Purgatorial Suffering

Authoritarian Morality, Moral philosophy

I return to expounding authoritarian morality by introducing a very useful term “purgatorial suffering.”

A crucial notion in authoritarian morality* is “moral harm.” Moral harm is the mental or physical harm which ought to occur as a consequence of violation of a moral law. Moral harm is the sanction for the moral law. Hence, when a moral law is violated the moral authority issues a new specific moral prescription. This specific moral prescription is that some harm ought to happen because of the violation. In the case of so-called social or sins of unjust structures no definite individuals can be identified as the violators. But here let us think of violations for which a definite individual is the violator.There is no claim that the moral authority actively inflicts the prescribed suffering.The harm prescribed is for purgatorial suffering.

There is no claim that the moral authority actively inflicts the prescribed suffering. Infliction of the suffering may be turned over to us.** And the suffering prescribed may never occur.

Purgatorial suffering is an apt term because the specific norm requiring suffering for the violator is removed as the suffering goes on. The specific prescription is fulfilled when the prescribed suffering has occurred. The moral order is purged from the ad hoc prescription of punishment. The violator is purged from the condemnation of the specific moral norm prescribing his suffering. He is cleansed from condemnation.

Seriously, I am uncovering the basic thoughts behind ordinary notions of retributive punishment and pleas or prayers for mercy from the moral authority. It is thought that the moral authority can set aside or forgive some of the prescribed suffering. One of my goals is to uncover basic thoughts in ordinary moral thought

Purgatorial suffering can be internal and external or physical. Guilt and shame are examples of internal purgatorial suffering. Disease or loss of a job could be external purgatorial suffering.

Mental or physical suffering does not need to be interpreted or accepted as suffering prescribed for a violations to be purgatorial. Consider a comparison with criminal law. If a man serves a five year sentence as retributive punishment for his crime, he has fulfilled the prescription of the judge who sentenced him and has “paid his debt to society” regardless of whether or not he accepted his suffering as justified.

In subsequent posts, I need to explore how moral character is purged from bad character traits by proper responses to purgatorial suffering. This will connect purgatorial suffering with concepts such as repentance, mercy and forgiveness. In this post, I focus on purgatorial suffering and violations of what we ought to do; not with purgatorial suffering and how we ought to be – moral character.

Primarily purgatorial suffering is for a violation of what has happened. It is not for bringing about some good in the future. However, purgatorial suffering can be linked with accomplishment of some future good by being accepted as an occasion for character building

*Core Concepts of Authoritarian Morality
**See Virtue of Taking Retribution

Religious Dimension of COVID-19 War

Religious morality

This post presents a suggestion for forming hypotheses about human religiosity as a significant causal factor in the social phenomena of the Spring 2020 global war on the COVID-19 virus. There is no suggestion that the global response is primarily religious. Primary causes are to be sought in fear of sickness and death coupled with past experience of infectious disease.

I wish insightful students of religiosity such as Emil Durkheim,( The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, 1912, William James(The Varieties of Religious Experience 1902) or Mary Douglas (Purity and Danger, 1966 were alive to formulate such hypotheses.

Of course, there is a null hypothesis that religiosity is an insignificant factor. But there is no need to make suggestions for formulating a null hypothesis.

My suggestion is based on the fact that similar measures are being taken by provincial and municipal officials throughout the entire world. The uniformity and haste is surprising. Usually when international experts gather in forums to discuss global problems nothing happens quickly.

Globalization and the internet forced on us a sense of being a single community although a dysfunctional community. A community forms a Durkheimian religion by representing itself as some object or situation. That object or situation becomes its totem. The totem is sacred or holy. Various rituals developed to protect or honor its totem provide a sense of protecting or honoring the community. That which damages or threatens the totem is taboo, unclean and unholy. Threats to the totem provide an opportunity for its community to feel strength and solidarity by protecting its totem.

The COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity for the new global community to express itself and feel solidarity. My suggestion is that human religiosity uses the pandemic as an occasion for expressing itself. Religiosity does not create the pandemic. It transforms health into a totem.

Perhaps in the convoluted ways of religious representation health may be represented by the face mask and, then, the face mask becomes the totem.

The threat is COVID-19. COVID-19 is unholy -the taboo. The taboo is everywhere. It may be on anyone of us without our knowing about it. Heavy economic sacrifices and ritual behavior such as social distancing can be taken as ways of protecting the totem by purifying us from the taboo.

