immediate purpose will not differ (or will differ only slightly) from what one ordinarily thinks of as a description of what one is doing. For example, if I am washing the car so as to get ready for a trip, the trip is my ulterior purpose, and to prepare for it or \u201cget ready\u201d is the intermediate purpose, but my most immediate purpose in acting is to wash the car, or to get the washing over and done with. This is why I am bustling about in the drive-way with a hose. Thus if we call this end (to wash the car) ewc<\/sub>, we can say that it puts the bustling into the kind e<\/sup>Kwc<\/sub>. That is, the end classifies my bustling by putting it into the end-based kind (e<\/sup>K) which is washing the car.<\/p>\n

The other text is 1-2 q. 18, a. 2, where Aquinas says that an action is put into its kind by its object. This is the matter with which the action deals (materia circa quam).<\/em> One can think of this \u201cmatter\u201d in grammatical terms. I start with the verb that would be involved in expressing what I am considering doing, e.g. \u2018wash\u2019. I add whatever nouns or noun- phrases would be needed to complete the expression of what I am considering doing, e.g. \u2018my car\u2019. This is the object, and \u201cwash my car\u2019 is a kind of action (genus ex objecto).<\/em> We may call it 0<\/sup>KWC<\/sub> for short.[6]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup><\/p>\n

If these two texts are to hang together, there are three possibilities. Either (1) the kind based on the object and the kind based on the proximate end are identical, or else (2) they classify on different levels, with one of them putting the action into a genus, the other putting it into its sub-genus or species, or else (3) the kinds are independent but both apply.<\/p>\n

In fact, all three possibilities turn up. The first is so common that Aquinas seems to have thought it needed no discussion. The example given above of washing the car will serve to illustrate it.[7]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> The second possibility is treated explicitly in 1-2 q. 18, a. 7. Aquinas says it arises only in the following way. If the object-based kind o<\/sup>Ka<\/sub> is a kind of action that is per se<\/em> connected to the end ei<\/sub>, so as always to be chosen for the end ei<\/sub>, then \u00b0Ka<\/sub> is a species or sub-genus of the genus e<\/sup>Ki<\/sub>, if the reader will pardon so many symbols.[8]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> Otherwise, the two classifications are independent of each other.[9]<\/a><\/sup> In what follows, the second and third possibilities will be the ones that interest us most.<\/p>\n

The GBFM defense of Humanae Vitae<\/em> does not state whether the authors accept Aquinas\u2019s method of classifying human action. But elsewhere Grisez says that the phrase, \u201cthe proposal adopted by choice\u201d, which he uses in his thesis that a human action is defined (classified) by the proposal adopted by choice, has \u201cmore or less the same meaning\u201d as the phrase \u201cthe object of an action\u201d used by St. Thomas.[10]<\/a> <\/sup>I shall assume, therefore, that his approach to action classifications by objects and action classifications by ends would be substantially similar to Aquinas\u2019s. The other authors in the GBFM group share Grisez\u2019s action theory or else locate themselves somewhere between his theory and Aquinas\u2019s, if they perceive a significant difference.<\/p>\n

In that light, \u201cpractice NFP\u201d should be accepted by GBFM as an object-based-kind of action. Let us call it \u00b0Knfp<\/sub>. \u201cUse a contraceptive\u201d should also be accepted as an object-based-kind, and we may call it o<\/sup>Kuc<\/sub>. It is an object-based genus, of which kinds like \u201ctake a pill as a contraceptive\u201d, are object-based species.[11]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

A key question can now be raised. Would the object-based genus \u201cuse a contraceptive\u201d (o<\/sup>Kuc<\/sub>) be accepted by GBFM as a sub-genus of a broader kind of action defined by the proximate end for which it is done? I think that this is precisely what the authors hold. They identify this proximate end with the not-coming-to-be of a baby (enb<\/sub>), so that the broader end-based-kind is something like \u201cexclude a baby\u201d (e<\/sup>Knb<\/sub>). Intending this end is having the contra-life will, in their view, and choosing to use a contraceptive always involves having this contra-life will, because of the per se<\/em> connection between choosing to use a contraceptive as a contraceptive<\/em> and intending that a baby not come to be.<\/p>\n

If the preceding points are accepted, then it is obvious immediately that \u201cpractice NFP\u201d is not an object-based species within the object- based genus \u201cuse a contraceptive\u201d. For every member-species of that genus is per se<\/em> connected to the contra-life intent, whereas \u201cpractice NFP\u201d is not per se<\/em> connected to it.<\/p>\n

Rather, \u201cpractice NFP\u201d should be viewed as a kind of action which is morally indifferent in its object-based classification, so that it gets its evaluation from the end for whose sake it is chosen in a given set of circumstances by a given couple.[12]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> In that way there can be an individual action by a couple NN which is a performance of practicing NFP and whose morally determinative \u201ckind\u201d is the end-based kind \u201cnot have a baby\u201d. One suspects that exactly such an action is what GBFM have in mind when they say that NFP \u201ccan be chosen with contraceptive intent\u201d. Exactly such an action will then count as \u201cpracticing contraception\u201d, in their view, without using a contraceptive; in different terms, it will count as \u201cpracticing NFP as a method of contraception\u201d.[13]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Getting the Proximate End Right<\/h3>\n

