Sexual Ethics

Question 1

What is the Conservative Christian approach to sexual ethics?

Answer 1

Biblical teachings & traditional theologians.

Question 2

What is the Natural Moral Law approach to sexual ethics?

Answer 2

Typically a conservative catholic view.

Question 3

What is the Liberal Christian approach to sexual ethics?

Answer 3

The bible is not the literal word of God so we need to update Christian ethics for modern. times. Fletcher’s situation ethics is an example of this.

Question 4

What is the Conservative Secularist approach to sexual ethics?

Answer 4

The traditions regarding sexual ethics are useful for our society and so we should maintain them.
Kantian ethics can be interpreted as an example of this.

Question 5

What is the Liberal Secularist approach to sexual ethics?

Answer 5

The traditions regarding sexual ethics might have been useful in the past but are increasingly outdated and harmful.
Utilitarianism is an example of this.

Question 6

What is Augustine’s view of sexual ethics?

Answer 6

Refers to Genesis, where after disobeying God Adam and Eve became aware of their nakedness and covered up out of shame. Augustine claims it is ‘just’ that we feel shame about our naked bodies, since it is just that we feel shame over having lust because it being beyond our control is the result of our fallen state.

Question 7

What does ‘massa damnata’ refer to?

Answer 7

The mass of the damned.

Question 8

What are Biblical teachings on sexual ethics?

Answer 8

Traditional conservative approaches to Christian ethics would regard the Bible as the perfect word of God. All sex outside of heterosexual marriage is condemned in the Bible and is therefore wrong on this view.

Question 9

What does Romans 1:26-27 suggest on homosexuality?

Answer 9

“Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

Question 10

What does Leviticus 20:13 suggest on homosexuality?

Answer 10

“If a man lies with a man as he does with a woman, both have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death, their blood is upon them”.

Question 11

What does Matthew 19:4-6 suggest about marriage and homosexuality?

Answer 11

‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Question 12

What does Galatians 5 call sexual immorality and pre/extra marital sex?

Answer 12

“The works of the flesh”, indicating that it is the sinful state of our human bodily existence that causes our sinful desires.

Question 13

What does 1 Corinthians 7 suggest about sexual immorality and pre/extra marital sex?

Answer 13

We have a ‘temptation to sexual immorality’ people should pair off into husband and wife and satisfy each other ‘so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control’.

Question 14

What does Matthew 5:28 suggest about adultery?

Answer 14

“Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart”

Question 15

What is the Liberal approach to the Bible?

Answer 15

Liberal Christians can reject conservative views of sexual ethics by arguing that the Bible is not the perfect word of God but is instead just a product of the human mind. What came to be written down as a result however was what those people took away from such events, or from hearing about such events from the testimony of those who witnessed them. The Bible reflects the cultural and historical context of its human authors and requires continual re-interpretation to ensure its relevance.

Question 16

What is a problem with the Liberal approach.

Answer 16

This leads to a ‘crisis of authority’. This cannot provide the kind of stable consistent theology that a religion needs for it to persist, allowing people too much freedom to believe whatever feels right to them and their opinion, which results in the disunified chaos of everyone believing in their own God and the interpretation of the Bible which suits them.

Question 17

What was Freud’s liberal secular view on sexual ethics?

Answer 17

He thought that traditional Christian attitudes towards sex resulted in a feeling of shame about sexual desire which led to unhealthy repression and mental illness.

Question 18

What is the overall liberal secular view on sexual ethics?

Answer 18

It claims that sex is a natural biological desire which shouldn’t be a source of shame but of well-being. Augustine’s insistence that there is something shameful about lust is absurd and pointless once you understand it is the result of evolution, not original sin. Conservative religious attitudes towards sex are therefore unnecessarily repressive and puritanical.

Question 19

How is s secular society over sexualised?

Answer 19

21st century youth culture is sexualised to a degree many Christians find concerning. Hook-up culture influences young people to regard sex as an opportunity for higher social status. Devaluing a personal intimate act into a superficial sign of social status harms people psychologically. They obsess unhealthily about physical appearance. This is harmful, and makes creating meaningful relationships difficult.

Question 20

What do Situation Ethics claim on sexual ethics?

Answer 20

Situation ethics holds that an action is good if it leads to the most loving outcome possible. This will depend on the situation. So, if acts involving homosexuality or pre/extra marital sex involve consent and those involved are happy, it seems that the outcome is loving and therefore those acts would be morally good.

Question 21

How does Fletcher criticise legalism?

Answer 21

It is up to the individual person to decide in a moral situation what would have the loving outcome. This suggests that sexual behaviour should not be subject to public norms and legislation – it should only be subject to the principle of Agape.

Question 22

What is a Natural Law argument on sexual ethics?

Answer 22

Going against God’s natural law is not just wrong because it is a sin, it is also bad for our own happiness and well-being. This type of argument has led to critiques of sex outside marriage as detrimental to happiness.

Question 23

What is the Natural Law argument on homosexuality?

Answer 23

Aquinas regarded homosexuality as unnatural because it required a divergence from what he thought was the natural mode of sex. Aquinas thought that not all inclinations were natural in the sense that they were part of God’s natural law.

Question 24

What did the Pope Benedict XVI say on homosexuality?

Answer 24

“Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.

Question 25

What does Augustine's 'love the sinner hate the sin' mean on homosexuality?

