Philosophia Christi

Vol. 19, No. 1 © 2017

The Perverted Faculty Argument

Timothy Hsiao
Department of Communication and Philosophy
Florida Gulf Coast University
Fort Myers, Florida
thsiao@fgcu.edu

There is an old argument rooted in the classical natural law tradition that
says that the “perverse” or “unnatural” use of a human faculty is immoral.
This short essay offers a derivation, overview, and brief defense of this “per-
verted faculty” argument (PFA). I shall argue that the PFA is entailed by
some commonsense theses about the nature of goodness.
I take as my starting point a claim famously defended by Peter Geach
in his paper “Good and Evil.”1 Geach argued the meaning of “good” and
“bad” depends on something’s nature or function. In other words, we can-
not know whether something is good or bad without first understanding its
nature or function. This account of goodness does not originate from Geach,
but dates back to Aristotle and has recently been the subject of renewed at-
tention amongst recent philosophers.2 The contention of this paper is that the
Aristotelian thesis entails the PFA, or at least something very much like it.3
Abstract: There is an old argument rooted in the classical natural law tradition that says that the
“perverse” or “unnatural” use of a human faculty is immoral. This short essay offers a deriva-
tion, overview, and brief defense of this “perverted faculty” argument (PFA). I shall argue that
the PFA is entailed by some commonsense theses about the nature of goodness.
1. Peter Geach, “Good and Evil,” Analysis 17 (1956): 32–42.
2. See, e.g., Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press,
1999); Philippa Foot, Natural Goodness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); David
S. Oderberg, Moral Theory: A Non-Consequentialist Approach (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000);
Candace Vogler, Reasonably Vicious (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002);
Timothy Chappell and David S. Oderberg, eds., Human Values: New Essays on Ethics and
Natural Law (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); Michael Thompson, Life and Action:
Elementary Structures of Practice and Practical Thought (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2008); Talbot Brewer, The Retrieval of Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009);
Martha Nussbaum, Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach (Cambridge,
MA: Belknap, 2011); and David Alexander, Goodness, God, and Evil (New York: Bloomsbury,
2012).
3. My goal is only to show that the Aristotelean thesis, if granted, entails the PFA. As such,
I only briefly comment on the essentialism and teleology on which the argument rests. For
defenses of both, see David S. Oderberg, “The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Law,” in
Natural Moral Law in Contemporary Society, ed. H. Zaborowski (Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press, 2010), 44–75; Oderberg, Real Essentialism (New York: Routledge,
2007); and Edward Feser, The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism (South Bend,
IN: St. Augustine’s, 2008).
208 Philosophia Christi

If I am right, then advocates of eudaimonistic ethics should take the PFA a

lot more seriously.

The Argument
The PFA can be derived as follows:
(1) For any x that is a K, if x is good, then x is a good K.
(2) If x is a good K, then x is good by being as Ks ought to be.
(3) Therefore, if x is a good human action, then x is good by being as
human actions ought to be. (From 1–2)
(4) Human actions ought to be aimed at human goods that are proper to
them.
(5) Human goods are that which fulfills human faculties.
(6) Therefore, human actions ought to be aimed at that which fulfills
the human faculties that are proper to them. (From 4, 5)
(7) Therefore, if x is a good human action, then x is good by aiming at
that which fulfills the human faculties that are proper to it. (From
3–6)
Although the PFA is best known for its implications in applied ethics, my
focus will be mainly on whether the PFA can be derived from an Aristotelean
conception of goodness, and not so much its practical applications. Others
have addressed its significance for specific moral issues elsewhere.4
I shall now turn to the key premises in the argument.

