Category Archives: Moral philosophy

Consensual Sexual Morality Would Condemn Cornell Seven “Orgy”

Consensual Sexual Morality, Moral philosophy

At this time, October 2026, there is much discussion of a September 2024 sexual orgy in the Chi Phi Cornell fraternity house. Since seven young men engaged in various sexual acts with a coed called Jane Doe, the incident is called the Cornell Seven In the New York Times, October 8, 2926, Christine Emba wrote “reliance on consent as the ultimate arbiter of acceptability has left us unable to recognize and critique bad behavior outside of its narrow definition of criminal sex. ” She went on to write “That gap between “legal” and “decent” is where moral criticism does its work, but a lack of a moral language strips us of the nuance needed to empathize with victims and to come up with a social, not just a juridical, response. Without that vocabulary, it’s difficult to express what we want our shared sexual culture to look like. ”

However, writers who hold what I call “consensual sexual morality” have lifted the notion of consent above its legal context. The bar for morally acceptable consent is high. All of the students involved were intoxicated with alchohol and ketamine. Even if they were predisposed to sexual activity involving more than two people, at the time they were unable to provide genuine consent. See *for an argument that typical college parties prevent conditions for genuine consent. Thus all of the sexual activity described for the Cornell Seven orgy was immoral. The parties involved acted immorally from the prespective of consensual sexual morality. Morality includes more than fundamental rules. There are rules about not providing support for immoral activities and not stopping them. So, consensual sexual morality can morally castigated responsible officials for not preventing these kinds of activities from occurring. Also by-standers can be morally criticized for not trying to intervene.

I conjecture that faculty and professors developed consensual sexual morality to have moral language adequate to condemn behaviour such as that of the Cornell Seven plus one.

My fear is that the language of consensual sexual morality has become our shared moral language; or, at least, the moral language of the opinion forming elite. As a result we cannot morally condemn that type of group sexual activity even if all of the participants were mature, sober and of sound mind.

*James Rocha, College Party Hook Ups: Consent, Apps, and Double Standards

Consensual Sexual Morality is a Respect Morality

Consensual Sexual Morality, Moral philosophy

What is meant by “respect morality?” A respect morality has a basic imperative that some condition C ought to be promoted and protected regardless of any desire for C. Some examples of C are autonomy, duty and the good of the other. Corresponding imperatives might be expressed as: Protect autonomy for the sake of autonomy, Do your duty for the sake of doing your duty and promote the good of the other for the sake of the good of the other. Respect moralities are also virtue or character moralities because correlative to imperatives to do C for the sake of C there are imperatives to make yourself the kind of person who does C for the sake of C regardless of any desire to be such a person. For consensusal sexual morality in which protecting sexual autonomy is identified with receiving consent, the imperative may, for the purpose of emphasizing the difference between respect and desire, be expressed as protect receiving consent to the sexual act regardless of any desire to wait for consent.

The significance of recognizing some moralities as respect moralities is to point out that these kinds of moral theories need to include in their moral psycholgies another factor besides belief and desire to account for moral motivation. Perhaps belief and desire can account for why people choose what is believed to be good. However, if autonomy is specified what is to be respected, desire cannot account for choosing autonomy because autonomy is the condition for specifying what is good or truly desirable.

In this connection, I close this note by an attempt to reduce respecting sexual autonomy to desiring a certain type of sexual experience. See On Ohio State’s “Consent is Sexy” Posters.

Consensual Sexual Morality & a Rationalization for Abortion

Abortion, Moral philosophy

Can Consensual Sexual Morality be used to defend abortion? If conception is regarded as a part of an erotic episode, a plausible rationalization for abortion can be made. For terminology, I repeat the last paragraph of Consensual Sexual Morality – II . I have never heard or read of any defense of abortion along the lines sketched out below. If the rationalization is explicitly stated, the “stretching the meaning of terms” makes it implausible. I present it as a challenge to holders of consensual sexual morality who also support abortion rights. They are challenged to consider if they implicitly rationalize abortions in this way. Abortions stop a pregnancy. They are not killing an unborn human. Pregnancies are processes in sexual activity and such consent for such processes may always be withdrawn.

