Disordered Actions: A Moral Analysis of Lying and Homosexual Activity

9/10Skalko updates and amplifies Thomistic reasoning without ever stepping outside the bounds of Aquinas in order to formulate a series of perverted faculty arguments that answer all current criticisms against perverted faculty arguments. In so doing, he demonstrates the intrinsic evil (i.e. absolute impermissibility, the 'always-badness') of lying, homosexual activity, and, by extension, contraception.In the front of the book is a long catena of philosophers on homosexual activity and an excursus on the permissibility of argument to authority (for this see Rick Kennedy's <i>History of Reasonableness: Testimony and Authority in the Art of Thinking</i>). Neither of these things impinge upon the arguments in the rest of the book. They should have been placed in an appendix, not in the front.The two parts of the book, on homosexuality and lying respectively, are disjointed and have the feel of two separate books because of the inclusion of the anti-sodomy catena, some repetition, and a lack of effort on the author's part to tie them together.The two-thirds of this book dedicated to lying are the best treatment of the nature and moral status of lying in print, and fully update and defend the traditional Thomistic absolutist position against all Grotian, intuitionist, etc. accounts that attempt to frame untruthful assertion as something that in some cases may be permissible, whether those cases are extreme (hiding the Jew) or minor ('white').I would have wished only for Skalko to analyze the relation between lying and mental reservation. At one point, he seems to defend the proposition that mental reservation is not to be equated with lying (if it isn't, his instrumentalist perverted faculty argument fails prima facie) and may be morally permissible. He never takes it up again. <i>(Edit: he actually does on pp 299-300. Rating changed accordingly.)</i>

Dr. John Skalko's book has many aspects that make it recommended reading and reference. A few highlights include (a) a collection of excerpts from notable philosophers on the question of homosexual activity, from the time of Plato to Jeremy Bentham and Bertrand Russell; (b) intellectually honest and thorough engagement with the best objections to the Thomistic position on both subjects, which provides the added bonus of having the most important contributions to the debate on the permissibility of lying, within and outside Thomism, summarized in one place; (c) key corrections to current Thomistic interpretations of the perverted faculty argument and a thorough defense of the argument in light of these interpretive corrections; and (d) an illuminating account, in the last third of the book, of how lying and homosexual activity share a relationship with a higher-order good.The number of objections that Dr. Skalko engages, along with the detail with which he responds makes the middle third of the book heavy reading, but an important reference for philosophical debate on these topics. The last third of the book was the most satisfying portion, where points (c) and (d) are discussed. I expect to return to various sections of the book in the future, a sign of a good investment.

This is one of the best defenses of classical natural law ethics and sexual morality that I have read. Dr. Skalko defends Thomas Aquinas' argument that like all evil acts homosexual acts are intrinsically evil because they are contrary to nature. Dr. Skalko shows a great mastery of the contemporary literature on arguments for homosexual acts being good and refutes all the best arguments put forth by proponents such as John Corvino, Peter Singer, Michael Perry, Gareth Moore, etc. He also addresses many of the best objections against natural law ethics as it relates to sex or what is known as the perverted faculty argument.Dr. Skalko also shows that Aquinas' natural law ethics has so much explanatory power that you can take two unrelated acts such as lying and homosexual activity and demonstrate that they are wrong for the exact same reason contrary to many that think natural lawyers are special pleading when applying natural law to homosexual activity.There is so much more I could say about this book but this is a 5/5.