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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. View all posts by kielkopf1 →

Penance: Pain as a Scapegoat Which Carries Away Moral Evil

February 16, 2015Moral Harm and Moral Worthkielkopf1

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?

January 26, 2015Critique of Birth Control, Sexual moralitykielkopf1

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.

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

December 22, 2014Catholic Sacraments and Sexual Moralitykielkopf1

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.

Gradualism of the Law and Catholic Practice

November 26, 2014Catholic Sacraments and Sexual Moralitykielkopf1

This post applies some ideas from an earlier post : Gradualism of the Law in Sexual Morality. Also it assumes some familiarity with Catholic teaching about eligibility to receive the Eucharist and making a good confession.

I write as a Catholic. However, nothing I write has any standing or authority as Catholic teaching. I am speculating about using the Catholic Sacrament of Reconciliation to bring penitents gradually to conform to moral laws for correct behavior. The issue confronted is that the priest should not give Absolution if the penitent lacks an intention never again to commit the sins confessed,i.e., a firm purpose of amendment.

Consider a case of a Catholic married man who practices birth control with his wife by withdrawal – coitus interruptus. They think that they have good reason for doing so. They do not intend to stop in the forseeable future. They both know that the Church condemns this practice as gravely wrong. Neither will claim that the Church teaching is incorrect. Nonetheless neither feels that what they are doing is seriously wrong. They doubt that God would condemn them to hell for this practice as they believe He would if they committed adultery without repentance. Still both think and feel that they would be morally and relgiously better off by having unimpeded sexual intercourse and be in conformity with Church teaching. In particular they would like to enjoy receiving absolution in confession and receiving the Eucharistic without doubt that they may be receiving the Eucharist unworthily because either they have not received absolution or not confessed their practice.

Since confession is made individually and obviously the Eucharist is received individually, I will focus on the husband’s problems.

He believes that if he does not confess his practice, the priest’s absolution is ineffective for it does not apply to all his sins. If he confesses doing acts of coitus interruptus but admits that he does not intend to stop the practice, the priest under current rules should refuse absolution. If he lies about his intention to stop, his confession is sacriligious and he has compounded his moral and religious guilt. He finds no way to improve his religious and moral life through the Catholic sacraments of Confession and Communion. The obstacle is his current refusal, or inability, to form honestly an intention to try to conform to the Church’s teaching condemning his method of conception control.

Contrast his plight with a the case of a fifty year old man married to a woman of the same age. He arouses himself with pornography and regularly masturbates. His wife would like more physical contact with him and wonders why he frequently is so indifferent at his relatively young age. He realizes that he is heading towards being a “dirty old man.” He remembers that confession and communion helped him in his struggle for purity when he was a school boy. The sacraments did not totally prevent him from succumbing to temptations. But the sacraments helped him and gave him solace when he failed. Now he would like to shed his sense of decadence by returning to his school boy idealism. He can go to confession tell of his masturbation and porn viewing, genuinely say that he has an intention to stop both. Stopping both has no costs and will bring other benefits. However, both he and the priest realize that he may succumb to temptations despite the good intentions.

The genuine intention needs to involve some plans, explicit or implicit, for avoiding andovercoming temptations. A significant part of these plans might very well be frequent reception of the sacraments of confession and communion.

Here is the main theme of this Blog Post. The sacraments can and ought to be used to help a person gradually live completely in conformity with a law with which he intends to conform. Could the sacraments of confession and reception of the Eucharist be used over a period of time to help a person form an intention to conform to a law? This would be gradulism of the law. In particular, could the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist be used to help this husband practicing conception control by coitus interruptus gradually to form an intention to stop this practice in violation of Catholic teaching? Could current teaching about use of the sacraments allow this use of the sacraments? Could current teachings be slightly altered to accommodate this use of the sacraments to gradually bring people to commit themselves to obedience to the law.

My book Confronting Sexual Nihilism raises similar considerations in Chapter VIII on Birth Control.

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.