Premises 1 & 2

Our everyday ascriptions of goodness and badness are based on an un-

derstanding of how things ought to function.5 For instance, the function of
a pencil is to write, and for that reason we say that a good pencil is one that
writes well, while a bad pencil is one that does not write well. Similarly, the
function of a doctor is to restore health, and so a good doctor is one who
performs his job properly, while a bad doctor is one who does not.
In each case, when we call something good, we are saying that it is a
properly functioning member of its kind. Of course, what it means for one
kind of thing to be good may not be the same as what it means for another

4. As applied, the PFA is best known for its approach to sexual morality. See Edward Feser,
“In Defense of the Perverted Faculty Argument,” in Neo-Scholastic Essays (South Bend, IN:
St. Augustine’s, 2015); Timothy Hsiao, “A Defense of the Perverted Faculty Argument against
Homosexual Sex,” Heythrop Journal 56 (2015): 751–8; Hsiao, “Consenting Adults, Sex, and
Natural Law Theory,” Philosophia 44 (2016): 509–29; and John Skalko, “Is Sodomy against
Nature? A Thomistic Appraisal,” Heythrop Journal 56 (2015): 759–68.
5. For a rigorously argued defense, see Alexander, Goodness, God, and Evil.
Timothy Hsiao 209

kind of thing to be good: the conditions for being a good pencil are obviously
different from the conditions for being a good doctor. But note that while
the goodness of a pencil and the goodness of a doctor are different, they are
structurally similar in that they both involve the fulfillment of their respec-
tive functions.6
All examples of goodness follow this basic model. We cannot say that
something is good or bad unless we first know what its function is. To bor-
row an example from Geach, I cannot know what a good hygrometer is if I
do not know what hygrometers are for. Ascriptions of goodness and badness
only make sense when considered in relation to how something ought to be
by nature. As Geach puts it, there is “no such thing as being just good or bad,
there is only being a good or bad so-and-so.”7 When we say that something
is good, what we are really saying is that it is a good member of some kind
K with function F.
Some have objected to this by pointing out that something that is a good
member of its essential kind can nevertheless still be bad. For example, a
bomb that kills thousands of people may be good as far as bombs are con-
cerned, but surely it is still bad, even if properly fulfills its function as a bomb.
Hence, goodness cannot be defined in terms of proper functioning. But this
objection, far from undermining the Aristotelian conception of goodness, ac-
tually affirms it. Since goodness is relative to a particular kind or function,
something that is good for one kind of thing may be bad for another kind of
thing. Indeed, the very reason why we say that a bomb is bad is because it is
bad for the kind “human being.” But something that is bad for us—say, a lack
of oxygen—may be good for something else (for example, certain kinds of
bacteria). So long as we keep this crucial point in mind, there is no difficulty
in saying that one and the same thing can be both good and bad when con-
sidered under different descriptions. In this way, the Aristotelian conception
of goodness aligns nicely with our intuitions.
The first two premises, then, seem secure. If some x is good, then x is
a good K. And if x is a good K, then x is good by being as Ks as ought to
be. From this, it follows that if some act x is a good human action, then it is
good by being as human actions ought to be. This is simple enough, but what
should human actions look like?

6. One might wonder how one determines what something’s function is, and how we should
differentiate between “natural” or “intrinsic” functions from “constructed” or “extrinsic”
functions. On this, see the discussion in Alexander, Goodness, God, and Evil, 71–90, which
builds on an account proposed by Robert Koons in Realism Regained: An Exact Theory of
Causation, Teleology, and the Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
7. Geach, “Good and Evil” 34.
210 Philosophia Christi