With these preliminaries in place, I should like to argue that the end-based kind (of which all acts of using a contraceptive and some acts of natural family planning are alleged to be instances by GBFM) is ill-chosen. The end they select to establish the kind is not the proximate<\/em> end for whose sake (intrinsically) all choices to use a contraceptive are made, though it may be the proximate end for whose sake wrong choices to practice NFP are made.<\/p>\n

Broadly speaking, one chooses to use a contraceptive in order to prevent<\/em> a baby\u2019s coming to be. This is a per se<\/em> connection. One cannot use a contraceptive as a contraceptive without intending to prevent a baby. It is further true that one cannot intend to prevent a baby without intending not to have a baby, i.e. without intending that a baby not-be. This is a second per se<\/em> connection. Thus I do not deny that every choice to use a contraceptive is per se<\/em> connected to the intention that a baby not- come-to-be, but I deny that this connection is \u201cimmediate\u201d. Rather, it allows room for the intention to prevent a baby, which is the genuinely proximate end of choices to use a contraceptive, so that all human acts of using a contraceptive (\u00b0Kuc<\/sub>) are acts of preventing a baby (e<\/sup>Kpb<\/sub>).<\/p>\n

However \u2014 and this is crucial \u2014 the term \u2018prevent\u2019 as used in the preceding paragraph has to be understood more precisely than \u2018prevent\u2019 is often understood. Suppose there were a 98% effective filter that could be put on the end of a cigarette. Then in common parlance, using<\/em> that filter while smoking and quitting<\/em> smoking would both be called \u201cprevention\u201d vis-a-vis the threat of lung cancer. Similarly, if there were a tablet one could take before drinking whiskey, which would alter the chemistry of alcohol digestion so as to block the processes that lead to cirrhosis of the liver, then taking<\/em> that tablet while drinking and abstaining<\/em> from drinking would both commonly be called \u201cprevention\u201d vis-a-vis liver trouble. In general, then, \u2018to prevent x<\/em>\u2019 admits of two senses: (a) \u2018to add a counter-measure to acts causative of x<\/em>\u2019 and (b) \u2018to abstain from acts causative of x<\/em>\u2019. It is precisely sense (a) of \u2018prevent\u2019 which is understood by a person when he or she chooses to use a contraceptive. The person plans to perform sexual acts causative of a baby (complete acts of intercourse chosen irrespectively of their performance during fertile or infertile periods) and chooses to perform an act which, as a counter-measure, prevents those foreseen sexual acts, when performed,<\/em> from causing a baby. It is in this sense of \u2018prevent a baby\u2019, therefore, that I say all human actions of the object-based kind \u00b0Kuc<\/sub> belong to the end-based kind \u201cprevent a baby,\u201d<\/p>\n

When the ambiguity of \u2018prevent\u2019 is removed, it becomes clear that the proximate end for whose sake every act of using a contraceptive is done, namely epb<\/sub>, is not (and cannot be) the proximate end for whose sake any act of practicing NFP is done. For as GBFM themselves admit, those practicing NFP act \u201cby abstaining from causing the baby to come to be\u201d.[14]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup><\/p>\n

Should the Locus of \u201cContra-life Will\u201d Be Shifted?<\/h3>\n

I have conceded that intending to prevent a baby is per se<\/em> connected to intending that a baby not-be, so that the end-based kind e<\/sup>Kpb<\/sub> could perhaps be a species or sub-genus of an end-based kind e<\/sup>Knb<\/sub>; and nothing I have said so far precludes some or all individual actions of using NFP from being instances of an end-based kind e<\/sup>Knb<\/sub>. The analysis given so far is consistent, then, with the following possibility:<\/p>\n

Any human act is a \u201ccontraceptive\u201d act if, and only if, it is an act of the end-based kind e<\/sup>Knb<\/sub>; and all contraceptive acts are morally wrong because, as acts of that<\/em> end-based kind, they embody (intrinsically, in what it is to intend them) a contra-life will.<\/p>\n

I think that this is pretty exactly what GBFM do contend. They identify the morally determinative contra-life will with intending-the-end-enb<\/sub>, which is broad enough to constitute an end-based kind of which all acts of using-a-contraceptive and (at least) some acts of practicing NFP are instances; and they identify the classifying trait of \u201ccontraceptive acts\u201d with intending the end enb<\/sub>, so that at least some acts of practicing NFP become \u201ccontraceptive acts\u201d.<\/p>\n

My doubt about this is not a narrowly Thomistic quibble, to the effect that the end-based kind made to classify acts of o<\/sup>Kuc<\/sub> is not the end- based kind proximate to them, but a point of real substance (to which I think the quibble contributes). I doubt whether intending that a baby not come to be (enb<\/sub>) is the best available locus of the contra-life will which is morally determinative in the context of contraceptive choices. The above analysis has provided another candidate, intending to prevent a baby (epb<\/sub>), which might be this contra-life will.<\/p>\n

Two important features of the GBFM argumentation suggest that my alternative candidate would suit their purposes better than their own.<\/p>\n

