Monthly Archives: November 2018

Proof of the Traditional Moral Law for Male Sexuality

The fundamental moral law for male sexuality tells us that a man should not intentionally seek an orgasm except in sexual intercourse having the possibility of conception with a woman to whom he is committed to care for while providing for any children resulting from that intercourse. Call this the paternal principle.

The focus is on male sexuality. I am most familiar with it because I am a man and male sexuality is the most troublesome in human sexuality.

The paternal principle tells us that masturbation, homosexual relations, uncommitted relations with a woman and, of course, adultery are morally wrong. Men who regularly engage in these immoral sexual acts are with respect to sexuality not the kind of men they ought to be.

Why is this so? The answer is a brief statement that brings out the main points. Much more can always be said. But we need to see the main points before elaboration in a long essay or book.

Consider male sexuality. Its core action is the distribution of sperm. The purpose of sperm dispersal, or orgasm, is procreation of human beings. That’s what we would say about the sexuality of other male animals. We cannot deny that this purpose is a great good for human beings. Hence, the procreative function of male orgasms ought to be promoted and ought not be inhibited.

Yes, this judgment that procreation is a great good is a moral judgment. Making moral judgments is part of common sense and this discussion is at the common sense level.

Besides the great value of sexuality we are well aware that it is troublesome. Anybody can make up a list of the joys and sorrows of human sexuality; especially on the part of males. Evidence of this is that sexuality is restricted by all sorts of customs and rules; amongst which are moral rules. Human sexuality, as we know it, is a morally restricted activity.

Using our capacity to think morally to restrict our sexual behavior may have evolved as one way to control some of the harm of unrestricted sex. Even if the cause of making moral restrictions on sexuality is harm prevention, it does not follow that the reasons in our moral thinking justifying the restrictions is the harm they prevent. As will be shown the reasons are based on promoting the great good of sexuality and restricting that which inhibits this great good.

The question at issue is what are the fundamental moral restrictions. We are not asking whether or not it ought to be morally restricted. Morally unrestricted sexuality would not be human sexuality as we know it. Furthermore, asking whether it ought to be morally restricted already places sexuality under moral considerations. We cannot evade thinking morally about our sexuality. Even those who hold that the only moral restriction on sexual activity is the free consent of those involved are thinking morally about sexuality.

The paternal principle clearly tells us how to promote the great good of human sexuality along with condemning what frustrates that good. It offers men a clear standard for deciding on the morality of their primary sexual action. Think of the chaos of possibilities deviations from it allow.It does not leave room for seeking special circumstance which may permit following sexual inclinations, which are all too frequent, contrary to the good of sexuality. Looking for special circumstances permitting deviations from protection of the good of an activity are rationalizations which undercut the purpose of moral restrictions on the activity. All alternatives to the paternal principle make room for considerations which allow violations of the protection of the good of sexuality. For the paternal principle says exactly what its good is and condemns whatever inhibits it.

So the paternal principle does exactly what is needed for moral restriction on male sexuality. That’s probably why awareness of it is a cultural universal, even if not followed or ignored in many cultures.

I am earnestly seeking readers who will develop this line of thinking about morality and sexuality to extend it to female sexuality along with guidelines on how to apply it to improve the human condition with regard to exercise of sexuality.

The above line of argument was presented in Chapter IV
of my book Confronting Sexual Nihilism: Traditional Sexual Morality as an Antidote to Nihilism , Tulsa 2014.

See Book Web Page for information about the book. These blog posts are in effect work towards a 2nd edition. I have not changing the basic line of argument in my book. But in these blog posts I am developing better ways of expressing my argument by staying with the language of common sense and removing topics and language which could at best be of interest to professional academic philosophers. Free copies can be obtained here by credit card by paying $3.75 for shipping and handling.





To receive a free book, send check of $3.75 for shipping and handling per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.

The Intercourse Theory of Conception

Don’t these people know about the intercourse theory of conception? That’s what I cynically ask myself when I read novels in which the author sends his characters merrily off, for all sorts of reasons, to start baby-making.

That sexual intercourse between a man and woman is the cause of conception is one of our best established theories. Coupled with awareness of this theory comes those positive and negative thoughts and feelings about sexuality. We realize its importance for human survival, pleasures and love. Yet we dread its disruptive power.

