Syllabus Showcase: Tziporah Kasachkoff, Sexual Morality

This course came about as a result of my being asked to choose a topic and develop a course for a Philosophy seminar to be given within the Philosophy department at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, a university in Israel at which I taught for a number of years.

I offered the course as a four-hour per week seminar in which there would be no more than twelve students enrolled. This afforded sufficient time to allow class discussion in which all students could participate fully. (It also allowed me the time to read, comment, and discuss with each student individually his/her two, albeit short, papers per week. More on the paper assignments is contained in the syllabus.) The course was open to students who had taken at least two other courses in ethics so that all who enrolled could be presumed to be familiar with ethical terms and concepts and acquainted with the sorts of arguments that go by the name of “ethical reasoning.”

The first three hours of each class meeting were devoted to discussion of various topics and readings (noted in the syllabus below). The last hour of each week’s class was devoted to individual private meetings with each student to discuss the papers that s/he had handed in the previous week.

I chose to do the seminar specifically on the topic of Sexual Morality because:

• The topic would be of intrinsic interest to college-age students.
• No similar course had ever been offered at this university.
• I wanted students to come to appreciate how sexual attitudes, desires, and behavior are matters worthy of, and amenable to, philosophical reflection and discussion. (Though all the students who enrolled in the course were philosophy majors, most said they were curious as to what could possibly be said about sexual activity and attitudes from a philosophical point of view.) I was also interested in having students come to see how philosophical discussion of questions that are specifically about sexual morality lead naturally to certain questions of a broader intellectual and philosophical nature (which may or may not lead to the view that there is nothing distinctive about sexual morality).
• Another (albeit secondary) consideration in choosing this topic for the seminar was that questions of sexual morality (some having to do with public figures) had, that year, been in the daily news (both in the U.S. and in Israel) and students had a great deal of ‘popular’ exposure to the subject through newspaper reports as well as through television commentaries. This made allusions to cases of sexual (mis)conduct easy for class use as they were cases of which all the students were probably well aware.

Objectives I had for the course:

One of my objectives in teaching the course was, of course, students’ development of general philosophical/intellectual skills, skills which are especially important to develop in connection with the topic of the course as the topic, more often than not, inspires quick and unreflective, and often even unthinking, ‘knee-jerk’ reactions.  Some of the more generic skills that I had in mind to promote among students in the class were:

• Being able to describe another person’s position, especially on a sensitive issue such as that having to do with sexual attitudes and behavior, in normatively neutral terms.* (I had found that some students find it quite difficult to describe views they disagree with in ways that do not include their own implicit negative commentary.)  *This is not to deny that some statements and/or terms may not fall easily into a descriptive/normative divide. But it is to encourage students to pay attention to the normative dimensions of what might otherwise be seen as purely neutral descriptions.
• Being able to distill a writer’s own position both from the reasons given by the author for that position and from the reasons that person gives for rejecting other positions.
• Being able to present a writer’s position in a way that the writer him- or herself would regard as an accurate and fair representation of his or her views.
• Being able to state how the question(s) that an author attempts to answer by means of his or her stated position might be answered differently, and the difference that it makes whether the question(s) is/are answered one way rather than another.
• Being able to state one’s own view clearly and completely, and to explain why one’s own views are worthy of others’ adopting them.

Other objectives that I had for the course were to have students reflect on the following questions:

