The Ethics ofLOVE

(aka ‘Sexual Ethics’)

Chief Sources:• chastity.com (Jason & Crystalina Evert)• Peter Kreeft, “Summa of the Summa”

[explanation of Aristotelian philosophy as expounded on by Thomas Aquinas]

Human Person:• Body• Soul

• Intellect• Will

Verum*

Bonum*

*Due to weakness, this direction is not automatic.

Hence:• Ignorance• Ill will (all vices): hatred, impurity,

calumny... (PCLAGES=pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, sloth)

Need to train the WILL to pursue its proper object:

GOODConcrete applications

(solutions/helps):•Cultivation of the mind

(studies)•Relationships (marriage)•Social/mutual dealings•Speech/behavior•Acquisition/Consumption

Read! IndustriousnessPurity/ChastityLove, RespectDiscretion/PrudenceTemperance/Sobriety

LOVE as one of the passions*

*In terms of the 10 categories of Aristotelian logic: substance, quantity, quality, relation, action, passion (reception), time, place, posture, and possession.

*The Aristotelian category of passion is not necessarily “passionate; it means reception, the “flip side” of action.

11 passions: love, hatred, desire, aversion, joy, sorrow; hope, despair, fear, daring, anger.

• Summa Q.22, A.2:“…the first change wrought in the appetite by the

appetible object is called "love," and is nothing else than complacency in that object; and from this complacency results a movement towards that same object, and this movement is "desire"; and lastly, there is rest which is "joy." Since, therefore, love consists in a change wrought in the appetite by the appetible object, it is evident that love is a passion: properly so called, according as it is in the concupiscible faculty; in a wider & extended sense, according as it is in the will.

• What really is LOVE?• Summa Q. 26, A. 4 “…to love is to wish

GOOD to someone." Hence the movement of love has a twofold tendency: towards the good which a man wishes to someone (to himself or to another) and towards that to which he wishes some good. Accordingly, man has love of concupiscence towards the good that he wishes to another, and love of friendship towards him to whom he wishes good.

• Thus we have:

LoveMostGenerally

As habit

As actionor passion

Selfish: “love of concupiscence”

Unselfish: “love of friendship”

Generically “love”

SpecificallyLove choosing: “dilection”Love cherishing: “charity”

from Peter Kreeft, “Summa of the Summa”

Sexual Ethics• Sexuality affects all aspects of the human

person in the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others.

• Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out.

Sexual Ethics (cont’d)• Chastity means the successful

integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being. Sexuality, in which man's belonging to the bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman.

• The virtue of chastity therefore involves – the integrity of the person and the

integrality of the gift.

The integrity of the person• The chaste person maintains the integrity of

the powers of life and love placed in him. This integrity ensures the unity of the person; it is opposed to any behavior that would impair it. It tolerates neither a double life nor duplicity in speech.

• Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy.

The integrality of the gift of self• Charity is the form of all the virtues. Under its

influence, chastity appears as a school of the gift of the person. Self-mastery is ordered to the gift of self. 

Sexual Ethics (cont’d)

Love & Responsibility: Ethics

Taken from “Love and Responsibility”

Abstinence Education:research shows that…

…abstinence-only education works and is effective:

• Abstinence programs emphasize principles of self-restraint, self-esteem, future goals, longterm commitment, and unselfishness in relationships, and teach healthy relationship skills, all of which support the formation of strong marriages and healthy families.

Jason Evertchastity.com

in Manila!Feb. 24-28, 2011

[Feb. 24, U.P. Theatre]