I stop now commenting on the COVID-19 crisis because I am not a sociologist. But if anyone ever reads my blog posts, this suggestion might be worth considering.

Our Global War Against Coronavirus Pandemic Is Sacrificial Worship to An Idol

On the Nature of Satan, Philosophical Theology

We commit idolatry when we take a finite thing as a supreme being. In the global war against the covid-19 virus we have taken health as the supreme being. Health is our idol. Suppression of liberties, creation of poverty, destruction of civil society and locking places of worship are all supposedly justified by simply saying “this is to protect health.” Leaders all over the globe believe health is requiring them to require uncalculated great sacrifices, especially from the less fortunate, for an indefinite time.

Health offers us nothing of lasting value. With death we all lose health. With health as god, there is nothing after death. That is nihilism.

The global war against the coronavirus pandemic is a battle to make nihilism the religion of the world. Who, or what, is leading the forces in this battle? It is world-wide. We cannot specify any person, agency or government. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that something which wills the destruction of all that is good, which is to will there be nothing at all, is deceiving the hearts and minds of leaders, by means of apparently good intentions, to mislead everyone to worship it. Satan is that which wills there be nothing at all – total death.

More than fearing the flu, we should be living with fear and trembling that Satan will win by establishing nihilism as the dominant world religion with health as its idol through whom we worship him.

Why the Modest Goal of Moral Apologetics?

Against moral neutrality of sexuality, Book promotion, Moral philosophy

In my previous post I wrote the following about the purpose of making a case making a case for a moral principle commanding what could accurately be labeled “Traditional Catholic Sexual Morality.

“We seek assent, even if grudgingly granted to our rationality and decency along with assenting to the claim that the principle we are defending is not irrational. Seeking that type of assent for a moral principle can properly be called moral apologetics.”

Why do I take such a humble stance? I satisfy myself with moral apologetics because of the community I hope to reach. I a addressing the secular, or de facto secular, community of progressive and dominant opinion on sexual morality in the early twenty first century.

This dominant opinion forming community accepts, explicitly or implicitly, the moral neutrality of sexuality. Those who hold this view hold that in principle no sexual act is morally wrong. Immoral sexual acts, if any, are determined by the circumstances in which the act is performed, the intentions of the actors and the consequences of the act.

Amongst progressives the moral neutrality of sexuality is regarded as almost self-evident. I have set myself the task of confronting the dominant view on sexual morality with arguments to dislodge any assumption of self evidence and prerogative of moral decency for the moral neutrality of sexuality.

In my book I made clear that my goal was moral apologetics to contemporary secular society. Unfortunately, my book has probably never been read; let alone reviewed.

My book Confronting Sexual Nihilism: Traditional Sexual Morality as an Antidote to Nihilism was released by Tate Publishing on March 11, 2014. See Book Web Page for information about the book. See Ch. I in which I explicitly acknowledge that my goal is moral apologetics. Free copies can be obtained here by credit card by paying $3.75 for shipping and handling.





To receive a free book, send check of $3.75 for shipping and handling per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
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Moral Apologetics

Book promotion, Moral philosophy

I have browsed in a little bit of John Henry Newman’s reflections on proving principles. Back in January in Why Justify a Moral Principle I noted that I needed to look at some of what Newman wrote about giving arguments for principles. He puts well what I think about the effectiveness of arguments for principles as a way of getting people to assent to the principle. I agree that arguments are not the way to get the assent of most, if any body’s. Probably the more rigorous the argument, the less effective it is for obtaining assent at the time of presentation.

However, I should have realized from logical considerations alone that even the best argument for a moral principle- a proof- cannot establish a moral principle as a command a person internalizes as an obligation. A proof of a moral principle establishes a fact about the moral principle! A proof establishes at best: It IS the case that one OUGHT to X. From what IS the case there is a logical gap between “This IS an obligation” and “I OUGHT to obey.”

But deeper than the logical gap is the psychological gap reflected linguistically by a linguistic mood change from indicative mood to imperative mood. A proof allows one to say in the indicative mood “You ought to do X.” is proved. An additional thought and sentiment is required to accept an obligation to do X by dropping “is proved” and accepting the imperative to me “You ought to do X!

