Sexual Ethics

Examines the sexual beliefs and practices of different religions, cultures, genders, and relationships to propose a modern-day framework on the topic that is more focused on love rather than sex.

In this biblically grounded study, Stanley Grenz synthesizes theology, ethics, and current medical research to offer an evangelical perspective on the profound role that sexuality does, and should, play in our lives today. He calls for Christians to live a biblical sexual ethic in the contemporary world, at the same calling on the church to recognize that its mandate includes being a reconciling community, one that proclaims God's grace to all.

Two principles capture the essence of the Catholic tradition on sexual ethics: that each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life, and that any human genital act must occur within the framework of marriage. In the Catholic tradition, moral sexual activity is institutionalized within the confines of marriage and procreation, and sexual morality is marital morality. But theologians Todd Salzman and Michael Lawler contend that there is a disconnect between many of the Church’s absolute sexual norms and other theological and intellectual developments explicitly recognized and endorsed in the Catholic tradition, especially since the Second Vatican Council. These developments include the shift from a primary static worldview to a historically conscious worldview, one that recognizes reality as dynamic, evolving, changing, and particular. By employing such a historically conscious worldview, alternative claims about the moral legitimacy of controversial topics such as contraception, artificial reproduction, and homosexual marriage can faithfully emerge within a Catholic context. Convinced of the central role that love, desire, and fertility play in a human life, and also in the life of Christian discipleship, the authors propose an understanding of sexuality that leads to the enhancement of human sexual relationships and flourishing. This comprehensive introduction to Catholic sexual ethics—complete with thought-provoking study questions at the end of each chapter—will be sure to stimulate dialogue about sexual morality between Catholic laity, theologians, and the hierarchy. Anyone seeking a credible and informed Catholic sexual ethic will welcome this potentially revolutionary book.

Luce Irigaray (1932-) is the foremost thinker on sexual difference of our times. In An Ethics of Sexual Difference Irigaray speaks out against many feminists by pursuing questions of sexual difference, arguing that all thought and language is gendered and that there can therefore be no neutral thought. Examining major philosophers, such as Plato, Spinoza and Levinas, with a series of meditations on the female experience, she advocates new philosophies through which women can develop a distinctly female space and a "love of self". It is an essential feminist text and a major contribution to our thinking about language.

Many people today believe that the traditional Catholic view of sex is antiquated, unrealistic, and potentially harmful. In Catholic Sexual Morality, Dr. Robert Fastiggi asks whether the permissive sexual attitude of today’s culture is really contributing to deeper love, better relationships, and true happiness for men, women, children, and families. He begins with the example of St. Augustine who recognized he was a slave to lust and in need of true freedom. Fastiggi then examines the foundations for Catholic sexual morality in Scripture, reason, and human experience. The hope is that people will realize that the Catholic Church is not “against sex” but sees sexual intimacy as something so beautiful and life-giving that it requires the stability of marriage for its true and rightful expression. Catholic Sexual Morality is grounded in the belief that the church’s teachings on sex correspond to God’s plan for human happiness. These teachings are challenging, and the church understands how easy it is to fail in sexual matters. God’s mercy, however, is more powerful than human weakness and sin. This book explains the reasons why the Catholic Church teaches as she does on matters such as pornography, masturbation, fornication, adultery, contraception, divorce, and homosexual acts. It presents these teachings in a realistic way with full recognition of the reasons why people reject them. The ultimate desire is to help people understand that Catholic sexual morality is not a creation of church leaders but a response to what God has made known to us in Sacred Scripture and the natural law. In a world filled with infidelity, divorce, wounded children, and broken hearts, the wisdom of traditional Catholic sexual morality deserves a more sympathetic view—not just because it is Catholic but because it is true.

Previous ed. entered under Lawler, Ronald David, 1926-.

This collection features essays from top experts in ethics and philosophy of love that offer varying perspectives on the value of a contemporary secular virtue of chastity. The virtue of chastity has traditionally been portrayed as an excellent personal disposition concerning the ideal ordering of sexual desire such that the person desires that which is actually good for both the self and others affected by his or her sexual desires and actions. Yet, for roughly the past half century chastity has been increasingly portrayed as an unnecessary ideal with few secular benefits that could not be otherwise obtained. Instead, chastity is sometimes portrayed as an odd kind of religious asceticism with few secular benefits. The essays in this volume ask whether there may be advantages to reconsidering a contemporary virtue of chastity. A recovered and reconceptualized concept of chastity can offer partial solutions to problems associated with externalized sexual desire, including sweeping patterns of sexual harassment, the high divorce/relationship-failure rate, and widespread pornography use. Sexual Ethics in a Secular Age will appeal to researchers and advanced students interested in the philosophy of sex and love, virtue ethics, and philosophical accounts of secularity.

This important philosophical reflection on love and sexuality from a broadly Christian perspective is aimed at philosophers, theologians, and educated Christian readers. Alexander R. Pruss focuses on foundational questions on the nature of romantic love and on controversial questions in sexual ethics on the basis of the fundamental idea that romantic love pursues union of two persons as one body. One Body begins with an account, inspired by St. Thomas Aquinas, of the general nature of love as constituted by components of goodwill, appreciation, and unitiveness. Different forms of love, such as parental, collegial, filial, friendly, fraternal, or romantic, Pruss argues, differ primarily not in terms of goodwill or appreciation but in terms of the kind of union that is sought. Pruss examines romantic love as distinguished from other kinds of love by a focus on a particular kind of union, a deep union as one body achieved through the joint biological striving of the sort involved in reproduction. Taking the account of the union that romantic love seeks as a foundation, the book considers the nature of marriage and applies its account to controversial ethical questions, such as the connection between love, sex, and commitment and the moral issues involving contraception, same-sex activity, and reproductive technology. With philosophical rigor and sophistication, Pruss provides carefully argued answers to controversial questions in Christian sexual ethics.