A summary of the relations of right, good and erotic actions in erotic episodes is helpful. Here I use “coerced” rather than “non-consensual” although some non-cconsensual acts are not strictly speaking coerced. I use “coerced” to emphasize the negativity of the types of non-consensual actions to which I allude. An erotic action is right (morally permissible by sexual morality ) if and only if no participant is coerced to perform or allow it. An erotic episode is right (morally permissible by sexual morality) if and only if the none of the erotic actions are coerced.

Erotic actions are the many and various things people do in an erotic episode to arouse and give pleasure. But not all of the actions in an erotic episode are intentional. Much is done naturally. They are just what people do while having sex. So, we might extend the notion of erotic action to erotic occurrence or better sexual occurrence. Then conception can be regarded as a sexual occurrence – a phase in an erotic episode. Indeed, the conception as a process of a spermatazoa contacting an ovum does most frequently occur as a phase of an erotic episode. But “conception” denotes a product as well as a process. As soon as there is the process, there is the product. So, the product -the conceptus- is also part of the erotic episode. This product is a growing entity in the body of the woman for typically nine months. By staying within the body, it extends the erotic episode for nine months. “Pregnancy” is the term for such extended erotic episodes. With a slight modification of the above quoted conditions for a morally permissible erotic episode, we have: An erotic episode is morally permissible if and only if each phase of it is consensual. This gives: A pregnancy is morally permissible if and only if each phase of it is consensual. So, if a woman refuses consent to the conception at any phase of the pregnancy, the pregnancy is not morally permissible. What is not morally permissible may be stopped. So, if a woman refuses consent to the pregnancy, the pregnancy may be terminated.

I critique this line of argument inConception is not Sexual.

Consensual Sexual Morality – II

Moral philosophy, Progressive Morality

A moral outlook has two parts: A theory of right, and and a theory of good. The bipartite division is based on the first principal of natural morality: Do good, avoid evil! The theory of right specifies what we have a right to do. These rights are what we may do without doing evil. So, in effect, the theory of right tells us what ought not be and how to avoid it. So, a theory of right could be considered a moral outlook’s theory of evil. These “Thou shalt not” are protective. For instance, in consensual sexual morality, sexual dignity is to be protected. Consensual Sexual Morality – I presents the theory of right for consensual sexual morality. The first principle of natural morality is not only protective, it is also calls for promotion of what is good. Specification of the good to be promoted and guidelines for promoting it are theory of good for a moral outlook.

It is worth noting that the first principle of natural law can be read in two ways depending upon whether the protection part is taken as more important than the promotion part. If a condition, such as dignity, which is not by itself a good, as needing protection at all costs, then promotion of positive goods are constrained by prohibitions against infringing upon that protected condition. These are rights moral outlooks. On the contrary if the only, or primary, protection needed is hinderance of the good, then we have a beneficent or teleological moral outlook for acts are judged by how well they promote that for which they are good. The consensual sexual morality theory I am constructing is a rights theory.

Why does the moral outlook of consensual sex have a theory of rights as more fundamental than its theory of good? Sexual practice is obviously in pursuit of some good in the sense of something highly desired for its own sake. People avidly engage in courting, bonding and mating. Unfortunately, sexual practices provide many affronts to human dignity; especially using others as merely bodies for some satisfaction. The affronts to human dignity require moral thought to protect human dignity. So, when we come to moralize sexual practice we must first protect human dignity. Once the constraints on pursuit of the good are in place, attention can refocus on the good to consider how it may be promoted.

What is the good of sexual activity from the perspective of consensual sexual morality? The sexual activity of the human animal, as for other animals, consists of the reproductive activities of courting, mating and bonding. I use “mating” to refer to the various uses of the genitalia for arousal and pleasure; not only to coitus. Mating is an episode beginning with some arousal actions, a climax and some post climatic states. Why do we do these things? No doubt a function of our sexual activity is reproduction of our species. Instincts are a foundation for sexual practices. Most likely we have evolved, or been created, to find the activities desirable for their own sake. However, in humans sexual activities are also intentional. A crucial assumption I put at the foundations of consensual sexual morality holds: It is in what people intend where we find what is the good of a practice in the sense of what is the purpose of a practice. If we study the human species as zoologists, human sexuality is for reproduction and bonding – has the function of reproduction and forming a foundational element of social grouping. When we examine the human condition with a view to discovering or inventing, our place in reality and purpose of our lives, we, from the perspective of consensual sexual moralists, hold that the pleasure of mating episodes is the purpose of human sexuality. For only self-conscious rational beings set purposes.

