Sexual Morality & Conjugal Episodes

Critique of Birth Control, Sexual morality

The purpose of this post is to introduce a concept for discussing morally acceptable methods for birth control without moral attention to the various ways a married couple initiate, sustain and enjoy sexual arousal. Types of birth control are the sole issue for moral evaluation of the sexual behavior of a married couple. There should be no moral consideration of the touches, kisses, positions, lights on or off etc. . Matters for moral evaluation should be publically discussable. It is pornographic to lay out details of intimate behavior. Of course, such details are important for clinical discussions with a physician or psychologist if there are sexual problems such as erectile dysfunction or infertility. There are two types of birth control: Conception prevention and conception avoidance. Prevention methods such as use of condoms, diaphrams or pills are certainly abstract enough for public discussion. Similarly, avoidance methods about having sexual relations only at times when conception is highly improbable can be discussed technically by all with some basic biological knowledge.

“Conjugal episodes” is a term I propose for discussing the morality of birth control methods for a married couple. Only a married couple can have conjugal episodes. Conjugal episodes are colloquially referred to as a couples’ “making love.” “Episode” is a better term than a technical term such as “coitus” because we need consider foreplay and perhaps what happens after the man has reached a climax. I offer no precise definition of “conjugal episodes.” But a couple realizes fairly well when it starts and is finished. They are well enough defined so that they are countable. A healthy young couple could enjoy three or four during a single night. An older couple may be able to say how many episodes they enjoy in a week or month.

Married people are as individuals subject to the moral laws about adultery, masturbation and homosexuality. However, as a couple they are subject to a special moral law concerning their conjugal episodes. This additional law is balanced by the privilege of the moral neutrality of the activities in their conjugal episodes as long as none conflict with the moral law for conjugal episodes.

What is the moral law for conjugal episodes?

The fundamental moral law runs: Promote basic human goods and never intentionally inhibit a basic human good for the sake of a lesser good. Conjugal episodes are for the basic human good1 of a life-long monogamous union of a man and woman. Proceation by itself is not a basic human good; nor is male/female bonding by itself a basic human good. Definitely, the good of pleasure by itself is not a basic human good. So, the fundamental moral law applied to conjugal episodes tells us that conjugal episodes should be open to conception and enhancement of bonding and never entered into with an intention to inhibit bonding or procreation.

A clear violation of this application is a husband forcing coitus on his wife. Such a violent act is clearly done with reckless disregard for enhancement of bonding. Here, though, my topic is birthcontrol. The application of the fundamental moral law to conjugal episodes is provided in Paul VI’s 1968 Encyclical Humanae vitae – the challenging official teaching of the Catholic Church on birth control.

So, I seem not to have added anything new to the controversy about birth control methods. However, by locating the discussion about the marital sexual morality on simply the relation of conjugal episodes to unity and procreation, we can set aside attempts to evaluate morally the variety of acts a couple may perform in the course of a conjugal episode.

  1. Finnis, John. “Marriage: A Basic and Exigent Good.” The Monist, vol. 91, no. 3/4, 2008, pp. 388–406.

Freedom to be Dependent

Core philosophy, Nihilism, Ontology

Western philosophy began with a Declarations of Independence.

In the 6th century BC the Parmenides proposed “For it is the same thing that can be thought as can be.”

In the 5th century BC Protagoras proclaimed “Man is the Measure of All Things”. 

These doctrines declare that human thinking independent of a reality external to our thought, if such there be, is the ultimate authority on what there is, what is good and what is beautiful.

In Obedience vs. Autonomy, I proposed that the purpose of our lives is that for which we are free. In that post, I argued that the freedom to pursue happiness, the freedom to pursue righteousness, and the freedom to love – to will the good of the other do not provide a purpose for human life. I could have given a similar argument that the freedom to pursue truth fails to provide a purpose for human life. I concluded that a freedom to obey something external to our reason might indicate a purpose for our lives.

In this post, I want to set aside an implication that I argued that happiness, truth, righteousness, and love could not be purposes of human life. More importantly, I want to generalize the notion of obedience to dependence. Only under the assumption that reason is the ultimate authority on what is true, good or happiness, – only under the assumption of the autonomy of reason- can what we determine fail to provide a purpose for life. If we accept a reality apart from our reason upon which our reason depends for its correctness, then truth, goodness, happiness and love can be what we live for.