Duty is Compatible with Love

November 25, 2014Character Moralitykielkopf1

This Post interrupts my series of posts on gradualism of the law. However, it clarifies the moral theory I use in my book. This moral theory, which I call character morality, underlies what I say about gradualism.

The “Kantian” character morality which I use in my book Confronting Sexual Nihilism distinguishes between being the right kind of person and doing what is right. Being the right kind of person is being a person with good moral character. Doing what is right requires choosing the act in a situation required by the moral law specifying what ought to be done in that situation. Right action, then, requires at least implicit recognition of moral rules. The right kind of person develops maxims, or personal policies for acting, of the form of choosing the act in situations required by the rules of morality. Becoming the right kind of person requires choosing to develop maxims in accordance with the moral laws because having such maxims is the right way to be. Character, and maxims constituting good character, need to be chosen because they are right, viz., the morally right character and maxims to have. Good moral character has to be chosen for its own sake. If you choose having a good moral character for some other goal such as reputation, happiness or even heaven, you do not really have good moral character but a system of habits you would set aside if you discovered that they did not lead to that other goal.

Rather than trying further to clearly define my terms, here I hope to clarify this distinction between doing what is right and being the right kind of person by confronting a challenge that is often brought against this type of character morality. This challenge focuses on the phrase “choosing what is right because it is right.” Often the right act to perform needs to be done with some motive different from a sense of duty, i.e., choosing it because it is right.

For instance, the right act may be for me to show and share, to some extent, my wife’s interest in shopping. This moral law of sharing an interest in my wife’s interest could be traced back to some more fundamental moral principle about a spouse’s duty. But going back to first principles is not my concern here. So, I am obliged to do two kinds of acts. One kind is choosing to accompany her on particular trips with a show of interest. A second kind is to choose to do various things to develop a genuine inclination to make such trips. My duty to share her interest in shopping cannot be accomplished while having even in the back of my mind that I am doing my duty by becoming interested in the shopping trip. My duty is to become interested in the shopping directly; not to perform my duty.

These choices to go on shopping trips and develop an interest in that kind of activity rest on a policy I have adopted of trying to be a husband who does not neglect his wife. My maxim is to share innocent interests with my wife. If I am building moral character by choosing to have this maxim I can do so because it is morally right. It is a morally right maxim because it is consistent with a general moral requirement that I am to love my wife. Love requires wishing for her welfare and this includes enjoyment of innocent activities.

Contrast this shopping situation with one where a man has a wife who loves malicious gossip. (My wife does NOT have this vice.) A maxim of sharing this interest with his wife would not be consistent with more general moral rules. A man could not choose this maxim because it is right.

In review: In character morality acts are to be chosen with the motivation morally proper for those acts. However, maxims for choosing acts are to be chosen because they are the morally right maxims. I should choose the maxim of trying to be a proper husband simply because it is the right maxim to have. Once I have chosen that maxim, the acts I choose to implement that maxim, or personal policy, are to be motivated by inclinations needed for them to be sincere actions, if the actions are of the kind which require both external behavior and inner feelings.

A last note about a good man being a better lover:
Some might think that I should choose to be a good husband because I love my wife. I do not slight my wife by choosing to be a good husband because that is morally right. Indeed, being a good husband because of love for my wife makes me less than a reliable husband. Love is so hard so separate from feelings. With the lessening of feelings of love my sense of duty towards my wife may well diminish. Once I accept the duty to be a good husband because that is the kind of man I ought to be, I have all the particular duties of maintaining, cultivating feelings of love and showing love.
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 in Sexual Morality

November 8, 2014Character Moralitykielkopf1

For sexual morality a well-known example of practicing gradualism of the law comes from Augustine when he prays in his Confessions. “Lord, make me chaste, but not yet.”

“Gradualism of the law” is a practice of gradually bringing oneself to a decision to obey a law which one is now violating. Some non-moral examples show the reality of this practice. Suppose a law of personal health requires a person to exercise regularly. A man who needs to exercise more but rarely exercises hopes to start a plan of regular exercise sometime. He has it on his “agenda” to start such a program sometime. He goes along for several months thinking that he should start. He lets himself feel guilty about not having an exercise program. He is practicing gradualism of the law.

