Category Archives: Character Morality

Human Reason is Inconsistent; Thanks be to God!

In the previous post in this series on building a conceptual model of the temptations of Satan and the original sin of humanity, we concluded that the hard problem connected with understanding how God could love human beings after original sin was understand how humans could have morality while rejecting morality. The argument went that for God to love humanity, God had to will the good for humanity. The good for humanity was to be as a human being ought to be. But a necessary condition for God to will this good for humanity is that human beings have morality which is the means to being how we ought to be. Unfortunately, by having original sin in our universal ways of thinking we reject morality and the end God wills for us.

The question for this post is whether or not God can consistently will that we have morality while rejecting morality.

If God cannot consistently will that we have morality while rejecting it, then God cannot will that we have it because God cannot will what is logically inconsistent. If God cannot consistently will that we have morality while rejecting it, the God cannot love use when he have original sin. If God cannot love us when we have original sin, then God cannot redeem us because God would not love us with original sin.

To get a sense of the logical contradiction think of other ways of formulating a rejection of morality as a fundamental principle coupled with having morality. Man is the measure of all things yet there is a objective standard by which we can evaluate the correctness of all human opinions. All moral judgments are relative yet there are absolute moral rules.

Now God cannot think that any of these contradictions are correct. God’s reason in so far as we can even talk of God’s reasoning is consistent. However, it is not inconsistent to allow there to be rational or thinking beings who think and reason inconsistently. (I am here using “reason” and “rational” in their descriptive sense; not there evaluative sense as good thinking and reasoning.)

So, we have answered the question of this post by noting that God can consistently will that we have morality while rejecting it by allowing humans, both collectively and individually, to have a logically inconsistent way of thinking about morality.

God’s allowing us to have inconsistent moral thinking is a blessing of God because it allows us still to have the moral good God wills for us. If we had only consistent thinking about moral issues, we would, in effect, have no morality. With no moral end our fate would be that of any other being who comes into existence and passes away to non-being – nothingness.

So, thank God that we can have moral standards even if we inconsistently reject them.

However, there are costs to having inconsistent moral thinking. Subsequent posts will explore these costs and how we can attain the moral good God wills for us with our inconsistent moral thinking.

Readers my be interested in my book on sexual morality. My book illustrates how humans suffer from having and yet rejecting sexual morality.

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 $3.99, plus $3.71 for shipping and handling.





To purchase the printed book by check, send check of $3.99 plus $3.71 for shipping and handling per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.
Columbus, Ohio 43214

Can God Love Humanity After Original Sin?

The gist of the post on the inheritance of original sin was that it is a part of the universal human culture. It is a thought in the human conceptual scheme that on occasion one may choose contrary to the moral law or God’s will. In the human conceptual scheme, there is a fundamental option to put human will over God’s will.

There are several ways to formulate the principle setting human judgment over morality or God. A profound way of expressing this corrupting principle in our universal human thinking is with Protagoras’s “Man is the measure of all things.” If we set human reasoning as the judge of all we assume the right for ourselves to be judges of whether or not we are bound by morality. If we allow ourselves to be judges of whether or not we are bound by morality, we set aside morality. So, because I am using terminology of moral thinking to build my conceptual model for Satan, original sin and later the core conceptions of Christian salvation theory -the Paschal Mystery-, I write of the original sin we have as rejecting morality. I do not want to go on-and-on trying to express maxim of original sin “just right.”

HOW BAD IS ORIGINAL SIN?
Humans willed not to have morality.
Morality is the means God gave humans to reach the good of being as they ought to be.
So humans have rejected the means for the good God has willed for them.
To reject the means is to reject the end.
Hence, humans have rejected the good God has willed for them.
Beings who have a way they ought to be choose not to be by choosing not to be as they ought to be.
(See Moral Harm and Non-Being)
Hence, by rejecting the good God willed for them, humans willed not to be.
By willing not to be, humans willed that they be a biological life form which comes into being and passes away. (We willed to be creatures with no normative end – no way we ought to be as we assume it to be with mosquitoes et al.)

Did God have to let the human condition stay as our fundamental principle for choosing entails?

DID GOD HAVE TO STOP LOVING HUMANS AFTER ORIGINAL SIN?
If God can still love humanity after original sin, then God has to will that humans have the possibility of being as they ought to be after original sin.
If humans have the possibility of being as they ought to be after original sin, then humans have to have morality after original sin.
But after original sin, humans have rejected morality.
So, God cannot love humans after original sin unless God wills that humans have morality after original sin.

