Sexual Ethics Flashcards
3 aspects of Sexual Ethics
Homosexuality
Pre-Marital Sex
Extra -Marital Sex
Natural law on homosexuality
- Primary Precepts
–> Reproduction - cannot produce offspring
–> God - Goes against Divine law e.g. Leviticus holy codes
–> Ordered society - debatable - marriage secondary precept - church does not allow gay marriage
+ Homo could lead to disrupting society due to backlash
–> Preservation of innocent life - Homo right - could adopt children - Apparent Good - Homosexuality influenced by vincible ignorance and an erring conscience
- Everything God made is Good - “God created everything in heaven and on earth” - homosexuality good
- Bible - Leviticus - “Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman”
Criticism + Scholars of Natural law on homosexuality
- Assumes Hetero ‘natural’ Human nature
–> Modern science does not regard homo as deviant, lots of differences not deviant e.g. races or left handed - Harm caused by restrictions on homo e.g. Matthew Shepard 1980 - killed
Scholars
Support
- John Finnis - Sexual acts only moral when used for procreation - homo wrong
Against
- Peter Gomes
–> ‘holy codes’ ban eating raw meat, and planting two crops on same field
- Judith Butler - emphasis on fixed HN causes limit on authenticity, and personal autonomy - Sartre ‘bad Fatih’
- Boonin - No empirical basis for condemning homo - reliant on moral intuition, undermines credibility in contemporary ethics
- Micheal Foucault
–> Reinforces social inequality and power dynamics
–> Used to control sexual behaviour to serve interest of dominant group, at expense of marginalised
Kant on Homosexuality
- Kant Against homosexuality
–> differences between his liberal ethical system, and personal conservative views
–> critique - desired morality based on reason but couldn’t separate own prejudices culture from reason - Rejected Homo due to inability to marry
–> legalised in 2013 - perhaps would allow once married - Formula of Law of Nature
–> couldn’t universalise maxim of everyone being homosexual - could universalise everyone following own sexuality
Scholars against Kant on Homo
- David Hume - 18th
–> “Reason is, and ought to be, the salve of the passions”
–> Mind has preconceived feelings and desires, reason’s role is to provide rationalisation to prejudice
–> Kant is example, culture determined conservative views, used reason to defend this - Judith Butler
–> Kant’s approach excludes and deligitmises non-heteros
–> reinforced social regulations to marginalise queer people
–> Ethical systems should challenge rather than uphold oppressive systems
Utilitarianism on Homo
- Mill - Rule
–> Making things illegal due to religious morality is the cause of religious persecution
–> Harm principle - people free do do as they wish provided not causing harm
–> Autonomy - free to pursue sexual happiness
–> Negative freedom - limited state
–> Tolerance leads to happier society
–> Rejection of homo due to irrational predacious
Scholars on Utilitarian on homo
Scholars
Critique
- Patrick Devlin
–> Homo has potential to destabilise society - cause harm to others
–> Mill overly individualistic - neglects shared morality
–> Private effects public - but homo legalised in 60’s society still functioning
Roger Scruton
- Moral tradition important - crucial for stability of society
- Homo cause communal harm - diminish authority of traditional systems + weaken trad family
Support
Peter Singer
- Sexual brings satisfaction and harm no one how can it be immoral
- Harm caused by criminalisation
–> Alan Turing, chemically castrated committed suicide
–> Matthew Shepard - 98 - murdered due to being gay, demonising homo through criminalisation causes intolerance and encourages hate crimes
Natural law on Pre-Marital sex
Chasity as virtue
–> CCC - sex outside marriage as “grave sin”
- Primary precepts
–> Ordered society - outside marriage cause disorder
–> God - God teaches us to wait until marriage “Let marriage be held in honour and the marriage bed be undefiled, God will judge the sexually immoral” - Apparent good - caused by vincible ignorance - havent reasoned syneresis properly
Scholars on Natural law on Pre martial
Support
- Bishop Barron
–> ‘hook up culture’ leads to self-absorbtion and encourages self-interest leads to ‘deep sadness’
Against
- CoE allows ‘trial marriage’ between committed couples
- Outdated - product of its time when pre-marital sex lead to children abandoned or starving, not relevant in modern day
- Lib christians - focus on agape
- Stephen Fry
–> Church encourages attitudes towards sex “not natural or normal” results in things such as priest peodaphille scandal
–> Influence by Nitzche’s idea repression of desires as unhealthy and causing eruption in negative ways.
Fisher
–> Consentual pre-marital sex can lead to human flourishing - encourage emotion intimacy and healthy relationships
–> condemning leads to unecessary guilt and shame
Kant on pre-marital
- Sex only moral if fully give yourself to other person, can only occur in marriage
- Treating other person as means to end of sexual satisfaction - forumla of end in itself - need se with good will
- Lack of commitment can harm child’s welfare
- Pre-marital casual sex - relationships not between equals, lacks respect
Scholars on Kant pre-marital sex
- Peter Baron
–> exchange of rights can take place within casual sex
–> it is not irreversible or exclusive - Hume
–> same as homo
Utilitarianism on Pre-Marital sex
- Act - Bentham
–> do not believe in marriage as covenant with God - base on principle of utility + Hedonic calculus - Rule - establish rules condemn pre-marital - but willing to break due to divorse and trad rules no longer fit for purpose
- Mill - Higher pleasures vs lower pleasure
–> sex as lower pleasure - but could lead to higher pleasure (Fisher) - as helps build emotional intimacy
Scholars on Util - pre-marital
Fisher
- Positive aspects of consensual premarital sex
–> lead to human flourishing and emotional intimacy
Dan Ariely
- young people have sex anyway, important thing is harm reduction e.g. STD + pregnancy - pragmatic approach
Phillipa Taylor
- Pre marital have higher chances of STD, divorce, suicide rates and alcoholism
- correlation does not equal causation
Kant on Extra - marital sex
- Marriage as promise expected to be kept
–> breaking promise not universal, breaks trust for everyone - Breaking promises goes against hypothetical imperative
- Requires using the other person - cannot give full exchange of rights to person outside marriage - using them as means to sexual ends - sex with good will
- Adultery irrational
–> follows animal lust phenomenal world over reason, noumenal world
Scholars on Kant on extra - marital
- Alan Soble
–> Moral rigidity - Kant places arbitrary restrictions on sexual behaviour without consideration of personal autonomy
–> Situation approach, not one-size fits all morality