One arises in the part of their argument where GBFM compare the contralife will at work in contraception to the contra-life will at work in homicide.[15]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> Aware that this comparison shocks many people, they argue for it carefully from tradition as well as from reason. They take care that the distinction between a will set against the life of an actual person and a will set against the life of a merely possible person is recognized. But they think the comparison retains its plausibility to the extent that, in both cases, the contra-life will has some identifiable life or lives as its target. Hence they suggest repeatedly that, when one\u2019s choice includes what they mean by the contra-life will, one wills a rather definite \u201cpossible baby\u201d not to be. In a sense,<\/em> this condition is met by the fact that, typically, a contracepting couple projects a possible baby under a definite description \u2014 \u201cthe baby we could have before we get our mortgage lowered\u201d, \u201cthe baby we could have this year\u201d, \u201cour third child\u201d \u2014 and the couple wants this very baby not to be. But there is a problem which GBFM do not face. People readily understand that \u201cthis very baby\u201d is really any baby fitting this description, so that the \u201ctargeted life\u201d is not nearly so definite in real terms as it seems in the concept. Quite a few philosophers would say that the couple\u2019s thinking in projecting a child they don\u2019t want breaks down; \u201cthe\u201d targeted life is illusory, a trick our language plays on us; and so the GBFM comparison between the couple\u2019s will and a homicidal will becomes vulnerable to the criticism that it rests upon an illusion.[16]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> If GBFM are to have an answer to this, they should begin with the following facts. The possibility of a baby is made real by actions which have a causal potential. And it is these same actions which make the baby not wanted \u201cidentifiable\u201d in real terms. For any \u201cpossible baby\u201d would be the result of some performance of intercourse. A couple who perform this<\/em> inter course but under the influence of a chosen counter-measure which blocks these<\/em> gametes from meeting can certainly be said to have acted by choice against definite \u201cpossible babies.\u201d They willed (and didn\u2019t just wish) that these<\/em> possible babies not be (namely, the one or ones who could have been conceived from these<\/em> cells [namely, this<\/em> month\u2019s ovum plus one or more of the sperm deposited by this<\/em> love-making]). But as soon as one turns to omissions rather than counter-measured performances, the set of \u201cpossible babies\u201d not willed loses much if not all of its real-world basis for definiteness. For example, the male reproductive system is too unpredictable to allow one to speak of the exact set of sperm which would be deposited at time t,<\/em> if the couple were to make love at t.<\/em> Therefore even in speaking of a carefully timed abstention, one cannot really speak of \u201cthe baby or babies who could come to be from these<\/em> gametes.\u201d One has to fall back to \u201cthe baby or babies which some gametes of ours might make, if we were to make love at t<\/em>\u201c. And in proportion as the time t<\/em> becomes indefinite, the case becomes worse and worse. For purposes of the homicide comparison, then, my candidate for the end whose being-intended is the contra-life will makes a better candidate than an end such as enb<\/sub>, to which a choice of periodic abstinence could be ordered.<\/p>\n

The preceding argument gains strength from another feature of the GBFM argumentation. These authors also compare the contra-life will of contraceptors to the contra-life will of suicide-choosers. In doing so, they write:<\/p>\n

Whenever a baby comes to be from a couple\u2019s one-flesh communion, the new person is, as it were, an emerging part of his or her parents. Although contraception intervenes before any new person emerges, it is still a choice to interfere with existing human life. For, in preventing the baby they project and reject, those who choose to contracept attack their own lives as they tend to become one through the sexual act. By contracepting, they commit limited suicide, as it were \u2014 they choose to cut off their human life as they are about to hand it on, precisely at the point at which the new person would emerge.[17]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup><\/p>\n

Every word in this passage makes better and more convincing sense, if the contra-life will here described is intending-the-end-epb<\/sub>, to prevent a baby in the precise sense selected above, rather than intending the physically contentless end enb<\/sub>, to have no baby, to which a choice of periodic abstention (or, for that matter, a choice to enter the convent) could be ordered.<\/p>\n

Moreover, these two features of the GBFM argumentation connect together in the following powerful way. If we take \u2018possible\u2019 in real terms rather than merely logical terms, the possible-ness<\/em> of any \u201cpossible baby\u201d is identically the potency<\/em> of the parents to beget, which is a real aspect of their existing lives. A practical hatred of the former (the possibleness of the baby, whence the homicide comparison) is therefore a practical hatred of the latter (the potency of the parents, whence the suicide comparison). But this hatred is precisely practical in the manner described by GBFM when it is directed against this potency when and as it is being reduced to act.<\/em> Therefore practical hatred is expressed in intending to prevent a baby in the counter-measure sense defined above (epb<\/sub>).<\/p>\n

That intention is the right \u201cplace\u201d, I conclude, in which to locate the contra-life will that is acted upon in contraception.<\/p>\n

The re-location which I propose carries, however, this logical consequence: no normal act of NFP is an act of contraception in its end-based kind, regardless of what else might be said against it. For while intending to prevent a baby in the sense defined is per se<\/em> connected to intending that a baby not be (enb<\/sub>), the converse is not true. A novice in a nunnery can wish, will, or even intend that a baby not be (enb<\/sub>) without intending, willing, or even wishing to prevent a baby from coming to be (epb<\/sub>).<\/p>\n

Two interesting analogies help to illustrate the moral difference between a contra-life will which simply wants \u201cno baby\u201d through abstention and a contra-life will that wants to prevent a baby.<\/p>\n

