All posts by kielkopf1

About kielkopf1

I am Professor philosophy (emeritus) of the Ohio State University. I am blogging to promote a book on sexual moral philosophy and to develop further themes not fully developed in the book. I live in Columbus, Ohio with my wife Marge. My three sons: Charles P., Mark S. and Andrew J. live in Columbus. My daughter Judy lives in Rhode Island while my daughter Susan lives in Fresno, CA. My wife and I are daily Mass goers at our Catholic parish: Immaculate Conception. Marge is an active Lay Cistercian and I am very active in the works of the Society of St. Vincent dePaul.

The Conceptualism Used in Kielkopf’s in Confronting Sexual Nihilism Solves the Classical Problem of Universals

Conceptual skepticism

This post is a sketch of the skeptical view of the meaning of words and phrases which I use in my book. I claim no originality for this view. I have acquired it from a forty year career in academic philosophy through study of Wittgenstein, Quine, Kripe, Rorty et al.. These people may not agree with exactly what I hold and have expressed its various components better than I express them.

The gist of the view is that people determine what words mean in conversation . Here “conversation” is used broadly. It covers what people write as well as speak and refers to both current and remembered conversation. There is no realm of meanings which people can inspect to determine the truth of what we say about the meaning of terms. If questions about meaning are settled, they are settled by agreement in conversation. If no agreement upon a truth claim about meaning, the claim is neither true nor false. This view is about truth claims about meanings; not about truth claims in general.There may be a reality beyond our speaking and thinking to determine the truth of what we say when we are not talking about the meaning of terms.

Call truth claims about meaning semantical truth claims.

I call this view “skeptical conceptualism.” I call it “conceptualism” to link it with the classical problem of universals. It is a view on general terms or concepts such as “harm.” It proposes that a concept is what people produce in their thinking and speaking, viz.,. conversation. Conceptualism holds that concepts are conceptualizing. It is skeptical by virtue of leaving open the possibility of indetermined claims about meaning.

I honestly think that this conceptualism solves the classical problem of universals by satisfactorily clarifying conceptualism. The price of the solution is what here is called conceptual skepticism.

Skeptical conceptualism at first glance seems trivial. It seems to maintain only that people given meaning to terms which have no meaning apart from that given them by people. However,a bit of reflection shows us that we cannot arbitrarily change the meaning of terms. At least not as individuals. Wittgenstein famously pointed out the difficulty in trying to make “cold” mean “hot.” Even at the communal level, it is hard to change meanings. Most likely legal decisions about the permissibility of same-sex marriage will not change what we mean by marriage. People will simply go on to talk of homo-sexual marriage and hetro-sexual marriage with an insinuation that hetro-sexual is what is really meant by marriage. So, at least a felt objectivity about the meaning of terms places an obstacle against a claim that it is a mere truism. Also there are difficulties in trying to make a clear separation between truth claims about meaning and other kinds of truth claims. Once you accept that truth claims about meaning are settled, if at all, by conversation, there are arguments, too complicated for this post, that seem to require accepting that all truth claims are settled by conversation. A hint of such an argument comes from a demand that we have to determine what “agreement with reality” means if we say that truth is agreement with reality.

The point of this post amongst my blog posts is to explain the status of many of my blog posts. In many of my posts I am engaging in a conversation, with unknown participants, about the meaning of terms. A clear example of this is in my post Penance : Fulfillment of Our Obligation to Express Moral Wrath. There I plea that many terms such as penance and retribution should be give meaning in our moral framework.

So I am arguing about the meaning of terms. But these arguments are important because it is with use of terms that we make truth claims about topics different from meaning. It may turn out that there is not agreement about the meaning of terms in some disputes. When this conceptual disagreement occurs, there will not be agreement about which non-semantical truth claims can be asserted.

A rough summary of the above is: All definitions are ad hoc working definitions.

Conceptual skepticism is a fundamental feature of the philosophical methodology used in my book on sexual morality.

My book arguing that sexual neutrality leads to nihilism is 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. The publisher’s listed price is $26.99. Printed copies can be purchased here by credit card for $12.99, plus $3.71 for shipping and handling.





To purchase the printed book by check, send check of $16.70 per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.
Columbus, Ohio 43214
Include your shipping address.

