PHIL 200 Lecture Notes - Human Sexuality
12 Jun 2018
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If the act of penetration is a disappointment, then why insist that it "is the moment of union and the
realization that we have won the other"? "Won," indeed.
The biomedical ethicist Timothy Murphy has proffered the idea that sex, whether straight or gay, "is
a rich and fertile language for discovering and articulating the meanings of human life"6- as if English
or Hungarian weren't good enough, or even better, for that purpose. Sex as a rich and fertile
language precisely for"articulating the meanings of human life.
" What makes Murphy think he is advancing our understanding of sex, or the philosophy of sex, by
describing sex in such overblown and pretentious terms? Come on, guy, get a hold of yourself: sex is
most of the time just fornicating or plain sex, whether it is straight or gay, nothing metaphysically or
linguistically finer than that.
Scruton is myopic is focusing on sex in this regard.
The contrast between our virtuous The Fundamentals of the Philosophy of Sex xix and vicious
impulses can force itself upon our consciousness just as often, perhaps more strongly, and
frequently with more disastrous consequences, in matters of politics, ambition, and money.
Please do not take my sarcasm all that seriously.
What I mostly want to urge is that the reader should take much of what is written about sexuality
with a grain of salt, including this introduction and the essays that have been collected together in
this anthology.
Try to approach the philosophy of sex, even when it seems to be at its most intense and threatening,
with a light heart and a willingness to poke holes in bubbles.
Now let us get down to the business of the philosophy of sex.
What do all these various things have in common? All are related in various ways to the vast domain
of human sexuality.
That is, they are related, on the one hand, to the human desires and activities that involve the search
for and attainment of sexual pleasure or satisfaction and, on the other hand, to the human desires
and activities that involve the creation of new human beings.
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