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.

Motiviation for My Condemning Immoralities

Character Morality, Moral Harm and Moral Worth, Moral philosophy, Sexual morality

In two recent posts, I deliveredmoral condemnation of homosexual acts and life styles. Why? Here ‘why’ is not asking for the reason for which I conclude homosexuality morally wrong. The argument, or reasons, for concluding that it is wrong are in my book :Confronting Sexual Nihihlism. Here ‘why’ asks for my motives for arguing against homosexuality and expressing the conclusions of these arguments.

My intellectual motives for arguing against homosexuality and other sexual immoralities are easier to specify than my social motives for expressing these conclusions. My motives for expressing the conclusions are those for making recommendations to other people or giving other people information. These motives for expressing vary with circumstances; especially the audience to whom I intend to communicate. With respect to the intended readership of my book, I have two primary motives for expressing the moral condemnation of homosexuality. I want to explain my objection to gay-marriage and recommendation of a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy.

If homosexual activity is immoral, pair-bondings in which it is practiced should not be dignified by being called ‘marriage.’ The term ‘marriage’ is to be reserved for male/female bondings in which the morally proper sexual acts are performed. Publicly labeling people as immoral demeans them even if they boast of their immorality. For instance, a man who brags of cheating at cards, demeans himself whether or not he realizes it. Most emphatically: A man who boasts of cheating on his wife degrades himself. Unless some public good is accomplished by accusing a man of the immorality of homosexuality, the man should not be demeaned by being so labeled. In general, little public good is accomplished by labeling people as homosexual. Public good is accomplished by calling a man whose adultery is well known “an adulter.”

So, I recommend not demeaning homosexuals but propose demeaning adulterous men. If homosexuals want to be so labeled, they are fools who fail to realize that they making themselves look foolish. I will not cooperate with them when they make themselves look foolish. I suppose that I should add to “don’t ask, don’t tell,’ a guideline for what to do if “they tell.” My guideline, and practice, is “don’t listen.” I do not express moral judgment against homosexuality in vain hopes that mere expressions of judgments can help cure the condition. I defintely do not express a judgment that homosexuality is immoral to urge legislation against homosexual activies. In general, I oppose dealing with this moral issue with legal sanctions.

Actually, in my book, I tried to find good justification for my judgments that masturbation, fornication and adultery are immoral. Fortunately, I am not afflicted with have same sex-attractions. Condemnation of homosexuality is simply a corollary of a general principle- The Paternal Principle- for which I argue.

My intellectual motive for arguing for the immorality of homosexuality, and the other male sexual immoralities, is to convince myself that my judgment that homosexuality et al. are immoral is a well founded judgment. I want to know what is wrong for me. But this requires knowing first what is wrong for others.

As these next few Blog posts develop, it emerges that I am trying to understand the moral harm I would do to myself by performing one of these immoral acts. From a definition, in §II.7 of my book, ‘moral harm’ is specified to be the bad status a person has by violating a moral rule. In so far as the purpose of moral thinking is to guide us on how to be the right kind of people, there needs to be a sense of what this moral harm is over and above what the definition says.

The most important moral thinking is the moral thinking which guides individuals on how to be the right kind of people – how to form their moral character. Understandings of morality which hold that the most important moral thinking is for forming character are called character moralities. This important moral thinking is an inseparable combination of thinking that a rule forbids something and sensing that simply violating the rule is harmful to the violator. Developing this sense of the harm of moral harm requires thinking from the “inside” so to speak. You need to think of what you would be doing to yourself by simply violating a moral rule which you believe to be correct. Much of what follows will be my doing this “inside” thinking. Readers have to do it for themselves.

My parents, schools, traditions of my communities, etc., caused me to have certain moral opinions. Here I will stay with sexual morality. I, as most of us, confront many challenges to our moral opinions. My intellectual motive behind arguing for moral judgments is to bring me to a conviction that my moral opinions are well founded or need modification to be well founded. In general, I try to justify the opinions which I received; but not always. I have imagined living in accordance with “progressive” moral practices contrary to moral teachings I received from my Catholic tradition. The imagined way of life -a life style in accordance with the so-called sexual revolution – seemed an empty pursuit of pleasure leading to nothing.

Now recognition that a sexual morality contrary to traditional sexual morality leads to nihilism does not justify traditional sexual morality. However, it indicates an aspect of what the moral harm of the violations. The threat of nihilism by abandoning traditional sexual morality provides motivation for trying to justify traditional Catholic sexual morality. Justifying it means trying to show that reason supports it.

