Sexual Ethics (Edexcel A-Level Religious Studies): Revision Notes

Application of theories to sexual ethics

Christian theories

Situation ethics on sexual ethics

Situation ethics, upheld by Joseph Fletcher holds that an action is good if it leads to the most loving outcome possible.

Homosexuality

• Restriction is not the most loving thing to do, preventing someone from being how they were born is going to do more bad than good. We are all the creation of God and he therefore loves us all.
  Pre/extramarital sex

• Extra-Marital: Not acceptable due to the pain and disruption it can cause to families and friends.

• Pre-Marital: Acceptable if it is in a safe setting, between two consenting adults. Sexual behaviour should not be subject to public norms and legislation, it should only be subject to the principle of Agape.

The Example of Mrs. Bergmeier

Mrs Bergmeier is an example used by Fletcher to demonstrate the supremacy of Agape in decision-making.

The story depicts a woman who has been imprisoned by the Russians, she commits adultery with a prison guard so that she would become pregnant and be released to her family. Whilst she did break moral law, the result meant that she was able to be welcomed back to her family who accepted her back in with her child, and the act is justified.

Weaknesses of Situation Ethics in Sexual Ethics:

Love is subjective:

Love is the basis for ethical judgement in situation ethics however, it is subjective and only 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.

However:

There is a difference between love and Agape. Agape is not simply love but unconditional Christian love.

Despite this, the way you love is still subjective.

Situation ethics ignores the commands in the bible.

Does Situation ethics provide too much freedom?

When you start to relax social laws, it will threaten stability within society.

Situation ethics provides no moral structures and could therefore lead to antonianism.

William Barclay: Situation ethics gives moral agents a dangerous amount of freedom

Strengths of Situation Ethics on Sexual Ethics

• Places responsibility on humans and does not assume that humans are too "fallen" in order to make their own decisions.
• Robinson: Humanity has come of age, and so humanity can be trusted with more freedom to make their own moral decisions (Influenced by Bonhoeffer.)
• Consistent with modern beliefs surrounding sex
• More likely to lead to happiness and love within society as opposed to harmful repression.
• Jesus always said that Agape was his greatest commandment
• Agape is inconsistent with repressive attitudes.
• Still provides some sort of framework.

Natural law on sexual ethics

Thomas Aquinas emphasised the importance of natural law in understanding our everyday duties.

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. This type of argument has led to critiques of sex outside marriage as detrimental to happiness.

Natural law on homosexuality:

• When using the bible and the understanding of our telos, it is clear that natural law would not be tolerated due to the Old Testament and homosexuality going against the primary precepts (e.g. reproduction.)
• Homosexuality is unnatural as it diverges from what is the natural mode of sex.
• Goes against the principles of reproduction and a stable society.
• 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 against God's design.

Augustine: 'Love the sinner hate the sin'.

• Many Christians today claim only to be against homosexual acts, not homosexual orientation.
• Christopher Hitchens: You can't separate the sinner from the sin as the sin comes from their nature.
• Bishop Barron: All humans have desires which God's law prohibits, homosexuals are not singled out.
• However: if someone's nature is condemned and sinful, the person is especially sinful.

Natural law on pre/extra-marital sex

we have a natural desire to reproduce, educate, protect, and preserve human life and live in an orderly society. All of these primary precepts are threatened by sexual immorality.

Strengths:

Natural law ethics is available to everyone because all humans are born with the ability to know and apply the primary precepts.

Provides a moral structure in order to allow us to thrive- emphasised when looking at today's society.

Provides us with guidelines in order to flourish.

Calling an ethical theory outdated is not an argument against its actual truth.

Weaknesses:

In Aquinas' time, sex usually led to children without married parents usually being underpaid for and probably death, Socioeconomic conditions have changed.

By telling people that ethical precepts (such as the primary precepts or sanctity of life) come from God it creates a strong motivation to follow them.

Fletcher argues that there are moral disagreements on what is right, therefore how can we have innate knowledge of what our purpose is?

however: There are cross-cultural similarities between cultures for example marriage, does this demonstrate innate knowledge of purpose?