The first analogy concerns truth-telling. Perhaps Smith knows an important truth which honesty requires him to divulge, but he is loathe to reveal it. He wants to bury it. Smith has a contra-truth will, but perhaps it only goes so far. He is willing to keep silent (abstain from speaking) but not willing to lie (add a counter-measure to speaking). Smith may be doing wrong in keeping silent; but as long as he keeps his mouth shut, he is at least not lying (contracepting).<\/p>\n

The second analogy concerns poker. Jones likes to play with a group of friends, but he fears that his long winning-streak is over. He doesn\u2019t want to give his friends a chance to win their money back. Unfairly, he refuses to play. He has a contra-fairness will. But perhaps it only goes so far. Jones is willing to deprive them of their chance, but he is not willing to cheat. He is not willing to put an ace up his sleeve or bring out a marked deck, though these counter-measures would prevent the losses he fears. He may be wrong not to play (abstain); but so long as he doesn\u2019t play, he doesn\u2019t cheat (contracept).<\/p>\n

Of course Smith should be told that his silence is dishonest; he should come to understand that lying is not the only form of dishonesty. And Jones should be told that his refusal to play is taking unfair advantage and so is more like cheating than he\u2019d care to admit. But a moralist only compromises his own ability to persuade these men, if he says that their action are a lie and a cheat respectively.<\/p>\n

I conclude that couples choosing to abstain periodically are never contracepting. I concede that couples choosing to abstain periodically can have a contra-life will, but I have given a reason to think that their contra-life will would be other than the contra-life will of contraceptors. It would stop short of being a will to prevent.[18]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> After a short interim, I shall consider objections to these conclusions.<\/p>\n

Interim Summary<\/h3>\n

Thus far, I have used the Thomistic business about how actions are classified in only a limited way. I have taken the point that, if one is to reclassify an object-based kind o<\/sup>Ki<\/sub> into an end-base kind e<\/sup>Ki<\/sub>, one should choose the most immediate purpose (\u201cproximate end\u201d) for whose sake, intrinsically, actions of the \u00b0Ki<\/sub>-kind are chosen. I have read GBFM as reclassifying acts of using a contraceptive so as to put them into an end- based kind. I have argued that the end selected by GBFM (that a baby not-be) was not as immediate as it could be, and I proposed an alternative (to prevent a baby). I have argued that the central claims of GBFM \u2014 that a contra-life will is at work in acts of contraception, and that thanks to it every such act is morally wrong \u2014 not only survive but become all the more convincing, if the locus of this contra-life will is shifted to intending the alternative I propose.<\/p>\n

This part of my case is its strongest part, I think, and it can stand independently. The remainder of my case makes further use of the Thomistic classification doctrine, which might be thought to be \u201cspeculative\u201d or metaphysical in its interest, rather than strictly ethical, and it also makes use of an analysis of negative intentions which might well be open to criticism.<\/p>\n

First Objection<\/h3>\n

GBFM might concede that the intent to prevent a baby is at least as good for defining \u201ccontraceptive acts\u201d as the intent which they selected in their analysis. But they might add that this concession in no way shows that their selection was inappropriate. Sometimes there is more than one serviceable way to define a \u201ckind\u201d, and perhaps the action-kind which is contracepting is like that. Perhaps there is a narrow way and a broad way to think of contraception (just as there is a narrow way and a broad way to think of prevention), both appropriate. Perhaps the present writer has chosen the narrow way (which is not wrong), while GBFM have chosen the broad way (which is not wrong) \u2014 so that apart from technical quibbles about who has the \u201cmore coherent\u201d or the \u201cmore Thomistic\u201d classification theory, there is just nothing more to be said about the matter.<\/p>\n

The present writer readily concedes that human actions adopt or carry out proposals which are \u201cbeings of reason\u201d, so that classifying human actions is not like putting natural substances into some system of scientific kinds. Action kinds cannot be more precise than ordinary human thought; and so I should not be surprised if there were many cases of genuine ambiguity. I am not persuaded, however, that the present case is so easily dismissed. I doubt whether the intent that a baby not-be provides any way (broad or narrow) to define a kind of action.<\/p>\n

Does the Intent that a Baby Not-Be Establish a Kind of Action?<\/h3>\n

Sometimes a statement of one\u2019s purpose as an agent includes a description of what one would be doing for that purpose, and sometimes it doesn\u2019t. When it does, the statement-of-purpose sounds like an action description; and when it doesn\u2019t, the statement-of-purpose sounds like a state of affairs which might obtain or fail to obtain apart from any given sort of action.<\/p>\n

For example, if a child breaks his brother\u2019s toy in order to \u201cget even\u201d, the statement-of-purpose sounds like an action description (\u201cI am getting even\u201d), a further description of the act-of-breaking. One could easily think that the phrase, \u2018acts of getting even\u2019, designated a kind of action.<\/p>\n

But if the child breaks his brother\u2019s toy so that the latter might not have it,<\/em> the statement-of-purpose does not have the ring of an action-description at all. One is not tempted to form in the mind a classifying term, such as \u201cacts of someone\u2019s not having something.\u201d Rather, one sees that the purpose sounds like a state of affairs (my brother\u2019s having a toy) which is intended not to obtain; but for all that its intelligible content requires, this state of affairs could fail to obtain with or without a sibling\u2019s intervention.<\/p>\n