On Ohio State’s “Consent is Sexy” Posters

Character Morality, Moral philosophy

As an emeritus faculty member, I regularly swim and work out in The Ohio State University’s Recreation and Physical Activity Center (RPAC). At Ohio State, and throughout the country, there is serious concern about the problem of frequent, to put it mildly, less than fully consensual sexual activity amongst university students. Posters in RPAC proclaiming “Consent is Sexy” address the concern. One poster showing the heads and bare shoulders of an attractive couple looking into each other’s eyes tells us “When you look into each other’s eyes and see that you really want each other, now, that’s sexy!” On another we read “When you both tell each other what you want to do, now, that’s hot!”

I came to Ohio State in the early sixties as an assistant professor of philosophy In those days, the university explicitly accepted the role in loco parentis in governing student life in accordance with middle class morality. Indeed, I once served as a chaperone at a student dance! In the sixties the sexual revolution was beginning. In the second decade of the twenty first century, the revolutionaries are in control. They are finding that it is far easier to control public opinion than the strong sexual inclinations they have unleashed. The sexual morality of the revolution is no longer revolutionary. It is middle class morality. With words “sexy” and “hot” in the “Consent is sexy” posters, the university in its in loco parentis capacity is preaching the new permissive sexual morality. The new morality is preached not only to students. During Parent/Student orientation, RPAC is proudly shown to both parents and students. With the word “consent” the revolutionaries are conceding that the new sexual morality has not produced a garden of earthly delights.

These posters and the new sexual morality make me sad. Middle class morality is telling its children that this is what your life is all about and it is not much: getting pleasure. Your sexual inclinations are too strong for you to avoid promiscuity but at least we can avoid coercion and give you moresexual pleasure thereby.

There is a sexual morality at work here! By implication coercive sexual acts are morally condemned and hot sexy consensual acts are extolled as a great human good not to be inhibited and actively sought. Call hot sexy consensual acts voluptuous.

I argue in my Confronting Sexual Nihilism for a fundamental principle of traditional sexual morality which, is obviously, contrary to the new progressive morality. I am assuming that the typical sexual activity celebrated in the posters is between university students who are not married to each other nor committed to a long term relation. What might be a fundamental principle for sexual morality which would morally justify, and indeed celebrate, these acts because consensual? A statement of this principle which could be the principle underlying these progressive moral judgments might lead to questioning of these judgments by those accepting the “Consent is Sexy” sexual morality. The principle will seem so obviously wrong about the significance of human sexuality.

I write of a principle which could underly these progressive moral judgments. I use ‘could’ because particular moral judgments may not be based on any principle and a variety of principles could lead to the same judgment. But I want to propose a line of thought that leads to the progressive judgments and which is a very plausible principle if you think about morality being to promote what could be called the natural end of a system. (If you are uninterested in philosophical reasoning, skip down to Formulation of the Progressive Principle.

To uncover this fundamental principle, I shall stipulate a distinction between ‘function’ and ‘purpose’ to mark ‘function’ as a descriptive term and ‘purpose’ as a moral term. Human sexuality is that wide variety of behaviors constituting human courting, mating and bonding which a behavioral zoologist “from another planet” would pick out as the human reproductive behavior.

Human sexuality has several functions, or conditions it regularly brings about. Let us focus on three. Of course, one function is to lead men and women through courtship to mate for procreation and bond monogamously for care of the children and mutual support. In my book, I take the moral stance that this parental function is the purpose of human sexuality. I pay little attention to it here.

Another function of sexuality typically leads men and women, but not necessarily men and women, to form those intense relatively long-lived bonding relations we call ‘being in love.’ I cannot add anything to that complicated and incomplete answer to “what is this thing called love?” except to say that a fundamental moral stance about sexuality is to hold that the purpose of sexuality is to produce, promote and protect romantic love. Let us here note romantic love as a possible purpose of sexuality as a reminder that there are alternatives to procreation and parenting vs. genital sexual pleasure as the purpose of sexuality.

A third function of sexuality is to produce those unforced hot, sexy,viz., voluptuous matings, but not necessarily heterosexual, extolled in Ohio State’s “Consent is Sexy” posters.

To regard a function F of a system S as the purpose P of S is to hold that S and other systems are to be used to promote P and that no systems, especially not S, are to be used to inhibit P.

What would it mean to regard procreation and parenting as the purpose of sexuality? It would mean that we should control our sexuality to promote them and should not use our sexuality, especially in its functions of producing pleasure and love, to work against procreation and parenting. Of course, when pursuit of pleasure and romance promote procreation and parenting, they are to be encouraged. The progressive stance regards voluptuous matings as the purpose of sexuality. What principle follows from the progressive stance?

