Adultery

• Aquinas

  • dictated adultery was wrong
  • 2 examples:
  • if you think adultery is right then you are ignorant to the divine laws of God - not got the full knowledge but should know that as a human being (ignorant of the circumstance)
  • e/g a man who married a widow, had sex with her and then found out her husband was still alive - mistaken conscience but no bad intention
• Fletcher

  • Mrs Bergmeir example - 'sacrificial adultery'
• Durkheim - conscience as social conditioning

  • matter of group perception
  • used to be seen as a sin against God's laws
  • only morality involved is that of keeping or breaking a contract (marriage)
• Freud

  • humanity has invented civilisation in order to control its instinctive drives (Thanatos and eros - sex and violence)
  • trying to repress sexual drives - if not sexually gratified in marriage then perhaps wish to seek sexual gratification outside of this marriage
  • conscience should prevent this