This subtle point can be made in another way by distinguishing the assent to a principle as true and assenting to an imperative as coming from a valid authority. Assent to the command of an authority is not obtained by any proof that the authority gave the command but by receiving the command from the authority.

Nonetheless proving, or making a good case, that a command comes from the moral authority – or whatever the source of morality may be is important for clear thinking about morality.

So the purpose of developing an argument for a moral principle is to place in public reasoning, viz., somehow publish, defenses against claims that assent to the principle is irrational. In making a case for traditional sexual morality, the assent we seek is assent that our arguments are logically correct i.e. free from formal and informal fallacies and based on plausible assumptions. We seek assent, even if grudgingly granted to our rationality and decency along with assenting to the claim that the principle we are defending is not irrational. Seeking that type of assent for a moral principle can properly be called moral apologetics.

So, at the risk of seeming conceited, I can write that the approach in my book to defend a fundamental principle for male sexuality was correct. Chapter IV focused on an argument for the principle whose gist I will state one more time.

A man may intentionally seek an orgasm only in coitus open to conception with a woman to whom he has a lifelong commitment to care for her and any children resulting from their intercourse.

I imagined an academic setting – a philosophy seminar- as the context in which the argument is given. Assuming an academic context made clear that there was no intention of getting popular assent. I intended only moral apologetics.

To avoid the criticisms placed against stereotypic natural law arguments, I made an empirical case for selecting our reproductive systems as needing moral control. Sexuality, as opposed to other systems, can be perverted. Then I, more or less, used traditional “perverted faculty” considerations.

I should have used considerations from “New Natural Law” theory to point out the basic human good protected by obedience to the principle. And I probably should not have introduced my idiosyncratic interpretation of Kant to provide a Kantian justification.

My book Confronting Sexual Nihilism: Traditional Sexual Morality as an Antidote to Nihilism was released by Tate Publishing on March 11, 2014. See Book Web Page for information about the book. See Ch. IV for my justification. Free copies can be obtained here by credit card by paying $3.75 for shipping and handling.





To receive a free book, send check of $3.75 for shipping and handling per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.

Pennance

Authoritarian Morality, Moral philosophy

I am in the midst of a project of showing that people who make moral judgments have, even if felt only dimly, a sentiment that some harm ought to be if a moral principle is violated. There are people who rarely make moral judgments. But if they only make moral judgments about some public policies, they make moral judgments. For instance, declaring that separating families of immigrants is a moral issue, is making a moral judgment about current practices.

I have made a case that moral judgments that a moral principle has been violated logically entail that harm ought to result because of the violation. See Moral Harm is a Moral Judgment. But now I am going further than arguing about the entailments of moral judgments. I am trying to show that people actually think and feel what their words imply.

Of course, what people actually think and feel is a question of fact. I cannot answer factual questions about social-psychology while sitting in front of my PC and imagining what I think a typical person should think and feel.

But the word “typical” I just wrote provides the clue for understanding what I am doing and its presuppositions. I am presupposing that people share a type or form which makes us what we are. In this case I am focusing on the part of the type revealed by moral language. I am, then, presupposing an innate moral psychological structure. I want to tell the truth about this innate moral psychology of the typical person. But I do not seek the truth about the innate moral psychology of the typical person by the methods of empirical science. I just think while being lead by verbal links.

There is no way to characterize most of the thinking. I cannot say that I think about the typical person where “typical” suggests average or normal. I may think of some unusual character in a novel who submits to physical suffering to cleanse himself from guilt. So, of course, be wary of what I write. To corroborate my claims, think to yourself how you and others respond to admission of moral violations. I hope these results may lead us to a better understanding of ourselves and that such understanding is good for us.

In this post I want to bring out the link between moral judgment and the sentiment that there ought to be physical suffering. In my previous post I made a case that the typical person thinks and feels that someone who violates a moral principle ought to suffer the unpleasant moral feelings of shame and guilt. See You Ought to be Ashamed of Yourself. Here I want to add that typical people think and feel that the moral feelings are insufficient harm to remove the need for harm required by moral violations. We have the notion of penance where penance is some physical discomfort to make up for a moral failing. Recall that moral violations of basic principles introduces all sorts of temporary obligations for occurrence of harm. See Moral Harm is a Moral Judgment. The quickest way to exhibit the presence of the notion of penance in the typical person is to think of someone who would like to set aside the moral outlook which holds that moral violations require harm. Think of a case of a man who cheated on his wife, felt guilty and started to pull back from hanging out with his male friends and drinking far less. He thought that it is not enough to feel guilt and shame. He had to do something. Confessing to his wife would do far more harm than good and it would not bring him cleansing pain but inflict pain on his wife. It is easy to imagine one of his companions telling him that he doesn’t have to do penance for cheating on his wife. She does not know and nobody really got hurt. But the man who cheated on his wife may very likely feel that his forgoing some pleasures somehow makes up for his betrayal. These typical men understand the notion of penance.