To show that reason supports a moral opinion requires showing that acts or ways of acting in accordance with the opinion are general requirements for human beings. These general requirements are expressed as moral rules forbidding or permitting certain acts or ways of acting. Most often, the rules are negative. The usual form is: Thou shalt not. Because reason deals with general principles, using reason to discover what I am forbidden to do, requires first using reason to establish what everyone is forbidden to do. So, the intellectual effort to justify my judgment that I am forbidden to intentionally attain a sexual climax outside the context of my marriage to a woman requires justifying a judgment that such seeking of sexual climaxes is forbidden to everyone. With respect to intellectual motivation, my condemnation of homosexuality is a by-product of what I really wanted to discover about my moral entitlements to attain orgasms.

In my next posts, I I plan to display my “inside” thinking of violating traditional sexual morality in order to arouse a sense of the moral harm of such violations.

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.



Homosexual acts are immoral and active homosexuals are immoral: 1st Post

Moral philosophy, Sexual morality

The purpose of this post and the next is to clarify where I stand on the morality of male homosexuality; on both the morality of the acts and the morality of the character of those who practice those acts. In blog posts I will present arguments to support various facets of the traditional sexual morality for which I argue in my book. I want to avoid having my arguments gain any extra appeal because readers are unclear where I stand. I am assuming that morally condemning homosexuality is unpopular. So, being coy about whether or not I think homosexuality is immoral might lead some to view my arguments more favorably. I do not want to mislead anyone.

In this post I will specify why I judge the acts and the men to be immoral. In the next post, I will assess the significance of making these negative moral judgments. In my book Confronting Sexual Nihihlism I argue for
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.

Moral condemnation of homosexual acts is an immediate consequence of the paternal principle. In the book I develop what I call “character morality.” In character morality, a man has a moral flaw if he has a principle for satisfying an inclination in conflict with the fundamental principle on how that inclination ought to be satisfied. So active homosexuals have a moral character flaw.

Of course, here the moral judgment against homosexual acts and homosexual men is derived from the Paternal Principle. The fundamental argument is that of the book wherein I argue for the Paternal Principle.
My next post assess the significance of these moral judgments.

What is the significance of making these judgments?

These judgments tell men with same sex attractions acts which they should try not to commit and styles of life which they should try to improve. They are instructions on how to become better men. More on this in the next post.

Homosexual acts are immoral and active homosexuals are immoral: 2nd Post

Moral philosophy, Sexual morality

What is the significance of my judgments that homosexual acts are immoral and active homosexuals are immoral?

First and foremost, these judgments express my firm belief that I would be performing an immoral act if I performed a homosexual act and that I would have an immoral character trait as long as I lacked a firm purpose of avoiding such acts.
This belief is not a mere thought that I would be immoral. The thought in the belief is mixed with a sense of the wrongness of the acts and way of life. The sense of wrongness is hard to describe. I usually characterize it as a sense of being under the control of a power with no concern for right or wrong – only for its satisfaction. Lust is a good label for that driving power I dread.

Secondly it tells men with same sex attractions about acts which they should try not to commit and styles of life which they should try to eliminate. They are instructions on how to become better men. The sense of wrongness accompanying the thought of the wrongness of the others’ acts comes from counterfactual thinking. To have a sense of the wrongness of other peoples’ acts I have to think how I would feel if I did what they are doing but having my thought of the wrongness.

When I do not try to think of what it would be like to be the active homosexual with my thought of the wrongness of homosexual acts my typical sense is pity. I am gratefull that I do not have their sexual inclinations.

I have explicitly written that I do not want to gain support for my arguments because people are unclear about my moral disapproval of homosexuality. However, I do not want people to become illogically hostile to my arguments on other issues because they think that I have some judgments about homosexuality which go way beyond judging homosexuality to be immoral.

First note that my judgments about the immorality of homosexuality does not require any definite judgments about how legal systems should deal with homosexuality. In fact, I tend to be rather Libertarian about legal control of sexuality. In regard to social control of homosexuality, I strongly favor a policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” This is based on Golden Rule thinking. If I were afflicted with same sex attraction I would like my friends and family help me “keep it in the closet.”

