[Content note: this post discusses, without explicit detail, many forms of unethical sex, including rape, sexual harassment, and child molestation.]
A reader commissioned me to write a blog post about the book Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics, by Margaret Farley, a Catholic nun and former professor at Yale University Divinity School. (It’s “Just Love” as in “love that follows principles of justice,” not as in “only love.”) Just Love was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church for endorsing masturbation, gay marriage, gay sex, divorce in some situations, and remarriage after divorce.
I will begin by discussing why we should have sexual ethics other than “don’t rape people” at all, then explain Farley’s view of sexual ethics, then I will critique each of her proposed norms in turn. I have a lot to say about this book, so I’m splitting the post up over several days in order to save everyone from having to read a ten-thousand-word monstrosity.
A Justification of Sexual Ethics Beyond Rape
Many people adopt what I consider to be an extraordinarily deontologist view of sex. They consider sexual ethics to consist solely of not having sex with people without their consent. Everything else is strictly supererogatory. You might decide to care about your partner’s sexual pleasure, or indulge your partners’ fetishes, or avoid sex that makes you feel sick and empty and degraded inside, but these are all personal choices with no moral valence. The actual ethics is in the consent.
I admit this is a model I am continuously tempted to use. It is so simple and so elegant. A free agent in the sphere of sexuality and romance can set their boundaries and express their needs to other people. They search until they find a partner who has a compatible set of needs and boundaries. Throughout the relationship, they renegotiate as their boundaries and needs change; when their boundaries and needs no longer mesh, the relationship ends. No set of needs and boundaries is “wrong”, although with certain sets of needs and boundaries it may be hard to find a compatible partner. The only unethical action is violating someone else’s boundaries.
But it is unsatisfying in many ways. It is all very well for deontologists to have a model where as long as you follow the rules you’re okay. But utilitarians ought to object that there are many instances of consensual sex which do not produce the greatest good for the greatest number. Egoists should remark that there is no reason to assume that all consensual sex is pursuing the individual’s enlightened self-interest. Virtue ethicists might point out that it would be very odd if sex were the only sphere of human interaction in which we cannot cultivate wisdom, justice, temperance, and fortitude. Even many formulations of deontology object: sex can be consensual and still involve treating a person as a thing or following a rule that you would not will everyone else abide by.
The “only nonconsensual sex is unethical” is equally odd from the perspective of intuitive morality. Sometimes consensual sex is disloyal, harmful, or unfair. Certainly it would be very strange if sex were the only area of human life in which the sum and total of ethical human behavior is “don’t commit literal felonies.”
I think how unsatisfying the only-nonconsensual-sex-is-bad ethic is can be shown through how many other aspects of sexual morality people insist on attempting to smuggle into it. For instance, some people argue that cheating is wrong because it violates your spouse’s consent. It seems extraordinarily puzzling to me that people get to consent to sex that they are not involved in and may not even be aware of, and very unprincipled that only spouses have this capacity. (Why can’t parents revoke consent for their teenagers to have sex? Why can’t governments revoke consent for sodomy to happen between its borders?) You might argue that the difference is that you have sex with your spouse and you do not generally have sex with your government. But in that case a spouse would have no room to object if their partner had sex with someone else and then conscientiously never had sex with them again. Most people, I believe, would consider the latter decision to compound the harm, not to erase it.
I think the only logical conclusion is that the harm from cheating has nothing to do with consent; instead, the harm from cheating comes from breaking a promise. It is possible for sex to be completely and 100% consensual and also be wrong.
A lot of people have a flinch reaction to that conclusion, which makes sense. As completely reasonable sentences that are usually followed by horrible bullshit go, “it is possible for sex to be completely consensual and also be wrong” is right up there with “I’m not racist” and “think of the children.” Traditionally, of course, “it is possible for sex to be completely consensual and also be wrong” is followed with some thoughts on the evils of premarital sex, pornography, homosexuality, polyamory, birth control, feminism, sex toys, oral sex, sex outside of the missionary position, and literally everything else that’s fun. In our more modern era, it is also used by various Tumblr users who want you to know that BDSM is violence and violence is still wrong when everyone is consenting, which is presumably why they make a habit of protesting boxing matches and karate dojos.
That is what you might call act-based sexual morality. In addition to sex without consent being wrong, people put certain sexual acts on the “no” list, because those acts are considered to be inherently violent or misogynistic, objectifying or going against God’s will, disrespectful or a violation of the proper end of the human body, regardless of context or how the participants feel about it.
