Kant, Sex and Desire

Tom Stanley [email protected] Undergraduate Dissertation Oxford Brookes University Kant, Sex, and Desire. by Tom Stanley, This dissertation is submitted in part fulfilment of the regulations for the BA Honours Degree Oxford Brookes University, 2011 1 of 17 Tom Stanley [email protected] Undergraduate Dissertation Oxford Brookes University Contents 1. Introduction p. 3 2. Kant's Ethics p. 4 3. Kant on Sex p. 7 4. Is it okay to have sex yet? p. 10 5. Objectification p. 12 6. Kant on sex (revisited) p. 16 7. What does all this mean for Kant and sex? p. 20 Many thanks to Dr Constantine Sandis for his help and supervision and to the philosophy department at Brookes for all their support and advice in all the work leading up to this paper. Thanks also to Li'l Li Lies, Zsa Zsa and Ragdoll for providing me with case studies in which to mull over ideas. Keywords: Kant, Soble, Nussbaum, Objectification, Sex, morality. Abstract: In this essay I look into the objectification involved in our sexual appetites, and Kant's perspective toward sex. I think that Kant has an unrealistic view of the process of objectification involved in having sex with someone or even in merely desiring them sexually. I hope to provide some idea of how we may morally, in a Kantian framework of the categorical imperative, find a way to justify sex outside of marriage without simply appealing to the granting of consent. There is something intrinsically objectifying about sex, but it is not such that it is impossible to morally justify as I believe it is also possible to have sex with somebody whilst treating them as an end and without degrading or disrespecting humanity, them or ourselves. 2 of 17 Tom Stanley [email protected] Undergraduate Dissertation Oxford Brookes University References to the 'Groundwork' refer to Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Kant, 1998) Introduction I'm going to be discussing sex and sexual desire from a Kantian perspective. There are many ways in which we can have sex with somebody, there are many ways in which we can gain their consent, but I'm not particularly interested in that. Mappes (2002) has an in-depth article regarding sexual consent and the variety of ways we can view the interactions we have with others in a pre-sex environment as manipulation for the purposes of gaining consent. Such an article is very interesting but is not particularly relevant to my purposes as I'm going to be focussing on how we can satisfy the categorical imperative, that is not treat somebody as a tool for our purposes, whilst we have sex with them and also what it is we do when we desire somebody in a sexual way. I deliberately try to avoid equating sexual desire to the desire to have sex with somebody as I feel that this doesn't capture all of what sexual desire is. We desire somebody's touch, their intimacy, we perhaps desire them to find us equally desirable. Sexual desire is not simply a desire for 'Wednesday night missionary' with someone, or at least when it is it is not the type of desire that I wish to claim is morally justifiable. What I hope to show in this paper is that while a Kantian framework of morality is perfectly justifiable and relevant, that is to say that it is morally right to treat other people with dignity and respect and not to manipulate them, etc., I find Kant's views on sex to be strange and perhaps unhealthy. According to Kant, every time we have sex with somebody out of wedlock, regardless of consent, we not only do them a disservice but also ourselves and humanity. We somehow insult the dignity and autonomy of their and our will by engaging in an act that necessarily turns us into mere objects of our other's enjoyment. As Mappes (2002) and Goldman (in Soble, 1996) have shown there is still much moral difficulty in the grounds of how and in what circumstances we gain consent from somebody but I hope to at least show that these issues aside, it is possible for sex not to be such an intrinsically bad thing provided we have it with the right people in the right circumstances. 3 of 17 Tom Stanley Undergraduate Dissertation [email protected] Oxford Brookes University Kant's Ethics It is no surprise that many have examined Kantian views when examining the philosophy of sex, romantic love, sexual relations, etc. So often we hear the phrase “He/She was just using him/her!” thrown around with derision that if we were not to pursue whether this were perhaps a layman's slightly more emotivist way of stating the second formulation of the categorical imperative, we would have missed something interesting indeed. Kant's categorical imperative is outlined in his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and is regularly summarised thus: “act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.” (Kant, 1998; p31 [4:421]) From this statement, Kant argues his way to another and for our purposes more pertinent moral conclusion known as the second formulation of his categorical imperative, “So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means” (Kant, 1998; p38 [4:429]) I'm going to choose to interpret the sentiment that 'it is wrong to use people' as the Kantian sentiment that it is wrong to use people simply for one's own benefit and without regard for the other's will, but before I get to that, I feel it is necessary to outline a bit about Kant's argument for the categorical imperative and why it seems morally motivating. Kant's argument hinges solely around duty and the idea that “if duty is a concept that is to contain significance and real lawgiving for our actions it can be expressed only in categorical imperatives and by no means in hypothetical ones.” (Kant, 1998; p34 [4:425]). This statement is far more powerful than it may at first seem. The imperative 'You must not kill' may be met with 'Why?' at which point we are forced to justify the imperative, something which has been done countless times with no agreement and much continued debate. If we create morality on this basis then we create a normative morality based on intuitions where the imperatives revolve around action. But this is not what Kant feels is a reasonable way to address the problem of