Now we have a big issue with two problems: How can God will that humans have morality after humans have rejected morality? There is an easy problem about God’s end in so willing and a hard problem about God’s means in His choice.
Now God can will whatever God chooses within the constraints of logical consistency.
Can God consistently will that humans have morality after rejecting morality?

The easy problem is Can God have a reason for willing that humans have morality after rejecting morality? Willing that humans have morality and hence the great good of having a way they ought to be, is to will a great good. No reason beyond this being a good is needed for God to have a reason to will that humans have morality after rejecting morality. (Similarly, God can will that Satan have his good after Satan’s rebellion.)

The hard problem concerns what God must do to bring it about that humans have morality after rejecting morality.

The barrier, logical barrier, comes from human morality. Humans have rejected it but it is still there with its demands. The demands of human morality have to be satisfied before humans can have it after having rejected it. For God to will the good of humanity God has to will that humans who have rejected morality still have it. The thesis is that humans both accept and reject morality.
The human empirical condition in human history supports a thesis that humans have morality and reject it at all times throughout history.

There is a warfare in humanity between our having morality and rejecting it. The on-going warfare on battlefields is only a manifestation of this more fundamental warfare which rages within each individual and community.

Subsequent posts in this series will confront the had problem of how God can consistently will that humans have morality while rejecting morality?

Readers my be interested in my book on sexual morality. My book illustrates how humans suffer from having and yet rejecting sexual morality.

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 $3.99, plus $3.71 for shipping and handling.





To purchase the printed book by check, send check of $3.99 plus $3.71 for shipping and handling per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.
Columbus, Ohio 43214

Having Original Sin vs. Committing the Original Sin:How Original Sin Is Inherited

In a series of posts on how Satan and God are in a warfare over whether or not humans go to hell, this post follows, Humankind’s Original Sin & the Emergence of the Human Soul in Evolution.

In that post, we started with a man and a woman who could distinguish right acts from wrong acts but, as was the case with all members of their species had no concept of becoming the kind of person who always chose the right act regardless of any inclination to do otherwise. The moral concept they lacked has a variety of descriptions. We could say that they had no concept of the moral good of always choosing the right act. They had no concept of a good will. We could say that they had the “local” moral concepts of the right acts to do but lacked the “global” moral concept of becoming the kind of moral person they ought to be, namely a person who always chooses the right act because it is right. We could say that they had concerned for doing right acts but not being a righteous person.*

God brought it about that this man and woman acquired this concept of becoming a morally proper person by having as their maxim for making choices to choose what is morally right,i.e. choosing what they have an inclination for only if it is in accordance with what is right. On a momentous occasion when they were tempted to satisfy an inclination to violate a moral law or command of God, Satan provided them with a second temptation. The second temptation was to adopt as a maxim the policy of occasionally setting aside the moral law in order to satisfy an inclination. The temptation was to set aside the goal of being a morally proper person or one in obedience to God’s will. The original sin is the choice of this maxim. For the line of thought that I am pursuing here, it must be emphasized that the original sin of the original parents was the choice of a maxim or policy of occasionally setting aside the moral law. The original parents committed the original sin. Having original sin is having this maxim or policy. I now argue that we can accuse a person of having original sin independently of accusing the person of committing the original sin.

In this post I speculate how this original sin is inherited. Suppose the man and woman were selected by God from all the homo sapiens at certain time to introduce a new moral concept which would be a cultural universal for all humans. They, “Adam and Eve,” were selected to be the creative geniuses who brought a fundamental concept to humanity along with a host of associated concepts. Whatever God let evolution give them so that they could have this thought will be passed on in their biological reproduction. Also whatever God allowed evolutionary processes to give them so that they could have the thought of setting aside a command of God will also be passed on in their biological reproduction.
Recall that concomitant with the concept of obedience to all the moral laws was the associated concept of occasionally setting aside the moral. Here, though, we are primarily concerned with sociological inheritance; not biological inheritance.

All humans contemporaneous with the “original sinners” can be said to have this defective moral character. For the couple with the concept of moral good but who yet succumbed to the temptation to set aside its pursuit belonged to the community of homo sapiens. Once a concept is introduced by some individuals it becomes a concept of the human community. For instance, when someone introduced the concept of zero, we had the concept of zero. That’s how creativity works. So every one has these concepts of moral good and setting it aside once “Adam and Eve and Satan introduced them.”

