PHIL 200 Chapter 8: Contraception Methods - Philosophy of Sex
15 Jun 2018
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PHIL 200 – Chapter 8 - Contraception
Methods of contraception are by now so familiar and so widely used that it is not necessary
to dwell upon the changes wrought by these developments in the concept of sex itself and in
a rational sexual ethic dependent upon that concept.
In the past, the ever present possibility of children rendered the concepts of sex and sexual
morality different from those required at present.
There may be good reasons, if the presence and care of both mother and father are
beneficial to children, for restricting reproduction to marriage.
Insofar as society has a legitimate role in protecting children's interests, it may be justified in
giving marriage a legal status, although this question is complicated by the fact that children
born to single mothers deserve no penalties.
In any case, the point here is simply that these questions are irrelevant at the present time to
those regarding the morality of sex and its potential social regulation.
It is obvious that the desire for sex is not necessarily a desire to reproduce, that the
psychological manifestation has become, if it were not always, distinct from its biological
roots.
There are many parallels, as previously mentioned, with other natural functions.
Despite the obvious parallel with sex, there is still a tendency for many to think that sex acts
which can be reproductive are, if not more moral or less immoral, at least more natural.
These categories of morality and "Naturalness," or normality, are not to be identified with
each other, as will be argued below, and neither is applicable to sex by virtue of its
connection to reproduction.
The tendency to identify reproduction as the conceptually connected end of sex is most
prevalent now in the pronouncements of the Catholic church.
There the assumed analysis is clearly tied to a restrictive sexual morality according to which
acts become immoral and unnatural when they are not oriented towards reproduction, a
morality which has independent roots in the Christian sexual ethic as it derives from Paul.
The means-end analysis fails to generate a consistent sexual ethic: homosexual and oral-
genital sex is condemned while kissing or caressing, acts equally unlikely to lead in
themselves to fertilization, even when properly characterized as sexual according to our
definition, are not.
III Before discussing further relations of means-end analyses to false or inconsistent sexual
ethics and concepts of perversion, I turn to other examples of these analyses.
One common position views sex as essentially Plain Sex 43 an expression of love or
affection between the partners.
It is generally recognized that there are other types of love besides sexual, but sex itself is
taken as an expression of one type, sometimes termed "Romantic" love.1 Various factors
again ought to weaken this identification.
Document Summary
In the past, the ever present possibility of children rendered the concepts of sex and sexual morality different from those required at present. There may be good reasons, if the presence and care of both mother and father are beneficial to children, for restricting reproduction to marriage. Insofar as society has a legitimate role in protecting children"s interests, it may be justified in giving marriage a legal status, although this question is complicated by the fact that children born to single mothers deserve no penalties. In any case, the point here is simply that these questions are irrelevant at the present time to those regarding the morality of sex and its potential social regulation. It is obvious that the desire for sex is not necessarily a desire to reproduce, that the psychological manifestation has become, if it were not always, distinct from its biological roots. There are many parallels, as previously mentioned, with other natural functions.