Another difference is also salient. When the act of breaking a toy is connected to the end of getting even, the morally significant motivation becomes unequivocal; one is dealing with an act of \u201cvengeance\u201d. When the same act of breaking is connected to the end that a brother not have the toy, one is not clear about the motivation. Is it revenge (\u201cI didn\u2019t want him to have it, because he did so-and-so to me\u201d), or is it jealousy (\u201cI didn\u2019t want him to have it, because I don\u2019t have one\u201d)? Or is it a prudent concern (\u201cI didn\u2019t want him to have it, because he\u2019d put his eye out with it\u201d).<\/p>\n

Acts of jealousy, acts of revenge, acts of prudence \u2014 such terms belong to yet another layer of classification which Aquinas recognizes. These are evalutation-based kinds, which he sometimes (and rather misleadingly) calls \u201cmoral kind\u201d.[19]<\/a><\/sup> They classify the action under some virtue or some vice, and we can represent them as the m<\/sup>Kj<\/sub>. In contrast to the o<\/sup>K-kinds and e<\/sup>K-kinds, one has to have evaluated an action morally before one can put it into an m<\/sup>K-kind.<\/p>\n

To resume with the example under discussion, \u2018I broke the toy so that I might get even\u2019 seems to contain all the information one needs to reach a moral judgment, whereas \u2018I broke the toy so that he might not have it\u2019 seems to need a further clause telling us why the agent wanted him not to have it. And depending on what that further clause contains, one might be dealing here with an act of some virtue or an act of some vice.<\/p>\n

Thus if, contrary to normal usage, one were to allege that there is an action kind<\/em> defined by this not-have-toy purpose, that alleged kind would be morally heterogeneous.<\/p>\n

That a moral action-kind should contain instances which are behaviorally heterogeneous is a very normal thing.[20]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> That a behavior-kind should contain instances which enter into morally heterogeneous actions is a very normal thing[21]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup>. Normal, too, is an object-based action-kind which is heterogeneous both behaviorally and morally.[22]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> But quite extraordinary, really, would be an end-based kind of human action which contained both heterogeneous object-based-kinds of human action (each perhaps behaviorally heterogeneous) and heterogeneous moral kinds of human action (e.g. acts of fidelity and acts of infidelity). One would have to wonder whether such an alleged kind was in any real sense a single kind<\/em> at all.<\/p>\n

Yet allowing a purpose like \u201cthat someone not have a toy\u201d to define a \u201ckind\u201d of human action would posit precisely such a deeply dubious (doubly or even triply heterogeneous) \u201ckind.\u201d<\/p>\n

This complaint can be generalized. The shortage of power to generate a convincing \u201ckind\u201d of action does not come from a special detail of the example just used. The shortage comes, rather, from the general intelligible content of a purpose which consists only in intending that a certain state of affairs not obtain. Such a purpose does not contain and does not imply<\/em> any description of what the holder of the purpose would be prepared to do, or abstain from doing, to what, or to whom, in order to achieve the purpose. Hence such a purpose is objectively ill-suited to define a \u201ckind\u201d of action.<\/p>\n

Stated in this general form, the complaint applies with equal force to the purpose \u201cthat a baby not-be.\u201d This purpose, too, consists in intending that a state of affairs (e.g. my having a baby) not obtain. The purpose neither contains nor implies any description of what the person or the couple holding the purpose would be prepared to do or abstain from doing to what, or to whom, so as to achieve their purpose. They might even choose not to marry. Hence this purpose, too, enb<\/sub>, is ill-suited objectively to define a \u201ckind\u201d of action. GBFM ought not to have used it.<\/p>\n

I conclude that the GBFM definition of contraceptive acts is poorly made, that under their definition such acts do not constitute a plausible (\u201cbroad\u201d alternative) \u201ckind of action\u201d, and that the role of enb<\/sub> in that definition ought to be played by a different end. I have argued above, on other grounds, that the role they give to enb<\/sub> ought to be played by epb<\/sub>. I can now add that \u2018to prevent a baby\u2019 is the kind of purpose-statement which includes in itself (when \u2018prevent\u2019 is disambiguated) a description of what one would be doing for the purpose \u2014 so that \u2018to prevent a baby\u2019 both brings the act of pill-taking or condom-donning one is choosing under a further action description and states the purpose to which one is determining oneself. The end epb<\/sub> thus has what it takes to define (in an end- based manner) a plausible \u201ckind\u201d of human action. I have argued on other grounds that this kind would be the contraceptive kind.<\/p>\n

Second Objection<\/h3>\n

Nevertheless, it seems to me that GBFM have a further line of reply, which opens up a very delicate topic. My reply will be the weakest (but also the most dispensable) part of my case.<\/p>\n

GBFM may well think that, speculative matters of classification- theory aside, the end enb<\/sub> has what it takes to serve their moral argument. They may point out that the examples discussed in the previous section (examples of intending that a state of affaris not obtain) differ in a morally crucial way. A toy is at best an instrumental good, whereas a human life is a basic good. While the intention that a toy not-be (or not be had by someone) may figure both in morally good acts and in morally bad ones, the intention that a baby not-be can figure only in morally bad acts. Thus, the \u201ckind\u201d defined by that intention (the contraceptive \u201ckind\u201d as GBFM define it), even if it is highly heterogeneous in other respects, is homogeneous in the moral respect. Every act of that kind is an act of vice (specifically, an act of injustice against a possible life). Therefore, even if the willing identified as the contralife will which is at work in contraception can or should be shifted to intending epb<\/sub> (to prevent a baby), the strong appearance remains that intending enb<\/sub> (that a baby not-be) also has a contra-life meaning that is morally determinative, so that it will at least serve to define (unambiguously) a moral equivalence class, so that even certain badly motivated, life-denying decisions not to marry can belong to this class.<\/p>\n