You Ought To Be Ashamed of Yourself!

Authoritarian Morality, Critique of gay-marriage, Moral philosophy

The point of this post is to add some support for the intelligibility of a crucial notion I have been using in my interpretation of moral thought as based on commands of a moral authority who commands, amongst other things, that some harm ought to be as a consequence of moral infractions. I have heard it said that the notion of harm as mere retribution does not make sense; it does not serve any purpose. Infliction of harm simply for a past violation does not aim at making the future any better.

Let me be clear that the position I am criticizing, is not that there should be no harm after a violation. It is admitted by all that harm should result but that it should be aimed at improving the violator and/or society.

I grant that retributive harm is pointless in the sense of “pointless” which indicates lack of a future better condition at which the occurrence of harm is supposed bring us. However, “pointless” in this sense should not be confused with “senseless” with “senseless” being interpreted as “cannot be understood” as a phrase such as “Days barked all day long.”

The notion of harm which ought to be inflicted is understood if talk of it is frequently used. For this post, the usage cited as evidence that the notion of obligatory harm as pure retribution makes sense is “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.” People with widely divergent views on what is morally wrong, converge on their usage of this phrase. Progressives tell me that I ought to be ashamed of myself for disparaging gay marriage. I tell progressives that they ought to be ashamed of themselves for promoting gay marriage.

Shame is an uncomfortable emotional state. Both progressives and I think that it makes perfectly good sense to allege that the other OUGHT to suffer this uncomfortable state simply from having the morally wrong thoughts and attitudes about same sex marriage.

There Ought to be Moral Suffering

Authoritarian Morality, Moral philosophy

In my previous post I made a great step forward in articulating the structure of what I have called authoritarian morality. Authoritarian morality is based on rules with sanctions. The sanctions specify suffering which ought to occur if the rules are violated. The thought that there ought to be some suffering is morally repugnant. For the suffering in question is not suffering as a means for some good; it is suffering for violating the law. It’s retribution. In Inconsistency in Moral think Resolved By Moral Skepticism I addressed the problem of the moral repugnance of accepting that some suffering ought to be by arguing that we need to repress that thought to have a consistent rule based morality. However, what is the suffering which ought to be?

In my efforts to find the topics which need to be addressed in making a case for a moral principle I realized that I needed to point out some good realized by obedience to the rule. I had to do more than show that obeying the principle meets some standard for acting rationally. Fortunately, there is readily available a characterization of moral thinking which shows that obedience to traditional moral rules aims at attainment of some basic human goods. This is the so-called New Natural Law Theory.

I have not yet re-developed the argument in my book* for the moral principle I call the Paternal Principle.

A man may intentionally seek an orgasm only in coitus open to conception with a woman to whom he has a lifelong commitment to care for her and any children resulting from their intercourse.

I plan to re-develop it by showing its rationality using thoughts from those working in Thomistic moral theory and that it aims at a basic human good by adapting thoughts from the New Natural Law theory on the good of marriage.

However, the main point for this blog post is that I can specify a minimum suffering which ought to be. The basic idea is that a person who violates the law ought to suffer loss of the good at which obedience to the law aims. It is difficult to specify in detail the good of obedience to the law. What, in detail, is the good of being honest? However, the structure of this suffering can be stated. I will state it for the case of a man who violates the Paternal Principle by habitual masturbation stimulated by pornography.

He ought not have any of the satisfactions of proper marital intercourse. He ought to suffer awareness that he does not deserve his satisfaction. He ought to suffer longing for proper sexual satisfaction even in a inchoate way. He ought to suffer shame from the thought that people who think rightly about sexuality think that he ought not be acting as he does.

Similar paragraphs about people who are dishonest, cruel etc., could be written. These thoughts and feelings of guilt or shame could be called moral suffering.