I think that consent-only sexual morality is right but doesn’t go far enough. However, act-based sexual morality is totally and completely wrong. After a great deal of thought, I have not been able to identify a single sex act qua act that I would consider conclusively wrong in all circumstances. (As opposed to, say, choice of sexual partner, where there are a number of choices that are wrong in all circumstances– children, your students, people who are in a monogamous relationship with someone else, etc.) Unprotected PIV is wrong if you picked up a stranger at a bar, but beautiful if you’re conceiving a loved and desperately wanted child. Calling your partner a disgusting whore is cruel if you mean it, but extremely hot for some people in a negotiated D/s dynamic. Certain forms of dangerous edgeplay are far too risky for most people, but can be valuable for certain people who are aware of and have accepted the risks.
(Sex in public where people might see is the closest I can get to an “always wrong in all circumstances” thing, but even then if there were enough sex-in-public enthusiasts that they convinced the city to allow them to cordon off a few streets every so often for the purpose, and there were bouncers checking IDs and making sure everyone knew what they were in for, I think that sex in public would be absolutely wonderful.)
The fallacy of act-based sexual morality makes sense once you try to apply it to any other subject. Is it inherently wrong to punch someone? Depends on whether they’re assaulting someone else at the time. Is it inherently wrong to play at a rock concert? Depends on whether you’re doing it in my backyard without my consent. Is it inherently wrong to give away a million dollars? Depends on whether you’re giving it away to the Nazi party. You can’t judge any action outside of its context, so why do people think this is a reasonable way to judge sexual ethics?
Three final notes: First, while I do think sexual ethics should consider issues other than consent, I do not think any form of consensual sex should be illegal. It is wrong to cheat on your partner, but that does not mean that you should go to prison for cheating on your partner.
Second, no person is perfectly ethical. This is true for every area of ethics. It is wrong to yell at your children, but nearly all parents yell sometimes. It is wrong to go on expensive vacations instead of giving that money to the poor, but most people who can afford to go on expensive vacations have gone on at least one. It is wrong to eat products that come from chickens, but I still eat the occasional cookie without inquiring too closely about whether there are eggs in it. Similarly, we would expect all people to have unethical sex sometimes. The question is whether you are doing the best you can, not whether you have reached some unattainable standard of goodness.
In particular, it is very very common for people to do wrong things because they have no other choice: for example, people eat eggs because they’re depressed and if they didn’t eat eggs they wouldn’t eat at all. It is not ever wrong to take care of yourself first. Ethical actions should be healthy, happy, and sustainable.
Third, when I say that sexual ethics must go beyond consent, I don’t mean to imply that consent is not important. In fact, consent is the bedrock of all sexual morality. Unfortunately, our society has caused many people to internalize the idea that you shouldn’t say no to sex if you have a certain relationship with someone, or if they really really want it, or if you don’t have a good reason. All sexual ethics has to come from the fundamental, baseline position that you can always refuse sex with someone for any reason or no reason at all. Even if your reason is really really stupid, you have a right to say no to sex for stupid reasons. Even if they paid for dinner, or you’re married, or it’s the third date, or you’re a man and you think men always want it you have a right to say no to sex. You should absolutely say no to any sex that makes you feel sick or gross or sad or violated.
Farley’s Framework
Farley argues that justice involves treating other humans with respect for who they are as humans: a unique person with a body and a soul, needs for food and clothing and shelter, the capacity for free choice and thoughts and feelings, a history, a social and political and cultural and economic context, a relationship to various systems and institutions, a potential for growth and flourishing, a vulnerability to diminishment and despair, interpersonal needs and capacities, and emotions. Of particular relevance to sexual ethics are a person’s ability to make free choices (autonomy) and their ability to have relationships with other people (relationality).
Farley presents a seven-item framework for sexual ethics. The first two are grounded in human autonomy, while the second five are grounded in relationality.
- Do no unjust harm
While this is a general principle of ethics, avoidance of harm is particularly important for sexual ethics. Violations of this principle include rape, domestic violence, enslavement, sexual exploitation, unsafe sex, deceit, betrayal, sexual unfulfillment, emotional manipulation, and so on and so forth.
