Sexual morality

Since human beings reproduce sexually, the natural-law ethical doctrines regarding the use of their reproductive powers may be termed sexual morality. This blog post outlines natural sexual morality in nine propositions, which are expounded upon.

1. The division of sexual acts

Proposition 1 — Sexual acts may be divided into the entelechic and the antiphysical.

All acts which make use of the reproductive powers are sexual acts. Sexual acts which make use of the reproductive powers in accordance with their natural end, which is reproduction, shall be called entelechic. Sexual acts which make use of the reproductive powers in a way contrary to their natural end shall be called antiphysical.

Entelechic sexual acts are sometimes called natural, reproductive, or rightly-ordered. These names are not used here, to avoid confusion with other senses of those words. Sometimes, only entelechic sexual acts are called properly sexual acts, which makes enough sense, but that nomenclature seems to give me no short name for other uses of the reproductive powers.

Antiphysical sexual acts are sometimes called unnatural, unreproductive, disordered, or perverted. These names are not used here, to avoid confusion with other senses of those words. The name antinatural is avoided because it mixes Greek and Latin roots, and because antiphysical was preferred by Symonds.

2. Entelechic sexual acts

Proposition 2 — Marriage is defined as a heterotelic, voluntary relationship, oriented to the production and rearing of children.

This is a reiteration of the doctrine which was stated in the anthropology. Here, I shall only reiterate the definitions of the components of the definition.

A relationship is defined as the fact of two human beings seeking the same end ‘coordinately’, i.e., by means of at least one of them being allowed by right, in certain conditions, to control property which the other owns.

A voluntary relationship is a relationship which is entered into by the consent of all parties. These are contrasted with innate relationships, into which someone may enter by being born; no one can be born into marriage.

A heterotelic relationship is a relationship that seeks some particular good. Marriage is definitely such a relationship, since it seeks the production and rearing of children. These last terms are assumed to be well-understood.

Proposition 3 — Entelechic sexual acts are only good when performed within a marriage.

A sexual act is performed within a marriage when it is done between persons who are married to each other.

Since entelechic sexual acts are ordered to reproduction, they are performed irrationally when the agents are persons who do not desire to reproduce. Since producing children places them under the responsibility of the parents, it is irrational to desire to produce children without desiring to rear them.

Therefore, in order for the entelechic sexual act to be good, both sexual agents must desire both to produce and to rear children. Since parents have authority over the child, and must exercise this authority to such an extent in the child’s early years that the child’s body is effectively their property, the parents must either desire to rear the child coordinately or to enter into action conflicts. Since the latter desire is irrational, sexual agents must desire to marry, in order for their entelechic sexual act to be good.

It would be irrational to directly take part in another’s irrational act. Therefore, both sexual agents must ascertain, in order for the act to be good, that the other agent has the desire to produce and rear children coordinately. Since it is a voluntary relationship, the expression of this desire by both parties would initiate a marriage. Therefore, in order for an entelechic sexual act to be good, it must be performed within a marriage.

Proposition 4 — The natural law does not require that marriages be binary.

A binary relationship is a relationship between exactly two persons. Although monogamy is a salutary and laudable custom, it is nevertheless only a custom; nothing in human nature, as I understand it, requires it.

Proposition 5 — Marriage is, by nature, hierarchical.

A hierarchical society is a heterotelic relationship in which one person has decision-making priority over property owned by the society for as long as the relationship lasts.

The alternative would be equal, or democratic society, in which the property is owned in common, equally and without any such decision-making priority. Such common property is forbidden by the law of nature, since it frustrates the purpose of individual appropriation.

Nothing in human nature requires that the hierarchical head of the society be the father of the child rather than the mother. This is traditionally the case because fathers, besides being generally physically stronger, have traditionally been the primary, or only, source of income for the family, which gave them leverage to claim the headship.

The natural hierarchy in marriage gives the superior no right to boss the inferior around, either; by nature, he only has priority in decisions about the societal property of the marriage. The custom of wives being housewives, in particular, far from being required by reason, seems even to be detrimental to their well-being.

Proposition 6 — Marriage is, by nature, indissoluble, after it is consummated.

By consummation I mean the first entelechic sexual act performed within the marriage. By indissoluble I mean that an attempt to end a marriage would be an evil act.

Since marriage is constituted by the consent of both parties, it could only be ended if at least one of them ceased to desire to rear the children produced by their sexual acts. But this would be evil, given the responsibility of parents over children. This makes marriage indissoluble, once it has been consummated.

Married couples may desire to stop having any more sex, and to no longer have any more children; this does not end a  consummated marriage, since it remains that they have already performed an act which is ordered to reproduction. They still desire to rear, coordinately, any further children which their previous sexual acts may have caused to be produced, supposing that such a thing is possible; so the marriage stands.

Divorce, in our society, is generally desired to procure a second marriage, due to the custom of monogamy. Under the natural law, the so-called divorced person is simply married to both his first and his second spouse – see proposition 4 – in perpetuity. Our custom of alimony, for that matter, seems to be a recognition of a parent’s continuing responsibility for the children of his first marriage.

3. Antiphysical sexual acts

Proposition 7 — Antiphysical sexual acts are evil, in general.

Since antiphysical sexual acts constitute the use of a power in a way contrary to its natural end, their performance cannot be directly desired by reason. Therefore, they can only be directly desired by disordered passion; but the indulgence in such desires is the very nature of an evil act. So, antiphysical sexual acts are evil, in general.

Proposition 8 — Antiphysical sexual acts are justified when intended to secure the integral good of the agents.

By the integral good of the agents, I mean the same thing as their whole good, as human beings. For these acts to be justified means that they are good, but only because they are indirectly desired, as means to secure the integral good of the agents. The proposition is evident from the general doctrine that parts are subordinate to the whole; the reproductive powers are only one part of human beings.

Antiphysical sexual acts are intended to secure the integral good of an agent when they are intended to secure a human being’s use of his rational powers, as when done under duress, or as a treatment of mental illness.

Antiphysical sexual acts are also intended to secure the integral good of an agent when they are intended toward the good of an autotelic relationship, as when done to bring friends closer together.

4. Theological note

Proposition 9 — The Christian faith amends some of these propositions.

The foregoing has been an exercise in natural law ethics, done from my particular anthropology and metaphysics. Within the Christian religion, divine law may ordain stricter rules of conduct. In particular, the Christian religion raises marriage to the level of a sacrament, so that it is then called sacramental marriage; among other differences between natural and sacramental marriage, sacramental marriage is strictly monogamous, so that Proposition 4 does not apply to it.