When writing of consensual sexual morality, accuracy requires a more comprehensive term for the genitalia manipulation phase of sexuality than “mating episode.” The term “mating” suggests an activity whose function is reproduction. Consensual sexual moralists find good in the pleasure of masturbation and same-sex genital manipulation. So, I offer “erotic episode” as a more comprehensive term. Colloquially, “making love” and “having sex” are terms for what I here call erotic episodes. When writing of erotic episodes, accuracy also requires a moral general term than “genitalia manipulation” since while people have sex, more body parts than genitalia may be manipulated. Indeed, material objects such as sex toys and pornography may be involved in the episode. I am writing about sexual morality; not about sex itself. So, I do not want to describe details. I label all those actions used for arousal and pleasure in an erotic episode “erotic actions”. Many, if not most, erotic actions are clearly identified as sexual. However, there are many other actions, not readily identifiable as having anything to do with sexuality, which for various reasons some people use in erotic episodes for sexual arousal and pleasure such as whipping, choking and even killing. These non-sexual actions are morally forbiden even if not forbidden by sexual morality. Consensual sexual moralists have more morality than sexual morality. So, even if an erotic episode in which all parties consented to all erotic actions, there could be moral condemnation of strangling a woman even if she consented. The strangling would not be condemned as a sexual wrong but as the wrong of strangling someone.

In the following I assume that if people engage in a practice for its own sake, they intend to do so.

We cannot assume that people engage in the varieties of courting, mating and bonding with the intention of reproduction. For one, humans needed to learn that the natural function of coitus is conception and birth. Secondly, at least in recent history, there are intentions to avoid conception. What in this triad of courting, mating and bonding is most likely to be desired for its own sake? Courting is for the sake of finding a mating partner. Bonding is for the sake of supporting results of the mating. This leaves the erotic episodes to be desired for their own sake.

Do people pursue erotic episodes for their own sake? The “in general answer” is: People pursue erotic episodes simply because they are highly desired. In general truths are not necessary truths. But they hold for the vast majority of situations And a special explanation has to be given to support a claim that the “in general” claim is rejected for a special case.. So, it is a fact that erotic episodes are desired for their own sake. Critical thinkers may note that being desired does not mean being good. So, consensual sexual moralists add to their rights principles about protecting sexual dignity a value principle that the pleasure of erotic episodes is a basic human good. Consensual sexual morality is sex positive! Individuals experience sexual pleasure, but the judgment that this pleasure is good is a judgment that we have an obligation to increase the experiences of it both numerically and qualitatively. But obligations to promote good are obligations to do so when we can actually accomplish something without doing more harm than good. For instance, an increase in what is good might be accomplish by providing opportunities for people with physical disabilities to enjoy erotic episodes

Erotic episodes have participants and can be evaluated on the basis of the sexual pleasure of the participants. But the evaluation does not call for specific action for it is not ordered and there is no clear way of adding pleasures. But most of all, rights protection is more important that sexual pleasure promotion. An erotic episode with a USA billionaire and an eight-year old girl in Southeast Asia may be very good because of the intense pleasure of the adult. But its goodness does nothing to remove the fact that it is categorically forbidden as a degradation of the girl’s sexual dignity, and indeed the dignity of all girls.

It may be that pornography enhances sexual pleasure for male viewers who masturbate and even for male/female couples who view it together. But promoting pornography might have undesirable consequences for society. Here is a situation where we might do more harm than good by promoting what we think we do by promoting sexual pleasure.

A summary of the relations of right, good and erotic actions in erotic episodes is helpful. Here I use “coerced” rather than “non-consensual” although some non-onsensual acts are not strictly speaking coerced. I use “coerced” to emphasize the negativity of the types of non-consensual actions to which I allude. An erotic action is right (morally permissible by sexual morality ) if and only if no participant is coerced to perform or allow it. An erotic episode is right (morally permissible by sexual morality) if and only if the none of the erotic actions are coerced. The pleasures of participants are good whether in the actions or in the whole episode; but pleasures do not justify.