2. Free consent
Free consent is the right of each individual person to determine their own sexual actions and relationships. Violations of this principle include rape, violence, coercion, sex with people who do not have the capacity to give informed consent, sexual harassment, and child molestation. Norms derivative from this norm of free consent include privacy (the right of an individual to keep information about their sex life confidential), telling the truth, and keeping promises.
3. Mutuality
Mutuality is mutual participation in the sexual act. Sex is not a thing that one person does to another person; instead, it is a relationship in which everyone involved is both active and receptive and both gives and receives pleasure. This does not necessarily imply that it is morally wrong to be, for example, a pillow princess or an exclusive top: as just one example, a pillow princess may actively participate through their obvious enjoyment of the sex.
4. Equality
While no two individuals are perfectly equal in power, Farley argues that individuals participating in ethical sex must be sufficiently equal. Severe inequalities, such as when one person is very emotionally immature or those produced by certain patriarchal cultures, may result in one person being vulnerable and dependent and having limited options. Violations of the norm of equality include sexual harassment, emotional and physical abuse, some forms of sex work for some people, and giving up your entire sense of self for the person you love.
5. Commitment
In general, Farley argues, ethical sex requires some form of commitment to your partner, although not necessarily a lifelong marriage.
6. Fruitfulness
The most obvious kind of fruitfulness is procreation. Procreative sex must be conducted in a context that ensures the responsible care of offspring, the creation of a family, and participation in the great project of building the human community. However, for many people, sex is not procreative: they might be gay, infertile, childfree, or simply not ready to have children. However, they can still have fruitful sex. Ethical sex opens you to the wider community. It is not self-involved. Good sex can strengthen you, which lets you move beyond yourself in many ways: you can nourish your other relationships, make art, help people, provide goods and services to others through work, or raise your own or help raise other people’s children.
7. Social justice
Please note that this is “social justice” in the Catholic sense of the term, not in the modern-day sense of the term.
Social justice is an umbrella term covering many different kinds of sexual ethics. It is not sexual ethics construed narrowly, as in whether or not you should have particular kinds of sex; it is sexual ethics construed broadly, as in all the ethical problems which are affected by our sexualities. All people have a right to “freedom from unjust harm, equal protection under the law, an equitable share in the goods and services available to others, and freedom of choice in their sexual lives– within the limits of not harming or infringing on the just claims of… others” (Farley pg. 228); unfortunately, some people are denied these rights due to their sexualities or in the sphere of sexuality.
In a narrow sense, social justice requires that we take responsibility for the effects our actions may have on others, such as public health concerns, procreation, broken promises, and so on. In a broader sense, social justice implies a concern for the many ways in which people are harmed based on sexuality: a brief and incomplete list would include sexism, sexual and domestic violence, racism, global poverty, oppressive religious and cultural traditions, HIV/AIDS, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, lack of contraceptive access, and the harmful use of new reproductive technologies.
Unjust Harm
In general, I endorse Farley’s reasoning. If you are the sort of person who reads a long post about sexual ethics, you probably already know that you should not rape people or sexually harass them or enslave them. It is in general wrong to have sex with people if you know it will cause them more distress than pleasure.
Many utilitarians may object that “no unjust harm” pretty much covers all of sexual ethics and we don’t need any additional sexual ethics. Be that as it may, I think it’s useful to have guidelines about how you can avoid harming people, particularly for those of us who have already mastered “slavery: probably a bad idea.” These sexual ethics I will discuss in the next post.
tcheasdfjkl said:
“unjust harm” is such a weird phrase. is there just harm? would that be, like, punishment for a crime? what’s the “just harm” exception in sexuality? (I’m assuming it’s not “BDSM is okay” because it seems weird to classify enthusiastically consensual mutually fulfilling violent sex as “harm”. though I suppose some specific BDAM-derived (hopefully minor) injuries could be seen as acceptable harm?)
anyway “do no unjust harm” as a principle doesn’t… SAY anything, I think. if someone claims to apply that principle I won’t know if their sexual ethics are similar to mine unless they also tell me a great deal about what “unjust” means to them (and “harm”, for that matter). it seems this first principle might actually be a synthesis of all the other ones, which is a weird way to organize things?
if this makes more sense than it looks like to me, I’m interested in knowing what I’m missing here!
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tcheasdfjkl said:
ugh typo in second “BDSM”
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ADifferentAnonymous said:
My best guess for “just harm” in a sexual context would be if having seen with someone is going to upset their possessive ex?
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Deiseach said:
is there just harm?