Fomulation of the progressive principle: we ought to promote voluptuous matings and not let any other function of sexuality such as love or marriage stand in their way. Of course, when love or marriage happen to go along with voluptuous sex, that is good fortune.

Why did the awareness that these peak sexual experiences were being promoted as the purpose of sexuality make me sad? There are costs associated with promotion of these hot sexy matings. There is need for contraceptives and education in their use along with backup abortion services. Constant vigilance needs to be exercised so that opportunities for these matings do not slide into occasions for less than consensual sex. Most of all, though, it was because a person’s sexuality is inseparable from who and what that person is. These posters, with their underlying sexual morality, are telling students that the best in their lives are short lived periods of intense sexual pleasure and that is not much. Girls are boy toys and boys are studs.

In my book, I argue that this trivialization of sexuality for young people when generalized to hold for all people leads to nihilism. See below how to purchase my book.

My book arguing that sexual neutrality leads to nihilism is 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. The publisher’s listed price is $26.99. Printed copies can be purchased here by credit card for $12.99, plus $3.71 for shipping and handling.





To purchase the printed book by check, send check of $16.70 per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.
Columbus, Ohio 43214
Include your shipping address.

A Subtle Maxim of Infidelity

Character Morality, Moral philosophy

In my book Confronting Sexual Nihilism, I suggest that there could be six fundamental principles for sexual morality. Sexuality has three components: courting, mating and bonding. I propose that men and women might have different fundamental principles for each component of sexuality. I focus on the fundamental principle of male mating. The basic male mating principle held that a man should not intentionally seek to have an orgasm, viz., disperse sperm, except in the vagina of a woman to he whom is bound in a lifetime commitment to care for her and any children resulting from that discharge. I really think that women need to formulate a fundamental principle concerning what a woman may intend to accomplish and what she ought never intend to accomplish through an act of sexual intercourse.However, I am not so convinced that men and women need separate principles for their sexual bonding.
In this post, I assume that men and women share a common bonding principle which is well expressed in traditional Catholic marriage vows. After stating the bonding principle by transforming the wedding promises into moral commands, I will apply the principle to a moral issue in a marriage.

In the principle the female terms can replace the male terms as appropriate.

She is your lawful wife, you will be true to her in good times and bad, in sickness and in health, you will love her and honor her until death parts you.

Obviously the principle condemns acts of marital infidelity and the personal policies or maxims in accordance with which the person chooses to commit the infidelity. Frequently, these maxims are rationalizations such as when my wife is sick I am entitled to some sexual relief. In sexual infidelity, both the act and the maxim are clearly wrong.

But let us consider a more subtle case. Suppose that a couple have been married twenty seven years and have been sexually faithful all those years. They have three children: Two daughters in their twenties and one son still in high school. The high school student received a speeding ticket, told his father and his father paid the $160.00 fine. The father and son agreed not to tell his mother. The mother would display much anger and demand that the boy have his driving privileges taken away for at three months. The husband desiring “peace and quiet” in the house which would result from his wife scolding and his son sulking. Also he does not want to arrange for alternative transportation to his son’s high school to which the boy drives.

Now the act of not telling his wife is no violation of his wedding vows. I do not think the act of not telling even violates fundamental principles about truth telling as long as he would be prepared to say what happened if directly asked by his wife. He would not say what is not true although he hopes not to say everything which is true.

But we look at his maxim and character we find dangerous moral flaws. His maxim is something such as: I may let my wife be deceived about something she would want to know about because her knowledge would be inconvenient for me. This maxim is inconsistent with his wedding promise. He is open to being untrue to her and letting her be deceived by being in ignorance is not honoring her. His marital fidelity is morally flawed without ever having “cheated on his wife”.

I hope this example shows the value of the moral theory I develop in my book in which moral judgment involves judging the acts we choose as well as the personal policies on the basis of which we choose them.
My book arguing that sexual neutrality leads to nihilism is 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. The publisher’s listed price is $26.99. Printed copies can be purchased here by credit card for $12.99, plus $3.71 for shipping and handling.





To purchase the printed book by check, send check of $16.70 per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.
Columbus, Ohio 43214
Include your shipping address.