When Evil is Good

Freewill, Moral philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Retributive punishment

Many bibilica;l passages tell us that the suffering of Christ saved humanity from the punishment deserved for our sins. For instance, Peter 2:24

“He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. ‘By His stripes you are healed’”

How does the pain of Christ’s suffering reconcile God with humanity. Is God pleased with suffering? An authority no less than Aquinas III. 48 2 tells us that God was not pleased with the sufferings of Christ. Rather God is pleased with the great Charity of Chirst by his suffering the pain deserved for our sins. But what is it for Christ to show charity by suffering? Charity or love is willing the good of the other. It seems Christ willed immense suffering as the good for humanity. Now immense suffering is evil. So, it seems that Christ willed an evil as a good for humanity.

How can an evil be a good? An evil is a good if it ought to be. How can an evil be be something which ought to be? An evil ought to be when it is willed to be by violating a moral law. See Review of My Moral Harm Concept. Violations of moral laws create ad hoc specific moral prescriptions that some harm ought to be done. These ad hoc norms make human morality inconsistent and because of the immense amount of immorality place humanity under a moral burden that much suffering ought to be. Retributive punishment removes only a few of these ad hoc norms. So, our retributive punishments improve morality only marginally. Our efforts leave morality on the whole requiring that evil ought to be. Now ultimately evil is what ought not be. So, our current morality specifies that we ought not be. According to our current morality, if everything becomes as it ought to be, humanity ought not be.

Now, using certain theological assumptions, Christ’s suffering sufficed to satisfy every violation induced ad hoc norm obligating some harm; all of them past, present and future. This creates a new moral order for a reality when all is as it ought to be. That moral order will be fully compatible with “Do good, avoid evil.” There will be no violations to induce requirements for evil as retribution. However, it will still be a moral order for free choice because its subjects will have the free will of obedience. See Obedience vs. Autonomy

Obedience vs. Autonomy

Freewill, Realism vs. anti-realism

If there is no God whom we can obey, then life is meaningless. Why?

That for which we are free, is that which gives life meaning.1

However, if we determine that for which we are free, that which we determine cannot give life meaning. We cannot specify that which gives life meaning. Meaning must be set for us by something outside ourselves.

It is the autonomy of reason which sabotages the goals reason gives as goals for use of rational freewill. With rational freewill we have a reason for what we choose. Our autonomous reason answers only to itself as what is a proper use of reason. Hence, what reason determines to be correct is not something external to us.

To make my case I will consider only rational free will, at its best. There are three types of rational freewill. The freewill of desire, the freewill of righteousness and the freewil of love. For additional clarification of my terminology, see Agency, Ordinary Free Will, & Free Will of Love .

At its best the freewill of desire is for happiness. Of course, happiness is a poor candidate for the purpose of human existence. It is not clear what constitutes happiness and few if any attain happiness which then passes away with them. But here the point is that human reason is used to specify what happiness would be. Any candidate for happiness needs to be justified by reason.

The freewill of righteousness is the freedom to choose what is right because it is right. At its best what the freewill of righteousness is for is a good will – a will which chooses what is right because it is right. A good will cannot be what we live for. The philosopher Kant admitted that a person with a good will could be ineffective in accomplishing much good and be unhappy. But here the point is that we determine what a makes a will good because ultimately we determine what is right. Any claim that something is a duty must be acceptable to reason.

The freewill of love is to will the good of the other for the sake of the other. At its best the freewill of love is for the good of all. The freewill of love seems not to be self-centered. It might seem that the good of the others sets that for which we are free. However, choice of the good for others which is mistaken is not the freewill of love at its best. We need to use human reason to evaluate what is good for all the others. Now, in fact, programs for universal human good are usually miserable projects – for dystopias which would pass away. But here the point is that human reason is the arbitrator of what the freewill of love is for.

So, understanding the goals of rational freewill at its best, cannot show us the meaning of human life. What can? Obedience: Willing the will of the another simply because the other wills it.

Obedience is a type of freedom. For one can obey or not obey. However, it is not really a type of freewill because the will is given up. There is no act of the will of willing not to will. Becoming perfectly in harmony with what another will is allowing it to happen. In any event, the type of obedience I am writing about is not rational freewill. No reason is given to justify the choice, Indeed, finding a reason for willing as another wills would destroy what occurs as obedience. So, the obedience of an unwilling slave is not the obedience I am writing about. the unwilling slave has a reason for obeying; he does not want to be whipped. However, using our reason to lay out what is a good for a human life, does not preclude that which reason characterizes as a good for human life. It can be a goal for human life if we let the reality reason characterizes lead us regardless of the reason for it.

