Sexual Ethics and Just War Theory – Perspectives from Aristotle and Russell

Sexual Ethics and Just War Theory – Perspectives from Aristotle and Russell

One of Aristotle’s assumptions on sexual ethics is that traditional sexual morality develops the right habits for sexual virtue. As per traditional sexual morality, people should practice fidelity and chastity and be faithful to their union of sex (Egbekpalu, 2018). Another key Aristotelian assumption on sexual virtues is that desire and modesty are natural (Egbekpalu, 2018). It is, therefore, incumbent upon individuals to control their desires based on the fact that no society promotes infidelity. For an individual to become sexually mature, they have to incorporate sexual desire into their personality.

On the other hand, Russel adopts the utilitarian viewpoint when addressing sexual ethics. Based on the utilitarian approach, the end goal of human action is to attain happiness. Sex is one such action that helps people derive pleasure, and hence, people should have more sex to attain happiness (Halwani, 2023). To that end, it is obvious that Russel adopts a more open attitude toward sexuality.

Individuals should develop sexual ethics for various reasons, one of them being that it confines lust to intimate relations. With the appropriate ethics, people can impede their sexual desires until such a time when they have a fulfilling love relationship (Egbekpalu, 2018). Further, sexual ethics encourage respectful desire, where individuals not only desire others for their bodies but also the person who is in the body.

The primary assumption of the “just war theory” is protection from external attacks. For most people, protection from external attacks is the foremost and perhaps the only justification for war (Cox, 2015). Also, based on this theory, war may be justified if motivated on humanitarian grounds. If an aggressor attacks innocent people, intervention may be justified to protect the rights of these people. In these instances, war is justified to protect vulnerable populations.

Historically, one of the wars that has been argued to be justifiable was World War II between the Axis and the Allied Powers. The Axis, led by the likes of Hitler, committed severe human rights violations. These aggressions were unprovoked in most cases. For instance, Hitler committed severe aggression against the Jews simply because he did not like them. Allied Powers came together, pooled war muscle, and sought to protect threatened communities by waging war.

Non-violent ethics of war argue that peaceful means of conflict resolution may be used if the situation allows. Adopting non-violent means to address war is based on the moral consistency principle that avers that using violent means dehumanizes both the victim and the perpetrator (Cox, 2015). However, looking at the circumstances surrounding World War II, it was impossible to use non-violent means to resolve the war. Germany, the main perpetrator in the war, used deadly weapons, which would only be countered on the battlefield in equal measure.

Based on deontological ethics, I believe that I have a responsibility to intervene when I notice an injustice being committed against other people. In deontological ethics, an action is considered morally right because of the characteristics of the action and not the product of the action. To that end, I believe one should intervene upon noticing systemic and structural injustices targeted at individuals. Based on deontological ethics, those intervening should not bother about the consequences that will follow their intervention. The intervention is obligatory since speaking for those undergoing discrimination will go a long way to avert the injustice.

References

Cox, R. (2015). The ethics of war up to Thomas Aquinas.

Egbekpalu, P. (2018). Philosophy of human sexuality: Kantian sexual ethics as a panacea for sexual violence and an authentic pathway towards development in Africa. In Scientific Research Journal (SCIRJ) (p. 76). https://www.scirj.org/papers-0118/scirj-P0118490.pdf

Halwani, R. (2023, May 5). Sex and sexuality (E. N. Zalta & U. Nodelman, Eds.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sex-sexuality/

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Identify the assumptions Aristotle is making in his argument for sexual ethics.
Identify the assumptions that Russell is making in his argument for sexual ethics.
Why ought we develop a sexual ethic?
What is the primary ethical assumption in “just war theory”?
What war in history, if any, would you consider to be a “just war”?
Would a non-violent ethic work in the case of “fighting” Germany in WWII?
When confronted with an injustice do you have a ethical responsibility to act?

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