Same Sex Marriage and National Decline

Book promotion, Critique of gay-marriage, Moral philosophy

On June 26, 2015, the US Supreme Court ruled that the states of the United States must issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. This court decision expresses a view of sexual morality which has long been held by many moral philosophers and is now held by a large number, if not a majority, in Western societies. This view is that by themselves no sexual acts are morally forbidden. The morality of a sexual act is determined by asexual features such as whether or not there was proper consent. But apart from these external features there is no morally wrong way to attain a sexual satisfaction and there is no morally wrong way to develop our sexuality. If homosexuality can be celebrated, nothing sexual is, in principle, off limits. I call this “the moral neutrality of sexuality” as well as “sexual nihilism.” Use of “moral neutrality” is self-explanatory. Use of “sexual nihilism” is explained below.

Because of the prominence of the United States and because the court declared same sex marriage to be a constitutional right, we can say that the moral neutrality of sexuality is the standard sexual in Western societies. Acceptance of the moral neutrality of sexuality is not a rejection of all restraints on sexual behavior. Prohibitions against rape, sexual activity with very young children, etc. stay in place because they do non-sexual damage. Nonetheless acceptance of the moral neutrality of sexuality is dangerous because it leads to full nihilism.

I use “nihilism” to mean “everything is permitted” as Ivan Karamazov expressed it. If everything is permitted, nothing matters. Sexual nihilism is a specific form of nihilism: “everything sexual is permitted.” It is not obvious that sexual nihilism leads to the complete despair of nihilism. So, I have written a book to show that sexual nihilism, indeed, leads to full nihilism. So, I am distressed by my highest court’ s ruling that turns my country on the path to the despair and ultimate failure as a civiliation.

My book arguing that sexual neutrality leads to nihilism is 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. The publisher’s listed price is $26.99. Printed copies can be purchased here by credit card for $12.99, plus $3.71 for shipping and handling.





To purchase the printed book by check, send check of $16.70 per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.
Columbus, Ohio 43214
Include your shipping address.

Male Sexuality and the Problem of Evil

Philosophical Theology, Religious morality

In my book Confronting Sexual Nihilism, it is necessary to recognize the enormous amount of evil connected with sexuality; especially male sexuality. I do not use religious beliefs to support my arguments for the fundamental moral principle restricting male sexuality. However, I want my stance on sexual morality to be able to be enhanced by a Catholic Christian outlook. Hence, I would face the question of how there could be evil in the creation of an all-good, all-powerful and all-knowing God. I do not stop to consider the problem in the book because it would be a distraction from my secular argument and of most importance people who want to maintain a religious outlook should not try to solve the problem of evil.

Consider my argument for the above thesis

1.If you think and feel religiously, then you recognize the enormous evil and disorder in the world, cannot understand why it occurs and feel seriously disturbed by its occurrence.

2. If you develop an adequate theodicy, then you can understand why the enormous evil and disorder occurs.
(Theodicy is a name for a theory on why there is evil in God’s creation.)

So (3) If you solve the problem of evil, then you cease to think and feel religiously.

The mysterious of evil is a necessary condition for religious thinking and feeling. Trying to remove the mysteriousness of evil is try to secularize oneself.

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. The publisher’s listed price is $26.99. Printed copies can be purchased here by credit card for $12.99, plus $3.71 for shipping and handling.





To purchase the printed book by check, send check of $16.70 per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.
Columbus, Ohio 43214
Include your shipping address.

Penance : Fulfillment of Our Obligation to Express Moral Wrath

Character Morality, Moral Harm and Moral Worth, Moral philosophy

This post is a criticism and development of my previous two posts on penance.
February 16, 2015: Penance: Pain as a Scapegoat Which Carries Away Moral Evil
February 24, 2015:Penance: Guilt, Shame, Self-Loathing as Penitential Pain

In those posts, I interpreted penance as self inflicted pain to make up for and restore oneself after commission of a moral wrong. An act of masturbation was the example of an immoral act so that there would be no issues of compensating other people. Four dimensions of making up for and restoring were noted. Restitution was inflicting a pain to pay for an immorally attained satisfaction. This could be a simple fast of skipping a meal. Rehabilitation was inflicting pain so that by becoming accustomed to enduring dissatisfaction aesonould be less likely to subcumb to temptations to seek immoral satisfactions.Again a simple fast could be an example of penance. Deterrence was inflicting pain with a threat to inflict it again if we pursued the immoral satisfaction. Taking a cold shower with threats of subsequent cold showers is an example of a deterring penance. My focus was on the retributive dimension of penance. Retribution is the most difficult dimension for which to articulate a motivation even if in some people the need for it is strongly felt.