I concede that nothing said so far serves to justify or exculpate holding the intention \u201cthat a baby not-be,\u201d and that this intention contains at least a verbal force which is contra-life. Nevertheless, I think there is a non-question-begging way to show that the verbal force is one thing, and the self-determination of the will expressed through it is another.<\/p>\n

Does the Intent that a Baby Not-Be Establish a Moral Equivalence Class?<\/h3>\n

I suspect that virtually every couple practicing NFP in the hope of avoiding the bills or other burdens which a pregnancy would entail does will that a baby not be, and that these couples are under the impression (which they would be very surprised to hear criticized) that they intend this. <\/em>GBFM, in order to both (a) maintain their thesis that intending enb<\/sub> is morally determinative-to-evil and defines the moral class \u201ccontraceptive acts\u201d and (b) uphold the Church\u2019s teaching that NFP can be chosen virtuously while no contraceptive act can be chosen virtuously, are forced to maintain that couples virtuously practicing NFP do not intend that a baby not be.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the present writer\u2019s experience, not only sympathetic lay couples but even well-prepared graduate students have found this claim unbelievable or unintelligible. Whatever truth GBFM mean to articulate through it (and I think there is one), they have failed to communicate successfully. To diagnose and cure the failure, I shall draw some distinctions and then criticize the case which GBFM make.<\/p>\n

Sometimes a normal, straightforward statement of what one intends requires no use of negation; at other times, some use of negation is required. In the former case, I shall say that one has a \u201cpositive\u201d intention; in the latter case, a \u201cnegative\u201d intention. Notoriously, there are sometimes covertly negative ideas contained in the meanings of words or phrases which carry no grammatical sign of negation on their surface; so I hasten to admit that some positive intentions have a negative aspect.[23]<\/a><\/sup> Vice-versa there are some grammatically negative expressions which convey a positive idea, so that perhaps some negative intentions are covertly positive. The argument I am about to make does not require sorting out all such oddities. It requires only that, very often at least, a positive intention is a willing that some state of affairs should obtain, while a negative intention is regularly a willing that some state of affairs should not obtain.[24]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Thus a couple taking temperatures and timing episodes of coition in order to achieve a pregnancy wills that a state of affairs (our having a baby soon) should obtain, while a couple taking temperatures and so on in order to avoid a pregnancy wills that the same state of affairs (our having a baby soon) should not obtain. Call this state of affairs HB. It should not be controversial, I hope, that intending-the-end-enb<\/sub> (that a baby not-be) is intending that HB should not obtain.<\/p>\n

The argument is this. When one has the positive intention that HB should obtain, one\u2019s will bears upon a constituent of HB itself; one is attracted by it, and that is why one wills that HB obtain. In a word, the positive intention \u201csays\u201d where one\u2019s heart is. But when one has the negative intention that HB should not obtain, the bearing of one\u2019s will is not clear. Sometimes one is repulsed by a constituent of HB, so that one\u2019s will is set against it; but sometimes there is no such repulsion. One is simply attracted by a different state of affairs,<\/em> whose obtaining one understands to exclude the obtaining of HB. The negative intention does not \u201csay\u201d where one\u2019s heart is, and there is thus an objective ambiguity about saying that someone has this negative intention.<\/p>\n

The ambiguity is quite general, can arise in connection with any negative intention, and can make a moral difference. Consider again the brother-having-a-toy example, in which the state of affairs may be called BHT. The vengeful or jealous sibling is quite clearly repulsed by a constituent of BHT. It is the toy in his brother\u2019s hands which irks, provokes, angers him. The meddlesomely prudent sibling is not repulsed by BHT but attracted by a different state of affairs (his brother being safe from physical harm), whose obtaining he understands (perhaps mistakenly) to exclude the obtaining of BHT. It suffices for present purposes if the reader agrees that the sibling\u2019s will is objectively different in the two cases, even though both can be said (fairly) to intend that BHT not obtain. But now let us alter the means in the example. Instead of breaking the toy (which I should not care to justify, even on grounds of prudence), suppose the sibling is the elder of the two brothers and enjoys a certain jurisdiction over the toy closet. Suppose the means is to abstain from bringing the toy in question out of the closet, day after day. By this abstention, a jealous brother would have what he wanted (\u201cI don\u2019t have it, he won\u2019t have it\u201d), a vengeful brother would have what he wanted (\u201cHe won\u2019t have it, serves him right\u201d), and a prudent brother would have what he wanted (\u201cHe won\u2019t have it, he\u2019ll be safe\u201d). The undestructive means does not compromise the prudent brother\u2019s good intention (as breaking the toy might), but that is not my point at the moment.[25]<\/a><\/sup> My point is that the undestructive means does not morally distinguish the three projects, nor does the negative intention that the brother not have the toy.<\/em> What distinguishes the three projects morally is how<\/em> the negative intention is held, which is clearly connected with why<\/em> it is held. In the two vicious projects, the negative intention is held in such a way that the agent\u2019s will is attracted by a different state of affairs, whose obtaining is understood to exclude that of BHT.<\/p>\n

