Natural Foundations for Sexual Ethics

hello everyone this week we are continuing our look at the applications of turistic personalism to various questions and areas within philosophy at large and for this one this is h a question in ethics and there's some overlap here uh with politics but this is mostly a question of Ethics uh namely sexual ethics and morality um with regard to the individual and the family and I say that there's some overlap with the political in so far as the family uh and the sanctity of the family is something that plays into or plays a role for the

common good at large for society so um there's let's say that some of the conclusions that we reach regarding the family will uh impact the way that we view the role of the family or the protection of the family within Society if we were uh engaging in political philosophy so for this one uh there are few different things that I want to focus on just to kind of summarize all the different readings that we had for um for this week and first of all I would say that uh this is one particular area that I

think this is probably the most famous or the most most wellknown of uh JP 2's work not these particular essays but I mean this area of expansion of how um you know we have Theology of the Body but we also have these sorts of philosophical Reflections on the family marriage and the sexual act from a personalist standpoint that uh I think come up more so for Catholics especially in marriage prep and and uh just thinking about that from uh going off from what uh John Paul II has left for us so this is something that

in general I think the the bigger points are known but there are still areas of course for expansion and you know this is something that uh I think of course is highly relevant today um especially in Western societies at large in the western world uh the family is something that from our perspective as Catholics is coming under attack and there's a lot of confusion now from our perspective on uh so-called gender Norms um there's the gender ideology of the day uh there's confusion and sexual ethics uh regarding matters of contraception um even monogamy is something

that has been challenged as of late uh and just you know relations being exclusive to men and women or between men and women you know these are things that are all uh coming under Fire as it were in contemporary uh Western societies so this is something that uh and I know I have some friends um that work in this area uh precisely because of that that point so this is something that um some take particular interest in I I think because of the current context of things that uh requires us to maybe take these matters

a little bit more seriously or look at them a little bit more closely than we would have in the past where because I think we had for a long time these kind of vestages of Christian culture and um a more unified culture in in that regard maybe these things were not as prevalent or as felt in the culture uh as far as um you know Divergent sexual paths or however you want to call it I mean these were things that would have existed in the fringes before but now for various reasons but I think the

biggest one being the shift away from uh Christianity at the at the core of culture as well as the shift away from uh unity in culture where now there's uh diversity from all different sorts it's open the door as it were to um a lack of cohesion uh as far as ethics goes in politics leaving room for all these various different Lifestyles right and uh in a democratic context you know we're falling prey to what um Plato talked about in his own critique against democracy that you have all these Divergent paths but if you lose

sight of the one true good or Unity uh in basis of the good then um you you end up with this kind of chaotic anarchic state where uh different citizens are pulling in different directions as far as their own particular good but there's no coherence good that would unite all of them or no way within the Democracy to say that one is better than the other so that's just some context for uh let's say the the current problem as it were uh for us and why this would be relevant why uh jp2 even in his

own time would focus on this problem uh or at least recognize the need for further clarity in our age to give um a more robust defense of these things or account of these things not simply from a theological standpoint but from a philosophical standpoint too which I think is important because uh if you were just limiting yourself to the theological answer that's good within house so to speak for Catholics so you can talk about Theology of the Body and there's a lot of Truth there there's a lot to gain from that but it's hard to

communicate that to someone who is not Catholic in spite of the fact that of course we're talking about something that would uh be of universal benefit because it pertains to human nature so that's the advantage at least that we have as philosophers that uh since we don't have to rely on premises based from Revelation you know we can make use of natural reason and and kind of limit ourselves to some extent within that field in such a way that we can talk about these things things uh without having to require the other person to share

at least in our our faith because we're just using or trying to use premises um within the scope of natural reason as far as natural reason will allow so I think there's a lot of need for that from philosophers in particular to make a defense of these things because of course when we hear uh in contemporary circles that uh you know these are religious questions or that you can only limit the answer to religion and so these different Lifestyles or whatever you want these are things that are the result of uh different religious views simply

but if we had a way to address these things philosophically then all of a sudden uh we could have a real conversation between people where it would not be limited to well this is you know this person's saying this because he's coming from from a Catholic perspective and if I'm not Catholic then I guess it doesn't apply to me um that's the problem that we're struggling up against but uh philosophy at least offers us a way a path in this regard um again to address these concerns without having to fall into that problem so I

think this is what um jp2 is conscious of like I said and why it's important to go down this direction to figure out exactly what what it would be that domistic personal adds that uh we didn't already have in classical philosophy because it's not as though these matters were either unknown or untreated to uh premodern philosophers of course that's not the case but there is going to be an element that the consideration of the person through personalism right adds to the equation uh and adds to what we had from this classical aristan or ttic natural