Premises 4 & 5

Living things function by means of activity. By “activity,” I am not

speaking of voluntary action per se, but simply any behavior or operation
that is performed by a being. Plants grow and absorb nutrients, animals sense
and react, and humans reason and deliberate. These are all instances of ac-
tivity. How a being ought to function with respect to its activity depends on
what perfects its nature. Thus, a sunflower ought to produce seeds, hum-
mingbirds ought to drink nectar, and humans ought to pursue truth and re-
ject error. These activities are good for each respective being because they
contribute to its proper functioning. This provides us with a benchmark by
which we can evaluate a being’s life as well or ill.
All of this is just an application of the Aristotelian theory of goodness
to the way things behave. For any being, an action that it performs is good
if said action fulfills its nature. Fulfilling one’s nature, in turn, is a matter
of realizing one’s inherent faculties (that is, one’s powers, capacities, and
dispositions). Hydration is good for a plant because it is fulfilling of its vital
functions. Bearing offspring is good for an animal because it is fulfilling of
its reproductive faculties. In the same way, the fulfillment of human facul-
ties is good because that is what defines human flourishing. Knowledge, for
example, is a human good because it fulfills the faculty of reason. Good hu-
man actions are those that aim at human goods, and human goods are that
which fulfills human faculties. This is true even of good actions toward oth-
ers, which might at first blush appear to be unrelated to what is good for us
as individuals. The claim is not that every good human action is good only
for the individual who performs it. Rather, it is that every good human ac-
tion is good because it aims to realize goods that are common to all human
beings in virtue of a shared human nature.8 This explains why the content of
our obligations toward others corresponds to what is good for them as human
beings, and never to what is bad.
Now according to the perverted faculty argument, what is morally good
for us is also what is good for us as human beings. That is, the term “ought”
in the fourth premise should be understood as expressing both a teleological
and moral ought. But why equate the two? Perhaps a good human action
may still be morally bad, and vice versa. After all, one and the same thing
may be considered both good and bad under different descriptions. So too
with the actions that we perform. My picking vegetables from my garden
might be good-for-me, but not good-for-the-plant that I consume. As far as
morality is concerned, what description of an action should we be looking
8. Moreover, human beings are intrinsically “other-directed.” I.e., humans are social and
political animals oriented toward forming communities such that there are certain human goods
(e.g., friendship, marriage) that can only be fulfilled through interpersonal relationships. Hence,
other-directed actions are fulfilling both of the individual who performs the action and the
individual who receives the action.
Timothy Hsiao 211

at? Why equate human goodness—which might seem to be prudential—with

moral goodness? Plant goodness is not moral goodness, so what makes hu-
man goodness so special?
We have seen that in order to know what it means for something to be
good, we must first understand the kind of thing it is. Likewise, in determin-
ing the kind of goodness that is salient to morality, we should look to the
nature of morality.9 On this point, whatever ancillary aspects it might have,
morality, boiled down to its essentials, is fundamentally about pursuing what
is good and avoiding what is evil. The whole point of morality and moral the-
orizing is so that we may be moral—that is, to determine the truth about the
good life so that it may be pursued through activity. And whether this con-
sists of fulfilling duties, maximizing utility, or developing certain character
dispositions, morality in this sense is something that can only be articulated,
understood, and practiced by rational beings.10 The morally good life is just
the good life of beings who are able to reason.11 The human good, therefore,
is also the moral good because humans are rational animals.
This is not to say that the human good is morally significant because it
is human (which invites the misguided charge of “speciesism”), but rather
that it is significant because humans are able to reason. Nor is this to say
that the human good must exhaust the moral good. If there are other rational
creatures, then they also partake in the moral good on account of their being
rational.
Since human activity is morally salient, and since human activity ought
to aim at what is fulfilling of human faculties, we may conclude that a mor-
ally good human action is one that is directed toward that which realizes
human faculties.
So far so good. But which human goods should a particular action real-
ize? No action can realize every single human good, so we need a way of
9. Nothing here rules out tradition or divine revelation as a source of moral knowledge. If
tradition or divine revelation provides us with insight into the moral life, then these insights can
be incorporated into the points I am making.
10. This is not to speak of morality as if it were some exclusively intellectual enterprise.
In our own lives, we see that morality extends to a wide range of our experiences, such as
those involving sympathy, empathy, harm-reduction, pleasure, care, community, and so on.
Philosophers who assert the importance of these things are right to do so. The claim being
made here is simply that our ability to reason is what confers moral salience on our actions and
experiences. I.e., reason is what distinguishes the moral good from the nonmoral good. All of
these other things derive whatever moral significance they have because they figure into the
well-being of rational creatures.
11. Human beings who lack the immediately exercisable ability to reason are still rational
animals in virtue of possessing a root or basic capacity to reason. Possession of root capacities
of this sort provide us with a standard of normativity that allows us to speak meaningfully of
maturity, immaturity, defectiveness, and disability. See J. P. Moreland and Scott B. Rae, Body
and Soul: Human Nature and the Crisis in Ethics (Downers, Grove, IL: InterVarsity Academic,
2000); Patrick Lee and Robert P. George, Body-Self Dualism in Contemporary Politics and
Ethics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008); and Russell DiSilvestro, Human
Capacities and Moral Status (Berlin: Springer, 2010).
212 Philosophia Christi

