Sexual Ethics

• The three main Christian approaches to sexual ethics


  • Conservative Christianity: Biblical teachings & traditional theologians
  • Natural moral law: typically a conservative catholic view
  • Liberal Christianity: 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.
• The two main secular approaches to sexual ethics


  • Conservative secularists: 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.
  • Liberal secularists: the traditions regarding sexual ethics might have been useful in the past but are increasingly outdated and harmful. Utilitarianism is an example of this.
• St Augustine on sexual desire and original sin


  Augustine references 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. Augustine argues this is universal – people of all cultures cover up their genitals, and sex is done in private, which Augustine suggests is due to the shame associated with it. This all shows the connection between sex, sex organs and the shame of original sin which caused Adam and Eve to feel shame and wear clothes. Augustine concludes that humanity is the ' massa damnata' – the mass of the damned.
• Biblical teachings on sexual ethics


  • Homosexuality condemned in 1 Corinthians, 1 Timothy, Romans
  • Pre/extra-marital sex condemned as sinful desires and temptations in 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, Exodus, 1 Corinthians, Matthew
• Liberal approach to the Bible


  The Bible is not the perfect word of God but is instead just a product of the human mind. During the enlightenment period, scientific, historical and literary methods of analysis were greatly improved and applied to the Bible itself. This led to evidence of scientific inaccuracies, historical inaccuracies, and literary evidence such as that the writers of the Bible had different styles which seemed to depend on their nationality, culture and age. The words of the Bible are therefore just human interpretations of what the authors felt and understood of God's revelation. The Bible thus reflects the cultural and historical context of its human authors and requires continual re-interpretation to ensure its relevance.
• Liberal inspiration leads to a crisis of authority: The problem with liberal views of inspiration is that it’s difficult to see how it could grant authority to the Bible if it derives from human minds. Furthermore, it opens up the Bible to interpretation and every person will have their own interpretation. This cannot provide the kind of stable consistent theology that a religion needs for it to persist.
• Freud's influence on secular liberal views on sex


  Freud thought that traditional Christian attitudes towards sex resulted in a feeling of shame about sexual desire which led to unhealthy repression and mental illness. The liberal secular attitude 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 unnecessarily repressive and puritanical
• Bishop Barron's view on secular culture's attitude towards sex


  There is an 'almost complete lack' of reference to the moral and ethical setting for sex, the purpose and meaning of sex or religious context for sexuality. This encourages a self-interested ego disconnected from external objective good which thereby turns inward and cares only about itself in a self-absorbed and finally destructive way.
• Stephen Fry: 'The paedophile priest scandal can be explained by the Church's repressive attitude towards sex, pointing to "the twisted, neurotic and hysterical way that [the Church] leaders are chosen; the celibacy, the nuns, the monks the priesthood. This is not natural and normal."'
• Fry claims secular attitudes towards sex are healthier than religious attitudes
• Situation ethics on sexual ethics


  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. However, if manipulation was involved in persuading people into such acts, then the outcome would not be loving, and it would be wrong.
• Situation ethics illustrations


  • The case of a mother trapped in a prison work camp during a war who asked a guard to impregnate her to be released
  • The rainmaker having (pre-marital) sex with a spinster to save her from becoming spinsterised
• Private/public debate: Situationism & Legalism


  Fletcher was critical of legalism – the view that ethics must be based on rules which do not take the situation into account. 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 principles of situation ethics.
• Another of Fletcher's illustration


  • Nash's play ' The Rainmaker'
  • The rainmaker has (pre-marital) sex with a spinster (unmarried woman) to save her from becoming spinsterised
• The rainmaker has (pre-marital) sex with a spinster


  To save her from becoming spinsterised
• Her brother is morally outraged and wants to shoot the rainmaker, but her father stops him, saying to his outraged son "you are so full of what's right that you can't see what's good".
• Legalism


  The view that ethics must be based on rules which do not take the situation into account
• Situationism


  The view that it is up to the individual person to decide in a moral situation what would have the loving outcome
• Fletcher was critical of legalism
• Situation ethics claims that love is the basis for ethical judgement
• Love is subjective, meaning a matter of opinion
• Someone might find it loving to try and prevent their homosexual child from expressing or acting on their homosexuality, or even to disown them
• Someone might find it loving to disown their child if they engaged in pre-marital sex
• Someone might find it loving to manipulate/pressure someone into or out of pre/extra marital sex
• Agape


  Selfless love of your neighbour
• Pressuring others into sex or disowning them for sexual behaviour is not selfless love of your neighbour
• The way you love your neighbour when loving them as yourself depends on the way you love yourself, which is subjective
• A parent who disowns their child for sexual behaviour might indeed think that if they had behaved similarly as a child then they should have been disowned too
• The Bible is clearly against homosexuality and pre/extra-marital sex, so Fletcher's theory is not being true to Christian ethics
• Fletcher doesn't think the Bible is the perfect word of God that we can follow literally
• The most we can get from the Bible is general themes and Fletcher thinks that Agape is an important theme in the Bible
• Barclay: situation ethics grants people a dangerous amount of freedom
• People's loving nature can be corrupted by power
• Fletcher & Robinson argue that mankind has 'come of age', meaning become more civilised and educated
• Natural law theory


  Based on the idea that God created all things, including us, with the potential to flourish if we live according to the natural law. The telos of human life is achieving ultimate happiness through glorifying God by following the natural moral law
• 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
• Aquinas' view on homosexuality

  Homosexuality is unnatural because it required a divergence from what he thought was the natural mode of sex. The homosexual orientation, though feeling natural to homosexuals, cannot be so
• The catechism of the catholic church claims that homosexuality is against the natural law as it divorces sex from the gift of life and is thus against God's design
• Pope Benedict XVI (Ratzinger) argued that "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"