In retribution we inflict a pain to represent to ourselves our moral evil, i.e., breaking a moral law, as physical or mental damage. This physical or mental damage intentionally connected with the moral damage can be called punishment. Punishment is always a physical or mental pain. Punishment is imposed for moral reasons but the punishment itself is factual (empirical) not moral. Penance is self-inflicted punishment.With recovery from the connected factual damage the moral damage is cleansed or healed. The factual damage becomes a “scapegoat” which carries away the moral damage.

Perhaps my account of retributive penance accounts for why some, or even many, people do punish themselves for immoral behavior with a hard to articulate sense that it makes them clean or healthy again. But an account of why some people punish themselves does not justify their doing so and certainly does not give support to a claim that this type of retributive punishment is what we ought to do.. Now my goal is to make a case that we ought to perform retributive penance.

Why ought connect factual damage with moral damage by inflicting factual damage on an offender because of his moral damage? If we do not accept a prescription for conduct as a command coming from ourselves in which we both think and feel that factual damage be imposed on violators we do not accept it as a moral law. Thinking and feeling that factual damage be imposed on violators simply because they violated a moral law is moral wrath. Genuine acceptance of what we think ought to be requires internalizing the prescription. Internalizing a prescription requires feeling that it ought to be followed because what it commands is right. This feeling that it ought to be followed because it is right has as a complementary feeling a sense that a violator ought to be damaged in some factual way simply because he did not act as he ought. Acting on this moral wrath is retribution. In retribution we do not seek to accomplish anything by imposition of the damage beyond striking back after violation of the law. To be sure, as noted above, in inflicting damage after a violation, we may hope to accomplish restitution, rehabilitation and deterrence. But retribution is simply to express the obligation to react negatively to violations of a moral law we have internalized, viz., genuinely accepted.

Penance, then, is retribution inflicted on ourselves for our own violations of morality. As the wounds from our self-inflicted moral wrath heal, we often have a sense of being healed or cleansed.

My thoughts about penance, forgiveness etc., come from my emphasis on sexual immorality as producing moral harm in my book Confronting Sexual Nihilism .
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. The publisher’s listed price is $26.99. Printed copies can be purchased here by credit card for $12.99, plus $3.71 for shipping and handling.





To purchase the printed book by check, send check of $16.70 per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.
Columbus, Ohio 43214
Include your shipping address.

Penance: Guilt, Shame, Self-Loathing as Penitential Pain

Moral Harm and Moral Worth, Moral philosophy, Sexual morality

This post elaborates on my February 16 Post: Penance: Pain as a Scapegoat Which Carries Away Moral Evil in two ways. First, I advocate mental pain as the proper penitential pain. Second, I bring out more of the theory rationalizing inflicting pain on yourself to cleanse yourself from a moral stain or heal yourself of a moral wound.

In my previous post, I suggested interpreting penance as a way of cleansing or healing ourselves for moral damage we inflicted upon ourselves by a wrong such as masturbation which in no clear way does any tangible damage to our bodies or anyone else’s body. My suggestion was that we inflict some tangible damage on ourselves. Penance as cleansing or healing works by linking the moral wrong with a tangible wrong which will heal. The healing tangible wound is taking away the moral harm with which it has been linked. We are morally cleansed because the moral wrong in us has gone away insofar as it was a type of wound in us. However, the moral wrong is still formerly – “on paper” – in our history until it is forgiven.

Forgiveness is another topic. Penance may be necessary for forgiveness but I do not think penance is sufficient for forgiveness

What kind of pain is a suitable penance for victimless sexual immoralities; especially masturbation? As suggested by the Lenten texts from Joel: “Rend your heart; not your garments” the pain should be interior – in the mind. Mental pain is tangible – guilt, shame and self-loathing are felt. Let yourself feel these pains by not giving yourself any excuses. Of course, as in any important endeavor, good judgment is needed to know when to “go one with your life” and let the mental pain and moral wound heal.

Why, though, inflict pain on ourselves so that it can become a wound which is supposed to take away a moral wound? Here I need to sketch out thoughts on the reasons for punishment.