When Evil is Good

Freewill, Moral philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Retributive punishment

Many bibilica;l passages tell us that the suffering of Christ saved humanity from the punishment deserved for our sins. For instance, Peter 2:24

“He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. ‘By His stripes you are healed’”

How does the pain of Christ’s suffering reconcile God with humanity. Is God pleased with suffering? An authority no less than Aquinas III. 48 2 tells us that God was not pleased with the sufferings of Christ. Rather God is pleased with the great Charity of Chirst by his suffering the pain deserved for our sins. But what is it for Christ to show charity by suffering? Charity or love is willing the good of the other. It seems Christ willed immense suffering as the good for humanity. Now immense suffering is evil. So, it seems that Christ willed an evil as a good for humanity.

How can an evil be a good? An evil is a good if it ought to be. How can an evil be be something which ought to be? An evil ought to be when it is willed to be by violating a moral law. See Review of My Moral Harm Concept. Violations of moral laws create ad hoc specific moral prescriptions that some harm ought to be done. These ad hoc norms make human morality inconsistent and because of the immense amount of immorality place humanity under a moral burden that much suffering ought to be. Retributive punishment removes only a few of these ad hoc norms. So, our retributive punishments improve morality only marginally. Our efforts leave morality on the whole requiring that evil ought to be. Now ultimately evil is what ought not be. So, our current morality specifies that we ought not be. According to our current morality, if everything becomes as it ought to be, humanity ought not be.

Now, using certain theological assumptions, Christ’s suffering sufficed to satisfy every violation induced ad hoc norm obligating some harm; all of them past, present and future. This creates a new moral order for a reality when all is as it ought to be. That moral order will be fully compatible with “Do good, avoid evil.” There will be no violations to induce requirements for evil as retribution. However, it will still be a moral order for free choice because its subjects will have the free will of obedience. See Obedience vs. Autonomy

Obedience vs. Autonomy

Freewill, Realism vs. anti-realism

If there is no God whom we can obey, then life is meaningless. Why?

That for which we are free, is that which gives life meaning.1

However, if we determine that for which we are free, that which we determine cannot give life meaning. We cannot specify that which gives life meaning. Meaning must be set for us by something outside ourselves.

It is the autonomy of reason which sabotages the goals reason gives as goals for use of rational freewill. With rational freewill we have a reason for what we choose. Our autonomous reason answers only to itself as what is a proper use of reason. Hence, what reason determines to be correct is not something external to us.

To make my case I will consider only rational free will, at its best. There are three types of rational freewill. The freewill of desire, the freewill of righteousness and the freewil of love. For additional clarification of my terminology, see Agency, Ordinary Free Will, & Free Will of Love .

At its best the freewill of desire is for happiness. Of course, happiness is a poor candidate for the purpose of human existence. It is not clear what constitutes happiness and few if any attain happiness which then passes away with them. But here the point is that human reason is used to specify what happiness would be. Any candidate for happiness needs to be justified by reason.

The freewill of righteousness is the freedom to choose what is right because it is right. At its best what the freewill of righteousness is for is a good will – a will which chooses what is right because it is right. A good will cannot be what we live for. The philosopher Kant admitted that a person with a good will could be ineffective in accomplishing much good and be unhappy. But here the point is that we determine what a makes a will good because ultimately we determine what is right. Any claim that something is a duty must be acceptable to reason.

The freewill of love is to will the good of the other for the sake of the other. At its best the freewill of love is for the good of all. The freewill of love seems not to be self-centered. It might seem that the good of the others sets that for which we are free. However, choice of the good for others which is mistaken is not the freewill of love at its best. We need to use human reason to evaluate what is good for all the others. Now, in fact, programs for universal human good are usually miserable projects – for dystopias which would pass away. But here the point is that human reason is the arbitrator of what the freewill of love is for.

So, understanding the goals of rational freewill at its best, cannot show us the meaning of human life. What can? Obedience: Willing the will of the another simply because the other wills it.

Obedience is a type of freedom. For one can obey or not obey. However, it is not really a type of freewill because the will is given up. There is no act of the will of willing not to will. Becoming perfectly in harmony with what another will is allowing it to happen. In any event, the type of obedience I am writing about is not rational freewill. No reason is given to justify the choice, Indeed, finding a reason for willing as another wills would destroy what occurs as obedience. So, the obedience of an unwilling slave is not the obedience I am writing about. the unwilling slave has a reason for obeying; he does not want to be whipped. However, using our reason to lay out what is a good for a human life, does not preclude that which reason characterizes as a good for human life. It can be a goal for human life if we let the reality reason characterizes lead us regardless of the reason for it.