• What it means to designate particular desires and behavior as “sexual”?
• Whether there is a morality of sex at all (and not, say, of eating or bathing)? If one thinks the answer lies in the fact that (unlike eating or bathing) sex involves interaction, then why are moral judgments sometimes made about solitary masturbation? And why is there no morality about some other interactive activities (such as playing in an orchestra or participating in a conversation)? (This question inevitably involved discussion of what it means to take a moral point of view towards an act or activity, and what counts—and what should count—in favor of our viewing certain behaviors and attitudes as morally neutral.)
• What (if anything) is sex that is “unnatural” or “abnormal” and how do such seemingly descriptive terms as “unnatural” and “abnormal” come to be seen as suitable characterizations of sexual desires and practices that are, on account of these characterizations, claimed to be morally suspect?
• What non-sexual proclivities and activities are viewed as perversions and what sexual proclivities and activities are viewed as sexual perversions? Are there some common criteria for assessing activities or proclivities as “perverse” whether or not the activities/proclivities are sexual? And is there a connection between the perversity (sexual or otherwise) of a desire, proclivity, or conduct, and its moral assessment? Is calling a desire or act “sexually perverse” in itself to make a moral judgment of it?
• Is there is something especially important about free and informed consent when it comes to morally legitimate sexual interaction as compared to its importance in nonsexual interactions (say, between physician and patient, lawyer and client, or therapist and client)?
• If one grants that free and informed consent is necessary for morally legitimate sex (so that sex with unwilling or unknowing others — for example, sex with children or with unconscious others, and rape — is ruled out) should one also grant that consent is sufficient for morally legitimate sex?

Consideration of the question of whether consent is not only necessary but also sufficient for morally legitimate sexual encounters led to one of the liveliest and most extended class discussions of the semester. [Since only students who had taken two other courses in ethics were permitted to enroll in the seminar, I assumed — an assumption not called into question by the students—that everyone in the class understood what was meant by an act’s having “moral legitimacy.” This is, of course, not to say that the students were all in agreement regarding the grounds for asserting that particular behaviors were or were not morally legitimate.]

Other catalysts for very lively and engaged discussion among the students were the following questions:

• Does engaging in sex with another (or multiple others) outside of a socially intimate relationship “objectify” one’s partner(s) and what does “objectification” mean in this context? What about “objectification” of one’s sexual partner within an intimate relationship?
• How is it best to define, and normatively regard, both “casual sex” and “promiscuity”;
• Is treating another person “as an object” always to be morally condemned, and if so, why? Does “treatment of oneself as an object” makes sense? (Is prostitution rightly to be regarded as a case of ‘treating oneself as an object”? Why or why not?)

One of the most satisfying aspects of the course, both from my own point of view and from the students’ viewpoint (the latter having been made known to me through discussions with each individual student during the last hour of our weekly meetings and through students’ end-of-semester evaluations of the course) were the many questions of general philosophical interest that the readings and class discussions gave rise to. The following is one of the many examples of the broader philosophical issues that engaged students in the class

In discussing the legitimacy of sexually engaging with someone without that person’s valid consent (that is, consent that is full, informed, and free) students raised questions concerning the conditions under which one can assume that a sexual partner has indeed given valid consent. While students in the class were unanimous in their agreement that outright deception should not take place in order to obtain consent to sexual contact, there was much less agreement regarding the appropriateness of withholding information in order to obtain that consent.  Two issues raised by students were: 1) the relevance of the information to the health and welfare of the other and 2) whether the withholding of information is motivated by the desire to win the other’s consent to engage in sexual relations rather than, say, for reasons of personal privacy.

Discussion of these two issues led to lively class discussion of the further questions of whether sexual engagement with another confers on that other a right to information that other sorts of social engagement do not, and if so, why. Additionally there was enthusiastic discussion concerning whether one who deceives another can be said to be “using” that person and whether the answer to this question depends on the motive for the deception.)

(I found the questions raised by students in the class rather sophisticated ones, and was pleased to see that students were thinking about the morality of sexual behavior not in the abstract but against the background of particular, if not always explicit, social/cultural understandings relating to gender.*)

* Perhaps worth noting is that of the twelve students in the class, seven were women and five were men. Although it was the women in the class who suggested that sexual requests by men of women, on the one hand, and by women of men, on the other, may bear on how that request is taken, the men in the class agreed. For the most part, I did not see differences between the men and the women in the class either in their readiness to respond to questions raised in class or in the content of their responses.