Finally, he decides to start exercising regularly. Because he has had a long history of not exercising, he occasionally fails to follow his program. He feels guilty about his failures to follow his program. However, his friends tell him that it will take time for him to become a regular exerciser. His friends are assuming a law of gradualism when they advise him not to lose heart because it takes time to overcome bad habits.

I leave it as an exercise for the reader to specify how someone who should go on diet first practices gradualism of the law and then keeps his morale up by reflecting on the law of gradualism.

In my book, I described a homosexual who hoped to somehow, sometime, stop engaging in homosexual acts. However, he had not yet made a firm decision to stop. I characterized him as a good man but not yet good enough. In respect to sexual acts, he was good by recognizing the correct moral principles. But was not good enough because he had not decided to try to conform to the correct moral law and, of course, was violating the sexual moral law for men. He would become a better man by resolving to conform to the law. Unfortunately, a resolve to conform to the law, which here means being celibate, does not guarantee conformity. Even if he fails from time-to-time he can hope that he will gradually build character to move completely beyond homosexual acts.

There are situations involving sexual behavior for which we should tolerate gradualism of the law as a first step towards developing a morally proper sexual character. We are not likely to set aside immoral behavior until we admit that it is wrong. Gradualism of the law starts by admiting, or at least conceding that perhaps, a moral law is being violated. Some guilt is felt. Unfortunately, admitting that a type of act violates a moral law and a bit of guilt is not sufficient for forming a firm purpose of amendment to stop violations. Indeed, a law of gradualism may be operating here. It takes time for guilt about violating a moral law to lead us to resolving to stop violations. It may take time for guilt to have its effect and to build up courage to stop. In ourselves, and for others, we may need tolerance to foster this build up. I use “tolerance” because wrong is being done with each violation of the law and the violator is not as he ought to be. With gradualism of the law we are tolerating evil! And it must be clear that evil is being done so that guilt can lead to resolve to stop.

In my next post I will discuss application of gradualism of the law for situations in Catholic sexual morality. These are situations of practicing artificial birth control and living in a marriage not sanction by the Catholic Church.

I discussed the birth control situation in my book.

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.

Law of Gradualism vs. Gradualism of the Law

October 20, 2014Character Morality, Moral Harm and Moral Worth, Moral philosophykielkopf1

I. Some background on “The Law of Gradualism”

A. Gradualism in a report from the 2014 extraordinary synod on the family

On October 13, 2014 there was publication of an unofficial translation of opinions expressed at the Catholic Church’s extraordinary synod on the family. This preliminary report is titled in Latin Relatio post disceptationem and can be read as:”report after discussion.”This extraordinary synod ran from October 4 through October 19, 2014 in the Vatican. These published opinions were expressed in the first few days of the synod and are to be discussed in the remaining days. The extraordinary synod is, in effect, a preliminary meeting for the ordinary synod. A final statement of opinions will be published and form a basis for an ordinary or regular synod of Catholic bishops in the Vatican October 4 to October 25, 2015. This preliminary report has been regarded as radical by both progressives and conservatives and has not been well received by conservatives including me. Here, though, I do not want to criticize the preliminary report because it will be revised. It’s transitory. Also careful critique of it would require theological expertise which I lack. My goal is to elaborate on a concept used in this preliminary report since it connects with themes in my philosophy book on sexual morality. This concept is “the law of gradualism.”

See a Jimmy Akin Blog Post for a useful overview of the Law of Gradualness in the discussions about the bishop’s synod.

B. Gradualism in two Vatican documents,

1] From section 34 of John Paul II’s 1981 exhoration Familiaris Consortio in which amongst many other topics, he reaffirmed the condemnation of artificial birth control.

Married people too are called upon to progress unceasingly in their moral life, with the support of a sincere and active desire to gain ever better knowledge of the values enshrined in and fostered by the law of God. They must also be supported by an upright and generous willingness to embody these values in their concrete decisions. They cannot however look on the law as merely an ideal to be achieved in the future: they must consider it as a command of Christ the Lord to overcome difficulties with constancy. And so what is known as ‘the law of gradualness’ or step-by-step advance cannot be identified with ‘gradualness of the law,’ as if there were different degrees or forms of precept in God’s law for different individuals and situations.