For the most part, this type of obedience is not valuable. We want our little children to grow to act on their own. So, we consider freedom to obey only at its best if we want to consider what it is for as giving a meaning to human life

At its best freedom of obedience is for what a perfectly good being wills. In other words freedom of obedience at its best willing what God wills. So, from this standpoint, the meaning of life is what God wills

  1. The claim is that the purpose of one of the ways in which we are free provides the purpose of our lives, if anything provides a purpose.

How Pain Atones for Sin

Contrition, Moral harm, Moral philosophy, Religious morality

In his January 18, 2026 Sermon, Bshop Robert Barron declared: “Sin Has to be Paid For.” He commented on a conviction deep in biblical sensibility that evil has to be dealt with by somehow confronting it here on earth in our daily life. Because he was preaching about the redemptive suffering of Jesus Christ, the implication is that the confronting of the evil is actually suffering the evil. He noted that forgiving a wrong by someone in a position to forgive does not fully deal with the evil. I thought of Erika Kirk forgiving the killer of her husband Charlie Kirk. What did her forgiveness accomplish? So much remains untouched. The evil of the deed is still there, she still griefs the loss of her husband, the assassin Tyler Robinson is still guilty and will suffer the legal consequences of his act. What is accomplish by way of removing evil by suffering an evil?

I answer by developing my reflections on Retributive Punishment and Moral Harm .

When Tyler Robinson chose to shoot Charlies Kirk, his justification for his action, was “this life ought to be taken.” By so choosing and acting, he added to morality a new, an ad hoc, moral rule requiring an evil, the taking of a life. It is the intentional and actual taking of the life of Charlies Kirk which which creates the ad hoc norm. The murder was a performative act because the performance of the act created something real in the moral order. Such an ad hoc prescribing harm conflicts with morality. It is a foreign element in morality.

As a reminder: there are numerous as hoc moral rules which can be carried out. A promise to repay a loan, creates an ad hoc rule which is satisfied when the loan is repaid. The promise is a performative act creating a prescription in morality

Sin is the reality in morality of an ad hoc moral rule requiring evil. The sense of sin is the dread of satisfaction of this ad hoc rule along with dread of leaving it unsatisfied.

There is so much sin in the world. Hence, much harm is required. Suffering pain is harm. Hence, a sentiment arises that personally suffering some pain satisfies some of these ad hoc norms requiring harm and thereby removing them from morality. The sentiment is that personal pain can be used to improve the human condition by at least satisfying some of the norms requiring harm to humans. This sentiment is that our pain can be used to atone for sins – our own and others.

Retribution versus the Will to Power

Moral philosophy, Nihilism, Retributive punishment

Use of moral language presupposes human dignity. See Human Dignity Requires Retribution. Any person has the status to challenge anyone who asserts “I will do it” with “You ought not do it.” With moral language the will to power can always be challenged from a higher standpoint by the will for what ought to be done. Unfortunately, the will to power frequently, if not almost always, overcomes the will for righteousness – the will for what is right. The will to power inflicts pain. The will for righteousness is left with the claim that there ought to be pain in reaction – retribution- to the actual unjustified pain.

What if all that the will for righteousness had was the claim that there ought to be pain? (Revenge is not production of the pain that ought to be. Revenge is only a contrary exercise of a will to power.) If the pains that ought to be never occurred, moral language would be only language – a way of trying to persuade people. The will to power is not only expressed in language. It is follwed up with oppression. If moral language is only a form of rhetoric, then morality is only a weak way of expressing a will to power. If moral language is only a way of expressing a will to power, there is no morality, If there is no morality, then all is permitted. Everything is permitted is an expression of nihilism. In the long run, nothing matters. The presupposition of human dignity is gone.

So, if morality is to be more than words, then all of the pain that there ought to be must occur. Why all? Pain that ought to be arises upon violation of a moral law. There is no reason for distinguish between moral laws. To be sure, morality by itself does not require pain that ought to be; only the potentiality for requiring pain as a sanction for its laws. Pain that ought to be depends upon an actual violation of a moral law. Morality as we know it, presupposes a Fall. But given violations, there is a pain that ought to be.

