One Body but Many Kinds of Sex and Procreation: A Liberal Response

David Archard

doi:10.18290/rf.2015.63.3-6

David Archard International Studies and Philosophy, Queen’s University, Belfast

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rf.2015.63.3-6

Keywords: sexual ethics; sex; procreation; Alexander R. Pruss

Abstract

I contrast a liberal and a conservative approach to the morality of sex, endorsing the former with a concession as to the special nature of sex, and note Pruss’ philosophical and theological endorsement of the latter. I criticize his argumentative strategy in three regards: first, he defends Christian love as equivalent to benevolence; second, he allows for only a moral evaluation of sex; third, he moves too quickly from some factual claims to others, and thence to normative conclusions. His account of the moral impermissibility of non-veridical pleasures trades on ambiguities in ‘real’ pleasure.

I respond to three arguments Pruss offers against IVF: gamete donors can discharge their parental obligations; reproduction need not only be by coitus; and those who use fertility treatment need not thereby do wrong in treating any resultant child as an ‘artefact’.

I conclude with critical observations about the distance between Pruss’ views and those commonly held by most people, including increasing numbers of Catholics.

References

Archard, David. “The Obligations and Responsibilities of Parenthood.” In Procreation and Parenthood: The Ethics of Bearing and Rearing Children, edited by David Archard and David Benatar, 103–127. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Archard, David. “The Wrong of Rape.” Philosophical Quarterly 57(228) 2007: 374-393, DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9213.2007.492.x

Bayne, Tim. “Gamete Donation and Parental Responsibility.” Journal of Applied Philosophy 20,1 (2003): 77–87, DOI: 10.1111/1468-5930.00236.

Benatar, David. “The Unbearable Lightness of Bringing into Being.” Journal of Applied Philosophy 16, 2 (1999): 345-55, DOI: 10.1111/1468-5930.00119.

Benatar, David. Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Lenman, James. “On Becoming Extinct.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 83 (2002): 253–269, DOI: 10.1111/1468-0114.00150.

Marneffe, Peter de. Liberalism and Prostitution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974.

Primoratz, Igor. Ethics and Sex. London: Routledge, 1999.

Ryan, Alan. “John Stuart Mill’s art of living.” The Listener, 21 October, 1965, 620–22.