Monthly Archives: December 2018

The Fundamental Moral Law of Human Sexuality

This post improves upon the Proof of the Traditional Moral Law for Male Sexuality by basing it on recognizing the basic human good of human sexuality. Thus we get a fundamental law for human sexuality from which we can derive the fundamental moral law for male sexuality.

There is much we desire and enjoy in our sexuality. There is much we dread and suffer from our sexuality. Yet we cannot live without it. We desire the basic fact of our being as good without qualification. To be sure we wish pain and suffering not to be. But this is wishing to be without pain and suffering. So, because sexuality is essential to being human, there is some core of human sexuality which we find to be good without qualification: a basic human good. This core will be some action of human sexuality which ought to promoted and never frustrated.

What is this core act? What is so widely celebrated? What follows the bridal feast? We have a built in modesty which does not dwell on the details of the marriage act. But the marriage act is the core good of human sexuality. What is it?
The marriage act is a sexual intercourse between a man and a woman who are committed to provide lifelong mutual support nurture whoever may be conceived by that intercourse.

The moral law of human sexuality says: The marriage act is to be promoted and never frustrated. Parts of this act pulled out of the marriage act and used for some other purpose frustrate the marriage act. Since the crucial part of the male in the marriage act is dispersal of sperm, the dispersal of sperm’s function in the marriage act should never be frustrated. So we can readily derive the fundamental moral principle 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. Acts which frustrate this good are sperm dispersal by a male which can never be used for conception. So masturbation, homosexuality and coitus interruptus are morally wrong. In addition to interrupting the good act they turn attention to a lesser good than that which they ought to be promoting.

Women may be aware of distinct female aspects of what is essential in their engagement in the marriage act. So, a fundamental moral principle for women would prohibit frustration of uniquely female sexual features in sexual behavior. As a male I cannot articulate it.

Others may have developed this type of argument better than I. They are proponents of what is called the New Natural Law Theory.
See Patrick Lee, “The Human Body and Sexuality in the Teaching of Pope John Paul II,” in John Paul II’s Contribution to Catholic Bioethics, ed. Christopher Tollefsen (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2005), 107–20; Patrick Lee and Robert P. George, Body-Self Dualism in Contemporary Ethics and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

I have not intentionally followed their line of argument. However, I am not interested in being original. I simply want the truth about human sexual morality to be proclaimed. I am sympathetic with the New Natural Law Theory. I would like its proponents to incorporate whatever is useful in my arguments into the New Natural Law Theory.