RELG 271 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Deontological Ethics, Immanence, Virtue Ethics
23 Jun 2018
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Human fragility and sex
-Luther’s 95 theses (Wittenberg, 1517)
*-“Chastity (sexual holiness) is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. There is no getting
away from it: the Christian rule is, ‘either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or
else total abstinence.’”
-Pierre Trudeau: “there’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.. what’s done in
private between adults doesn’t concern the criminal code”
-Trudeau to reporters on the decriminalization of homosexuals acts (1967)
-Trudeau speaking as an informed Catholic
-Pope Leo XII: “the idea, then, that civil government should, at its own discretion, penetrate and
pervade the family and the household is a great and pernicious mistake” (authority and
governance)
-Aristotelian family theory: “the first form of association naturally instituted for the satisfaction of
daily recurrent needs is thus the family”
-Zoon politikon: human beings are political animals not only with the relationship with the state
but with the basic foundational unit, the family
-Response to plato’s “what if” - plato’s ideas would lead to better order in part because nobody
belonged to anyone. Aristotle thought it was ridiculous and said if we went with plato’s ideas
there would be more conflict. Connection between parent and child: natural impulse toward
multiplication
-State and family fundamental: to society to administer the common good. The development of
children.
-Natural impulse toward multiplication
-Martha Nussbaum: “as with religion in the early days of the republic, so with sex today: many
people view the practices of some of their fellow citizens with profound aversion. But they ought
to respect the practitioners as their equals; respecting them as their equals, they should
conclude that it is wrong to deny them the chance to search for meaning in their own way”
-Groups will inhibit individuals
-There is a range of ways people pursue a good life and how it relates to sexual activity/
relationships. People should be able to pursue that in their own ways. What is the reason
religions are against homosexuality? because they are disgusted by the acts.
-John Stuart Mill: “but the true virtue of human beings is fitness to live together as equals… the
family is a school of despotism.. the family, justly constituted, would be the real school of the
virtues of freedom”
-Freedom: the capacity to formulate what a good life looks like
-Early liberal way of freedom: the capacity to fill a social form (the capacity to avoid sin)
-Freedom - power to act, to fulfill a vocation that was set for us, to be pious or righteous
-Charles Malik: “the claims of the state have a tendency to dictate to people what they ought to
think, what they ought to do, what even they ought to believe and hope for, concerning
themselves and the nature of things. The political state is becoming increasingly determinant of
the very beginning of the person, and it does it by it’s law, by psychological pressure, by
economic pressure, by every possible means of propaganda and social pressure”
-What is a family and marriage? what the state says it is. Fear that the state will shape us
-Trudeau lead charge to overturn the criminal law he found unjust
-1955: civil marriage act is changed. The union of two persons (not a man and a women)
-Bruce Macdougal “sites of discourse”: “three main sites away from the beginning site of
condemnation: compassion, condonation, and celebration”. To have full legal equality within a
society, members of a (minority) group need: 1) to be free from discrimination (compassion): 2)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
*- chastity (sexual holiness) is the most unpopular of the christian virtues. There is no getting away from it: the christian rule is, either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence. " . Pierre trudeau: there"s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation what"s done in private between adults doesn"t concern the criminal code . Trudeau to reporters on the decriminalization of homosexuals acts (1967) Pope leo xii: the idea, then, that civil government should, at its own discretion, penetrate and pervade the family and the household is a great and pernicious mistake (authority and governance) Aristotelian family theory: the rst form of association naturally instituted for the satisfaction of daily recurrent needs is thus the family . Zoon politikon: human beings are political animals not only with the relationship with the state but with the basic foundational unit, the family.