Which should we assume to be dominant?. Having the maxim of always obeying the moral law requires a lifetime to exhibit. Setting aside the moral law to satisfy an inclination is readily exhibited from earliest childhood. So the presumption is that every child inherits as its operative maxim the policy of occasionally setting aside a command of God. Thus it is a presumption that every child has the original sin of those original parents. This is not a judgment that every child has chosen to do a wrong act. It is a judgment that every child has a moral character that it ought not have. Discussion of restoration of moral character is for subsequent posts. Satan claims that because of the defective moral character of all human beings, they are all on his side and deserve his fate.

*If we say that being a person who has as a maxim always choosing what is right, is a righteous person, , we can say that a fundamental assumption about human beings is that none of us are righteous.

Subsequent posts in this series will focus on why God did not abandon us although none of us are righteous.

Readers my be interested in my book on sexual morality. The central thesis of my book can be interpreted as a temptation from Satan to believe that in principle any pursuit of sexual satisfaction is morally permissible.

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 $3.99, plus $3.71 for shipping and handling.





To purchase the printed book by check, send check of $3.99 plus $3.71 for shipping and handling per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.
Columbus, Ohio 43214
Include your shipping address.

Humankind’s Original Sin & Emergence of the Human Soul in Evolution

This post is in a series building a conceptual model of Satan and his warfare with God to bring all human individuals to annihilation. It follows Why Does Satan Want Us to Go to Hell?

How might this type of animal which Satan wants to bring to hell have arisen in the evolutionary process? Suppose a species of the genus homo had evolved far enough to do the type of thinking and feeling we now call moral thinking about the rightness and wrongness of particular acts. They are homo sapiens but innocent homo sapiens because they never think of themselves as good or bad people. They are aware of moral rules for what they ought not do and what they ought to do. Innocent homo sapiens are not conscious of a potential for being what they ought to be. They have moral concepts of ought-to-to but lack a concept of moral ought-to-be. Put another way: They have the concepts of right and wrong acts but do not have the concept of moral character formation.

For instance, they might have rules expressing moral inhibitions against killing, lying and stealing. Of course, they may not always follow these rules. But they lack the moral concept of the role of being someone who follows these rules. To say that the concept of this role is a moral concept is to say that it is thought everyone has an obligation to play this role.

A message comes from God to a breeding pair of innocent humans. The message takes the form of the imperative: Become the kind of beings who have as their highest priority obeying these moral rules regardless of any inclination to do otherwise. Put another way: The new moral thought is the thought of a command that all plans for satisfying their inclinations, all maxims for how to get things done, need to be restricted to plans that do not violate these general moral rules. Having as one’s highest principle or maxim choosing to satisfy inclinations in conformity with what is morally right simply because it is right to do so is having a good will. A good will is a moral good because it is something to be chosen and it ought to be chosen. This thought of this moral good is a great gift because it brings with it the thought of having a purpose for life. The purpose of life is to become a morally good person.

For those familiar with Kant’s moral theory, it will be apparent that I am adapting Kant’s Categorical Imperative as the thought which makes animals capable of having general moral rules into human beings. But I am not interpreting Kant’s moral theory. If there is anything worthwhile in what I present and it comes from Kant, give Kant credit for it. Do not blame Kant for foolishness in what I write.

However, I am proposing that having the thought of a good will as a good is what gave a human soul to beings in the evolutionary process. A good will is having the character of always choosing to satisfy inclinations for non-moral goods restricted by moral rules. Non-moral goods are the satisfactions of the numerous inclinations humans can have. Since I am not here trying to present a secular account,I will interpret moral rules as God’s commands and thus interpret a good will as always obeying God what commands.

So we have this couple with knowledge of right and wrong plus the additional thought of making themselves into people who always do what is right because they is the way they ought to be. They have the new and overriding good or goal of always choosing what is right when they choose lesser goods. Now comes a temptation. This is a new temptation different from temptations to violate a moral rule. They have always had temptations to violate the moral rules. The new temptation is to set aside the imperative to have a good will as a good for the sake of a lesser good. Put another way: The temptation is to set aside a policy of always doing what God commands simply because God commands it. This is exactly the temptation to which Satan or Lucifer succumbed as we saw What is Satan’s Sin?. They succumbed to this temptation by attempting to justify some violation of a moral rule – some violation of a command of God. So the man and the woman have the policy or maxim of reserving to themselves the right of setting aside a moral law of God- if they so choose. Adopting this maxim is their original sin. Their original sin is not the choice of the act they try to rationalize. The original sin – the sin which is original in the pursuit of moral character- is choice of the policy of on occasion placing inclination satisfaction over obedience to the will or God which we are here identifying with the moral law.

In the next post in this series on Satan and original sin, I speculate on how this original sin is inherited.

Readers my be interested in my book on sexual morality. The central thesis of my book can be interpreted as a temptation from Satan to believe that in principle any pursuit of sexual satisfaction is morally permissible.

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 $3.99, plus $3.71 for shipping and handling.





To purchase the printed book by check, send check of $3.99 plus $3.71 for shipping and handling per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.
Columbus, Ohio 43214
Include your shipping address.

What is Moral Corruption?

This post sketches out a condition of a person’s moral character in which the person needs moral help. The person does not know how to move out of a condition of being in fact in conflict with the moral law, is aware of being in conflict with the moral law, regrets being in conflict with the moral law despite having excusing conditions. He does not feel justified in what he is doing although he feels that he is doing the best under the circumstance.

I frequently wondered why a government in which bureaucrats regularly required bribes for performance of duties which they are paid to perform is called “corrupt.” I associate “corrupt” with rotten meat, wood or some material object ready to fall apart. These so-called corrupt governments or systems last for long periods of time: even centuries. So I needed to develop a concept of corruption which brings to the forefront that it is regular intentional law breaking. Such a concept is proposed in this post. I can focus on moral law. Accepting bribes is in violation of the legal laws of a society and breaking the legal laws, for the most part, is contrary to moral law.

Corruption is a negative feature of a person’s moral character. Particular acts are right or wrong: In compliance with the moral law or in conflict with the moral law. Corruption qualifies the whole of a person’s character even if there is only one kind of moral law being regularly violated. Corruption is not sufficient for making someone a morally bad person

A person has a corrupt moral character if that person knowingly, intentionally, regularly violates a moral law and has no intention to stop the practice. Thus a bureaucrat who regularly takes bribes in a system where that is the practice and who intends to keep his position is morally corrupt. This bureaucrat may be an exemplary person in all other respects; yet he is morally corrupt. A married man who is a womanizer is morally corrupt even if he has the charm and talent to be an otherwise good husband, father and citizen. If he is satisfied with his womanizing he is harden in his moral corruption. The opening paragraphy of this post calls attention to the plight of people not hardened in their corruption. A corrupt person who wishes to get out of the corrupting practice and keeps alert for ways to get out of the practice has weak moral corruption.

Much more could be written to elaborate this notion of moral corruption. But here I want to extend it to apply to Catholic moral marital law discussed in a previous post on controversy about Pope Francis’ hints that certain divorced Catholics could receive the Eucharist. A civilly married Catholic couple, at least one of whom has been divorced from a valid Catholic marriage, is living contrary to Catholic moral law unless they abstain from sexual relations. From the Catholic perspective both are morally corrupt. Pope Francis has suggested that if the corruption in such a couple is weak corruption reception of the Catholic Eucharist may be a spiritual aid for helping them overcome their corruption.

A problem is that there are sacramental laws specifying that people in such a corrupt state ought not receive the Eucharist. We need to be concerned that such married couples and their spiritual advisors not become corrupt with respect to the laws for reception of the Eucharist. This problem of not becoming corrupt by coming in conflict with other laws while trying to heal another type of corruption needs to be discussed in subsequent posts.

My book on sexual morality emphasizes the importance of character formation in sexual morality.

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 $3.99, plus $3.71 for shipping and handling.





To purchase the printed book by check, send check of $3.99 plus $3.71 for shipping and handling per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.
Columbus, Ohio 43214
Include your shipping address.

Love requires moral rules to found the moral law

Jesus agreed, Lk 10:27 that the principles: “Love the Lord your God above all things and your neighbor as yourself” provides a foundation for all the laws of morality and religion. This agreement may suggest to Christians that love alone is sufficient foundation for morality. However, proper love is only a necessary condition for morality. There needs to be knowledge, or awareness, of rules on how we ought to act and how we ought to be. To modify an aphorism of Kant: “Love without rules is blind but rules without love are inoperative.”

Proper love is to choose the good for the beloved. But what is the good for God and for others? The good for God is what God wills. God wills what ought to be. So loving God is to choose what God wills, or what ought to be. Now, because the good is what God wills, loving ourselves and others is to choose what God wills for them and ourselves, or what ought to be for ourselves and others. So the problem of how to love our neighbors as ourselves becomes the problem of finding out what ought to be and developing the will to choose what we have found out what ought to be.