Returning to couples and the state of affairs that they have a baby soon (HB), the case is wholly analogous. A Manichaean couple, such as the young Aurelius Augustinus and his mistress, abstain periodically from their embrace with the negative intention that a baby not-be; they hold the intention because the very thought of a baby repels them on ideological grounds, and this is reflected in how<\/em> they hold it: their will is set against a constituent of HB. A Catholic couple abstain periodically from their embrace with the negative intention that a baby not-be; they hold the intention (let us suppose) because they have made a commitment to stay solvent, which they believe they cannot do while bearing the expenses (or lost income) attendant upon pregnancy and childbirth. This, too, is reflected in how they hold the negative intention: their will is attracted to a different state of affairs (their staying solvent \u2014 SS) whose obtaining they think incompossible with HB\u2019s obtaining.[26]<\/a><\/sup> Again, what distinguishes the two projects morally is not whether the negative intention is present but how it is held. The will of the Manichaean couple, set against a constituent of HB, the baby, is a contra-life will. The will of the Catholic couple, set against no particular constituent of HB but set rather upon SS, is a pro-solvency will. In appropriate circumstances, such a will is morally good. This is how I answer the question with which this essay began: how the intention of a couple virtuously practicing NFP differs from the intention of a couple practicing it wrongly.<\/p>\n

I conclude: the intent that a baby not-be (a negative intention) may or may not be contra-life in a moral sense, depending on how it is held, thanks to an ambiguity which regularly arises about \u201cholding\u201d a negative intention.<\/p>\n

When one tries to compare this conclusion to the GBFM view of the matter, one experiences a conceptual difficulty. The human phenomenon which we call \u201cintending something\u201d is psychologically complex. It is at once a willing and an understanding of that willing. What comes into public discussion in language chosen to \u201cexpress\u201d an intention is not the willing itself but the understanding of the willing. If the language chosen can fail to be adequate to the understanding, it is somewhat difficult to say exactly what we are to mean in public discussion by \u2018an intention.\u2019<\/p>\n

Shall we mean the intelligible content of a form of words which a human agent uses to state \u201cwhat he intends\u201d? If so, an intention is an expressed understanding of a willing (an expressed self-understanding, possibly a poor expression). Or shall we mean by \u2018an intention\u2019 precisely a willing, a posture of the will? If so, an intention is the willing behind an expressed understanding (and possibly poorly expressed).<\/p>\n

If we mean the former, then what I have been calling intending-enb <\/sub>(\u201cthat a baby not-be\u201d) is one intention but there are two<\/em> ways to hold it, and each of them is a different posture of the will. If we mean the latter, then what I have been calling intending-enb<\/sub> is not an intention but an ambiguous expressed-understanding, behind whose use there could be either of two different intentions,<\/em> each identically a posture of the will. (On either option, what is morally determinative is a posture of the will).<\/p>\n

One can make good sense of the GBFM position by assuming that they take the latter option, whereas I have been taking the former. In earlier sections of this essay, this particular difference hasn\u2019t mattered; but now it has. My choice of position has allowed me to adhere closely to what ordinary people say they intend, accepting their professed intentions as in fact their intentions. The GBFM choice of position makes \u2018intention\u2019 more of a technical term, a Thomistic term of art, whose application need not and sometimes does not correspond to what an ordinary person would say his or her intention was.<\/p>\n

Ordinary couples practicing NFP in a morally acceptable way and hoping to avoid pregnancy would say (I think) that they intend not to have a child (not any time soon, anyway). I begin by accepting this talk as veridically expressing the fact that they intend-the-end-enb<\/sub>, and then I introduce a distinction as to how they hold it. GBFM (if I catch their drift) begin<\/em> with this distinction. By \u2018intending that a baby not-be\u2019 they mean<\/em> \u2018willing that HB not obtain out of hatred for a constituent of HB\u2019. In that light, they then deny<\/em> that an ordinary couple practicing NFP in a morally acceptable way intends that a baby not-be.<\/p>\n

I agree. Given what GBFM mean, I have no problem with where they come out. In substance, it is where I come out. The problem is the counter-intuitive way of speaking into which GBFM are led by their technical use of \u2018intention\u2019. In their effort to sustain that way of speaking, they compromise the cogency of their substantive conclusion by bringing forward unpersuasive arguments. I shall now examine and criticize them.<\/p>\n

In order to make out a case for their claim that couples virtuously practicing NFP do not intend that a baby not be, GBFM rely upon two distinctions. One is the distinction between not-willing-that-a-baby-be and willing-that-a-baby-not-be. GBFM concede that a couple virtuously practicing NFP \u201cdon\u2019t want to have a baby\u201d, and they intrepret this as the couple\u2019s not-willing-that-a-baby-be. They deny that a virtuous couple wills that-a-baby-not-be.[27]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