Breaking up with someone who threatens “I’ll kill myself if you do that!” In such a case, the other person is being manipulative (maybe they genuinely can’t help themselves, they do over-react because of problems they have, or maybe they’re deliberately trying to control you). Even in an ordinary breakup, there is going to be some degree of upset and distress. You can’t be responsible ultimately for how someone feels, and if you do your best to be respectful and minimise damage, even if they end up crying into their pillow every night for a month, that’s not your fault.
Telling someone “No, I don’t want to do that particular act” (Dan Savage, I understand, had a swathe of people asking advice on this). Maybe they’ll be upset and even threaten “if you won’t do this, I’ll find someone who will” but again, even being sex positive, you are not obliged to do something you don’t want to do/find unpleasant and unsatisfactory. You may choose to do it because you care about them and want to make them happy, but saying “No, I don’t want to drink your urine” is your right no matter how “but I can’t get good satisfactory sex out of this encounter if you don’t indulge me in this” they go.
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jossedley said:
I’ll be interested to see what Farley thinks about as “just harm.” Some possibilities that come to mind, although I haven’t really explored them enough to say that they actually might be just:
1) The easier case: I think refusing to engage in an activity might harm your partner, but might be seen as just. For example, maybe your partner will be emotionally traumatized by rejection if you stop an encounter, but most people would still see that harm as just.
2) A little more challenging: Harm that harmed party knowingly and competently desires may in some cases be “just.” Maybe unprotected sex with a partner who presents an infection risk.
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tcheasdfjkl said:
I like your discussion of why consent isn’t the only thing that matters.
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senalishia said:
<>
THANK YOU for this preface. It (and the following leftist version) are why I cannot see a discussion on non consent based sexual ethics without flinching. But you, I trust to be able to have a reasonable discussion on the subject..
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senalishia said:
Crap I ran afoul of some coding thats allowed here, my comment was supposed to srart by quoting this passage:
” Traditionally, of course, “it is possible for sex to be completely consensual and also be wrong” is followed with some thoughts on the evils of premarital sex, pornography, homosexuality, polyamory, birth control, feminism, sex toys, oral sex, sex outside of the missionary position, and literally everything else that’s fun. “
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Sophia Kovaleva said:
I continue being very torn on this issue. On one hand, yes, this is a very reasonable and important principle, which people should take into account, and I wish I stopped having to explain to people that sex between 14 and 40 year olds is wrong for this reason.
On the other hand, for almost any person I can plausibly date, by merely entering a relationship with them, I give them the power to very easily and irrecoverably screw up my life (and this power isn’t even really revocable), while not getting anything like this power myself. This makes me extremely vulnerable to coercion, and in a way that cannot be reported to the authorities. I think one could make a very convincing argument that this kind of unilaterally assured destruction constitutes the kind of power imbalance across which it’s unethical to have relationships. But since this situation is not gonna change for at least a decade, I think I’m also justified in telling people who say that I must not be allowed to have romantic relationships until I’m in my late 30s to GTFO. I have not yet found a way to reconcile these positions.
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Deiseach said:
I wish I stopped having to explain to people that sex between 14 and 40 year olds is wrong for this reason
I wish it weren’t necessary but it seems like as long as people are going to be people, they will need it. I’ve read enough “it’s been twenty years and I still resent my mother interfering back when I was 13/14 to stop me sneaking out to see my older (18/21/even more) boyfriend and trying to break us up and not letting him sleep over and not letting me sleep over with him”, even where they acknowledge that yes, looking back on it, a 21+ trying to fuck a 13 year old probably wasn’t the best thing and yes it would have really harmed them if they had succeeded.
So we will continue to have to say “No!” and when the 14 year old goes off in a fit of the sulks, continue to insist “That’s the rule even if you think it’s a stupid rule, and the reason you think it’s stupid is because you are not as mature and aware as you think you are”.
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Obviously Anonymous said:
I had sex at 14. I wasn’t harmed, and I still think it was an excellent decision many years later.
You can probably defend a blanket sex ban for young people, but not through universal claims that all 14-year-olds are too immature.
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Fisher said:
TW: child abuse
When I was 5, I was “raped” by an older individual, in front of a crowd of neighborhood kids. I say “raped,” because I was sufficiently naive of, well, anything (I wouldn’t even be exposed to the concept of a “bad word” until nearly two years later.) so I had no idea that what was being done to me was wrong, and I was very curious as to how my body was different from other bodies, so I thought this kind of “play” was a nifty idea.