So, in actuality morality is fatally flawed. It categorically forbids infliction of harm; backed up with threats of inflicting harm. Harm is inflicted contrary to its laws and so harm is categorically required. Those norms requiring need to be removed to bring morality back to what it ought to be. This hope for redemption is not a concern about some abstraction called morality. If morality does no have these harm requiring norms satisfied, then morality is only words and the will to power prevails. So, the required harm -retribution- needs to be actual to have human dignity, for us to have more than nihilism as our fate and for the will to power not to prevail.

How much harm needs to be suffered for morality to overcome the will to power? An unlimited amount of suffering is required for there is no limit to the defiance of moral laws. Someone suffering unlimited harm for the sake of satisfying every moral norm requiring pain or suffering, would redeem morality and thereby redeem us by making morality the prevaling force over the will to power.

I now face the task for my next post on retribution and a redeemer.

Retribution Shows Shallowness of “Trolley Problems”

Moral harm, Moral philosophy, Retributive punishment

Some discussions in moral philosophy revolve around asking what the discussants’ intuitions tell how the questions should be answered. For instance, in a discussion about whether it is wrong to directly take the life of a terminally ill patient in pain as opposed to letting the patient die, some report that their intuitions are that the direct killing is wrong while others report their intuitions are contrary. The interminable “trolley cases” fall into this pattern. What’s the pattern? A case is invented wherein there is a forced choice between violating a standing moral rule such as: Don’t kill! Don’t lie, and bringing about an outcome with less suffering by violating the rule.

These discussions go on-and-on because many of us have intuitions supporting both sides. What are these intuitions? These inuitions are based on our innate knowledge of how to use moral language – how to think morally. I call this knowledge “semantics of moral language.” In the semantics of moral language the direct violation of a moral law is to proclaim that some harm ought to be brought about. This is the thought of retribution. So thinking of violating a moral law is to think that there ought to be some harm. Thinking that some harm ought to be brought about is prima facie not a proper way to think.. On the other hand, in the semantics of moral language thinking that some preventable suffering need not be prevennted is prima facie not a proper way to think. The invented examples do not allow for going beyond prima facie thought. The semantics of moral language will not settle the case. So these discussions continue throughout the ages.

Here my goal is not to provide a recipe for how to settle these cases. My purpose is to diagnose these continuing discussions as based on the semantics of moral language. The examples bring out that the semantics of moral language offer two alternative for what to say about the imaginary situation: “There ought to be harm.” vs. “Let there be harm.” The only feature of the actual world that will be affected by a choice of what to say will be what people think about us. I am not confident that what someone says about an imaginary scenario is a good predictor of how they choose in an actual case. Actual situations offer more alternatives for action than the semantics of moral language offer for what to say.

Human Dignity Requires Retribution

Moral harm, Moral philosophy

There is a widespread sentiment that violations of the moral law ought to be followed by some suffering. I believe that this retributive sentiment is more widespread than agreement on moral rules. This sentiment may be mocked as a superstition that there are gods of justice or furies who bring about such suffering. Or the sentiment may be despised as some hypocritical cloak of an inclination for revenge. My goal in all my posts on moral harm and retribution is to show that a belief that violations of the moral law ought to be followed by suffering can be expressed in the language of morality without reference to any non-human agents or sentiments for revenge. See Review of My Moral Harm Concept. This representation in the language of morality shows that the belief is rational. Rational does not imply correctness. But it shows that it must be countered with considerations from reason; not from mockery.

Here my goal is to sketch out how the notion of human dignity includes the notion of retribution.

A feature of moral thinking is that anyone can make a moral judgment. No social standing or power is needed to say “You are not entitled to do that to us.” If I may use the cliche “Speaking truth to power,” moral language is the language for speaking truth to power.” Whatever else is involved in human dignity, it includes this status, almost to speak as a god, of saying to everyone, everywhere and always “Thou shalt not !” “Thou shalt !” But such proclamations are empty complaints, whinning of the weak, if there are no consequences for defying them. Of course, cynics think that is all there is to moral protests from the weak. But cynics think there is no morality and the weak have no status, no dignity.

What have the weak to maintain there dignity? What force do their moral judgments have? The weak do not have the social and physical power to resist the stronger. Resistance involves at least the pain of thwarting the will of the aggressor. But the weak cannot inflict the pain of resistance in the physical world. They need to move to the moral order to maintain their dignity. The moral order contains what ought to be. In the moral order a violation of a moral rule creates a second moral rule that there ought to be pain for a violation of the first moral rule. This is the fundamental notion of retribution.