The intercourse theory of conception, and accompanying thoughts and feelings are common sense. Suddenly, it struck me that the way to make my defense of traditional sexual morality clearer is to stay with common sense. I am not saying that acceptance of traditional sexual morality is part of common sense. However, the beliefs and concepts used in a strong case for traditional sexual morality are expressible in the every day language with which we talk about sex. The argument does not need some special philosophical vocabulary and system. The ideas we use to talk about relationships, to give advice, to teach children about sex, to gossip, etc., are sufficient to follow, accept or reject the argument. The importance of emphasizing that the argument goes on at the common sense level is that it has to be given serious attention. It cannot be ignored as coming from some special religion or philosophy. It is not necessary to develop a special philosophical vocabulary and then show that use of this conceptual scheme is the correct way to represent reality as it is.

In my book, I tended to develop too much special vocabulary and explicitly draw upon the philosopher Kant. I am not changing the basic themes of the book. But I am setting aside ways of speaking, issues and scholarship which would be of interest to academic philosophers, reference to other philosophers and intriguing philosophical puzzles. I will write for the intelligent lay person using terms of everyday life. Of course, this does not eliminate the critical thinking need for making distinctions and defining how some crucial terms will be used in discussion. But critical thinking is common sense.

There are other common sense concepts whose use we need not justify. The language of morality: right, wrong, good, evil etc. does not need defense. We do not need to show that we have a right to talk about right and wrong. We do make the distinction between the results of natural processes we can alter and the results of natural processes, such as the getting of agreements by promises, which it is wrong to frustrate by lying. We do not need to justify using the notions of good character, a way a person ought to be, and a meaning for life. If we try to show that we are entitle to talk at the common sense level, we start an endless regress of justifying our ways of thinking. This undercuts giving an effective argument.

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. These blog posts are in effect work towards a 2nd edition. I have not changing the basic line of argument in my book. But in these blog posts I am developing better ways of expressing my argument by staying with the language of common sense and removing topics and language which could at best be of interest to professional academic philosophers. Free copies can be obtained here by credit card by paying $3.75 for shipping and handling.





To receive a free book, send check of $3.75 for shipping and handling per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.

Trump: His Sexual Nihilism

By accepting the murder of Jamal Khashoggi as the price of doing business with Saudi Arabia, our president, Donald Trump, proclaimed to the entire world that he is a nihilist. Nothing matters, everything is permitted, as along as it serves his interest and he has the power to do it. On this Thanksgiving Day, 2018, let us thank God that the entire world does not yet despise us as a nihilist nation.

How can we protect ourselves from degenerating into nihilists? There is a bulwark against nihilism in the struggle to build the character and follow the rules of traditional sexual morality.

Donald Trump is a notorious sexual nihilist. In principle, every thing sexual is permissible. He sets aside any moral constraints on satisfying his sexual inclinations . Legal need for consent is not a great obstacle for him. His power and wealth allows him to “coerce” consent.

I wrote Confronting Sexual Nihilism: Traditional Sexual Morality as an Antidote to Nihilism , Tulsa, 2014 See Confronting Sexual Nihilism. In the book I make three main points. 1.Struggling to live in accordance with traditional sexual morality gives us a purpose in life.
2.Following the commonly held moral theory that anything sexual is morally permissible if there is consent, soon leads to full-fledged nihilism that in principle everything
is permissible.
3. A strong case, using only claims and concepts available to all contemporary rational people, that it is reasonable to struggle to build the character to follow the rules of traditional sexual morality.

I need help in making this case. Please feel free to use and develop any ideas from my book or these blog posts

These blog posts are in effect work towards a 2nd edition. Free copies can be obtained here by credit card by paying $3.75 for shipping and handling.





To receive a free book, send check of $3.75 for shipping and handling per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.

Masturbation & Sexual Nihilism

“Sexual nihilism” is a philosophic term labeling a theory that sexuality has no deep significance. For ordinary conversation the term describes a grim human condition. In the November 14, 2018 New York Times op-ed section Ross Douthat writes of empty lives reflexing empty sexual morality. See: The Huxley Trap: How technology and masturbation tamed the sexual revolution.