what we should do in some given situation. Kant creates his moral imperatives the other way around, from metaphysics up. To use a moral 'should' is to say that we must act accordingly if we are to live morally, and the must here implies necessity, which is why Kant attempts to show morality from an a priori standpoint. However, to prove what is moral a priori does not require that we include hypotheticals which may rely on experience, often invoking intuitions; we must arrive at our conclusion purely by reasoning from where we started, which in the case of Kantian morality is simply the concept of duty. If there is such a thing as morality, it is such a thing that we have a duty to do. For the purposes of quickly explaining Kant's position I'm going to use two quotes from the Groundwork and, though they don't appear in this order in the book, the former should enable the reader to better understand why we should accept the latter. From his concept of duty Kant formulates the categorical imperative as stated above and then he reasons his way through many reformulations of the categorical imperative such that it looks like this: 4 of 17 Tom Stanley [email protected] Undergraduate Dissertation Oxford Brookes University “The Practical necessity of acting in accordance with this principle, that is, duty, does not rest on feelings, impulses, and inclinations but merely on the relation of rational beings to one another, in which the will of a rational being must always be regarded as at the same time lawgiving, since otherwise it could not be thought as an end in itself. Reason accordingly refers every maxim of the will as giving universal law to every other will and also to every action toward oneself, and does so not for the sake of any other practical motive or any future advantage but from the idea of the dignity of a rational being who obeys no law other than that which he himself at the same time gives.” (Kant, 1998; p.42 [4:434]) Whether the arguments Kant offers in support of his move from the mere concept of duty to a defining fact about morality are worth giving weight to is not something I wish to immediately discuss. I feel instead that even if one is to disagree with his metaphysical, a priori arguments supporting his claim, it is difficult on the realm of intuitions to claim that it is not morally wrong to contravene the categorical imperative. To do so seems to pay unduly little respect to the autonomy and wilfulness of another. It's useful to note that the categorical imperative is quite compatible with other normative frameworks. The utilitarian may at first claim that it can be right to break the categorical imperative in the situation that we are offered the ultimatum “Break the categorical imperative or I shall kill one thousand people!”. However, killing one thousand people would simply be breaking the categorical imperative one thousand times and so the basic utilitarian outcome that it is ceterus paribus more right to kill one than one thousand still stands. The categorical imperative makes no attempt to explain what is right or wrong, but why something is right or wrong. It's claim is what morality is about. For the purposes of this paper I'm far more interested in the morals contained in the Groundwork than the metaphysics that is the argument offered in support of them. Suffice to say, enough prominent philosophers have found it convincing enough to spark serious investigations (Soble, 2002b), and I find the moral implications to be gathered from the categorical imperative are such that it is difficult to claim that you may morally do otherwise. So far as this fact is true, I, like Soble (ibid) feel justified in addressing Kant's ethics seriously, but without delving into his metaphysical exposition. Kant's moral implications which I speak of can be gathered by simply restating in simpler terms the above quotation . Kant states that morality does not 'rest on feelings, [or] impulses of inclinations' but on the 'relation of rational beings to one another'(Kant, 1998; p.42 [4:434]). What Kant means by lawgiving is that we make the decisions that affect us. We must then afford other rational beings that same privilege, we must treat them with the respect required to give countenance to the fact that they also have the ability to make universal law, to govern themselves, in order to preserve their dignity, or as Kant put it, the dignity of a rational being who obeys no law other than that which he himself at the same time gives, i.e. the dignity of the rational will. Kant's second formulation of his categorical imperative, that we must treat others 'never merely as a means' is most easily applicable to the problem of sex. Soble's article (2002b) 'Sexual Use and What to Do About It' deals exclusively with the different ways this formulation can be problematic when trying to morally justify sexual relationships, or even trying to morally justify the act of having sex at all but it is primarily a critique and certainly does not seem to make out that we can justify sex in any way upon a strict Kantian interpretation. Perhaps the Kantian position on this problem must now be addressed so that I may hopefully tweak it afterward. 5 of 17 Tom Stanley [email protected] Undergraduate Dissertation Oxford Brookes University 6 of 17 Tom Stanley Undergraduate Dissertation [email protected] Oxford Brookes University Kant on Sex It is necessary to explain a little about the circumstances of the text that I shall be predominantly referring to when referencing Kant's views on sex. The most commonly referred to passage when it comes to Kantian views on sex, romantic love and/or sexual desire is “Of Duties to the Body in Regard To Sexual Impulse” which has been reprinted in both Soble (2002a) and Stewart (1995a) with it's author cited as Kant himself, however it's original source is from the notebook of one Georg Ludwig Collins, a student of one of Kant's many courses in Ethics. It is unlikely, even, that the notebook was written as a transcription of Kant's actual lectures as note taking in class was discouraged by Kant (Schneewind in Kant, Heath & Schneewind, 1997; xvi). Not only this, but even Collins' writings have at times been subsidised by the work of other students, all meaning that the detached nature of this work should be borne in mind when assessing it's ability to accurately represent Kant's thoughts on the subject and also remembered because the apparently accepted norm is to cite the work as if Kant himself had written it (which I shall from now on conform to). I do not mean to undermine the potency of this work particularly, the fact that it was not actually written by Kant does not mean that it doesn't strongly represent his views, but it does mean that we need not expect it to answer all questions we may have about Kant's views. It was also written from the lectures Kant gave in the years leading up to the publication of his Groundwork, which means that though it does seem to be in harmony with the categorical imperative, it is no surprise that at no point is the categorical imperative explicitly mentioned (ibid.). So what is it that this text actually tells us about Kant's views on sexual desire? Well, it may come as no surprise that Kant feels that sexual desire and it's satisfaction are fraught with moral danger. In fact, as Kant's morality involves a priori necessity, when he says that the satisfaction of sexual desire is wrong it is always a moral wrong (with the one exception being in marriage relationships (Kant, 1997; p159 [27:388]) – a point which I'll address later). Kant feels that sexual desire is distinct from true love, “Love, as human affection, is the love that wishes well, is amicably disposed, promotes the happiness of others and rejoices in it. But it is now plain that those who merely have sexual inclination love the person from none of the foregoing motives of true human affection, are quite unconcerned for their happiness, and will even plunge them into the greatest unhappiness simply to satisfy their own inclination and appetite. [... T]he sexual impulse is not an inclination that one human has for another, qua human, but an inclination for their sex, it is therefore a principium of the debasement of humanity.” (ibid; p155; [27:384/385]) Such a view of sexual desire is obviously extremely self centred even if exaggerated, and is not something which I would attempt to morally justify. But because Kant views human love and sexual desire as two distinct things, even when they appear in conjunction they retain their individual characteristics and as such even if the callous intentions of sexual desire are shrouded by the altruistic intentions of true human love, sexual desire still retains it's status as a moral wrong, to be dispensed with. If we are to believe what Kant says, we are led to the conclusion that sexual desire is a base desire for another person's sex and not the person themselves. In sexual desire we pay disregard to a person as a will, as an ends in themself and as such it is a moral wrong, but with one exception; we 7 of 17 Tom Stanley Undergraduate Dissertation [email protected] Oxford Brookes University are allowed to indulge our sexuality only in case that we are married. Kant's argument for why we may satisfy sexual desire in marriage is that in marriage alone do we form a 'unity of will' such that we satisfactorily take on the other's ends to be our own, this is achieved by giving ourselves to our fiancé and at the same time receiving their self. Of course, Kant is taking the paradigm case of marriage in which two people equally and wholly entrust themselves to the other, but it is only charitable to allow him to do so, just as his reasons for marriage being the only relationship in which the satisfaction of sexual desire is allowable can be applied nowadays to people in marriagelike relationships even if they don't actually get married (stable monogamous loving couples), provided there is at some point a discussion where the two conclude that they are committed wholly to one another, some form of agreement seems to need to exist between the two. In fact, Kant states that polygamy is wrong only because if a man takes two wives, each wife only receives half a man, whilst he receives the slightly better deal of two women. Does this mean we could liberally interpret this argument to allow love triangles or larger groups of people to indulge sexually provided they all conform to certain stipulations; that they love each other equally; that they do not indulge outside the group; that they are all homosexual and of the same sex or there is an even number of men and women in the group? It's certainly not in the spirit of the passage and I find it hard to imagine Kant ever endorsing a mass orgy even under the very strictest moral conditions, but it's not obvious why it is not possible if we are to justify marriage not only in the taking of the other's ends as your own, but also the just distribution of selves at some point of contract. To have sex outside of this marital contractual agreement (the giving and receiving of selves and thus forming a unity) is morally wrong as for Kant the act of sex is intrinsically objectifying, involving a 'degradation of man[kind]'. In so far as we desire somebody sexually they become an object of our appetite and as an object, we do not take their ends into account. Simple things, objects, do not have ends and are merely a means to the ends of a rational will. This is the problem, that the basis of Kant's arguments still seem morally motivating; that it violates a person's dignity to use that person without proper regard for their will. We must treat others with respect if we are to act morally, and as such the second formulation of his categorical imperative, 'never treat another person merely as a means to your ends' still makes moral sense. So how do we intend to justify all the premarital sex everyone is having? A recent study in the US found that by the age of twenty, seventy-five percent of people who responded had had premarital sex, and by age forty-four, that figure had risen to ninety-five percent (Finer, 2007). With figures like these on the table, if we are to agree with Kant wholeheartedly, we are forced to the conclusion that we live in a disgustingly morally corrupt society. Not only this, but the promiscuity doesn't appear to be anything new, the same study found that similar figures have been true for decades. Are we really going to accept that not only is the society we live in now morally corrupt, but that it has been for many years? Instead of accepting this horribly pessimistic conclusion, I'm going to try to examine sex, without appealing to the need for a long term stable relationship. Surely sex doesn't have to be immoral, surely there is such a thing as human dignity in sex without marriage? If we are to find it, we're going to have to show that it is possible to satisfy the condition of taking the other's ends to be our own without forming some serious contract. Obviously I don't intend to show that all premarital sex is morally just, I'm not going to argue that we turn society into Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. I simply hope to show that sex outside of monogamous agreements is not necessarily morally wrong. 8 of 17 Tom Stanley Undergraduate Dissertation [email protected] Oxford Brookes University Is it okay to have sex yet? The Kantian sex problem then, would read as follows; we are not morally permitted to engage in sexual acts outside of the context of a serious, long term, committed, monogamous relationship in which a contract has been agreed which states that the participants will always look out for the interests of the other, because to do so is to engage in sexual acts outside of a relationship in which we have dedicated ourselves to the other person, and only in such a relationship can we truly say that we have taken the other person's ends to be our own and we are not simply treating them as a means. Only when we take on the other person's ends to be our own do we truly respect the other person's dignity and autonomy and acknowledge their ability to be a universal law giver. Can we bend the rules? For Kant, is sadomasochism always wrong? This next example is going to seem very strange but I've deliberately exaggerated it to make sure that there is no question that they've satisfied the categorical imperative. Consider the possibility that two people, Jim and Kathy, have been raised perfectly and always followed the categorical imperative, they have abstained from sex until marriage and in fact have never even had a sexual desire toward anyone. Currently, their sex life is perfect (apparently). They then meet, and, purely from the fact that they love and care about each other intensely, they get married. They are extremely naïve and know absolutely nothing about sex. Even so, their sex life is still morally perfect, and they have now formed the unity of will required for the moral satisfaction of sexual desire. Kathy now discovers pornography and decides to have sex with Jim. According to Kant, this is all still allowed (pornography aside). Gradually though, they start to explore sadomasochism and it gets to the point where Kathy finds great eroticism in the idea of being used and overpowered. She finds eroticism in, and wants to feel that Jim is using her solely for his own benefit and without regard for her sexual enjoyment or her as a person. She finds sexual satisfaction in the idea that Jim is using her merely as a means and as a result we can say that in fact her ends is for Jim to use her merely as a means. Is this morally objectionable from a Kantian perspective? This really depends on how Jim feels about it. Jim loves Kathy deeply, cares about her, he may not be into the rough sex thing quite so much but wants to make her happy. So, when they discuss it, he is hesitant and she explains it to him as if she were giving him her body as a gift which she would like him to use for his own benefit. He then agrees and the next time they have sex he satisfies a curiosity he has had about bondage by tying her up and then using her as if she were a sex object purely for his enjoyment, which Kathy enjoys greatly. To say that Jim treated Kathy merely as a means is not true, the reason he agreed to do it was because she wanted him to, it was out of respect for his wife's ends. In fact the greatest problem with the scenario is, as Soble (2002b) points out when critiquing a similar scenario, that Jim seems to allow himself to be used as a means to Kathy's ends. We are equally required to treat ourselves as an ends at all times and not allow ourselves to be treated as merely a means by somebody else. But, he took the opportunity to indulge a curiosity, he then enjoyed her body and took great pleasure in her, so to say that he was used merely as a means doesn't seem entirely accurate either. Consider that Kathy knew he'd had this curiosity and knew that he'd simply been too shy to ask. Her treatment toward him was then toward his ends also. Can we say that they have equally used one another? Perhaps, but they have not equally used one another merely as a means, they have equally used one another as a means and at the same time as an ends, they have taken their partner's ends to be their own. In so much as this is true, surely their sexual encounter is unobjectionable upon Kantian grounds? I would argue that in their actions toward one another they have actually both satisfied the categorical imperative even though upon face value it may look as if they haven't. I stress that the morality of their action in no way relies upon the idea that 'an action that does no harm is not immoral', I argue that they have actually satisfied the categorical imperative by Jim treating Kathy merely as a means. 9 of 17 Tom Stanley [email protected] Undergraduate Dissertation Oxford Brookes University Unfortunately though, this is a somewhat hollow victory on the way to justifying sex that Kant wouldn't agree with. For Kant, not only is acting upon sexual desire objectifying in it's nature but the desire itself causes us to view the object of our desires as an object for our appetite, a thing to be consumed. Consequently, though I believe Jim and Kathy's slightly kinky sex to be moral, it is only obviously so under very strict conditions (marriage, and Kathy's knowing beforehand that he'd enjoy it) and for us to claim that their sex lives in general are moral I've had to set the circumstances up such that they never even had a sexual desire before they were married, the absurdity of which is obvious. If they had had a sexual desire for one another and had then got married it could be argued that they had actually acted upon that desire and as such had treated each other in the act of marriage as a means and not an end. Consider the situation where two people, regardless of how much they truly love each other, have decided to abstain from sex before marriage and fully intend to stay true to their abstention but very much want to have sex. It seems very possible that they might at least rush into marriage in order to satisfy their burning lust for one another. Even if they were to live the rest of their lives deeply in love, happy and sexually fulfilled they would in Kantian terms have got married at least partially for the wrong reasons. The absurdity of this should be obvious too, but the irony I will explain: in rushing to get married they rush to take one another's ends to be their own but they do so because they sexually desire one another, something which is in it's essence, for Kant, objectifying. Since they are not currently married they don't have the moral right to objectify each other sexually, nor act upon that desire as to do so is to use their loved one to satisfy an objectifying desire (pre-marital contract). They desperately attempt to satisfy the categorical imperative and in their desperation, they fail. This all seems very strange, surely their love is the qualifying factor here and that remains unchanged by “I do”s. If any action motivated by sex is immoral, almost all teenagers are completely incapable of moral acts, along with a high proportion of adults. Any Schopenhauerian claims that we all just act as slaves to the will to life, that is, fundamentally we all act at the basest level upon our sexual desires can be interpreted as saying that humanity is a priori immoral. I don't feel persuaded by this view but I also don't wish to accept that if it were true, humanity itself would be immoral. In fact, even Kant wouldn't want to accept this as we must only take another's ends to be our own if those ends are also moral. Thus we would be unable to take humanity's ends to be our own, something which we are apparently supposed to do at all times. Clearly something, somewhere, is amiss. 10 of 17 Tom Stanley Undergraduate Dissertation [email protected] Oxford Brookes University Objectification In order to uncover what might be at issue, I'm going to investigate an article on objectification and hopefully, afterwards, it will be obvious what I'm doing when I re-examine Kant's ideas on sex with the hope of making something a little less pessimistic and a little more workable. Nussbaum (2002) explores the nature of objectification in her such-titled essay. She claims that there are “at least seven different ways in which people can be objectified”, such as viewing someone as fungible, inert or merely aesthetic, as having a lack of boundary-integrity (that we may violate their boundaries at will), ownership, etc. She explains that in various ways objectification can be to the detriment of the person to be objectified and is explained in Kantian terms along the lines of: ownership can imply violability, both ownership and violability imply a lack of autonomy and in Kantian terms do a dishonour to the humanity of the person objectified. To view somebody in purely aesthetic terms is to reduce them to a picture of themselves or if we were to afford them only slightly more humanity it is to reduce them merely to their bodies. Both views pay utter disregard to the actions, intentions and general will and ends of the person objectified and they are obviously immoral – a person, and specifically their ends are far more than merely their physical appearance. There are many more ways in which we can objectify another whilst remaining consistent with Kantian views on the immorality of it. There is one way however, according to Nussbaum, that we can objectify a person and it may not necessarily be immoral; she uses by way of example passages by D. H. Lawrence, specifically, from Lady Chatterly. In the passage “both parties put aside their individuality and become associated with their bodily organs. They see each other in terms of those organs.” According to Nussbaum (2002) this can be a “wonderful part of sexual life... The surrender of autonomy and even of agency and subjectivity are joyous.” Importantly for Nussbaum, this wilful surrender of autonomy, which is not necessarily immoral (surely marriage contains a certain element of this?), is only permissible in certain types of relationship. She feels that context is all important and that we can satisfy Kant's second formulation of the categorical imperative if we occasionally use our partner's body for our own ends whilst the relationship itself is about treating them as the end that they are. An important example she uses is her using her lover's stomach as a pillow, an example that I, like Nussbaum find it difficult to argue to be morally objectionable, provided that doing so is done with the person's consent, without causing them pain and that using said person as a pillow is done “in the context of a relationship in which [... our partner] is generally treated as more than a pillow” (Nussbaum, 2002). Soble appears to find fault in Nussbaum's example though. According to Soble (2002b), Nussbaum's example, when changed to a sexual context, is morally objectionable in a Kantian interpretation. He changes Nussbaum's example from “If I am lying around with my lover on the bed, and use his stomach as a pillow, there seems to be nothing at all baneful about this [if done in the context of a loving relationship]” (Nussbaum, 2002) to “If I am lying around with my lover on the bed, and use his penis for my sexual satisfaction, there seems to be nothing at all baneful about this [if done in the context of a loving relationship]” (Soble, 2002b). What he intends to prove is that both cases are cases of instrumental objectification where she simply uses his body as a tool and as a result fail the categorical imperative. This is a great disservice to the spirit of Nussbaum's essay. Soble writes, “One of Nussbaum's theses, then, is that a loss of autonomy, subjectivity, and individuality in sex, and the reduction of one's own person to his or her sexual body or it's parts, in which the person is or becomes a tool or object, are morally acceptable 11 of 17 Tom Stanley Undergraduate Dissertation [email protected] Oxford Brookes University if they occur within the background context of a psychologically healthy and morally sound relationship” - (Soble, 2002b) In fact, however, Nussbaum specifically states that this is not the case. She writes “there is a sense in which both parties put aside their individuality and become identified with their bodily organs. [... but] Even the suggestion that they are reducing one another to their bodily parts seems quite wrong.” (Nussbaum, 2002). When Nussbaum says that when assessing the morality of objectification we should take into account the context in which it occurs she does not mean that if we treat a person at all times except one with respect and love and affection that it excuses some morally impermissible act of objectification. Instead, what she is saying is that being identified with one's sexual organs by a lover is not the same as to be reduced to just those bodily parts. In reducing somebody to being just a penis they then become replaceable with any other adequate penis. To have sex with somebody simply because they have a body, simply because they are able to satisfy us with their body, is still morally wrong. If they are interchangeable with any other person we are not solving any issues about respecting that person's ends, even if it may be argued that we instead service the ends of humanity we are only capable of this by treating some specific person merely as a means in the process of doing so. Her sense of context is not, as Soble takes it to be, a disclaimer or enabling factor. It is not the case that she thinks it moral to use our partner merely as a means because at other times we are treating them as an ends. She is attempting to argue that there is a way in which we can have sex with people, that may include treating them as a means, without treating them merely as a means. That when she is 'lying around in bed with her lover and uses his stomach as a pillow', she is lying around in bed with someone who's end she takes to be her own and the same time her end is his. They care about each other, and because they have this relationship she can treat him as a pillow. Her treating him as if he is a pillow at that moment does not mean that she is treating him as if he is a pillow and nothing more. She still cares for him as a person at that moment and as such, respects his autonomy, dignity and his ends. I think this leads me on to a very crucial point. Nussbaum's suggestions are incompatible with a strict, word-for-word following of Kant, yet I don't find them problematic. Kant says that sex is immoral because in our desires we view a person's body as the object of desire and not that person. Yet Nussbaum seems to be suggesting that there is a way in which we can do both. To explain further, I'm going to have to return to Kant, and re-examine his views on sex. 12 of 17 Tom Stanley Undergraduate Dissertation [email protected] Oxford Brookes University Kant on Sex (revisited) To quickly restate our issues, Kant says that if we are to use someone, who has their own ends, as a means we must take their ends to be our own (act in accordance with them) at all times. This disqualifies sexual desire as a moral reason for action as to act on such a motivation as sexual desire is to act to satisfy a desire which does not regard it's target as having ends. Sexual desire is apparently concerned with somebody's physical appearance, their body, and not to do with their ends. But here is where I draw issue, does this honestly capture all of sexuality? Kant's description of somebody as disposable makes me wonder what sort of sexual encounter he is referring to? “In loving from sexual inclination, they make the person into an object of their appetite. As soon as the person is possessed, and the appetite sated, they are thrown away, as one throws away a lemon after sucking the juice from it.” – (Kant, 1997; p.156 [27:384]) This sort of behaviour certainly seems to pay no regard to the person's will. Even if the person doesn't mind that they are disregarded, if all they want is a 'casual fuck' without the slightest interest in them and would in fact take it as an invasion of privacy if the person who they met 'in that club last night' started to take an interest in their life, even and perhaps especially in these circumstances it would be immoral to sleep with them. Not only are you not satisfying the categorical imperative but even an attempt to do so would break it as the other person's ends are that you don't take an interest in their ends. Only on the very shallowest Kantian framework can this be justified. Only by saying that we respect their ends by not getting involved do we justify it in any way and this interpretation seems particularly to justify the soulless, hollow interaction that in all other senses is condemned by the categorical imperative. No, it seems doubtful that casual sex with a stranger will ever be justifiable on a Kantian basis without some sort of global mass love contract, the conditions of which would be far more stringent than simple social contract theory may suffice. I feel no need to draw this point out, it is neither justifiable nor do I have any inclination to justify it. But what is it that Kant finds so objectionable about sex between two consenting adults who know and care for one another? Well, Kant says that there is “inner abhorrency and damage to morality in employing the inclination”, he does not believes that sex is fundamentally moral and only made immoral by certain circumstances but that “there is something contemptible in the act itself, which runs counter to morality. Hence conditions must be possible, under which alone the use of the facultates sexuales is compatible with morality” (1997; p.156 [27:385]). Kant believes that there is something intrinsically morally wrong with sex because he believes that when we desire somebody sexually we desire them not in virtue of their humanity but in virtue of their sex and in our desire their humanity is disregarded in preference of their sex. Quite what he means by 'sex' is difficult to track down, Soble (2002b) seems to think he means genitalia but whether he does or not this seems too narrow a definition which fails to capture the full nature of sexual desire. We don't desire somebody simply for their genitals, even at our shallowest state we desire them for 'the way they look at us' or any number of other usually more objectifying bodily descriptions. It is possible for sexual desire to be based purely on somebody's body but to say that it is always a simple reduction of a person to their physical self doesn't seem to capture it entirely. There is far more to sexual desire than physical appearance, though physical appearance is certainly a factor. We desire people for their status, their intelligence, their accomplishments, their confidence. We desire people for any number of other not quite so stereotypical reasons. A quick google search reveals that if you can think of it, most of the time there's porn of it, and if there's 13 of 17 Tom Stanley Undergraduate Dissertation [email protected] Oxford Brookes University porn of it, I'd argue that somebody finds sexual appeal in it. As such, I shall use a slightly more vague but also more encompassing reading which is that when Kant says 'sex' he means the eroticism of that person. Upon such a reading, we disregard that person's ends and humanity in order to satisfy our desire for their 'eroticness'. We desire that person primarily although slightly tautologically, and at the same time in a slightly Schopenhaurian way, for the fact that they seem to stimulate us in a way that makes them seem erotic to us. Crucially, I don't think Kant captures what sexual desire is if he means that we desire people as things, or physical objects, and that the objectifying nature of that desire is morally foul. If instead he means that we view some people as being erotic, and we see them as being something which they are not; that we are completely misled about somebody because we have seen merely what we want to see and focussed on how much that person stimulates our erotic fantasies and in our 'hallucinatory' state we disregard their actual self for, instead, an abstract sexual projection that we have conjured in a frenzy of desire, he does seem to make a good point. In this case we objectify people in the abstract and make them into no more than erotic devices. Instead of sex being between two people, sex instead becomes one person masturbating using the other, the other being a dehumanised but hypersexualised thing which although bearing physical resemblance to it's actual self does not bear conceptual resemblance at all. Clearly the physical objectification that Soble thinks Kant is talking about and the abstract objectification which I think bears a fuller resemblance to sexual desire are both morally wrong. In fact, they both exist and are morally wrong. Kant's objectification occurs when we desire somebody purely because their body stimulates us and we think of that person as something to be manipulated in order to gain access to that body. The moral wrong I'm talking about occurs when we fantasise about a person to the degree that that person becomes no more than a stimulus of our fantasies. These two states are two moral wrongs, and potentially, for the same reason – that we do not treat the other person as an ends. But they are not remedied by the same remedy. With Kant's physical objectification in sexual desire, it is very difficult to ever gain the right to use another person's body for your benefit. Any attempt to justify it by saying we each use each other, as Soble (2002b) states, simply doubles the wrong doing involved. To justify procreation Kant has had to go through the difficult process of morally justifying marriage in order to have some confines in which to place moral sex. This process in itself is fraught with metaphysical difficulty. Apparently, prostitution is incompatible with morality because we cannot give ourselves away without debasing ourselves and treating ourselves merely as an object, “[...] were he something owned by himself, he would be a thing over which he could have ownership. He is, however, a person, who is not property, so he cannot be a thing such as he might own; for it is impossible of course to be at once a thing and a person, a proprietor and a property at the same time. Hence a man cannot dispose over himself; he is not entitled to sell a tooth, or any of his members.” (Kant, 1998; p157 [27:386]) Yet sexual desire is apparently morally permissible within the confines of a monogamous marriage, his reason for this is “for I have given myself to be the other's property, but am in turn taking the other as my property, and thereby regain myself, for I gain the person to whom I gave myself as property.” (ibid; p159 [27:388]). Clearly these views hold tension with one another, but as much as I would like to, it's not my purpose to attack marriage in this particular paper. However, that his argument supposedly fixing 14 of 17 Tom Stanley Undergraduate Dissertation [email protected] Oxford Brookes University the problem of it being basically immoral to have sex is so strange may possibly be a clue that his view on sex is also quite odd. If we are to satisfy Kant's sexual desire we must wait until that person actually gives us their body, as it is their body which we wish to make use of. This type of sexual desire is extremely difficult to justify upon any interpretation of the categorical imperative. Taking that person's ends to be our own seems an entirely unrelated issue to the one of gaining access to their physical form. And as Kant says, they regularly occur simultaneously, but if we take that person's ends to be our own solely in order to gain access to their physical form we are still treating them as a means. We are still not treating them seriously and dignifiedly as a human being. We are instead manipulating them by taking their ends as our own and treating their ends as a tool to gain our ends – precisely what is defined as breaking the categorical imperative. As a result of all this, Kant has had to jump through hoops to make marriage a justifying condition of sex. If, instead, we think of sex as being drawn toward that person partially for their physical appearance but also because of who they are, then it seems the physically objectifying nature of sexuality may remain, but accompanied by another aspect of sexual desire which is precisely that person as an end. We desire that person in virtue of the person that they are, and in virtue of their humanity. If we are to have sex with somebody we desire in this way, we do more than simply masturbate with their body, we take part in an activity which involves their humanity and preserves their dignity in so far as it it is in correlation with their wishes and that the desire for us to do it with them is based on our finding them, as an end, an attractive prospect. Instead of being reduced to a physical object they are equated to an abstract object which is 'themselves-to-us'. The moral issue seems to occur in this view when we are mistaken about somebody's ends. If we have fantasised about somebody to the point that we have created a totally new fantasy person, the object of our desire is no more than a stimulus of our fantasy, we are drawn toward ends that are not the ends of the person we attribute them to. In such a case we are just not capable of satisfying the categorical imperative, even if we should want to. Of course we may be completely aware that 'the girl next door' does not want to dress in leather and do horrible things to us, no matter how much we fantasize about them. We may be completely aware that the extent of our relationship is an infrequent hello in the street. Then to have sex with said 'girl next door' (if one somehow gains her consent) for the reasons that she wants to do horrible things to you while dressed in leather is quite obviously wrong, both morally and functionally. What I'm talking about though is when we are not aware that a certain person is not the person that we are attracted to. If this is the case, we do them a moral wrong without realising by accidentally not taking their ends to be our own. 15 of 17 Tom Stanley Undergraduate Dissertation [email protected] Oxford Brookes University What does all this mean for Kant and Sex? It seems the moral problems involved in an interpretation of sexual desire as being more than just physical are fairly obvious. Firstly, if we are to have sex with people we must first know their ends as it is impossible to treat them as the ends we know nothing about. Second, we must not have sex with them purely in respect of their physical appearance. This is the Kantian objectification, in which case, regardless of what we know about their ends we do not take said ends to be our own and have sex with them purely because of what they are (beautiful) and not who they are (a murderer?). To do this is to treat them as if they were merely a physical object and does not respect their dignity, humanity or autonomy. The final category of moral sex wrongs is this, we can fail to treat somebody as an end, or at least the end that they are if we fail to see them as the person they really are. We must know the person for who they are and be attracted to them because of the person that they are and not merely the way that they are formed. If we wish somebody to be a certain way other than how they are and base our relationship on this there is not actual justification for any relationship. We are degrading a person if we base a relationship of any kind with them on some thing that does not accurately represent them. There are obvious cases where this is in play, when we enter into a relationship wishing that someone would lose weight/stop smoking/get off drugs/etc. In practicality though, this may apply far more broadly as it seems to be an epistemological problem for which there is no obvious cure. If we are to know that the person that we are sexually drawn toward apparently for all the right reasons is actually the person we think they are, we're going to have do have some sort of direct link to the world as it is, and not just as we perceive it. Something I'm certain Kant would have issue with. It seems then that if we are to accept the categorical imperative as being a condition of moral action and we want to say that at least some sex outside of marriage is not immoral we must challenge the idea that sexual desire is simply physically objectifying. Instead, and although it can sometimes be physically objectifying, it can also be objectifying in another way, in turning people into abstract objects based purely on sexual intent and misleading us from the true subjects that surround us. If however, it does not mislead us, and the person we desire actually is the person we think they are, we are justified in acting on that desire as it is the person themselves and not any reduction of them that is causing us to act and in so far as we find their ends desirable we take them to be our own. Provided they give, or at least would give, consent, we can be morally justified in having sex with no further relevant preconditions. Perhaps then, we should just be friends with benefits? 16 of 17 Tom Stanley Undergraduate Dissertation [email protected] Oxford Brookes University BIBLIOGRAPHY Calhoun , C., (1999) 'Alan Soble, Sexual Investigations ' Ethics, Vol. 109, No. 4, pp. 928-931. Accessed on 06/02/2011 from 'http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/233965'. Finer, L., (2007) 'Trends in Pre-Marital Sex in the United States, 1954-2003' Public Health Reports, Vol. 122, No.1, pp. 73-78 Accessed on 07/03/2011 from http://www.publichealthreports.org/archives/issuecontents.cfm? Volume=122&Issue=1 Kant, I., (1998). Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. Kant, I., (2005). The Moral Law. trans. by Paton, H.J., Routledge: Abingdon, UK. Kant, I. (auth.), Heath, P. (ed.), Schneewind, J. (intro.). (1997) Lectures on Ethics. Cambridge University Press: USA. La Caze, M., (2005). 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