I must emphasize two points about moral suffering. First moral suffering is always suffering which OUGHT TO BE for violating a moral law. Moral suffering is only occasionally suffering which actually occurs upon violation of a moral law. Second, moral suffering is only a minimum suffering which ought to be. Other suffering such as physical pain or disease may always be required for violations.

However, by accepting moral suffering as a SUFFERING WHICH OUGHT TO BE, we accept retributive suffering in our moral framework.

* My book Confronting Sexual Nihilism: Traditional Sexual Morality as an Antidote to Nihilism was released by Tate Publishing on March 11, 2014. See Book Web Page for information about the book. See Ch. IV for my justification see pp. 72ff. for discussion of moral harm. Free copies can be obtained here by credit card by paying $3.75 for shipping and handling.





To receive a free book, send check of $3.75 for shipping and handling per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.

There Ought to Be Suffering

Moral Harm and Moral Worth, Moral philosophy, Sexual morality

This post interrupts the line of thought in my past several posts. That line of thought was why and how should we try to prove a moral principle. Here I return to the theme of moral harm as harm which ought to be as a result of violating a moral principle. I do not want reflections on proving a moral principle to lead me away from exploring implications of this notion of moral harm for understanding the Christian doctrine of redemption.

I review how I developed this notion of moral harm from an essay of Steven Pinker.* Then I apply it to the sensitive topic of my morally condemning homosexuality.

Pinker’s passage which led me to develop the notion of moral harm as harm which ought to be is the second “hallmark” in the following:

“The first hallmark of moralization is that the rules it invokes are felt to be universal. Prohibitions of rape and murder, for example, are felt not to be matters of local custom but to be universally and objectively warranted. The other hallmark is that people feel that those who commit immoral acts deserve to be punished. . .

we are born with a universal moral grammar that forces us to analyze human action in terms of its moral structure, with just as little awareness.”

I developed that hallmark into a thesis about a fundamental component of moral thinking, viz., if a moral law is violated harm ought to occur. I left the principle at a high level of generality. There was no specification of what the harm might be, on whom it should befall and how much. The very general thought is merely that moral principles carry sanctions. This does not mean that these subsidiary questions cannot be answered. There simply needs to be further moral thought to answer them.

Let me add here that right now I think that moral thinking contains almost no provisions for numerically measurable thinking on the quantity of harm and good.

I return to this notion of moral harm by considering its ramifications for a moral judgment I make. I think homosexual acts are morally wrong. I have argued for that position in my book**. Hence, I judge that the homosexual acts of 2020 Democrat presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg are immoral. Concomitant with that judgment is a judgment that he ought to suffer some harm for his homosexual behavior.

This thought that I ought to think that he ought to suffer some harm poses a problem for me. First, the proposal that there ought to be some suffering is repugnant. Second, I confess to not caring that Pete Buttigieg suffers. However, as I have argued in several posts, we are not serious about morality if we do not think that there ought to be unpleasant consequences for immoral behavior. Not caring whether the sanctions for violations of morality be applied is irrelevant for thinking that they ought to be applied

So, what kind of suffering do I think Pete Buttigieg ought to undergo? Not getting nominated as the 2020 Democrat candidate is a type of disappointment which is too loosely connected with his homosexual behavior to be a proper punishment.

Here is my proposal for the kind of suffering a man who has a practice of immoral sexual behavior such as: frequent masturbation, homosexual activity, fornication and adultery. From the stance I take on sexuality, proper sexual activity is confined to coitus open to conception in a lifelong monogamous marriage. Basic human goods are realized when sexuality is so confined. The harm which man who does not so confine his sexual activity ought to suffer is twofold First there is failure to attain these basic human goods along with a sense of not realizing these goods. Second, there is a realization, perhaps quite dim, that people who think properly about sexual activity judge that he ought not realize the goods of proper sexuality. Broadly speaking, he ought to suffer a sense of unworthiness, guilt and shame.

If I am right that this kind of inward moral suffering ought to occur in men who misbehave sexually, it seems reasonable that we should proclaim traditional sexual morality to facilitate occurrence of these negative moral feelings in ourselves and others when needed. Trying to post proofs of principles of traditional sexual morality is a way of proclaiming traditional sexual morality.