Note finally that from the perspective of the Paternal Principle habitual masturbators, adulterers, fornicators etc., are all sexually immoral in both their acts and life-style.
For instance with regard to sexual morality, a young man, with heterosexual attractions, who regularly goes to bars to pick up women for one night stands is as morally corrupt as a young man, with homosexual attactions, who regularly goes to gay bars to pick up another man.

Confronting Sexual Nihilism @ $16.99

Book promotion

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.



Digital Download cards enable purchasers to download the book in pdf format. The pdf form can be uploaded to Kindles and other e-reading devices. Digital Download cards may be purchased from this site for $3.99.

Delay in postings with philosophical content

Book promotion

I have not made any posts with philosophical content for about six weeks. I have been very busy promoting my book to its niche market.
My text is well suited for two markets.
1. It is valuable for professional philosophers because it raises provocative theses which can stimulate professional philosophers to write papers developing or criticizing them. For instance, my basic theses that we need to uncover moral rules specifically for sexuality challenges moral philosophers to re-evaluate an assumption which has been held amongst moral philosophers for at least 200 years.

2.My text is ideal to be a supplementary text in moral theory and ethics courses in colleges and universities. It is also well suited to be a supplementary text in sociology courses, psychology courses and women studies.

Check out what the text is about by visiting Sexual Nihilism.

I have been sending individual emails to philosophers at Catholic colleges and universities with a request to visit that site.

The Moral Harm of Flouting Cost-benefit Calculation

Moral Harm and Moral Worth, Sexual morality, Uncategorized

This post offers further considerations about the notion of moral harm introduced in my Dec. 27, 2013 post.

Might people who hold that cost-benefit calculation is the fundamental way of making moral judgments, eg. utilitarians accept the following? If they would, that would indicate acceptance of the notion that there is a type of moral harm based in the nature of how humans ought to be. And this harm is not the type of harm they consider in cost-benefit calculations! In this case, the “abused” component of our nature is our economic rationality. It is possible for a person to engage in a cost-benefit calculation and choose a less than the best alternative on a whim or some hunch “Oh, what the f—, let’s do it anyway.” This flouting of economic reasoning might be how “people escape from prisoners’ dilemmas.” I suspect some young men have entered years of imprisonment because of imprudent choices expressed with such a phrase.

A few philosophers even dismiss the possibility of cost-benefit calculation being used in moral reasoning. Grizez, Finnis et al. have argued that cost-benefit calculation cannot be moral deliberation since, for them, moral deliberation has to offer alternatives for choice. They hold that once a cost-benefit calculation is made the choice of what is best must occur. See Ch. IX of their Nuclear Deterence, Morality and Realism . I disagree. Recognition of an alternative as best is different from choosing it. Causality amongst peoples’ mental states is statistical. If there is deterministic causation for what we desire, believe and choose it lies at the physiological level. Suppose then someone decides by cost-benefit calculation that a certain act is not most beneficial but nonetheless chooses it, that person made a wrong, or irrational, choice. In addition to the excess harm resulting from the wrong choice, there might be additional harm. The additional harm is the acting contrary to the way a rational being ought to be. Utilitarians may implicitly hold that there may be a moral principle that the way a rational being ought to be is to choose the most beneficial act. And that principle is in addition to their utilitarian principle. Might not utilitarians have a moral judgment and sense that feels repelled by and condemns whimsical or willful imprudence? If so, they have “more morality” than utilitarianism.

Book promotion

A primary function of my blog posts is to announce and support my book on sexual morality: Confronting Sexual Nihilism . Digital Download cards for the printed version to be released in March 2014 are now available.

Digital Download cards enable purchasers to download the book in pdf format. The pdf form can be uploaded to Kindles and other e-reading devices. Digital Download cards may be purchased for $6.99. Use Pay Pal to buy with a credit card.





Or mail a check in amount of $6.99 for each card to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.
Columbus, Ohio 43214

Moral Harm and Victimless Crimes

Moral Harm and Moral Worth

The purpose of this short post is to point out how the notion of moral harm can be used to clarify the notion of victimless crime. See posts for Dec. 27, 2013 and Jan. 4, 2014 for introduction of the notion of moral harm.

There are wrong acts in which no one suffers any harm beyond the occurrence of acts and conditions which are not as they morally ought to be. There is nothing for which anyone should receive reimbursement for medical treatment. If to be a victim is to suffer some
injury for which a person needs treatment, there are victimless wrongs where the wrong may not be a crime. If the harm suffered is moral harm only and the act is illegal there is a victimless crime. Of course, there are in fact victimless crimes in our several communities. The perpetrators of some victimless crimes quite clearly suffer moral harm. For instance, a pimp,in a municipality outlawing prostitution, who treats his girls well incurs moral harm as well as committing crimes.