Sexual nihilists teach that sexuality itself sets no moral limits on how we seek sexual satisfaction. For sexual nihilists the only restriction on attaining sexual satisfaction is that no one is forced to participate. If there is consent anything goes! Masturbation could easily be a preferred sexual practice. There is no problem of getting consent. Lack of imagination might reduce the satisfactions available. In these times, technology fills this lack with internet pornography.

The so-called sexual revolution of the sixties was the teaching of sexual nihilism by culture forming elites and popular acceptance of the teaching. Douthat reminds us that conservatives predicted widespread sexual licentiousness. There has been some of that. But there is nothing like the wild on-going orgies that worried some conservatives. The reality is duller and more depressing. Ross Douthat reports on studies showing many – under forties- are not dating let alone marrying and having children. Without being gay, they associate mostly with members of their own sex. Their sexual inclinations are exacerbated by pornography and satisfied by masturbation.

In passing, remember that pornography loses its erotic power as users become familiar with it. There is a temptation to seek out sexual images with ever more power to excite. This leads to downloading child-porn and sadistic porn with terrible legal consequences. So, the flight from seeking consenting partners is not safe from disastrous social consequences.

However, the disastrous consequences with respect to the significance of one’s life – a sense of life having a purpose – are even worse. Call these existential consequences. By nature homo sapiens, the human animal has thoughts about right, wrong, good, evil, life having a point or purpose. It is not just theory that says we have the purpose of having children. We feel that command of nature. That’s why I linked to Douthat’s column. A good writer makes us aware of the bleakness of a way of life in which sexuality is morally and existentially pointless. We cannot make sense of our lives if we trivialize our constant sexual inclinations as having no significance other than opportunities for brief episodes of intense pleasure.

Reflect on how dreadful our sexuality seems when we look at it as a means simply for trivial pleasures. We set our sexuality apart from ourselves. It is too trivial to have any important goal keeping us alive. We need to eat. We do not need sexual climaxes. Still we cannot ignore it. It constantly makes demands on us. It is almost like a “demon” driving us to seek trivial satisfactions which are not lasting satisfactions.

In my book, I call this grim condition “sexual alienation.” On one hand, sexuality is too trivial to be an important feature of who we are. On the other hand, sexuality is an external force driving us to act in ways which have bad consequences unless we exercise constant vigilance.

My book on sexual morality cites the existential need for setting aside sexual alienation as the solution for the selection problem. The selection problem was justifying a moral claim that the natural functions of sexuality are not to be intentionally inhibited when, in general, there are no moral restrictions on inhibiting the natural functions of natural processes.

Consider a bit more evidence that upholders of traditional sexual morality were not over emphasizing the crucial moral and existential place of sex. The #metoo movement is in part a rebellion against the insinuation that sexuality, and thereby women, is mostly insignificant fun. Recall also the harrowing recurrent recollections of people who were inflicted with “sexual play” by adults .

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. These blog posts are in effect work towards a 2nd edition. Free copies can be obtained here by credit card by paying $3.75 for shipping and handling.





To receive a free book, send check of $3.75 for shipping and handling per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.

Values Are As Fundamental As Facts

Our goal is to show that basic moral rules of traditional sexual morality are correct rules because they adequately express the structure of nature or reality. There is a widespread assumption, some times called scientism, that nature apart from human thinking and feeling consists only of facts and scientific laws of nature Scientism is an assumption that moral laws and values cannot adequately express the structure of nature.

A question of these blog posts is whether or not moral laws, especially the laws of traditional sexual morality, adequately express the structure of nature. So it is a fallacy of begging-the-question to assume scientism.

There is no reason to assume scientism. Factual thinking and moral thinking are equally fundamental in that part of nature where there is obviously thinking. That part of nature is human thinking. Without special effort to control how we think, our thinking is a complex mixture of thinking what is, what is not along with what ought to be and what ought not to be. Thinking about what is can be called descriptive thinking while thinking about what ought to be is normative thinking. There is no escape from this mixture of descriptive and normative thinking.. If we raise the question of whether or not we ought to control our thinking to get the facts before making any judgments about what ought or ought not be done, we have obviously already thought about what ought or ought not be done.

