Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T00:46:42.365Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bringing the Body Back to Sexual Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Anne Barnhill
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The body and bodily experience make little appearance in analytic moral philosophy. This is true even of analytic sexual ethics—the one area of ethical inquiry we might have expected to give a starring role to bodily experience. I take a small step toward remedying that by identifying one way in which the bodily experience of sex is ethically significant: some of the physical actions of sex have a default expressive significance, conveying trust, affection, care, sensitivity, enjoyment, and pleasure. When people having sex don't in fact have these feelings, the sex can be misleading, even if they've antecedently communicated that they don't have these feelings. This account of how sex can mislead is inspired by a perhaps surprising source, Catholic sexual morality. Analytic sexual ethicists could benefit from emulating Catholic sexual morality's attentiveness to the bodily nature of sex and its ethical significance.

Type
Further Essays on Embodiment
Information
Hypatia , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , Winter 2013 , pp. 1 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Archard, David. 1998. Sexual consent. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Burgess‐Jackson, Keith, ed. 1999. A most detestable crime: New philosophical essays on rape. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Carl. 1969. Sex, birth control, and human life. Ethics 79 (4): 251–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Carl. 1997. Do animals have rights? Ethics and Behavior 7 (2): 91–102.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Durkin, Mary G. 1983. Feast of love: Pope John Paul II on human intimacy. Chicago: Loyola University Press.Google Scholar
Feinberg, Joel. 1986. Harm to self. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Feucht, Oscar E., Coiner, Harry G., von Rohr Sauer, Alfred, and Hansen, Paul G. 1961. Sex and the Church: A sociological, historical, and theological investigation of sex attitudes. St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia Publishing House.Google Scholar
Finnis, John. 1998. Natural law. In Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy, ed. Craig, E.London: Routledge. http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/T012 (accessed September 11, 2008).Google Scholar
Goldman, Alan. 2002. Plain sex. In The philosophy of sex, 4th ed., ed. Soble, Alan. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Grabowski, John. 2003. Sex and virtue: An introduction to sexual ethics. Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press.Google Scholar
Griswold v. Connecticut. 1965. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/rights/landmark_griswold.html (accessed November 22, 2008).Google Scholar
Gudorf, Christine. 1994. Body, sex, and pleasure: Reconstructing Christian sexual ethics. Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press.Google Scholar
Hampton, Jean. 1999. Defining wrong and defining rape. In A most detestable crime: New philosophical essays on rape, ed. Burgess‐Jackson, Keith. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hare, R. M. 1996. Why I am only a demi‐vegetarian. In Essays on bioethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Harris Interactive. 2005. The Harris Poll #78. www.harrisinteractive.com/vault/Harris-Interactive-Poll-Research-New-Finds-Different-Religious-Groups-H-2005-10.pdf (accessed February 17, 2011).Google Scholar
Herman, Barbara. 2002. Could it be worth thinking about Kant on sex and marriage? In A mind of one's own, ed. Antony, Louis and Witt, Charlotte. 2nd ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
John Paul, II. 1981. Familiaris Consortio. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_19811122_familiaris-consortio_en.html (accessed April 2, 2008).Google Scholar
John Paul, II. 1997. Theology of the body: Human love in the divine plan. Boston: Pauline Books & Media.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. 1997. Lectures on ethics, ed. and trans. Heath, Peter and Schneewind, J. B.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King James Bible. The Official King James Bible Online. http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Genesis-2-24/ (accessed February 17, 2011).Google Scholar
Kinsey, Alfred Charles, Pomeroy, Wardell B., and Eugene, Clyde. 1948. Sexual behavior in the human male. Philadelphia and London: W. B. Saunders Co.Google Scholar
Kolnai, Aurel. 2005. Sexual ethics: The meaning and foundations of sexual morality. Trans. and ed. Dunlop, Francis. Hampshire, UK: Ashgate Publishing Limited.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine. 1992. Creating the kingdom of ends: Reciprocity and responsibility in personal relations. Ethics 6: 305–32.Google Scholar
Langton, Rae. 2009. Sexual solipsism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawler, Ronald David, Boyle, Joseph M., and May, William E. 1998. Catholic sexual ethics: A summary, explanation and defense. 2nd ed. Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing.Google Scholar
Lawrence v. Texas. 2003. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/future/landmark_lawrence.html (accessed November 22, 2008).Google Scholar
Murphy, Mark. 2008. The natural law tradition in ethics. In The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, ed. Zalta, Edward N.http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/natural-law-ethics/ (accessed November 22, 2008).Google Scholar
Nagel, Thomas. 2002. Sexual perversion. In The philosophy of sex, 4th ed., ed. Soble, Alan. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Noonan, John T. Jr. 1986. Contraception: A history of its treatment by the Catholic theologians and canonists. Cambridge, Mass. and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha. 1995. Objectification. Philosophy and Public Affairs 24 (4): 249–91.Google Scholar
Painter, George. 2005. The sensibilities of our forefathers: The history of sodomy laws in the United States. Gay & Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest. http://www.glapn.org/sodomylaws/sensibilities/introduction.htm (accessed November 24, 2008).Google Scholar
Paul, VI. 1968. Humanae vitae. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html (accessed September 11, 2008).Google Scholar
Ruddick, Sara. 1984. Better sex. In Philosophy and sex, ed. Baker, Robert and Elliston, Frederick. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.Google Scholar
Salzman, Todd A., and Lawler, Michael G. 2008. The sexual person: Toward a renewed Catholic anthropology. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Scruton, Roger. 1986. Sexual desire. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Singer, Peter. 2007. All animals are equal. In Ethical theory: An anthology, ed. Schaffer‐Landau, Russ. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Smith, Janet. 1996. The Christian view of sex: A time for apologetics, not apologies. Catholic Education Research Center. http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0004.html (accessed August 15, 2008).Google Scholar
Soble, Alan. 2002. Sexual use and what to do about it: Internalist and externalist sexual ethics. In The philosophy of sex, 4th ed., ed. Soble, Alan. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Solomon, Robert. 2002. Sexual paradigms. In The philosophy of sex, 4th ed., ed. Soble, Alan. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Thomlinson, Ralph. 1972. Prevented births, naturalness, and Roman Catholic doctrine. Journal of Sex Research 8 (2): 73–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wertheimer, Alan. 1987. Coercion. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wertheimer, Alan. 1996. Exploitation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wertheimer, Alan. 2002. Consent and Sexual Relations. In The philosophy of sex, 4th ed., ed. Soble, Alan. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar