Exam #2 Study Guide – Ethical Choice

Introduction – Be able to summarize the various positions listed and their main arguments.

Mappes

Kant’s end-in-itself formulation of the categorical imperative

Why undermining someone’s voluntary informed consent is using them in an immoral manner.

The two types of deception

Occurrent and disposition coercion, and coercive offers

The difference between an offer and a threat

How deception and each of the types of coercion undermine voluntary informed consent.

Ericcson

Why our negative attitudes about prostitution are the problem rather than prostitution itself.

The sentimentalist charge and Ericcson’s two responses to it.

The paternalistic charge and Ericcson’s response.

The ineradicability of prostitution and the harms that result from trying to outlaw it.

Punzo

Punzo’s critique of the liberal position: Uncommitted sex leads to depersonalization. What distinguishes sex from other activities.

Why a morality of aspiration is preferable to merely avoiding harms.

Existential integrity as the ethical principle guiding sexual activity.

Punzo’s view on preceremonial sex: Is he a conventionalist? Sex with love?

West

Feminist claims about the status of women in society.

Reasons why women consent to undesired sex.

Harms that may result from this.

Corvino

The various senses in which homosexuality is supposed to be unnatural and Corvino’s claim that they are not morally relevant.

Homosexuality’s purported harms to individual practictioners, children, and society and Corvino’s responses.

Knight

How same-sex marriage undermines the institutions of marriage and family.

Are same-sex marriage and interracial marriage analogous?

Rauch

The purpose of marriage. Why the purpose is not procreation or love.

Essay Topics

1. State your view on sexual morality in relation to love, commitment, and marriage. Provide arguments to support your view and explain why your view is preferable to the other main positions.

2. Pick one of the following normative theories (Kant’s ethics, utilitarianism, virtue ethics, natural law theory) and use it to argue for liberalism, conventionalism, and the sex with love position. Then explain which of these arguments you think is the best and why.

3. Is homosexuality or same-sex marriage morally permissible? State your views and defend it vigorously with evidence and arguments. How is homosexuality relevantly different than sexual acts that you think are moral? How are heterosexual romantic relationships relevantly different than same-sex ones?