For those instructors who might wish to teach the course using my syllabus as a guide:

Philosophy instructors who may be thinking of offering such a course (whether or not in seminar form) may worry that the material of the course is such that some students will be especially shy with respect to participating in class discussion, and perhaps in writing papers that express their own views, on sexual behavior and practices. In the class described here, some students did speak more often than others but from my knowledge of the particular students in the class, this had less to do with subject matter than with personality. I myself did not see the subject matter as having much of an effect on student involvement and participation one way or the other. (I should note, however, that this may be due to the fact that my class was taught at a university in Israel where students generally come to the university only after their compulsory three-year army service and into my class only after at least one year of study within the university. As a result, my students were mostly in their early twenties and therefore no longer teenagers. (Indeed, some of my students were already married, and some were already parents.) This may have had something to do with the ease with which they were able to discuss issues that younger students might have had problems dealing with in a classroom setting. It is important to stress that how one teaches the course ‒ the choice of materials in terms of content and difficulty, the expectations one has of class discussion in terms of philosophical sophistication and ease of making philosophical connections greatly depends on the background of students, both generally and academically.

From my point of view the importance — and success — of the seminar was students’ coming to see how questions about sexual morality connect very quickly to broader and more general philosophical questions. My students’ interest in this fact was made clear to me both in the weekly conversations that I had with individual students and in the end-of-semester evaluations that the students wrote. (Instructors who offer general philosophy or general ethics courses might find it useful to introduce some of the topics we covered in the course — such as the topic of consent and the topic of degradation and self-respect—for their broader appeal as important issues in political and/or social philosophy.)

Here is the syllabus.

 SEXUAL MORALITY

4-hour per week seminar meeting Mondays 2-6 p.m.

Course Description:

A philosophical investigation of various topics having to do with the morality of sexual identity (“straight”, gay, lesbian and transgender), attitudes, relationships, and behavior. By “philosophical investigation” I mean:

• looking at the assumptions behind views advanced concerning these topics and evaluating both their truth and their importance for holding certain positions, and
• critically examining the arguments of advocates and opponents of various positions to determine their cogency and appeal.

Topics we will cover in the class:

• the nature of sexual desire, arousal, behavior, and identity;
• the sources of normative claims about sexual behavior;
• the morality of certain specific sexual behaviors.

(I have selected some “classic” and some current influential readings. We may have time to cover only some of the topics and readings listed. The interests of members of our seminar will determine which topics and readings especially to focus on, and what, perhaps, to add to the list.) 

Course Methodology:

Since this is a seminar, much of our time will be spent discussing the issues raised in the reading(s) for that week.

Each member of the seminar is expected to do the assigned reading(s) and, at the beginning of each week’s class, hand in two 1- page typewritten papers.

One paper will be a short summary of the reading along with a written critical reflection on one or more of the issues raised in that reading. The second one-page paper will be a response to some question(s) raised in the class discussion of the past week (sometimes freely chosen by students, sometimes directed by a question given to the class.

Since there are 13 class meetings, at the end of the semester a student will have handed in a total of 24 papers; the grades of the best 20 of these papers will be averaged and constitute the final grade in the seminar.

During our class session we will discuss the issues raised by the reading for that week. This means that you will need to have read that week’s article(s) carefully, thought about it (or them), and tried to formulate your own views regarding the positions about which you have read. The writing assignment is intended to help you to learn to focus your thoughts, articulate your position clearly and succinctly, and develop arguments for positions that you think are correct and against positions you think are mistaken. Since learning to express yourself well is a developmental process, I shall grade the earlier papers in the first 3rd of the course more leniently than the papers done later in the course. Although reading the assignments is necessary for success in the course, it is not sufficient: the most important part of the course is what happens in the classroom discussion in response to the readings and what you have to say in response to the readings. Attendance is therefore not merely desired but required.

Readings: (wherever possible I shall provide the readings to you in electronic form)

Part One: The nature of sexual identity, thought, desire, activity, and relations

Jamison Green, Becoming a Visible Man (excerpts), (Vanderbilt Univ. Press, 2004).

Green’s autobiographical account of his experience as a male born with a female body, and his physical and social transition into a “visible” male is a moving and intelligent essay on what it means within our culture to have one sexual identity rather than another.

William Jefferson Clinton, testimony as reported in Documents from Independent Counsel Ken Starr, released 9/21/98.

[In his testimony Clinton refers to and uses a definition of sexual activity and relations that, he claims, is correct in “popular usage.”]

James Giles, “Sex Hormones and Sexual Desire,” Journal of the Theory of Social Behavior 38:1.

