Mappess view of sexual

University Degree Historical and Philosophical studies

Writing Assignment 1

When thinking about the sexual morality of our everyday lives we can take into account Thomas Mappes view to help us view and understand the ethics of sex. Mappes’s view of sexual morality is comprised of several ideas to his reasoning on adultery, deception, and using others to gain for our own personal growth. His view could be applied to the article by Halwani; to describe Richard Taylor’s Having Love Affairs. In this example there are a few things that may make it intricate in order to justify.

Thomas Mappes builds his ethical view upon never using someone as a mere means to the end. Mappes defines using someone as intentionally treating them in a way that violates the requirement that our involvement with others be based on their voluntary and informed consent (Mappes). He also states “Deception is the means by which one interferes with another’s actions of being informed.” We are able to use his Kantian view to look over many forms of sexual behavior found in today’s society, including this article by Taylor.

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In Having Love Affairs there are a few items that encompass the ideas encountered within Mappes’s view of Sexual Morality. We learn that both the husband and wife are hard-working individuals at a moderate financial means, but the husband has been in secrecy from his wife and others, keeping large sums of money in many accounts. Mappes’s view can conclude to this part of the example solely. The husband in this case is cheating his wife of the truth about their finances which is deceiving to the wife. By staying with the wife and being sexually faithful to solely her, he is only using the sex as a way to show that he is bound to her. His intimacy with her is neither regular nor joyful for either of them, being not in his nature to be sexually active. As the wife has grown ill he cuts off the little love to her off completely therefore neglecting her. He has taken advantage of the wife’s situation and as well deceiving her in her times of need.

As the wife grows ill with cancer, the husband neglects the wife to a point where he doesn’t really notice that she is even still there. The husband in this case is merely using the wife, because he is failing to show and give respect to the wife as a “rational being” which is part of our duties as defined by Mappes’s article.

With the wife not receiving love and satisfaction anymore from the husband after becoming ill she goes and seeks it from another during her desperate time in need. The new man she meets loves her for her true being ignoring any of the physical issues, thus not using here as a mere means to gain anything. We learn that she has an affair with him even though Taylor doesn’t openly tell us. If their relationship does not intentionally interfere with either’s informed and voluntary consent, then it is not violating the ideas and views that Mappes has set forth.

With the answer to who has been faithless to whom being the husband, we learn that this is true through Mappes’s View. The husband is intentionally acting in a way that violates the requirement of the wife based on her voluntary consent. He is sexually using the wife by deceiving and also by taking advantage of her desperate situation. Mappes view is applied throughout the whole example showing us that even thought the wife is committing adultery she is not violating his liberal principles of sexual morality.

References

Mappes, Thomas. "A Liberal View of Sexual Morality and the Concept of Using Another Person." Timmons, Mark. Disputed Moral Issues. New York: Oxford University Press , 2007. 46.

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