For the most part, this type of obedience is not valuable. We want our little children to grow to act on their own. So, we consider freedom to obey only at its best if we want to consider what it is for as giving a meaning to human life

At its best freedom of obedience is for what a perfectly good being wills. In other words freedom of obedience at its best willing what God wills. So, from this standpoint, the meaning of life is what God wills

  1. The claim is that the purpose of one of the ways in which we are free provides the purpose of our lives, if anything provides a purpose.

How Pain Atones for Sin

Contrition, Moral harm, Moral philosophy, Religious morality

In his January 18, 2026 Sermon, Bshop Robert Barron declared: “Sin Has to be Paid For.” He commented on a conviction deep in biblical sensibility that evil has to be dealt with by somehow confronting it here on earth in our daily life. Because he was preaching about the redemptive suffering of Jesus Christ, the implication is that the confronting of the evil is actually suffering the evil. He noted that forgiving a wrong by someone in a position to forgive does not fully deal with the evil. I thought of Erika Kirk forgiving the killer of her husband Charlie Kirk. What did her forgiveness accomplish? So much remains untouched. The evil of the deed is still there, she still griefs the loss of her husband, the assassin Tyler Robinson is still guilty and will suffer the legal consequences of his act. What is accomplish by way of removing evil by suffering an evil?

I answer by developing my reflections on Retributive Punishment and Moral Harm .

When Tyler Robinson chose to shoot Charlies Kirk, his justification for his action, was “this life ought to be taken.” By so choosing and acting, he added to morality a new, an ad hoc, moral rule requiring an evil, the taking of a life. It is the intentional and actual taking of the life of Charlies Kirk which which creates the ad hoc norm. The murder was a performative act because the performance of the act created something real in the moral order. Such an ad hoc prescribing harm conflicts with morality. It is a foreign element in morality.

As a reminder: there are numerous as hoc moral rules which can be carried out. A promise to repay a loan, creates an ad hoc rule which is satisfied when the loan is repaid. The promise is a performative act creating a prescription in morality

Sin is the reality in morality of an ad hoc moral rule requiring evil. The sense of sin is the dread of satisfaction of this ad hoc rule along with dread of leaving it unsatisfied.

There is so much sin in the world. Hence, much harm is required. Suffering pain is harm. Hence, a sentiment arises that personally suffering some pain satisfies some of these ad hoc norms requiring harm and thereby removing them from morality. The sentiment is that personal pain can be used to improve the human condition by at least satisfying some of the norms requiring harm to humans. This sentiment is that our pain can be used to atone for sins – our own and others.

Retribution versus the Will to Power

Moral philosophy, Nihilism, Retributive punishment

Use of moral language presupposes human dignity. See Human Dignity Requires Retribution. Any person has the status to challenge anyone who asserts “I will do it” with “You ought not do it.” With moral language the will to power can always be challenged from a higher standpoint by the will for what ought to be done. Unfortunately, the will to power frequently, if not almost always, overcomes the will for righteousness – the will for what is right. The will to power inflicts pain. The will for righteousness is left with the claim that there ought to be pain in reaction – retribution- to the actual unjustified pain.

What if all that the will for righteousness had was the claim that there ought to be pain? (Revenge is not production of the pain that ought to be. Revenge is only a contrary exercise of a will to power.) If the pains that ought to be never occurred, moral language would be only language – a way of trying to persuade people. The will to power is not only expressed in language. It is follwed up with oppression. If moral language is only a form of rhetoric, then morality is only a weak way of expressing a will to power. If moral language is only a way of expressing a will to power, there is no morality, If there is no morality, then all is permitted. Everything is permitted is an expression of nihilism. In the long run, nothing matters. The presupposition of human dignity is gone.

So, if morality is to be more than words, then all of the pain that there ought to be must occur. Why all? Pain that ought to be arises upon violation of a moral law. There is no reason for distinguish between moral laws. To be sure, morality by itself does not require pain that ought to be; only the potentiality for requiring pain as a sanction for its laws. Pain that ought to be depends upon an actual violation of a moral law. Morality as we know it, presupposes a Fall. But given violations, there is a pain that ought to be.