2] From section 3,9 of the 1997 Handbook for Confessors on Conjugal Morality in which confessors are advised not to let penitents delay stopping a practice of artifical birth control as they gradually prepare themselves to stop it sometime or other.

The pastoral “law of gradualness”, not to be confused with the “gradualness of the law” which would tend to diminish the demands it places on us, consists of requiring a decisive break with sin together with a progressive path towards total union with the will of God and with his loving demands

B. My preliminary thoughts on the law of gradualism vs. gradualism of the law,

1. When should we use a law of gradualism? When a moral law requires us to bring about good state of affairs for which there are degrees of goodness for these states of affairs it is permissible and, indeed may be necessary to bring about the lesser goods as we develop attitudes and skills for bringing about the higher goods. For instance, a father has a duty to spend time with his children. However, because of focus on his job and low apptitude for interacting with children, he may have to start with just spending a few minutes each day with his children. However, he should gradually bring himself to spend more time with his children in more significant activities. This example suggests many areas of life in which we are wise to accept that we only grow gradually producing better and better situations.

2. What would it be like to practice gradualism of the law? The example of a father’s duty to spend time with his children can be used here. Suppose a young father thought that while the children were quite young and he was busy with his career, he would spend no time with them at all. He would completely neglect them with the mother or other caregivers having contact with the children. He would tell himself that when he grew older and had more inclination to spend time with his children he would do so. He plans to gradually start following the law. Well, as long as he totally neglects the law to spend time with his children, he is in the wrong and living, in that respect, immorally – not as he ought to live.

So, my interpretation of “gradualism of the law” is an intention, or hope, to stop violating a moral law sometime in the future when one feels ready to set aside present motives for violating the moral law in question. On this characterization of “gradualism of the law” a person who practices it does do what is morally wrong each time the person violates the law.

A significant question is whether or not practicing gradualism of the law has any place in moral life or moral development. Especially does it have any place in sexual morality.

My next post will address this question.

I dealt with this question in my book on sexual morality.

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.

Reception of the Eucharist by Catholics in an invalid Church marriage

October 7, 2014Catholic Sacraments and Sexual Moralitykielkopf1

On Oct. 5, 2014, the Catholic church began a special synod on Marriage and the Family. At the beginning of the synod we can not be certain what instructions the synod may give for the improvement of marriage and family life. However, much of the disccusion before the beginning of the synod has focus on the question of whether or not Catholics who meet the following conditions may receive the Eucharist.
The conditions are
1. The couple is married in a valid civil ceremony
2. At least one of the spouses has had a Catholic Church marriage broken by civil divorce but there has been no Church annulment of the validity of that broken marriage
3. They have no intention to discontinue having marital relations.

What do we want to know when we ask whether or not they may receive the Eucharist? If we are asking whether or not they may receive the Eucharist in accordance with Church teaching, the answer is clearly NO. See article 1650 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC). I propose interpreting what is being asked as the following complex question. Are there some Catholics in these conditions who receive the Eucharist despite the current teaching of the Church, commit no sacrilege by doing so but rather receive spiritual graces with their reception? If so, should the Church change her teachings to recognize the validity of these people’s reception of the Eucharist?

I hope that the bishops, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, provide an answer to the first question. My current answer to the first question is that it is possible by God’s grace that someone receiving the Eucharist under these conditions commits no sacrilege but receives graces of the sacrament, amongst which might be the strength to carry out a resolve to refrain from marital relations. However, the Eucharist is also communion which unites us closely with God and others receiving the Eucharist. A person receiving the Eucharist under these conditions has a diminished communion with those receiving the Eucharist fully in compliance with the Church’s rules.