It didn’t hurt me. The only negative consequence I experienced was a sexual precociousness on my part that did get me into trouble in school (though this was so long ago that this was not understood to be a symptom of child abuse). I don’t know if the person involved did it to other children, or if they harmed anyone. I do know that caging them for the rest of their life, or even a few decades based on my experience of the act would have been horrifically unjust.
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blacktrance said:
The deontological view is insufficient as personal morality, but it works better as social morality. Consent violations give the victim a socially enforceable claim against the perpetrator, but merely unwise choices don’t. Concerned bystanders can give advice, but they may not intervene to stop a consensual act – otherwise, they’d be autonomy-violating busybodies. If I consent, I can’t go back later and say “That was bad for me, so now you owe me”. What you should actually consent to is a question for prudence/personal morality.
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Sophia Kovaleva said:
Concerned bystanders should definitely intervene if an adult is trying to have sex with a 12 year old, even if they say “yes, I want it”. You *can* say that the reason why it warrants the intervention is because this consent doesn’t count, but that seems to be yet another case of trying to round all sexual ethics to consent, even when it stretches the definition thereof past the point of usefulness. A probably better approach would be to say that consent might at least theoretically be present in this situation, but it’s still wrong and unacceptable (to the point where the society gets to impose penalties for it) for the adult to act upon it.
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blacktrance said:
Children’s lack of consent isn’t specific to sexual ethics – they have a broad inability to consent, including e.g. labor contracts. If an adult says “Yes, I want it”, it implies a different mental state and evaluation than if a child says it. (This is also why extremely drunk people can’t consent.)
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m50d said:
> You should absolutely say no to any sex that makes you feel sick or gross or sad or violated.
While it’s vital that people feel free to say no for any reason, since this does read as life advice I would add that unexplained sadness and/or crying after sex is reasonably common and usually just a thing that happens and doesn’t indicate anything wrong with you or the sex you’re having.
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Vanessa Kowalski said:
> While no two individuals are perfectly equal in power, Farley argues that individuals participating in ethical sex must be sufficiently equal. Severe inequalities, such as when one person is very emotionally immature or those produced by certain patriarchal cultures, may result in one person being vulnerable and dependent and having limited options.
Hmm, this can be construed to mean that women in certain patriarchal cultures *cannot* have ethical sex with men, no matter what. That would definitely seem like taking it too far. This also reminds of http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/04/determining-consent/. I think that realistically, there should be some trade-off between, protecting people from possibly exploitative situations and, not taking away their only options. Sophia’s comment is also relevant.
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ADifferentAnonymous said:
I guess it’s kinda like “no ethical consumption under capitalism”? I’m pretty sure people who say that don’t want people to stop buying food.
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sniffnoy said:
A reader commissioned me to write a blog post…
Oh, huh, I didn’t realize that was still going with the Patreon shut down…
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ozymandias said:
The reader commissioned me more than a year ago. >.>
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Fisher said:
Honoring a commitment is good, even if it takes longer that planned.
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Aapje said:
When are you going to write that piece I commissioned on akrasia, Ozy?
(j/k)
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nevang said:
It seems like a lot of things end up covered by ‘ethical stuff that applies the rest of the time still applies when the thing you’re doing is sex’.
Like, reading “It is possible for sex to be completely and 100% consensual and also be wrong”, I promptly thought of an example where this would obviously be the case – say sex between two people in a particular situation would set off a bomb and kill people. In that case, even if they’re all like ‘yes this sex sounds great’, it’s obviously unethical for them to go ahead. But it would be exactly the same if the thing that set off the bomb was them playing a soccer match.
Similarly, a reason cheating is unethical is that you shouldn’t deceive people such that they’re in a relationship with you they wouldn’t actually want to have if they knew the truth. This covers cheating, but it’s the same kind of thing that covers like, ‘you’re actually a foreign agent using this to spy on things’ or ‘you’re actually their secret sibling and they’d care about that.”
I’m now trying to think if there’s stuff that + consent doesn’t cover. Hmm…
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LeeEsq said:
The deontological, consent is the only thing that matters form of sexual ethics has the very big advantage of being the only form of sexual ethics that can carry the force of law without causing problems. Humanity attempted to give legal force to a variety of sexual ethics in the past. They tended to have awful consequences. The deontological sexual ethics can be given the force of law though.