Arguably, it is the result of practicality for raising children and stability.

Satre: existence precedes essence and therefore there is no pre-existing purpose, humans have the ability to decide their own future.

Secular views towards sexual ethics

Utilitarianism

• Utilitarians would judge an action based on whether it produced the most amount of pleasure compared to other actions.

• Supported by philosophers:

• Jeremy Bentham (Act)

• J.S Mill (Rule) Standard Criticisms apply such as

• Issues with calculation and measuring pleasure

• Issues with liberty/rights & justifying bad actions Homosexuality:

• Allows it, as many people within today's society are homosexual

• However if many were homophobic, this would be different. Extra/Pre-Marital Sex:

• Fluctuates on the situation. JS Mill:

• A secular liberal, argues that trying to make things illegal because they go against religious morality must be rejected because it has been the foundation of all religious persecution.

The importance of consent is emphasised by Mill.

Emphasizes the harm principle: Humans have the freedom to act how they want to maximise pleasure but they cannot cause harm to other people.

humans tend to increasingly encroach on the freedom of the individual and will appeal to the disgust of the majority to justify that.

Yet:

Devlin would argue that: private and public spheres influence each other too greatly for Mill's liberalism to work.

However:

📎 Devlin: A society cannot survive without some moral standards of the sort which are imposed on all.

The environment in which people live and raise their children is affected by the behaviours and models of relationships that other people engage in in their private lives. – Justification for legislation affecting private life?

However: there is no evidence that homosexuality has caused any harm.

Ultimately: Private will always affect the public however Mill acknowledges that freedom is for the greater good.

Strengths of Utilitarianism:

• Maximising the amount of pleasure in theory seems to be an effective way, to ensure the majority of people are happy.

• It does not rely on God

• On initial glance, maximising pleasure seems to be a good idea, it has good intentions.

• Rule Utilitarianism ensures no harm is imposed on others. Weaknesses:

• Complete lack of emphasis on values and morality.

• Emphasis on pleasure is not always right, pleasure and goodness are not synonymous.

• It allows bad actions to be justified through pleasure.

Kant on sexual ethics

Homosexuality:

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.

Pre Marital/Extra Marital sex

• Leads to the increase in STIs/unwanted pregnancies?

• Down to your perception.

• Second formulation: Does sex before marriage involve using each other as a means to an end, leading to objectification?

• However: Kant seems to ignore the importance of a romantic connection. Kant's focus on emotion

• Ethics needs to be based on reason and should remove emotion as a motivation for moral decision-making.

• Hume would argue against this- for something to be motivating, emotion is involved and motivation is crucial to ensure an action is done for the right reasons.

• "Reason, is and ought to be the slave of our passions"

• Ensures that views on sexual ethics aren't subject to continuous change based on emotion, people making decisions on emotions tend to lead to decisions that will be regretted.

• Not subjective to desires Secular V Religious views on Sexual ethics

Freud: Christian attitudes towards sex resulted in a feeling of shame about sexual desire which led to unhealthy repression and mental illness. It claims that sex is a natural biological desire that 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.

Strengths of the traditional Christian view on Sexual Ethics

• It Provides structure and morality within todays society

• It ensures stability

• It encourages healthy relationships as opposed to relationships with the purpose of exploiting each other.

• It's Consistent with biblical views and therefore the word of God.

• 21st-century youth culture is highly sexualized, hook-up culture has influenced young people and has led to sex being seen as increasingly casual.

• Bishop Barron argues that secular attitudes towards sex have led to a complete lack of moral and ethical setting for sex and the purpose of sex has been reduced. Weaknesses of the traditional Christian view on sexual ethics

• Questions over legitimacy of the bible

• If bible isn't legitimate, then neither is what it says

• Legalistic point of view

• Outdated, people can be trusted to make their own informed decisions.

• Very restrictive, can be unhealthy and damaging.

• Stephen Fry argues that paedophile priest scandals can be explained by the repressive attitudes imposed by the church.