PHIL 200 Lecture Notes - The Four Loves, Supererogation, Allan Bloom
12 Jun 2018
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Is described by C. S. Lewis in his book The Four Loves,17 and it is perhaps what Allan Bloom had in
mind when he wrote, "Animals have sex and human beings have eros, and no accurate science is
possible without making this distinction."18 The divide between metaphysical optimists and
metaphysical pessimists might in part be understood this way: metaphysical pessimists think that
sexuality, unless it is rigorously constrained by religious or social norms that have become
psychologically internalized, will tend to be governed by vulgar eros, while metaphysical optimists
think that sexuality, by itself, does not lead to or become vulgar, that by its own nature it can easily
be and often is heavenly.
Moral versus Nonmoral Evaluations Of course, we can and often do evaluate sexual activity morally:
we inquire whether a sexual act-either a particular occurrence of a sexual act or a general type of
sexual act-is morally good or right or morally bad or wrong.
More specifically, we evaluate or judge sexual acts to be morally obligatory, morally permissible,
morally wrong, or even morally supererogatory.
For example: one spouse might have a moral obligation to engage in sex with the other spouse; it
might be morally permissible for married couples to employ contraception while engaging in coitus;
rape, prostitution, and some forms of incest are commonly thought to be morally wrong; and one
person's agreeing to have sexual relations with another person when the former has no sexual
desire of his or her own but wants to please the latter might be morally supererogatory.
"Morally supererogatory" sexual activity is a category that is not often discussed by sexual ethicists.
Raymond Belliotti has this to say about it: "We cannot fully describe this type of sex, but we can say
generally that it goes above and beyond the call of moral duty. It is sex that is not merely morally
permissible, but morally exemplary. It would involve some extraordinary moral benefits to others
not attainable in merely morally permissible sex."19 Note that if a specific type of sexual act is
immoral, then every instance of that type of act will be morally wrong.
From the fact that the particular sexual act we are now doing or contemplate doing is morally
wrong, it does not follow that the specific type of act we are performing is morally wrong; the sexual
act that we are contemplating might be wrong for lots of reasons having nothing to do with the type
of sexual act it is.
Suppose we are engaging in heterosexual coitus, and that this particular sexual act is wrong because
it is adulterous.
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