One reason for punishment is restitution. I am not writing of penance as restitution. I am not thinking of penance being the infliction of some tangible damage to ourself as a way of paying back for a satisfaction immorally attained. For instance, the pay back for the pleasure of masturbation might be a cold shower. On this model the pain is paired with the illegitimate pleasure and then the pleasure-pain pair is neutralized. Such a model may be useful for understanding some dimensions of penance. But that is not the dimension which I am trying to understand. Here I am struggling with a belief that penance is appropriate to make myself cleaner or healthier after committing a moral wrong. I try bring myself back to my moral status I had before the immoral act. The restitution model does not seem to me to bring out making myself healthy after committing a moral wrong. It is too impersonal. Restitution brings our making the situation better. What can fairly be labeled a retribution model of penance brings out that penance is supposed to make me better by somehow removing the moral damage I brought upon myself. This is different from a rehabilitation model of penance where penance is to build my character. The retribution model is also different from a deterrence model. On a deterrence model, the masturbator would inflict some pain on himself after masturbating and threaten to inflict that pain on himself every time he masturbated. Cold showers might be his choice of deterrent.

Restitution, rehabilitation and deterrence are all important dimensions of penance. They are forward looking dimensions of penance. They aim at making the person or situation better in the future. Retribution is backward looking. In retribution we go back in our history to clean or heal a wound we suffered. We are trying to bring ourselves status quo ante.

My thoughts about penance, forgiveness etc., come from my emphasis on sexual immorality as producing moral harm in my book Confronting Sexual Nihilism .
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. The publisher’s listed price is $26.99. Printed copies can be purchased here by credit card for $12.99, plus $3.71 for shipping and handling.





To purchase the printed book by check, send check of $16.70 per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.
Columbus, Ohio 43214
Include your shipping address.

Penance: Pain as a Scapegoat Which Carries Away Moral Evil

Moral Harm and Moral Worth

At the beginning of Lent 2015, it is appropriate to reflect on penance. I hope to clarify my thought that penance is choosing an inclination frustration – pain- to remove or cleanse from oneself a negative feature or stain on oneself which resulted choosing an immoral act.

Since these blog posts are on sexual morality, let us consider the point of doing penance for sexual immorality. The focus is on an act of male masturbation. The act itself has no significant consequences in the world outside the man who masturbated. I do not want to be distracted by consideration of needs to restore some damage done by the act. Also I do not want to consider penance as a either a way of building strength of character or a way of somehow deterring oneself from masturbating again. Penance may strengthen character and be a deterrent. However, I hope to clarify a thought and feeling that somehow penance cleanses a person from a morally evil condition he has produced in himself

An immoral sexual act is bipartite. Both parts are immoralities One part is the act performed. In masturbation this part is the self-stimulation to orgasm. The other part is self inflicted moral damage in the person who chose the wrong act. The moral damage or moral evil is whatever it is in the person which now justifies passing the judgment upon him: He is now a man who chooses to do what is wrong to gain a sexual inclination satisfaction.

This moral damage seems nebulous, intangible and invisible. How can it be removed?

Nothing can be done to remove the past choice to masturbate for an inclination satisfaction. Nothing can remove the fact that he had enjoyed the inclination satisfaction which is now gone. However, the point of penance is to cancel out that wrongly gained inclination satisfaction by inflicting on oneself a greater inclination frustration. Choosing to connect an overriding inclination frustration with the wrongly chosen inclination satisfaction transforms the moral damage into complex condition of moral evil connected with a balancing natural or non-moral evil. This complex of moral and natural evil is not so nebulous. It is certainly tangible if not visible. Because of its natural component this complex can fade away with time as the natural pain of frustration diminishes.

Penance is a “scapegoat.” The penitential pain attaches to the moral evil and as the pain fades way so does the moral evil it carries with it.

I introduce my thoughts on moral evil in my book Confronting Sexual Nihilism

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. The publisher’s listed price is $26.99. Printed copies can be purchased here by credit card for $12.99, plus $3.71 for shipping and handling.





To purchase the printed book by check, send check of $16.70 per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.
Columbus, Ohio 43214
Include your shipping address.

Married couples are not individuals in the courting pool?

Critique of Birth Control, Sexual morality

I highly recommend Robert Reilly’s Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior Is Changing Everything, Ignatius Press, 2014. Subsequent posts will likely use themes from his well written but unsettling account of how moral acceptance of homosexuality is corrupting our country. Despite my endorsement, I may seem negative by examining his suggestions that acceptance of contraception for married couples lead to “making Gay Okay.”
I refer to my Kindle edition. So, there are no page references.