So, if thinking represents reality or nature, nature contains both what is the case and what ought to be the case. If we use seeing as a model for getting the facts and hearing as a model for responding to the normativity in nature, both looking and listening are crucial for thinking correctly about nature.

This line of thought takes the approach of so-called modern philosophy initiated by Descartes, (1596-1650). This modern approach of philosophy specifies that we start philosophizing by paying attention to our thinking. Of course, assuming that we start critical thinking about reality by paying attention to our thinking about reality is not to assume that reality is nothing but thinking. In a thought there can be that which makes it be something real apart from thinking.

The modern approach leaves room for a skeptical doubt that there is nothing but thinking. In all our philosophical thinking we are thinking about thinking. We do not directly encounter the being which makes our thoughts a reality we encounter. So, it is not logically inconsistent to suggest that our thoughts are not real. But is it not clear that when we encounter thinking we are encounter something real – something which has being? So, we can set aside the suggestion that there is no being except thinking.

I will avoid discussing these fundamental issues about reality in subsequent blog posts. But it must be admitted that my arguments for laws of traditional sexual morality, presuppose that there is a reality which our descriptive and normative thinking can accurately represent.

My book on sexual morality makes this assumption of realism. 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. These blog posts are in effect work towards a 2nd edition. Free copies can be obtained here by credit card by paying $3.75 for shipping and handling.





To receive a free book, send check of $3.75 for shipping and handling per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.

Contempt for Traditional Catholic Moral Theory

I tripped falling hard on my right side in front of finish line for the October 21, 2018 Columbus Nationwide 1/2 marathon.My right femur broke immediately below the hip socket. Dr.Li an OSU orthopedic surgeon provided me with a titanium hip and femur insert. I am facing a long slow recovery.

Am I called to use my recovery to reinvigorate a mission I began a few years ago? This mission is to use whatever philosophical skills I have to show that traditional sexual morality is as well justified as any set of moral rules for sexual activity. A case for traditional, and Catholic, sexuality morality deserves the attention of all who claim to be open minded. Unfortunately, there is widespread contempt, even amongst Catholics, for so-called natural law moral thinking allegedly supporting traditional sexual moral rules.

Amongst “analytic philosophers,” Simon Blackburn has a good solid academic reputation.

Simon Blackburn, in Lust Oxford U. Press New York 2004, laments the damage to sexual morality by the putative philosophic error of finding it given by by nature. He wrote “Yet it is almost impossible to exaggerate the effect of this simple combination of thoughts about lust, restraint, reason and what is natural. The entire Catholic doctrine of birth control depends upon it.”

He then starts his very short seventh chapter criticizing this moral
theory by writing: “We pause to reflect here on the argument that sex is for procreation, and hence that any sexual activity or desire that does not have reproduction as its aim is immoral. Here philosophy can come to the rescue. The dry way of doing it would be through teasing out various different
senses of “natural,” and then worrying quite how the move works from what there is in nature, and what ought to be there, in human activities. The quick way of realizing that something must be wrong is through humor.”

Blackburn uses humor. It is easy to sketch out scenarios of how ridiculous it is to take interfering with what a system typically produces as immoral. After all engineering is interfering with some functions of some natural systems.

We are entitled to resent Blackburn’s recourse to mockery rather than argument. However, we must respect the serious problem in justifying moral rules by specifying functions of a few natural systems which it is morally wrong to frustrate. This selection problem is really hard to solve. What are the principles which specify that it is morally permissible frustrate the face warming function of facial hair by shaving while it is morally forbidden to frustrate the reproductive function of a sexual climax by masturbation?

This selection problem is one of the major issues I tackle in my book defending traditional sexual morality. The solution cannot be sketched in a blog post. However, the main tactic is bipartite. First make a case that moral laws are just as fundamental in nature as are factual laws. Second make a case that some of the basic natural moral laws specify that the reproductive function of sexual activity ought never be intentionally frustrated.

My book on sexual morality makes a philosophical case for traditional 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. These blog posts are in effect work towards a 2nd edition. Free copies can be obtained here by credit card by paying $3.75 for shipping and handling.





To receive a free book, send check of $3.75 for shipping and handling per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.