Forty-Nine

TEMPERANCE AND SEXUAL ETHICS

Raja Halwani

Temperance regarding sex has not received much attention in the recent lite- rature on virtue ethics. I argue that two concepts of temperance exist. Using these two concepts, I argue that there are actions that are wrong because they are sexual, contrary to some claims about sexual ethics. I conclude by hinting at ways future research about these topics could go. Recently, some philosophers have held the position that sexual behavior is, in itself, morally neutral. That is, if a sexual act is morally wrong, it is so because of moral considerations that are general and that apply to sexual and nonsexual actions. The wrongness of adultery, for example, derives from the fact that adultery is typically an instance of promise breaking, and promise breaking is, everything else being equal, wrong. Alan Goldman states, “There is no morality intrinsic to sex, although general moral rules apply to the treatment of others in sex acts as they apply to all human relations” (1997, p. 49). Goldman gives the example of rape: “The immorality of rape derives from its being an extreme violation of a person’s body, of the right not to be humiliated, and of the general moral prohibition against using other persons against their wills, not from the fact that it is a sexual act” (ibid., p. 50; cf. Primoratz, 1999). I am certain that rape is wrong not just because of the reasons mentioned by Goldman, but also because it is a sexual violation of another’s body. How- ever, even if Goldman is wrong about rape, he might be right about all other types of sexual acts, and so the view that there is no morality intrinsic to sex- ual behavior is left more or less intact. But we should immediately notice that if this view were correct, it would yield a bizarre implication for a usual un- derstanding of some virtues. Goldman’s view would seem to deny that there are any “virtues or vices of an essentially sexual nature,” as David Carr puts it (1986, p. 363). What might such virtues be? Temperance (or moderation) in its regulation of sexual desire is the obvious candidate. Carr offers chastity, a virtue “whose topic is sex,” but that does not, in one of its senses at least, denote abstinence (Carr uses “temperance” to denote the virtue of the appe- tites for food and drink). The questions that confront us, then, are the follow- ing: Is there a character trait whose domain of application is sexual desire? How is virtue in this area even possible or how can one be temperate, rather than merely self-controlled, with respect to sexual desire? And would the existence of such a virtue render Goldman-like positions false? Once we have 420 RAJA HALWANI addressed these issues, we can see whether some types of sexual behavior are ruled out by temperance and why. Carr argues that chastity seems to be a virtue of self-control. Like cou- rage, which controls fear, chastity restrains sexual impulses. But Carr thinks this is plausible if chastity is thought of as abstinence; when it is thought of as the virtue whose topic is sexual impulse, then it is not accurate to think of chastity as a virtue of self-control because:

it is perfectly permissible for a man to express his sexual desires . . . just so long as the desires and their expressions occur within an appropriate context, one defined in terms of notions of fidelity, loyalty, love, re- sponsibility, and so on. (1986, p. 366)

I do not believe that the contexts mentioned by Carr are the only appropriate ones for the expression of sexual desire. Nevertheless, his point seems cor- rect: as long as sexual desire is expressed in the appropriate context, there is no reason to withhold the virtue of chastity from the agent. If so, then chastity does not seem to be a virtue of self-control. But things are not that simple. Sexual expression is not the only decid- ing factor as to whether someone is temperate. As Carr rightly observes, there is something amiss with someone who is sexually faithful to his spouse but who is nevertheless constantly tempted to engage in sexual acts with other people. The problem becomes acute when we keep in mind that sexual attrac- tion to other people is a general and biological phenomenon difficult to eradi- cate precisely because it is rooted in our physiology. The problem then is this: if sexual attraction to others is more or less pervasive, and if a person who is sexually faithful to his spouse nevertheless feels sexual attraction towards others, it is difficult to see how he could be described as chaste. Indeed, if unchastity is not simply a matter of sexual expression but also of experienc- ing sexual urges, in what, exactly, do the chaste differ from the unchaste? Carr’s solution, which I believe is basically correct, is to locate the dif- ference between the chaste and the unchaste in the agent’s values and atti- tudes. We do experience sexual urges, but the difference between the chaste person and the unchaste one, at least in the context of a discussion of sexual fidelity, is that the first does not invest the having and the expression of his sexual desires for other people with much, if any, value. The unchaste person is not one who is simply attracted to others; rather, he is one who lusts after others, meaning that he invests his sexual desires with value; he endorses them, at least to some extent:

To entertain lust or lechery in one’s heart is to be already in the grip of certain values and attitudes of an inherently base and dishonourable na- ture and which are therefore quite incompatible with a state of genuine