The readings for next week were
handed out on Friday. I've put copies in an envelope pinned to the bulletin
board next to my office door (GLC 2S) in case anyone wants to pick one up.
The general topic is: how might an
Aristotelian approach to ethics address issues of sex and sexuality. I have selected readings from a variety of
sources, some explicitly trying to use Aristotle's methodology, others carrying
on in a more-or-less Aristotelian way without mentioning his name, some
critical of the whole approach. Some of
the pieces address a range of issues involving sex, others focus more
specifically on homosexuality.
The readings are;
1. a selection from Sexual
Desire: A Moral Philosophy of the Erotic by Roger Scruton
2. a "Vatican Declaration on
Some Questions of Sexual Ethics"
3. "Homosexuality and Natural
Law" by Burton Leiser (from his book Law, Liberty and Morality
4. "Law, Morality and 'Sexual
Orientation'" by John Finnis
5. "Homosexual Conduct: A Reply
to the New Natural Lawyers" by Andrew Koppleman
TRY TO READ AT LEAST THE FIRST THREE
OF THESE PIECES BY MONDAY
The over-arching questions (from my
point of view) are these:
1.
How can Aristotle's approach to ethics be applied to issues of sex and
sexuality? What is Aristotle's approach
(Scruton calls it 'the Aristotelian strategy')? What does it have to say about sex?
2. Several of these writers
(Scruton, the Vatican, Finnis) use Aristotelian ideas to defend traditional
sexual morality. Does an Aristotelian
approach to sexual issues have to take this form? Does an Aristotelian have to condemn pre-marital sex,
homosexuality, and masturbation in the way these writers do? Or can we accept an Aristotelian account of
sexual virtue (call it 'sexual integrity') without accepting these traditional
rules of conduct?
3.
Is an Aristotelian approach to issues like these a viable or a good
one? Can we learn something about how
we should live as sexual beings by looking (in Scruton's words) "at
permanent features of human nature"?
Is Leiser right to insist that there is no moral guidance to be found in
any concept of 'the natural' that has yet been articulated, and especially not
in the idea of 'the function of our sexual organs'? Is there some other Aristotelian idea that can help us work out a
sound sexual ethic? (Finnis claims not
to rely on the kind of argument that Leiser criticizes. What, then, does he rely on?) If we want to reject some of the arguments
and conclusions that writers like Scruton and Finnis put forward, are there
others that we can accept?
A note on the Vatican Declaration: this declaration mixes Scriptural and philosophical arguments to support the Church's position on several issues of sexual morality. We will be focusing on the philosophical arguments. Catholic moral philosophy, unlike some sorts of Christian thought, insists that moral truths are accessible to reason. The Church teaches that rational reflection on human nature discloses an objective moral order. It is a stretch to call the pattern of this thinking 'Aristotelian', but it does have roots in Aristotle by way of St. Thomas Aquinas. The Declaration speaks in several places of the 'finality' of sex. This traces back to the Aristotelian concept of a 'final cause', i.e., a purpose or intention. Things have goals or purposes 'built into them' so to speak. Reason can discover these. What reason (as well as revelation) tells us about sex is that its intrinsic purpose (finality) is reproduction in the context of a monogamous, permanent, socially sanctioned, heterosexual union. Sexual acts which deviate from this pattern, then, are described as 'intrinsically disordered' or 'disordered by their very nature'.