Mr. Butttigieg knows everything I could say. In so far as I care, my sympathies are that he does not suffer too much from the negative moral thoughts and feelings he ought to have.

* Pinker Article .

** My book Confronting Sexual Nihilism: Traditional Sexual Morality as an Antidote to Nihilism was released by Tate Publishing on March 11, 2014. See Book Web Page for information about the book. See Ch. IV for my justification see pp. 72ff. for discussion of moral harm. Free copies can be obtained here by credit card by paying $3.75 for shipping and handling.





To receive a free book, send check of $3.75 for shipping and handling per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
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Moral Argument as Kantian Universalization

Moral philosophy, Sexual morality

This post assumes some familiarity with Kant’s moral theory. However, this is not exegesis of Kant’s thought. What I write is best interpreted as going off on a tangent* from the text to develop my own thoughts from a fragment of Kant’s thought. In this case, my own thoughts are those of my past three posts: “How do we prove a moral principle?” And “What is accomplished by a proof of a moral principle?”

The fragment of Kant’s thought is his first statement of the categorical imperative in his Foundation of the Metaphysics of Morals.**

It reads: Act only on maxims which you can will to be a universal law of nature.

In my previous post I came to the conclusion that relative to certain assumptions – a stance – a proper argument for a moral principle shows that activity in accord with the principle is rational activity and that activity in accord with the principle is directed towards attaining and maintaining conditions good for human beings over and beyond the good of being rational.

In the following I write of proofs as characterized above.

My Kantian speculation is that proof of a moral principle is showing that you can will a maxim to be a universal law of nature.

Let me illustrate this speculation with the principle for male sexuality of the previous post which I call the Paternal Principle.

As a maxim or principle for personal action the Paternal Principle becomes:

I shall not intentionally seek an orgasm except in coitus open to conception with a woman to whom I am committed for life to care for her and any child resulting from the coitus.

A “Kantian” proof that a man is acting in accord with laws of morality by following this maxim would show that any man acting in accord with principle is following a principle which is part of rational activity and is part of the human good of marriage. In other words, the proof shows what a rational seeker of human good would do. Any other course of conduct, for male sexuality, would be inconsistent with being a rational seeker of human good.

As the line of thought develops, an assumption that every human being is potentially a rational seeker of human good is a crucial assumption.

In light of such a proof one can will that nature be so constructed that every man actually acts on the principle on the basis of psychological-physiological laws of nature. But one could not consistently will that some potential seeker of human good be causally determined not to realize their potential.

In a way, the line of thought is that you can not consistently say “This is the way an ideal human being would act but in fact some human is not to act that way.”

This is far from standard ways of discussing Kantian generalization. The usual approach is to inspect a generalization of a maxim itself for consistency. The approach here is to consideration of consistency only after a moral proof of a principle has been presented. The question of consistency is “In light of a proof showing certain activity is what a rational seeker of human good would do, can maxims be consistently be willed as causal laws for what a rational seeker of human good does.”

I cannot resist alluding to the four examples Kant used to illustrate his categorical imperative.
1. Suppose it was shown that humans would flourish in their commercial life if all kept promises. It cannot be consistently that in a human society of rational seekers of human good some would not keep promises.
2. Suppose it was shown that rational seekers of human good made efforts to maintain their health and life. It cannot be consistently willed that it becomes a causal law that for such beings some choose to end their lives.
3. Suppose it was shown that rational seekers of human good made efforts to develop skills. It cannot be consistently willed that it becomes a causal law that some such seekers choose to develop no skills.
4. Suppose it was shown that rational seekers of human good made efforts to cooperate to help others attain human goods. It cannot be consistent will that it becomes a causal law that some such seekers become totally uncooperative.

* I have been off on this tangent for over twenty years

I wrote a book on Kant’s moral theory and religion It is
A Kantian Condemnation of Atheistic Despair: A declaration of dependence. Peter Lang, N.Y. 1997
See pp. 200ff for remarks on Kantian moral universalization.
See pp. 170 ff of my more recent book.
Confronting Sexual Nihilism: Traditional sexual morality as an antidote to nihilism, Tate Enterprises, Oklahoma City, 2014

**handle nur nach derjenigen Maxime, durch die du zugleich wollen kanst, dass sie ein allgemeines Gesetz werde AK IV 421

Translations of Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations of Morals will have the AK edition vol. and p. # in the margins.