I could try to list several conditions under which I am confident such people would be committing a sacrilege by reception of the Eucharist. For instance, if a man had only three years ago divorced his wife to marry a younger more attractive woman he almost certainly would be committing a sacrilege by receiving the Eucharist. A list of all such necessary conditions for this possibility would be an indefinite list formed by considering indefinitely many particular cases. An indefinite list is no list at all. I could not give a sufficient condition for this possibility unless the bishops change the teaching of CCC 1650. I can offer no sufficient condition for the validity of a sense of a personal revelation from God.

I think that the bishops should recognize the possiblity to which I alluded. After all, with God all things are possible. However, the bishops should not change the teaching of CCC 1650. A change would do nothing to strengthen Catholic marriage and respect for the Eucharist. I suggest, though, that they publish a warning to those in these specified conditions who judge that they may receive the Eucharist without sacrilege. The warning would be along the following lines.

Objectively you are not eligible to receive the Eucharist. Because the sacramental marriage is still valid, in the sacramental order you are living in adultery. However, if after careful thought, prayer and consultation with a Catholic spiritual advisor you decide that you may still receive the Eucharist without sacrilege, do so with the realization that you might be committing a sacrilege. Be especially careful that your reception of the Eucharist does not lead others to lose some respect for Catholic marriage or the Eucharist.

I have had personal experience with this topic of reception of the Eucharist under the above conditions. I discuss my case in a subsequent post. I bring out personal details to show that I have some standing for addressing this issue. I have “paid my dues.” Some of the ideas of this post were brought out in the chapter on birth control in my book on sexual morality

To purchase the printed book by check, send check of $16.70 per copy. Send to:
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Prince Albert and The Paternal Principle

September 26, 2014Character Morality, Critique of Birth Control, Moral philosophykielkopf1

In the September 25, 2014 issue of the New York Review of Books, the British writer, Geoffrey Wheatcroft reviews a biography of Edward VII: The Heir Apparent, A Life of Edward VII, The Playboy Prince, Jane Ridley, Random House, 2014. The review is titled “The Hedonist King Who Knew His Place.” Wheatcroft writes with sophisticated amusement of Bertie’s (Albert Edward’s) sexual promiscuity during his many years as Prince of Wales. This sophisticated acceptance of male promiscuity as perhaps naughty, but not really immoral, is the main critical target of my book. In this post, though, I want to examine a reprimand Bertie’s father, Prince Albert, sent when learning of Bertie’s losing his “virginity” while serving a brief period with the army. I want to point out how a holder of the paternal principle would find the reprimand and find the straightforward language appropriate. What is the reprimand? I quote from Wheatcroft’s review and place the reprimand in bold italic type. For comparison purposes, I repeat the Paternal Principle from my book.

“Some of the younger officers had sportingly smuggled” Nellie Clifton “a superior tart” “into a hut in the camp, where she introduced Bertie to the joys of sex. Lord Tarrington, a lord-in waiting to Queen Victoria, maliciously repeated the rumors to Albert with devastating effect. Victoria never forgot”… “in a letter of terrible reproach Albert told Bertie how shameful it was

to thrust yourself into the hands of one of the most abject of the human species, to be by her initiated in the sacred mysteries of creation, which ought to remain shrouded in holy awe until touched by pure & undefiled hands.

It’s hard to imagine such a letter written by a father to a son in 1961, or 1761 for that matter and even at that time”…

Prince Albert died at age 42 shortly after reprimanding Bertie. Queen Victoria felt that Bertie’s sexual misconduct was a factor in Albert’s death.

Statement of The Paternal Principle,

A male may intentionally attain a sexual climax only in sexual intercourse with a consenting woman to whom he is bound by a life-long monogamous socially recognized union for procreation, In addition he should:(1) intend to cooperate with his spouse to protect and promote the lifelong natural development of any conception resulting from this intercourse and (2) strive to appreciate with his spouse the natural value of their sexual satisfactions and cooperate with her to enhance those satisfactions.