About 83% of the way through his book, locations 3696-3703, Reilly traces today’s endorsement of gay-marriage back to the Anglican church’s limited acceptance of birth control at its 1930 Lambeth Conference. Reilly wrote: “Contraception used to be proscribed, then it was prescribed, and now it has become almost obligatory in the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act, which proposes to penalize employers who do not provide it, along with abortifacients and sterilization procedures, to their employees with fines of $100 per worker per day. I only wish there were survivors from the 1930 Lambeth Conference – which first endorsed a limited use of contraceptives- who might be forced to attend the Gay Pride events and officiate at same-sex “marriages”, so they could dwell upon what they hath wrought. Just as there is no such thing as being a little bit pregnant, there is no such thing as a little compromise on moral principles…”

The relevant resolutions of the Anglican bishops in 1930 are readily available. They give a very weak and vague permission for married couples to have sexual intercourse with the intent of preventing that intercourse from resulting in conception. Visit: http://www.lambethconference.org/resolutions/1930/1930-15.cfm Look at resolutions 8 to 20 on marriage and sex; especially 15. Today they would be considered ultra-conservative. The bishops thought that sale of contraceptives such as condoms should be illegal.

In location 3693, Reilly quipped: “As mentioned before, first came contraception and the embrace of no-fault divorce. Once sex was detached from diapers, the rest became more or less inevitable.”

In locations 1496-1501, he highlighted a few steps in a line of reasoning. “The separation of sex from procreation logically leads to the legalization of contraception, then to abortion, and finally to homosexual marriage and beyond. The logic is compelling, in fact, inescapable. Only the premise is insane.”

Is the line of reasoning compelling? What are the intermediate steps? What is the first premise? Is it insane? Such careful questioning of the suggested line of reasoning is a long and difficult logical analysis most suitable for a philosophy journal. Here, I will only consider two versions of a first premise separating sex from procreation. There are many, many ways of stating principles granting moral permission to separate sex from procreation.
The first version is a “strong” premise. This strong first premise plausibly leads to all else which Reilly mentions. Then I will express a weak version of separating sex from procreation which does not, without some special assumptions about the moral significance of marriage, directly lead to the moral permissibility of all the sexual activity to which Reilly alludes.
The strong moral separability of sex from procreation specifies:
Whether or not the pursuit of sexual satisfaction can lead to conception is irrelevant to the moral evaluation of that pursuit of sexual satisfaction.

This strong version is basically the progressive stance on sexuality which is the main target of my book. The stance is that pursuit of sexual satisfaction is to be evaluated by general rules for protection of life and property. Roughly: It’s OK as long as it does not hurt anyone. It legitimatizes sex outside of marriage, masturbation, homosexuality and sex with animals for those so inclined. Abortion requires a few more assumptions to be justified because, after all, a human at some stage of human life is killed. The progressive stance is the dominant stance in our culture.

I argue against the progressive stance by pointing out how its trivialization of sex by separating sex from procreation leads to a view that human life is insignificant, viz., nihilism. Is holding a nihilist outlook, even implicitly, insane?
The weak premise applies to married couples. I regard marriage as between one man and one woman in a union paradigmatically for the procreation and development of children. The weak premise is my restatement of the 1930 Lambeth Resolution.

The weak moral separability of marital sex from procreation specifies:
On occasion for reasons of health or finances, a married couple may pursue sexual satisfaction with each other although they take steps to insure that the satisfaction cannot, or is very unlikely, to lead to conception.
Here by “take steps” I refer to mechanical or chemical intervention to reduce significantly the probability of coitus resulting in fertilization. I call these interventions “artificial birth control.” Withdrawal, use of a condom or intrauterine shield are mechanical means. A sterilization operation is not a type of mechanical method under consideration here. Various birth control pills which are not abortifacients are chemical means for this discussion.

Logic alone does not extend a permission granted to a subset of the population to the whole population. Indeed thinking that logic extends such a permission is to commit a fallacy of composition.I.e., thinking what is true of a part is true of the whole. Of course, sometimes what is true of a part is true of the whole. Is a married couple a subpopulation which has special moral privileges? This question, provoked by Reilly leads me to reconsider the birth control issue. So, the permissiveness in the general population do not follow by logic alone from permissibility of separating occasionally mating, coitus, from possibility of conception amongst married couples.

What should be said about the morality of a married couple practicing artificial birth control? In Confronting Sexual Nihilism my Chapter VIII focused on the issue. , I raise a consideration that leads me to continue to give the birth control issue careful scrutiny. The consideration is that a married couple forms a special unit in the human pool for courting, mating and bonding. Maybe the stance of the book was somewhat inaccurate because it did not take seriously enough that a married couple has special sexual moral obligations and privileges which they do not have as individuals.

