Sexual morality: Is consent enough?

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 4 (3):201-218 (2001)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The liberal view that valid consent is sufficient for a sex act to be morally legitimate is challenged by three major philosophies of sex: the Catholic view of sex as ordained for procreation and properly confined to marriage, the romantic view of sex as bound up with love, and the radical feminist analysis of sex in our society as part and parcel of the domination of women by men. I take a critical look at all three, focusing on Mary Geach''s recent statement of the procreation view, Roger Scruton''s theory of sexual desire as naturally evolving into intimacy and love, and several radical feminist discussions of sex in sexist society which argue that the notion of consent is unhelpful and, indeed, irrelevant. I argue that none of these lines of argument is convincing, and that consent remains the touchstone of morally permissible sex – although, dmittedly, it may not be very helpful in discussing ideals of human sexuality.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The ethics of sexual objectification: Autonomy and consent.Patricia Marino - 2008 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 51 (4):345 – 364.
Dark desires.Seiriol Morgan - 2003 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 6 (4):377-410.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
438 (#39,911)

6 months
16 (#108,849)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

A Phenomenological Approach to Sexual Consent.Ellie Anderson - 2022 - Feminist Philosophy Quarterly 8 (2).
Sex and Sexuality.Raja Halwani - 2018 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Traditional Morality and Sacred Values.David McPherson - 2017 - Analyse & Kritik 39 (1):41-62.
Dark desires.Seiriol Morgan - 2003 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 6 (4):377-410.
Gelungener Sex.Almut Kristine V. Wedelstaedt - 2020 - Zeitschrift für Praktische Philosophie 7 (1):103-132.

View all 16 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Toward a Feminist Theory of the State.Catharine A. MacKinnon - 1989 - Law and Philosophy 10 (4):447-452.

Add more references