A holder of the Paternal Principle cannot quarrel with the thought expressed in Prince Albert’s reprimand. I can imagine fathers who belong to an organization such as the Knights of Columbus writing such a reprimand and imagine many more at least thinking that they should reprimand their sons in this way if they heard of them having sex with a prostitute or even having one-night stands. I can imagine many men reflecting with shame, expressible in similar words on some of their early sexual experiences. Of course, as their sons grow older and are not being “initiated” into these “sacred mysteries” fathers may conclude that it is not worthwhile reprimanding their sons. They ignore these immoralities with the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy familiar to many of us who hold the Paternal Principle and realize when reprimands are ineffective in controlling the behavior of others. However, when reflecting on our own behaviors where we control how we act such sharp reprimands are always in place when we violate the Paternal Principle. Realization that we should be subject to such a reprimand is a helpful thought for fighting off temptations to violate the Paternal Principle. Prince Albert’s reprimand could be slightly rephrased to reprimand masturbation or homosexual activity.

I cannot say that a man should be so sensitive that he “falls apart” if he learns that his son has violated the Principle or realizes that he has violated the Paternal Principle. I can say that a man should not be so sensitive to “sophisticated opinions” that scorn the Paternal Principle that he is afraid to express publicly and privately in judging himself the strong judgment of Prince Albert’s reprimand. In this case, Prince Albert got it right.

However, what about the case of a married couple practicing birth control?

In Wheatcroft’s review we also read about birth control.”Not the least important of the many social changes during the queen’s very long reign was that, as natality statistics plainly show, by the 1890s the higher classes im England were practicing birth control by one means or another. That had not been so in the 1840s, but if any woman would ever have been grateful for the Pill it was Victoria, who hated pregnancy and childbirth as much as she relished passionate nights with Albert. Sad to say she took it out on her chihldren.” She had nine children

So, this post leads into a series of posts on the morality of artificial birth control.

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.

What I Want to Know by Knowing that Masturbation is Immoral

May 27, 2014Moral Harm and Moral Worth, Moral philosophykielkopf1

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. Buy printed copy here with credit card for $10 off the listed price: $16.99.

In the previous post, I wrote that my intellectual motivation for condemning immoralities such as masturbation was to become convinced that these acts would be immoral for me to perform. I pointed out that for me to know through use of reason what is moral and immoral for me, I had to establish general rules specifying what is moral and immoral for everyone. Let’s focus on immoralities. So, finding out what is immoral for everyone is more fundamental than finding out what is immoral for me. However, a moral thought needs to be accompanied with feelings since moral thoughts are to guide conduct. For a thought of immorality, the feeling should be negative about what violates the rule. Of course, when I think that a rule is well justified and think of an act in violation of it, I think of that violation with the negative feeling that it is a violation.

Now here rises a challenge to deontological moral theories holding, as I do, that morality is based fundamentally on rules categorically condemning certain acts or ways of acting regardless of the consequences over and above those of being or not being in conformity with the rule. The challenge is basically: How can the harm of violating the rule keep the violation in conflict with morality if other consequences produce a large amount of human satisfaction? To appreciate the moral harm of violating a rule we need to look away from the general rule to look at it as applied to oneself. We need to look at it from the inside so-to-speak. Given that I think the rule is correct, what harm would I afflict on myself by violating it.

I prefer to use masturbation as an example rather than homosexuality. There is so much discussion of homosexuality now-a-days. If you’re not one, it is really boring in morality to think about something to which you have no temptation. Internet porn, provides temptations threatening all men.

For this exercise in uncovering the sense of violating a well established moral rule, I assume that I have established the rule that a man ought not seek an orgasm outside of sexual intercourse with his wife. The rule is very simple and gives clear guidelines on how to act morally with respect to an especially difficult area of a male’s life. Indeed the simplicity and clarity of the rule is the major
reason supporting it. If I violate it, I explicitly, or implicitly, adopt a personal policy, or what Kant called a maxim, that allows me to seek orgasms under other conditions. I am now acting on a policy which gives no clear guidance and is a response to inclinations which are lawless in the sense that they lead me against this simple law. the harm is losing direction and the sense of this harm is a sense of falling or being unguided with respect to some very powerful human incliations.

So I morally condemn masturbation to guide me towards discovering the harm I would do to myself by masturbating. It opens the way to sexual wantonnes.