This argument fails to persuade because the distinction brought forward is inappropriate to the situation. The sensible distinction between \u2018not willing that p\u2019<\/em> and \u2018willing that not-p\u2019<\/em> arises in the situation where the agent has no belief or no interest in the subject-matter of p.<\/em> Let p = <\/em>the Kenyan government devalues its currency. I don\u2019t want the Kenyan government to devalue its currency, and I don\u2019t want it not to. I have no volition bearing upon the matter at all. Thus it\u2019s true that I do not will that p<\/em> and false that I will that not-p.<\/em> But in situations where the agent has beliefs and interests at stake, there is no ordinary employment for this distinction. Let the agent be the couple NN, practicing NFP, and let p <\/em>= NN have a new baby in nine months. It cannot be said that they have no volition bearing upon the matter. It is true that they do not will that p, <\/em>but it is true precisely because they will that not-p.<\/em> They may will that not-p<\/em> out of hatred for something mentioned in p,<\/em> or they may will that not-p<\/em> because of their attraction to q<\/em> which they understand to imply (and so demand) not-p.<\/em> Either way, not-p<\/em> is something they \u201cwill\u201d in the way ordinary speakers of English use the word \u2018will\u2019. If GBFM use the word differently, they fail to be persuasive.<\/p>\n

Their second argument appeals to a distinction between emotive willing (which is wishing or even strong wishing) and practical or direct willing (choosing as means or intending as end). GBFM concede that a virtuous couple may have an emotive will against a baby\u2019s being; they may wish strongly<\/em> to have no baby. But wishes don\u2019t change things, whereas practical willing does. It is the latter sort of willing which is morally determinative. As far as practical willing is concerned, GBFM say that the virtuous couple chooses as means an abstinence from intercourse and intends as the end the not-being-of-certain-debts-or-burdens.[28]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> The not-being of a baby, then, appears neither in the means-slot nor in the end-slot; it is accepted only as a side-effect of the not-being of the burdens avoided.[29]<\/a><\/sup> <\/sup><\/p>\n

This argument fails to persuade because, again, the distinction invoked belongs somewhere else. The idea of \u201cemotive willing\u201d is introduced in order to allow room for a desideratum (that we not have a baby) which is psychologically present but \u201cbeside the point\u201d of the couple\u2019s plan of action (praeter intentionem).<\/em> The desideratum that a baby not-be is psychologically present all right, but as ordinary people speak of their plans and intentions, at least, it is certainly not \u201caside from\u201d their intention. That a baby not be is the intelligible connection<\/em> between the virtuous couple\u2019s means (the abstention) and the virtuous couple\u2019s end (absence of debts, etc). A \u201cmeans,\u201d in order to be intelligible as a means, has to contribute somehow towards attaining the end. Here the end is to save money, avoid debt. How does sexual abstention contribute to that? Is the wife charging her husband money for sexual services, and giving the money to a third party? If not, how does abstaining from intercourse save the couple any money? How, indeed \u2014 except on the understanding that the abstinence contributes \u201cno baby\u201d, coupled with the understanding that \u201cno baby\u201d meets a demand of \u201cno debt.\u201d This is not to say that \u201cno baby\u201d comes into the virtuous couple\u2019s plan as a means<\/em> to \u201cno debt.\u201d That is another matter, and an unlikely one. [30]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> I am simply saying that, to people who do their practical reasoning in ordinary English, whatever the status of \u201cno baby\u201d is, it is not what GBFM say it is: it is not a \u201cside effect\u201d which is \u201coutside\u201d or \u201cbeside the point of\u201d their intention. [31]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup><\/p>\n

By contrast, what GBFM want to say translates into my idiom without this problem. That-a-baby-not-be would appear in the couple\u2019s expression of what they understand themselves to will; it would be part of their intention, as I use \u2018intention\u2019. But what matters morally is how<\/em> it is there. Is it there to express their undestanding of what good they are getting from the abstention they choose, in the sense that \u201cno baby\u201d is the very thing wanted, the exact \u201cgood\u201d for whose sake abstention is chosen? Then it expresses a posture of their will which is its being set precisely against a baby; the couple have a contra-life will, and they are doing wrong.[32]<\/a><\/sup> Alternatively, is that-a-baby-not-be present in their intention to express their understanding of what good they are getting from the abstention they choose, in the sense that \u201cno baby\u201d contributes to the solvency they seek, namely, that it meets a demand of it, so that the posture of their will is its being set upon that solvency, and the solvency is the exact \u201cgood\u201d for whose sake their abstention is chosen? Then the couple have a pro-solvency will, and they need not be doing wrong.<\/p>\n

A technical use of terms which leads one to speak in an unpersuasive way should be reconsidered, especially if there is an alternative use available. I hope that my choice of how to understand \u2018intention\u2019 provides an alternative.<\/p>\n

Third Objection<\/h3>\n

Suppose a couple already decided that they are going to practice contraception, and after shopping among the various methods and considering their drawbacks (some merely aesthetic), they thought their purposes would best be served by NFP, and so they are now practicing it. Isn\u2019t it clear that for such a couple, at least, NFP is \u201ca method of contraception\u201d? Doesn\u2019t their choice, as they understood it, specify<\/em> their practice, so as to make it to be a practice of contraception?<\/p>\n

This objection draws its force from the Thomistic understanding that interior action (choice) specifies exterior action. The interior act is choosing to do something, and the exterior act is the very doing of what one has chosen to do. These are definitions, in effect; and from them the following points follow with immediate obviousness:<\/p>\n