Retribution and Catholic Philosophizing

Moral philosophy, Retributive punishment

Some time ago I asked myself: What is Catholic Philosophy? My answer was:

Catholic philosophy, then, is use of philosophical methods to understand a mystery of Catholicism with the intent of at least getting partial truth about it. In Catholic philosophy scripture may be cited; but only as a motivation for dealing with the topic. It is unlikely that a non-Catholic would engage in Catholic philosophy. A non-Catholic might read through Aquinas’ arguments about the existence of angels merely to appreciate how Aquinas reasoned. You cannot read the philosophy of a Catholic philosopher without thinking philosophcally. But the philosophical thinking required to read Catholic philosophy is not by itself Catholic philosophy A Catholic philosopher is a faithful Catholic who engages in Catholic philosophy.

In several posts, I have been trying to articulate a rationale for retributive punishment. See, for instance, Retributive Punishment is Consistent with the Logic of Moral Thinking. Roughly, the notion of retributive punishment is that harm ought to be brought about simply because a moral law was broken. Trying to show that accepting retributive punishment is consistent with our current moral thinking is simply a philosophic task: not a Cathlic philosophic task. Similarly, arguing that the notion of retributive punishment is justifiable or not justifiable is philosophy: not Catholic philosophy.

I am trying to show that retributive punishment is consistent with moral thinking and that it is justifiable to retain it. So far, I am working as a philosopher. However, my motivation transforms my philosophy into Catholic philosophy. I hope to gain a better partial understanding of the Catholic doctrine that God became man so that He could suffer and die to save humanity from death. I studied the famous Cur Deus Homo? of St. Anselm. I could never be persuaded by his line of thought. Finally, I realized that to appreciate Anselm, I had to accept the intelligibility and even morality of retributive punishment. So, now I switched to Catholic philosophizing about retributive punishment. But I could have done the same kind of thinking about retribution without any Catholic motivation. Once I rationalized retributive punishment, other questions about retribution and Catholic belief arose. For instance, Is retribution required by God? and, if so, would not we have to think of God as somehow being satisfied by human suffering? These are troubling religious questions for they certainly suggest God might be some type of tyrant. So, I try to show that morality itself, in so far as it is a human construction, requires the suffering of retribution. It is we ourselves, as a moral community, who receive satisfaction from the suffering of retributive punishment. However, even these questions about who receives satisfaction from the suffering of retributive punishment could be undertaken without a religious motivation

Punishment = Retribution

Moral harm, Moral philosophy, Retributive punishment

The purpose of this post is to provide background for fighting sins with suffering and the review of the moral harm concept.

Punishment is infliction of some mental or physical harm on someone who has broken a law legal or moral. The harm inflicted is activity that without the violation of the law, ought not be done. Infliction of harm requires justification. What is the justification? The justification is ” The violator ought to suffer harm because he violated the law.” Retribution is fullfillment of this obligation to inflict harm for the violation of the law. Retribution is punishment.

But what good is accomplished by taking retribution, viz., by punishing? Retribution (punishment) fulfils the obligation to inflict harm for violation of the law. We have here a condition in which two wrongs make a right. The wrong of inflicting harm in reaction to the wrong of violating the law sets things right. However, Doing what is right does not imply making things better. Morality or legality is satisfied by punishment even if no person is satisfied by improving their lives. So, punishment may not accomplish any good.

There is , however, a reluctance to recognize obligations whose fulfilment produces no improvement in human life. Merely satisfying morality or legality is easily regarded as too abstract to be relevant to improving human life. So various goals are proposed as something good for human affairs accomplished by punishment Indeed punishment frequently attains these goals. What are some?

Deterrence: Being aware of actual punishments may frighten people into obeying the law. In general, obeying laws is good for human flourishing.

Restraint: Some types of punishment such as imprisonment may prevent people from having any oportunity to violate the law.

Reform: Some type of punishment may train offenders to be obedient to the law. The re-education is infliction of a pain in so far as it is involuntary. Here is should be noted if the reform program is enjoyed by the law breaker, there is a sense that his punishment did not fit his crime. Think of a case in which an offender truly enjoys learning a trade in rison and after release becomes a good citizen practicing his trade. Punishment should not be a so-called win-win situation. In such a case, we might say “He wasn’t really punished, even if reformed”

Restitution: Some types of punishment may improve the lives of victions of violation of the law by requiring the offender to repair damage done by his violation.

It is to the credit of human intelligence that we have worked out ways to have obligations to do harm be fulfilled in ways which also produce good. But these ways of getting good from what is done in the punishing are not punishment itself.