determining what good or goods are proper to an action such that they are
what the act should be striving to realize. For that, we need look no further
than the action itself. Every action necessarily makes use of some faculty (a
faculty is simply a power to do something), and so the relevant goods that are
proper to an action depend on the inherent purpose of the faculty or faculties
that are being utilized. Put more formally, if an action x utilizes some faculty
F with purpose G, then x must include an orientation toward realizing G.
An act that, for example, involves the use of the faculty of procreation must
respect its function by directing its use toward a goal that is fitting for the end
of procreation. An action that directs the faculty of procreation away from its
proper end cannot be a good human action, for it repudiates what is proper
to sexual activity.
From this we see that perverted actions—i.e., actions that direct a fac-
ulty away from its proper end—involve a kind of disorder in the will. In
perverted actions, the agent rejects the teleological harmony that should exist
between the goal he seeks and the faculty he engages. Such actions constitute
an active choice to turn away from human goods that should be sought. As
such perverted actions are necessarily irrational, being failures of practical
reasoning. They engage some power that is properly directed to some end
and divert it to another end that is unfit for this direction. Given the meta-
physics of goodness sketched earlier, it is metaphysically impossible for per-
verted human actions to ever be good human actions.
This brings up another important point, which is that well-ordered ac-
tion is more than just a matter of getting a good result. It is also about get-
ting good results in the right way. A student who by sheer luck arrives at
the correct answer to a math problem has not reasoned well, even though
his answer may be technically correct. The structure of an act matters: there
must be a purposeful link between the goal being sought and the procedure
by which that goal is attained. Thus, for an act of mathematical reasoning to
be good, the process by which the answer is obtained must be truth-apt. It is
not enough that one get the right answer on accident.
The same is true of human activity. A good human action must be orient-
ed toward realizing the relevant human good(s). A human action that merely
happens to have a good effect is not by that fact rendered good.12 There must
also be an internal teleological harmony within the very structure of an ac-
tion. Now actions are comprised of means and ends. The end of an action
is the goal toward which the agent is striving. It corresponds to the agent’s

12. Properly ordered actions that yield accidental or unintended good effects are good qua
action in virtue of being properly ordered, but only circumstantially good in virtue of having
the additional good effects. That is to say, an action that has good effects besides the ones that it
should have by nature is good, but not in the same sense that it is good to be properly ordered.
Actions of this sort can be described as good under two different descriptions: one in which it
is good per se (being properly ordered actions), and another in which it is good per accidens
(being fortuitously good).
Timothy Hsiao 213

intention and encompasses his plan of action. The means of an action is the
faculty by which the end is attained. For a human action to be well-ordered,
both the means and end must be in agreement. The agent’s plan of action
must be compatible with the proper use of the faculties that he utilizes as his
choice of means.
We can think of each human action as having two orders.13 The first
order consists of the end toward which an action ought to be directed. The
second order consists of the end toward which it is in fact directed. The sec-
ond order consists in the intention of the agent, while the first consists of the
teleology of the faculty that is engaged. A human act is good when these two
orders are in agreement with each other, and bad when they differ.
To see this point more clearly, consider again the student who is attempt-
ing to solve a difficult mathematical problem. In order for his reasoning to be
considered good qua mathematical reasoning, two conditions must be met.
First, obtaining the correct answer must be part of his intention. Second, he
must realize his intention by using the correct formula or procedure. If he at-
tains the correct answer but uses the wrong formula, then he has not reasoned
well. There must be a teleological agreement between the end of his action
and the means by which he executes it.14
Now of course, not every action ends up accomplishing its goal. Despite
our best efforts, we sometimes fail to realize what we are aiming for. Do
these failures count as perverted actions? Not necessarily. So long as one’s
intention and his choice of means are compatible with each other, then an
action is not willfully perverted if something that is outside of one’s inten-
tion—and therefore something that is not part of the structure of that ac-
tion—interferes with its proper execution. There is a difference between fail-
ing to realize a goal toward which you are already aiming, and failing to aim
toward a goal that you should be attempting to pursue. Perverted actions fall
into the latter category, while actions that fall within the former category do
not necessarily count as perverted so long as they are properly ordered in the
sense I have described.