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Rachael said:
I disagree about “not causing problems”. Consent is really hard to prove, which means sometimes rapists go free and sometimes people get falsely accused of rape. I’m not saying I think the law can do any better, I’m just disagreeing that the current version of the law doesn’t cause problems.
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LeeEsq said:
In law, there is a concept called an ultra-hazardous activity. This means that some activity is so inherently dangerous that it can not be made safe regardless of the safety precautions taken. If you injure somebody while conducting an ultra-hazardous activity, the classic example given is the use of explosives, you are generally considered strictly liable for any damages you do. With few exceptions, you can’t avoid liability.
Love/sex seem to be ultra-hazardous activities. The different sexual ethics systems are attempts to make them safe but because humans are humans it isn’t possible. This doesn’t mean that we could try to make it safe but getting all humans on the same page is not going to happen beyond the deontological version because that can be legally enforced.
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Deiseach said:
Many people adopt what I consider to be an extraordinarily deontologist view of sex. They consider sexual ethics to consist solely of not having sex with people without their consent.
Funny, I would have said that’s consequentialism (or even one variety of utilitarianism) rather than deontology. Even on pure consent alone, deontology would consider the circumstances, for example, in which that consent was given, if the person was truly consenting or capable of consent, if the other party was being deceptive or manipulative – to strawman the utilitarian position as done above, it may be of benefit for a man to target drunk women as he is more likely to achieve his ends of obtaining sex (and so increasing his derived satisfaction/happiness/utility from the interaction), but I think most utilitarians would protest that is a caricature of their position.
Deontology would also include ‘what are you trying to get here? casual sex? a relationship? how are you treating the other person – as a partner or as an object, a ‘put the penny in the slot and sex pops out’ dispenser? is this going to contribute to your short and long-term happiness? will you be dissatisfied later? is this habit of obtaining and having sex in this fashion changing you into someone you would not wish to be?’
It’s not just “follow the rules in a blind manner” anymore than utilitarianism is “if it increases your utility, go ahead and torture the orphan to death”.
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Deiseach said:
In particular, it is very very common for people to do wrong things because they have no other choice: for example, people eat eggs because they’re depressed and if they didn’t eat eggs they wouldn’t eat at all.
Digressing here, because this does amuse me: eating eggs is wrong? We see here the evolution of moral taboos; for everyone wondering “but how, in the bad old repressive days, did people actually convince themselves that gay sex was bad and wrong?” here you go – in the future bad new repressive days, people will be asking themselves “but how did anyone ever actually think that eating eggs was okay?” 🙂
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Doug S. said:
Wrong, or just a really bad idea?
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Lambert said:
If you make a habit of it, you are acting as a vector for STIs.
And engaging in gratuitously dangerous activities can put a burden on the healthcare system, as well as one’s loved ones, if something goes wrong.
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tcheasdfjkl said:
I’d think the main thing in most possible instances is risk of unintended pregnancy, which if you haven’t thought through whether you’re in a good position to give a child a good life is pretty irresponsible. (Although just how irresponsible you think it is also depends on what you think of abortion.)
(I don’t want to, like, summarily judge everyone who has unintended pregnancies? I think given how common these are, “never do things that can have this outcome” is clearly an unreasonable standard to hold humans to; and like, “was the pregnancy intended” is not a perfect predictor of child welfare (idk actually how much of a predictor it is, I’d expect it to be some but not overwhelming). Just, in general it’s better to reflect before creating a human on the human’s likely life outcomes.)
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Fisher said:
I think the only logical conclusion is that the harm from cheating has nothing to do with consent; instead, the harm from cheating comes from breaking a promise. It is possible for sex to be completely and 100% consensual and also be wrong.
The second sentence does not follow from the first. Because the harm rests solely with the betrayal, it is irrelevant to the means of betrayal. The sex act is not implicated. It would be analogous to saying that knitting while yelling racial epithets at a crowd of people is wrong, therefore sometimes knitting is wrong.
Excellent use of a semicolon as well.
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blacktrance said:
“Cheating is wrong because it violates your spouse’s consent” is getting at that if you’re in a monogamous marriage, you’ve transferred away a limited partial authority over your ability to consent to sex, so your consent (while still necessary) is no longer sufficient. (Of course, you only transfer it over saying “yes”, so you can still always say “no”.) You haven’t transferred that authority to your parents or the government, so you don’t need their consent.
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