The rationality of commitment

First, Kang is correct to point out that there is nothing bad about sex as such. The Anscombe Society does not regard sex as categorically good or categorically bad. Whether sex is inherently good — as it often is — depends on a number of factors: whether the persons involved are permanently and exclusively committed to each other, whether the act is a free expression of their commitment, etc. In this respect, it’s true that sex between unrelated adults is decidedly unlike incest or adult-youth relations, which the Anscombe Society considers inherently wrong. But Kang also argues that our moral intuitions about incest and adult-youth relations are not “intellectually rigorous.” Our moral intuitions — in this case “repugnance” — may not be an argument per se about what we should believe in the case of incest and adult-youth relations. Our moral theory (in this case, our theory of sexual ethics), however, should accommodate most of our intuitions about what is right and wrong, just as a plausible theory about the world should accommodate our observation of it.

Kang also takes issue with the claim that instrumentalization of the body always occurs outside of a marital context. And if it always occurs outside of marriage, why isn’t sex within marriage instrumentalizing the body as well? Kang suggests that Anscombe’s position requires an understanding of sex within marriage as permissible, no matter what. But that is not our view. One could imagine spouses who are deceitful or unfaithful to their commitment but nevertheless continue to have sex — they, too, would be instrumentalizing each other. Rather, we think that sex is good when and only when it is the consummation of a full union of persons on many levels: the bodily bond that completes a couple’s total commitment to each other at the level of their wills. So for sex to constitute full marital commitment, it is necessary but insufficient that it take place within marriage. Full marital commitment requires the unity of persons — bodily, emotionally and mentally.

Nor should we accept Kang’s claim that the very idea that there are moral constraints on what people should use sex to express — or, relatedly, that there is a proper purpose of sex — is a distinctively theological view. It is not. It is, rather, an ordinary moral belief that almost everyone reading this already accepts, even if we disagree about what those constraints are. For instance, nonconsensual sex strikes us as a far greater violation than, say, being forced to eat vegetables or play an instrument. We therefore believe that sex must be a free expression — and not just in the same way that we think most activities should be free. People also generally agree that sex should not be used as an expression of filial love (even with an adult son or daughter capable of consenting) or fraternal love (even where children with complications will not arise, as for example between two brothers or sterile siblings). And many agree that sex should not be used to express passing acquaintanceship or only for one’s own gratification — unlike, say, tennis. Given that many agree that there are some constraints on sex, the Anscombe Society’s position that sex should exist only within permanent and exclusive commitments becomes more intelligible.

As for us, we think that sex requires a permanent and exclusive commitment because sex is the maximal form of engagement with another person. In order to prevent instrumentalization, sex requires a proportional commitment.

If Kang is to reject that sex should take place only within a permanent and exclusive commitment, it falls to him to give some other account of why there exist some constraints on sex at all.

Shivani Radhakrishnan is a philosophy major. She is a member of The Daily Princetonian Editorial Board but is writing as president of the Anscombe Society. She can be reached at sradhakr@princeton.edu