Premise 7

We may now conclude the argument. If x is a good human action, then x

is good by aiming at that which fulfills the human faculties that are proper to
it. Since the faculties proper to an action are those faculties that it engages,

13. Steven Jensen, Good and Evil Actions (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America
Press, 2010).
14. Note that the way in which the intention points toward the answer is different from the
way in which the formula points toward the answer. The intention points toward the answer in
the sense that the agent simply aims for it as his end. The formula, by contrast, has an intrinsic
or natural orientation toward the answer wholly apart from the agent’s intention.
214 Philosophia Christi

this is just another way of saying that we ought to use our faculties properly.
Or, to put it negatively, we ought not to misuse our faculties. Since it was
shown that the relevant sense of “ought” as applied to human actions is that
of a moral ought we may conclude that the misuse of a human faculty is
therefore immoral.

Teleology and Totality

The perverted faculty argument is derived from the idea that the good of
an organism is defined in terms of its proper functioning, and that therefore it
is bad to misuse one’s faculties by diverting their use away from their proper
function. Some argue that the PFA should be rejected because it is easily
subject to counterexamples. For instance, John Corvino and Steven Sullivan,
in criticizing the PFA’s application to sexual morality, argue that the PFA
entails the immorality of seemingly innocuous actions such as shaving, hold-
ing one’s breath, wearing blindfolds, and using analgesics to suppress pain
(among other examples).15
These counterexamples do not work, for they are based on a misunder-
standing of what the PFA maintains. Recall that our conclusion was that “If
x is a good human action, then x is good by aiming at that which fulfills the
human faculties that are proper to it.” As we saw earlier, this is saying that
when we act so as to engage a human faculty, we must use that faculty prop-
erly. It is, in other words, wrong to misuse our faculties. But our faculties
can only be misused if they are used to begin with. This condition is not met
by any of the examples, since the relevant faculties are not being voluntarily
engaged.16 Refraining from or preventing the use of a faculty does not en-
gage the faculty and as such is not equivalent to misusing it. This is not to say
that one may suppress or refrain from using his faculties as he sees fit, but
that the PFA as I have sketched it applies only to actions in which a faculty
is voluntarily engaged. Actions that involve other kinds of setbacks to one’s
proper functioning may be rendered immoral for other reasons.
Still, since human goodness in general is defined in terms of proper
functioning, it is helpful to comment on cases in which it does seem good to
interfere (in some way or another) with the proper operation of our human
faculties.17 Such cases actually work to confirm the underlying logic behind
the PFA. The various lower faculties that comprise an organism are ontologi-