account of these things so I think to start off uh let's do a little brief survey or summary of just what that natural basis would be on the horizontal level let's say and then we can transition into the personalist aspect and see well what is it that that part adds uh to that foundation so let's say for the natural account um let's go back now to uh premodern philosophy and think well how would Aristotle Plato or Thomas how would the the Pagan philosophers as well as the Christians in the Middle Ages how would they address

these matters and ethics in common and I think that the key thing to remember is that for premodern ethics um you always be begin with human nature which I think has to be the first step it has to be the first necessary step to cling to something that is static and Universal in that sense um so that you can derive your view of virtue and the good uh particularly the the human good I mean specifically you can derive that from the solid foundation that you have of human nature itself and so you're going to go

back to figuring out this again this solid uh view of human nature and of course one of the things that is a property of human nature is that you have uh two Sexes um male and female and that procreation must occur between a male and a female just by by Nature you know that's a property of our uh particular animal nature so as you might imagine then uh the classical view of nature is that nature always asks for an end and if we begin ethics by having this Foundation of human nature as a principle then

as you can imagine uh given that this is a reality by Nature then by Nature uh the sexual act must be between only men and women just from this natural perspective that that is to act in keeping or in harmony with nature and this is basically what virtue is in the abstract sense virtue is always acting in this premodern sense in a way that is fulfilling of nature itself it is acting in harmony with our nature and to act viciously is to act against our nature so that would be the basic starting point for the

horizontal level and uh I think that you could probably make an argument along similar lines um for a monogamous relationship um in so far as you take into account natural limitations and this is something that I think would be um trickier to do without uh including the personal ass angle that I I think really you know really drives this point further but if we're not doing that yet and if we're just thinking about this from a natural standpoint I think that the argument that you would have to make would be that um it is the

perhaps best way as far as efficiency goes and I think based on that argument from efficiency you could make an argument for that not only is it is it useful let's say to limit yourself in that way uh to one spouse and the rearing of the children that come from that one relationship but uh that this is intentional for human nature because of our limitations that it's in other words you'd have to make this argument where it would be efficient because precisely because of the fact that this is what our nature is best suited for

and if our nature is best suited for that kind of relationship um with simply one spouse then that would imply that that would be the most virtuous kind of relationship as it is most in keeping with our our basic nature so that's a little bit harder to do uh but I think that would be the the basic direction that you would go again keeping with this kind of premodern mindset um other than that uh as far as the political overlap um even the the Greeks would recognize that uh as far as virtue is concerned it

requires a good upbringing so in so far as uh the citizens must be virtuous to secure the common good right in other words if you have a vicious citizenry if the people are bad then that's going to have an effect on the polus at large I mean this is going back to Plato's Republic and the polus as a reflection of the individual man and human nature itself well in in any case uh keeping that in the back of our head we could see how you could make an argument for the necessity of a healthy family

um in order to secure the common good for the state at large I think that would be their their bigger concern or the the polus at large I should say and I think with that in mind going back to to let's say a kind of naturalistic argument for monogamy you could probably bring that in as well and say that that because you need uh to be able to raise children up in virtue um not just for their own sake let's say fulfilling natural law for the family but also for the sake of the polus then

uh it seems like the best way to secure that would be to have that one family structure so that you could devote as parents all your attention on uh your own kids within that relationship as opposed to having to split your time um the only the only way that I suppose an objection that might pop up is what if you had a polygamous situation within one household and I think there um the naturalistic argument would be something like well but there um the result of a different Union and so this this is something that would

likely be a source of Discord uh just as this happens in natural Society among people just different Clans as it were so this is the kind of mindset that we have for uh let's say premodern ethics again so I'm I'm purposely trying to avoid bringing in uh personalism because I I want us to consider then how can we add to this Foundation I I guess another thing I I'm thinking of here um to expand on on that kind of naturalistic side would be um so we've talked so far about marriage uh children really the last

point with this would be to bring in natural law and indeed one of the precepts of natural law that we have with aquinus as he expresses is to uh to procreate essentially and to raise those children that's that's a duty that is known and given as a principle of natural law itself so this is something that's very basic to human nature and uh human relations so the key point to all of this is that the common denominator between all of these views about sexual morality is it's it's very simple really it it all just goes

back to function and human nature and if it if it doesn't fulfill that function if it's outside of that function then it's not uh they they wouldn't really consider it they wouldn't really talk about it in the sense that uh anything that lies outside of those boundaries is purposeless and therefore uh it's not aiding in any way or not fulfilling in any way for human nature so it's understood based on that in a positive sense so so not so much saying well this is wrong this is wrong rather um let's look at Human Nature first

consider the function and and the the role within that uh and from that you get this positive foundation for um the traditional family and let's say your traditional ethics and mores between men and women so um that's the the premodern uh version of this in a nutshell so what we're going to do next now having a brief survey of that in the back of our head now we're going to transition into personalism to consider how a philosophy of the person would add to that kind of objective level Foundation