Answer 25

Many Christians claim only to be against homosexual acts, since that is all the bible mentions, not the homosexual orientation. So Christians respond that they don’t claim homosexulaity is evil only the homosexual actions are evil.

Question 26

Why did Hitchens oppose homosexuality?

Answer 26

Claimed that this supposed separation of sinner from sin was absurd in the case of homosexuality since their homosexual actions come from their nature. He claimed that homosexuals are not condemned by the Church for what they do but for what they are and that the Church have no moral standing to criticise the sexual behaviour.

Question 27

What is the Natural Law argument on pre/extra marital sex?

Answer 27

All of these primary precepts are threatened by sexual immorality. The only way for children to be provided for such that they can receive education is if they are born to married parents. So, Aquinas thinks that to follow the primary precepts requires confining all sexual behaviour to marriage – so pre/extra marital sex is wrong.

Question 28

Why are religious arguments flawed in a current society?

Answer 28

The precepts are imagined to come from an eternal being, they become inflexible and painstakingly difficult to progress. This makes them increasingly outdated.

Question 29

What is the Act Utilitarian view on sexual ethics

Answer 29

Act Utilitarianism would judge an action based on whether it produced the most amount of pleasure compared to other actions. If a sexual act, whether it is homosexual or pre/extra marital sex, maximised pleasure then it would be good to do/allow them.

Question 30

What is J.S Mill's harm principle?

Answer 30

That people should be free to do as they like as long as they do not harm others. This includes consensual sexual behaviours which are private. However people are also free in public to attempt to persuade others of which sexual norms to follow, though that persuasion can only take the form of argument, never force nor legislation.

Question 31

What is Kantian Ethics view on homosexuality?

Answer 31

Homosexuality doesn’t seem universalisible, since if everyone were homosexual then the species could not continue and then no one would exist to follow the duty to be homosexual. However, if the maxim is simply ‘follow your own orientation’, then that does seem universalisible.

Question 32

What is Kantian Ethics view on pre/extra marital sex?

Answer 32

Pre/extra-marital sex seems universalisible because no contradiction arises in the conception of everyone engaging in pre/extra-marital sex.

Question 33

How does the second formulation of the categorical imperative apply to sexual ethics?

Answer 33

He thinks that sex which is not within a marriage for the purpose of procreation pretty much involves each person using the other as a mere means to their own gratification. This is a kind of objectification – treating someone as an object, which involves treating them as a mere means.

Question 34

What is Kant's view on marriage and sexual ethics?

Answer 34

Kant thinks that marriage is a contractual agreement involving the granting of “lifelong possession of each other’s sexual attributes,”. The idea seems to be that if each person agrees to being used by the other, then both are respecting each other’s end and thus only treating them as a means, not a mere means.

Question 35

What is stated in Genesis 2:24?

Answer 35

“That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife and they become one flesh.”

Question 36

How has secularisation affected attitudes towards premarital sex?

Answer 36

The idea that sex should not occur outside marriage was largely influences by religious teachings, these teachings are now less prominent in peoples lives. Cohabitation is no longer referred to as ‘living in sin’.

Question 37

What is stated in 1Corinthians 6:9-10?

Answer 37

“Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who have sex with men, will inherit the Kingdom of God.”

Question 38

What is stated by Pope Paul VI within, ‘Humanae Vitae, 1968’?

Answer 38

“Each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life.”

Question 39

Why is Fletcher critical of religious ethics?

Answer 39

Fletcher is highly critical of religious theories based on Natural Law. He believed that this was particularly evident in terms of issues such as homosexuality. It is difficult to see how rejection of homosexuality can be the most loving this to do.

Question 40

Why is situation ethics compatible in terms of sexual ethics?

Answer 40

Sexual ethics involves persons, hence it is right to look for a person-centred solution.

Question 41

What is Foucault’s argument on religious ideas of sexual ethics?

Answer 41

Religion is responsible for a key error in sexual ethics, the idea that some things are normal and other things were abnormal. We are no longer required to look at the world through this unhelpful lens.

Question 42

What is Bentham’s argument of ‘pleasure’?

Answer 42

Bentham’s utilitarian usually straightforward and is focused on pleasure, provided that the pleasure outweighs the pain, an action is a good action. This makes utilitarianism fairly liberal in its approach, would seem to permit most cases of premarital sex and would treat homosexual relationships the same as heterosexual ones.

Question 43

What does J.S. Mill’s harm principle suggest on sexual ethics?

Answer 43

Differing sexual behaviours should be permitted. Mill might, as a rule utilitarian, also be able to allow premarital sex and homosexuality as no one else is harmed. This principle might also provide grounds for opposing extramarital sex.

Question 44

What does Peter Singer argue on consent and preference?

Answer 44

Respect for different preferences of persons is the most important consideration in determining overall happiness. It is not for us to express a view on the preferences others unless those choices are directly causing unhappiness. Rational consent is important to utilitarians.

Question 45

What does Mill argue ‘the tyranny of the majority’ is?

Answer 45

Where a majority imposes it’s view forcibly on a minority.

Question 46

What is the contractarian view of sexual ethics?

Answer 46

Provided that consent is present, there ought to be no other ethical constraints.

Question 47

Why is sex no longer placing emphasis on reproduction?

Answer 47

There is a widespread access to birth control, which removed the logical link between sex and reproduction.