15. John Corvino, What’s Wrong with Homosexuality? (New York: Oxford University Press,
2013); Steven Sullivan, “A Critique of the Impeded Function Objection to Gay Sex,” APA
Newsletter on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Issues 10, no. 2 (2011): 12–14.
16. Indeed, in the shaving and analgesics example, the faculties in question are not faculties
that one can have voluntary control over to begin with.
17. I say more about putative counterexamples in Hsiao, “Consenting Adults, Sex, and
Natural Law Theory.” Also see Feser, “In Defense of the Perverted Faculty Argument.”
Timothy Hsiao 215

cally subordinated to higher faculties and ultimately to the proper function-

ing of the organism as a whole. For example, the function of the lungs is to
oxygenate the blood, but oxygenation of the blood cannot be understood
apart from the role that it plays in the context of the larger system to which it
is subservient. Human faculties are purposed proximately toward some im-
mediate function (seeing in the case of eyes, pumping blood in the case of the
heart) and ultimately toward the health and proper functioning of the whole
organism. This ultimate function is what explains why faculties have the
immediate functions they do. The wrongness of interfering with this-or-that
function consists in the fact that by interfering with its immediate function,
one also thereby interferes with its ultimate inclination to the proper func-
tioning of the whole. But this is not always the case. If the operation of some
faculty conflicts with this ultimate operation (such as when a heart pumps
blood too quickly or when an organ becomes cancerous or gangrenous), then
it can become good to suppress or even destroy a physical faculty, for in do-
ing so one restores the proper functioning of the whole. Just as it is permis-
sible to disobey a lower authority when it contradicts a higher authority, it is
permissible to frustrate or destroy a faculty if doing so becomes necessary
for maintaining the health of a higher faculty or of the whole person.18 For
these reasons, if there are indeed situations in which it would be good to
engage a faculty and direct its use away from its immediate end, it would be
a mistake to say that the faculty is being misused, for it is still being used in
a way that respects its ultimate function, which is to contribute toward the
well-being of the whole.
A whole is a unity of various parts that work together in a coordinated
fashion. The various parts that make up an airplane, for example, are united
as a single airplane in that they work together for a common end. To speak
of the “well-being of the whole,” therefore, is to speak of coordinated proper
functioning between the constituent parts of a whole substance. This coor-
dinated proper functioning is threatened when a part malfunctions so as to
threaten the proper functioning of other parts, such as when gangrenous tis-
sue infects surrounding organs. Since the malfunctioning part has become
destructive of the coordinated functioning that maintains the whole, its func-
tioning is no longer good for the being of which it is a part.19
Accordingly, since human beings are (at least) bodily organisms, the
idea of the well-being of the whole cannot be broadened to include just any-
thing one thinks, feels, or desires as a human good.20 The purposes of one’s
faculties are fixed by nature, and not something that can be adjusted at will.
This is not to say that the human good is wholly a matter of biological proper
functioning, but that any activity that conflicts with this cannot be part of the
18. Michael Augros and Christopher Oleson, “St. Thomas and the Naturalistic Fallacy,” The
National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13 (2013): 637–61.
19. Indeed, one might even say that it has ceased to be a part.
20. For a detailed critique, see Hsiao, “Consenting Adults, Sex, and Natural Law Theory.”
216 Philosophia Christi

human good.21 The concepts of mental and emotional health must align with
physical health, and hence any deep-seated desire or inclination to misuse
or destroy one’s bodily faculties, all things considered, cannot be part of the
human good. Such tendencies are corrosive to human well-being and should
be resisted and remedied.

Conclusion

I have argued that the perverted faculty argument can be derived from
some commonsense theses about the nature of goodness, namely, the idea
that goodness depends on function. Aristotelians, Thomists, and those who
subscribe to eudaimonistic ethics in general should therefore take notice.
The PFA provides a simple and straightforward way of thinking about the
rightness and wrongness of our actions. Its specific implications no doubt
merit special treatment, but this is a topic that goes beyond the scope of this
essay.22

21. The proper function of our physical faculties not something that one can choose to
“make up” or change. The function of the eye is to see, and this remains true even if someone
chooses to ignore it and impose his own purposes on it. That being said, it is not wrong to
impose other socially constructed functions on top of the ones that our faculties have by nature,
provided that these socially constructed functions are compatible with what our faculties are
supposed to do by nature. E.g., one may assign certain cultural or religious purposes to eating,
provided that what is consumed be compatible with its purpose of self-maintenance.
22. David Alexander and Tully Borland provided helpful comments on earlier versions of
this paper.