Part Three of this present book, which evaluates particular types of behaviour, omits topics that would have a legitimate place in any comprehensive treatise on the ethics of sex and marriage.
It deals only with five areas: marriage permanence, fidelity in
marriage, chastity outside of marriage, marriage as procreative, and some obstacles to a better marriage. Even regarding foundational questions discussed in Part Two, this essay makes no attempt to be comprehensive. It makes no attempt to investigate all the likely sources of insight into the subject,3 and leaves many theoretical issues unresolved. I have tried to contribute to the contemporary discussion but not to be the only source for anyone’s study of the ethics of sex and marriage. There is wide disagreement today not only about the rules for sexual ethics but also about what would constitute an adequate theoretical foundation for such rules. In such a situation, modesty seems to require that an author present any treatment of the subject as a contribution to the discussion of problems, not as a solution to them. I am of course under no illusion that my arguments will settle all controversies and meet universal acceptance; but neither do I wish to leave the impression that people should suspend all moral judgments concerning sex until the moralists reach full agreement.
Such
agreement, if it ever comes, is a long way off. Meanwhile there is plenty of evidence right now, I believe, that the direction our culture is taking regarding sex and marriage – changes taking place largely without reference to any consistent theoretical foundation – is disastrous for individuals and for society. My reasons for this belief will become clear, I hope, in the following chapters. One hears the complaint occasionally that the Catholic Church is too concerned about sex and should pay more attention to matters of social justice. This complaint is puzzling. If the focus is official teaching in papal encyclicals, I can think of three in the last 130 years that have dealt primarily with sex, principally in the context of marriage. During that time there has been a profusion of papal encyclicals on matters of social justice. If the 3
An example of the kind of source that it would be interesting to consider in a more comprehensive work on sexual ethics is Michel Foucault’s three volume Histoire de la sexualité, Paris, Gallimard, 1976-1984, and challenges to some of Foucault’s positions by authors such as Victor J. Seidler, “Reason, desire and male sexuality” in The Cultural Construction of Sexuality, edited by Pat Caplan, New York, Tavistock Publications, 1987, pp. 82-110.
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