For humans, because we choose particular acts at particular times, what we ought to be is bipartite. We ought to choose those particular acts we ought to choose and become the kind of people who regularly choose the acts we ought to choose. So morality requires knowing the rules for the particular acts in particular circumstances we ought to choose and struggling to become people who keep those rules. If we are making that struggle we are loving. That struggle is building moral character. So, if we are struggling to form our moral character, we are loving God and our neighbor as ourselves. Perhaps grace of God is necessary to motivate us to start and persevere in the struggle to build moral character. By hard thinking throughout the ages humanity has uncovered the basic rules on how we ought to act in regard to controlling our basic passions and inclinations.

I wrote a book on sexual morality using the above notion of character morality.
Read more about character sexual morality in 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.

Male Masturbators are Immoral

Male masturbators are immoral because they are acting on a principle or maxim that they can enjoy up through orgasm any imaginable sexual activity. There are, of course, external constraints on enjoying these activities with any unimagined person beyond oneself. There is fear of legal and social disapproval, lack of any interested partner, etc. The masturbator, though, places no internal restrictions, beyond his sexual interest, on these activities. There is no internal restriction on expanding these sexual interests when more exciting fantasies are needed for orgiastic pleasure.

The acts of a masturbator are not as serious as the acts of a man who actually carries out the sexual fantasy of the masturbator. But their sexual characters are the same. For instance, the masturbatory act of a man imagining fellatio with a nine year old boy is certainly not as serious as the act of a man who does it. But they both share the principle that they can enjoy this kind of activity.

Accepting a practice of masturbation is the basic form of an immoral sexual character for any man. Why? It puts him in conflict with any morality because in his imagination he can flout any rule. Any sexual morality will condemn some sexual activity*. A man who accepts his practice of masturbation holds that no only imagined sexual activities can be condemned.

*(Utilitarian moral outlooks which hold that in principle any sexual activity is permissible will hold some are in fact impermissible because of the damage they do.)

If this condemnation of masturbation interests, or irritates, you, my book defending traditional sexual morality might also be of interest.
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.

Immorality of Suicide and Physician Assisted Suicide

In this post, I lay out a moral objection to physician assisted suicide. Do not be “put-off” by the academic style of presenting a series of numbered claims linked together to draw conclusions. The numbered claims highlight crucial assumptions. This highlighting facilitates focusing on what needs to be discussed in evaluation of this moral condemnation of suicide. A full examination of the assumptions is not undertaken in this post. I make only a few supporting remarks below the argument.

1. I have a moral obligation to be morally correct human beings under any conditions.
By re-expressing (1) negatively, we get:
2. Under no conditions am I permitted to choose not to be a morally correct human being.
Now let us switch to applying the general moral law to my plans and choices.
3. If I plan to take, or have someone else take, my life I plan not to be under some conditions.
4. If I plan not to be under some conditions, then I plan not to be a morally correct human being under some conditions. (Being is a necessary condition for being morally correct.)
So, linking (3) and (4) we get:
5. If I plan to take, or have some take, my life , then I plan not to be a morally correct human being under some conditions.
Suppose
6. I plan to take, or have someone take, my life by making provisions for physician assisted suicide.
We get from 5) and (6)
7. I plan not to be a morally correct human being under some conditions.
Obviously, my plan expressed in (7) is in direct conflict with the moral law expressed in (2). This conflict is the moral condemnation of choosing suicide or physician assisted suicide.

Claim (1) brings out that my case starts from a moral claim. My argument is not based on only natural non-moral facts. I use first person singular, but the moral claim is for all people. If we do accept morality, it is quite plausible to accept an obligation to be moral, viz., a morally correct human being. A “Kantian” moral theory justifying (1) is developed in my book. If there is anything special in this condemnation of suicide it is expressed in (3). Choice of suicide is a choice not to be. It may seem that choice of suicide is a choice not to be in some miserable condition. However, a not to be is chosen as a means for not being in a miserable condition.

I have written a book in which defending traditional sexual morality using as a crucial premise that we have a moral obligation to be morally correct people. To get a sexual morality from that general moral principles, I show that there are specific ways men and women ought to exercise their sexuality. My book gets complicated because I argue that if we do not accept that there are specific ways men and women ought to exercise their sexuality – which I call the moral neutrality of sexuality- then there are no specific ways people ought to be. If there are now specific ways people ought to be, then there is no morality. Everything is permitted including suicide, of course. Nothing matters. That is nihilism.

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.
A free copy of my book can be obtained by emailing me at kielkopf.1@osu.edu

On Ohio State’s “Consent is Sexy” Posters

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

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.