Greta Christina, “Are We Having Sex Now or What?” from The Erotic Impulse: Honoring the Sensual Self, ed., David Steinberg (Penguin Program, Inc. 1982).

Robert C. Solomon, “Sexual Paradigms,” Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 71, no. 11 pp. 336-345 (1974).

Thomas Nagel, “Sexual Perversion,” Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 66, no. 1 (1969).

(Nagel’s piece, when it was initially delivered at a symposium at New York   University, was one of the first to explore philosophically the question of what constitutes sexual attraction. Nagel defines perversion against the background of a philosophical analysis of “ideal” sexual attraction and behavior; it is against this norm that he sees masochism, fetishism, bestiality ,voyeurism, and exhibitionism as sexual perversions.)

When reading Nagel’s article, be sensitive to whether he equates sexual perversion                                with behavior that is morally suspect.

Roger Scruton, “Sexual Arousal,” in Philosophy & Practice, ed., A. Phillips Griffith (Cambridge University Press, 1985).

Louise Collins, “Is Cybersex Sex?” in The Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings, eds., Alan Soble and Nicholas Power (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008).

Part Two: The Source of Normativity in Sexual Activity, Desire, and  Relations

(Some of the readings here presuppose knowledge of the ethics of St. Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant.)

“Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics: On The Regulation of Birth: Humanae Vitae,” Encyclical Letter of Pope Paul VI, 1976.

John Finnis: “Law, Morality and Sexual Orientation,” Notre Dame Law Review 69, no. 5 (1994); and “Natural Law and Unnatural Acts,” in Human Sexuality, ed., Igor Primoratz (Adlershot, UK: 1997).

Alan Goldman, “Plain Sex,” Philosophy and Public Affairs6, no. 3 (1977).

(This article is quite long. I shall indicate which parts of it are required reading.)

Michael Levin, “Why Homosexuality is Abnormal,” in Ethics in Practice: An Anthology, ed., Hugh LaFollette (Blackwell, 1997).

Thomas Mappes, “Sexual Morality and the Concept of Using Another Person,” in Social Ethics: Morality and Social Policy, 3rd edition (McGraw Hill Publishing,1987).

Igor Primoratz, “Sexual Morality: Is Consent Enough?” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 4 (2001).

John Kleinig, “The Nature of Consent,” in The Ethics of Consent: Theory and Practice, eds., Franklin G. Miller & Alan Wertheimer (NY: Oxford University Press, 2009).

Alan Soble, “Sexual Use,” in The Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings, eds., Alan Soble and Nicholas Power (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008).

Alan Werthheimer, “Consent and Sexual Relaions,” Legal Theory 2:2 (1996).

Robin West, “The Harms of Consensual Sex,” The American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Feminism 94:2 (1995). 

Part Three: The Morality of Specific Sexual Activities

Martha Nussbaum, “‘Whether from Reason or Prejudice’: Taking Money for Bodily Sevices,” Sex and Social Justice (Oxford University Press, 1999).

John McMurtry, “Monogamy: A Critique,” The Monist 56, no. 4 (1972).

Igor Primoratz, “What’s Wrong with Prostitution?” Philosophy 68 (1993).

Richard Wasserstrom, “Is Adultery Immoral?” in Morality& Moral Controversies, ed. John Arthur (Prentice-Hall, 1993).

Richard Mohr, “Gay Basics: Some Questions, Facts and Values,” in Richard Mohr, ed., Race, Gender, and Sexuality:Philosophical Issues of Identity and Justice (Prentice-Hall, 2003).

 (Mohr does not take up the issue of the morality of homosexuality but argues for the unfairness of discrimination against gays. Left open are the questions of a) whether homosexual sex is, as Finnis maintains, immoral; b) whether all immoral sex should be made illegal; and c) whether all practitioners of illegal sex should be subject to social and personal discrimination.)

Burton Leiser, “Homosexuality, Morals and the Law of Nature,” in Ethics in Practice: An Anthology, ed., Hugh LaFollette (Blackwell, 1997).

Attention: We shall add other topics in response to particular student interest.

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