So, in actuality morality is fatally flawed. It categorically forbids infliction of harm; backed up with threats of inflicting harm. Harm is inflicted contrary to its laws and so harm is categorically required. Those norms requiring need to be removed to bring morality back to what it ought to be. This hope for redemption is not a concern about some abstraction called morality. If morality does no have these harm requiring norms satisfied, then morality is only words and the will to power prevails. So, the required harm -retribution- needs to be actual to have human dignity, for us to have more than nihilism as our fate and for the will to power not to prevail.

How much harm needs to be suffered for morality to overcome the will to power? An unlimited amount of suffering is required for there is no limit to the defiance of moral laws. Someone suffering unlimited harm for the sake of satisfying every moral norm requiring pain or suffering, would redeem morality and thereby redeem us by making morality the prevaling force over the will to power.

I now face the task for my next post on retribution and a redeemer.

Retribution Shows Shallowness of “Trolley Problems”

Moral harm, Moral philosophy, Retributive punishment

Some discussions in moral philosophy revolve around asking what the discussants’ intuitions tell how the questions should be answered. For instance, in a discussion about whether it is wrong to directly take the life of a terminally ill patient in pain as opposed to letting the patient die, some report that their intuitions are that the direct killing is wrong while others report their intuitions are contrary. The interminable “trolley cases” fall into this pattern. What’s the pattern? A case is invented wherein there is a forced choice between violating a standing moral rule such as: Don’t kill! Don’t lie, and bringing about an outcome with less suffering by violating the rule.

These discussions go on-and-on because many of us have intuitions supporting both sides. What are these intuitions? These inuitions are based on our innate knowledge of how to use moral language – how to think morally. I call this knowledge “semantics of moral language.” In the semantics of moral language the direct violation of a moral law is to proclaim that some harm ought to be brought about. This is the thought of retribution. So thinking of violating a moral law is to think that there ought to be some harm. Thinking that some harm ought to be brought about is prima facie not a proper way to think.. On the other hand, in the semantics of moral language thinking that some preventable suffering need not be prevennted is prima facie not a proper way to think. The invented examples do not allow for going beyond prima facie thought. The semantics of moral language will not settle the case. So these discussions continue throughout the ages.

Here my goal is not to provide a recipe for how to settle these cases. My purpose is to diagnose these continuing discussions as based on the semantics of moral language. The examples bring out that the semantics of moral language offer two alternative for what to say about the imaginary situation: “There ought to be harm.” vs. “Let there be harm.” The only feature of the actual world that will be affected by a choice of what to say will be what people think about us. I am not confident that what someone says about an imaginary scenario is a good predictor of how they choose in an actual case. Actual situations offer more alternatives for action than the semantics of moral language offer for what to say.

Human Dignity Requires Retribution

Moral harm, Moral philosophy

There is a widespread sentiment that violations of the moral law ought to be followed by some suffering. I believe that this retributive sentiment is more widespread than agreement on moral rules. This sentiment may be mocked as a superstition that there are gods of justice or furies who bring about such suffering. Or the sentiment may be despised as some hypocritical cloak of an inclination for revenge. My goal in all my posts on moral harm and retribution is to show that a belief that violations of the moral law ought to be followed by suffering can be expressed in the language of morality without reference to any non-human agents or sentiments for revenge. See Review of My Moral Harm Concept. This representation in the language of morality shows that the belief is rational. Rational does not imply correctness. But it shows that it must be countered with considerations from reason; not from mockery.

Here my goal is to sketch out how the notion of human dignity includes the notion of retribution.

A feature of moral thinking is that anyone can make a moral judgment. No social standing or power is needed to say “You are not entitled to do that to us.” If I may use the cliche “Speaking truth to power,” moral language is the language for speaking truth to power.” Whatever else is involved in human dignity, it includes this status, almost to speak as a god, of saying to everyone, everywhere and always “Thou shalt not !” “Thou shalt !” But such proclamations are empty complaints, whinning of the weak, if there are no consequences for defying them. Of course, cynics think that is all there is to moral protests from the weak. But cynics think there is no morality and the weak have no status, no dignity.

What have the weak to maintain there dignity? What force do their moral judgments have? The weak do not have the social and physical power to resist the stronger. Resistance involves at least the pain of thwarting the will of the aggressor. But the weak cannot inflict the pain of resistance in the physical world. They need to move to the moral order to maintain their dignity. The moral order contains what ought to be. In the moral order a violation of a moral rule creates a second moral rule that there ought to be pain for a violation of the first moral rule. This is the fundamental notion of retribution.