The principle of sexual morality for which I argued in Confronting Sexual Nihilism is far from a complete sexual morality. It is only a principle restricting males’ pursuit of orgasms, viz., sperm dispersal. It restricted a man to seeking orgasms only in a sexual act which could lead to conception with a women to whom he was bound by a life-long commitment to care for her and any children resulting from his acts. I called the restriction: The Paternal Principle. There is much more to sexual morality than the Paternal Principle. For instance, there are proper ways to court and bond. And, of course, there is the whole realm of principles for female sexuality.

In my book I regarded the courting pool as the sexually mature individuals who courted, bonded and mated i.e., had sexual intercourse. I regarded all men and women as in the courting pool and sexual morality as the rules for people in the courting pool. I did not pay attention to status differences within the pool. Marriage gives a man and a woman special status in the courting pool. They have the privilege of sexual intercourse with one another. They have the privilege of others being severely restricted from courting, bonding or mating with them. But they are severely restricted from courting or bonding with others. They are strictly forbidden to mate with others.

Do these pairs form units for which there are some special moral obligations and privileges apart from those for individuals? There are external rules for the pairs in relationship to other pairs and individuals. For instance, as noted above, they are morally protected from outsiders seriously courting them; let alone mating with them. There could be internal sexual rules for the married individuals with their marriage which they would not have as individuals. For instance, it might be sexually immoral for a married man to abstain from sexual relations with his wife for a long period for some religious reasons. Internal marital morality, conjugal chastity, is of concern for discussion of birth control.

The gist of my argument that artificial birth control is immoral for a married couple is that the practice subverts the foundation of their marriage. Marriage has it special privileges and obligations because it is the institution for using coitus for reproduction. Separating coitus from reproduction undermines that foundation as I argue in Ch. VIII of my book.

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. The publisher’s listed price is $26.99. Printed copies can be purchased here by credit card for $12.99, plus $3.71 for shipping and handling.





To purchase the printed book by check, send check of $16.70 per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.
Columbus, Ohio 43214
Include your shipping address.

Gradualism of the Law and “Eucharistic ” Water Stops

Catholic Sacraments and Sexual Morality

This post builds on an earlier post Gradualism of the Law and Catholic Practice. In that post I proposed using the sacraments of Reconciliation and The Eucharist to help a married man practicing birth control by coitus interruptus to form an intention to stop the practice. He would receive Absolution and be eligible for reception of The Eucharistic without an intention to stop the practice. Under current practice, Absolution is not given without an intention to stop an immoral practice. From my experience as a marathon runner, I would like to suggest a model for rationalizing giving Absolution to someone who is not yet willing to profess having an intention never againto violate the moral law in question.

Frequently in marathon running after fifteen miles or so, the temptation to drop out of the race is very strong. When this temptation arises one might say to himself, or a companion so tempted, that there should be no thoughts of dropping out or completing the race until the next water stop. (Usually water and energy drink stations are at every two or three miles.) You can always make it to the next water stop. Maybe at the next water stop thoughts about the whole race can be entertained. But for now think only of staying on the course until the next stop. On occasion I have completed marathons by going from “water stop to water stop.” I have never dropped out of a marathon and have completed 175 full marathons. Other people have told me that they completed marathons by following my advice to go from water stop to water stop. Don’t think about the whole course.

Here is how this lesson from marathon running could be applied to getting Absolution and receiving the Eucharist. The confessor would ask the man practicing coitus interruptus to refrain from sexual intercourse with his wife until after receiving the Eucharist. Perhaps this would be on the Sunday immediately following Confession on Saturday. He would have the intention not to commit this sin for this short period of time and would leave undetermined what he would do afterwards. Maybe after receiving the Eucharist this Sunday, he would have the strength to refrain another week or day if he were able to attend daily Mass.

This model of having short term intentions to refrain from violating a law with an openness to extending that term after reception of the Eucharist can readily be extended to other cases for gradually practicing Catholic conjugal chastity. But Catholic moral and sacramental theologians would need to investigate the intelligibility and admissibility of such short term and incomplete intentions.

This post augments Chapter VIII on Birth Control in my book Confronting Sexual Nihilism . 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. The publisher’s listed price is $26.99. Printed copies can be purchased here by credit card for $12.99, plus $3.71 for shipping and handling.





To purchase the printed book by check, send check of $16.70 per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.
Columbus, Ohio 43214
Include your shipping address.