Are there are victimless crimes where “crimes” means acts which should be illegal. I do not develop a social and political philosophy in my book Confronting Sexual Nihilism . So I do not address carefully questions about criminalizing sexual wrongs which are primarily, if not totally, moral wrongs. My bias is toward decriminalizing sexual immorality which harms no one physically or psychologically. However, I am not a libertarian who holds that we have no business trying to use the power of law to help us becoming morally better. I disagree with Kant who wrote “Woe to the legislator who chooses to use force to implement a constitution directed towards ethical ends.”

Expect subsequent posts on the clergy sexual abuse scandal which make me uncertain about a sharp demarcation between moral harm and other harms.

Moral Harm vs. Sense of Offense

Moral Harm and Moral Worth

This post relates to my Dec. 27 post in which I introduced the notion of moral harm. Moral harm is the status of the violator of a moral law which results simply by violating the moral law over and above any other consequences of the violation. Here I want to distinguish moral harm from any sense of offense, including guilt, resulting from what we judge to be an immoral act or way of being.
Our moral instincts also include a capacity to feel offended by acts and ways of being.

Our sense of offense is not the kind of moral harm about which I am talking. A sense of offense by itself is not a reliable guide to what is wrong. A moral instinct gives rise to the sense of offense and the normative thought that the act is wrong. The normative thought tells us what the moral harm is. The moral harm is acting contrary to the norm expressed in the instinct. The sense of offense provides a stimulus to think more carefully about what if anything is wrong. However, the sense of offense is not the harm because the sense of offense may diminish after repeated exposure to the wrong act while the instinctive judgment of wrong remains. The harm is derived from the judgment of wrong. An example illustrates distinguishing moral harm from moral offense.

The Target corporation has a “gay friendly” employment policy. Such a policy offends me but after due thought and deliberation I judge it to be morally permissible. Once when I was returning a defective camera the appearance of the courteous and competent young man who served me at a Target service desk highly offended me. Lip-stick and pinkish red fingernails made me avoid eye contact. Still, I do not think that his dressing as he did was immoral. I did not judge hastily by assigning high probability to a suspicion that he engaged in homosexual acts when off-duty. I judge that those acts are morally wrong. The moral judgment flashed through my mind without any sense of offense. Perhaps if I had to witness some of those acts, I would have a sense of offense. However, if I happen to witness the paradigmatically morally proper sexual intercourse of a recently married young couple, I might feel offended or negatively disturbed in some hard to describe way.

Syllogistic Outline of Confronting Sexual Nihilism

Book promotion

Confronting Sexual Nihilism: Traditional Sexual Morality as an Antidote to Nihilism

For this post, I outline the book’s argument. Of course, most of the signficant philosophy is done to support these very general premisses. Some subsequent Blog posts on this site will give an elaboration of the arguments for these very general premisses.

A free copy of my book is available upon request to kielkopf.1@osu.edu

Outline title: Confronting nihilism with character morality,

1. All life orientations sufficient for overcoming nihilism are life orientations requiring moral development of all aspects of what it is to be human.

2. All life orientations requiring moral development of all aspects of what it is to be human are life orientations holding a moral theory that there are sex specific moral rules for human sexuality.

3. So, all life orientations sufficient for overcoming nihilism are life orientations holding a moral theory that there are sex specific moral rules for human sexuality. (Syllogism 1,2)

So,(4) No life orientations sufficient for overcoming nihilism are life orientations not holding a moral theory that there are sex specific moral rules for human sexuality. (Obversion 3)

5. All life orientations not holding a moral theory that there are sex specific rules for human sexuality are sexually nihilistic life orientations. (Crucial definition of moral nihilism)

So, (6) No life orientations sufficient for overcoming nihilism are sexually nihilistic life orientations. (Syllogism 4,5)

§2.2 Traditional sexual morality as an antidote to nihilism,

Are there any life orientations sufficient for overcoming nihilism? Yes.

7. A life orientation taking the parental stance which entails the Paternal Principle is a well justified life orientation sufficient for overcoming nihilism.

The Paternal Principle is a crucial component of traditional sexual morality. It prescribes:

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.