The Meaning of Sex: Christian Ethics and the Moral Life

University

THE

MEANING

OF

SEX

CHRISTIAN ETHICS

and the

MORAL LIFE

DENNIS P. HOLLINGER

© 2009 by Dennis P. Hollinger

Published by Baker Academic

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516–6287

www.bakeracademic.com

Printed in the United States of America

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hollinger, Dennis P., 1948–

    The meaning of sex : Christian ethics and the moral life / Dennis P. Hollinger.

       p. cm.

    Includes bibliographical references.

    ISBN 978-0-8010-3571-5 (pbk.)

    1. Sex—Religious aspects—Christianity. 2. Sexual ethics. I. Title.

BT708.H625 2008

241'.66—dc22

2008052872

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, Today’s New International Version®. TNIV®. Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations labeled NLT are from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations labeled NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations labeled KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

To Mary Ann,

whose covenant love these many years

embodies the meaning and beauty

of God’s good gift of oneness

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction: What’s at Stake in Sexual Morality?

Part 1: Frameworks

1. Ethical Theories and Sex

2. Worldviews and Sex

3. The Christian Worldview and Sex

4. The Purposes of Sex

Part 2: Issues

5. Sex before Marriage

6. Sex in Marriage

7. The Challenge of Homosexuality

8. Reproductive Technologies and Sexual Ethics

9. Living in a Sex-Crazed World

Notes

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Iam deeply appreciative of the many people who have contributed to the ideas, shape, and writing of this book. First, special thanks to three individuals who read the entire manuscript and offered exceptional suggestions: Esther Bruland (ethicist), Dennis Sullivan (physician/biologist), and Eric Brown (pastor). I am also grateful for the feedback from two theologians who responded to my theological chapters: David Wells and Ken Miller. Old Testament scholar David Dorsey was most helpful on bibliography and ideas on the Song of Songs, ethicist James Thobaben provided thoughtful feedback for my chapter on homosexuality, and youth-culture specialist Walt Mueller was both encouraging and helpful in thinking about the book’s relevance to those who work with youth.

I have always found significant input from nonprofessional ethicists and young adults who interact with my material. My daughter, Naphtali Mitten (kindergarten teacher), and son-in-law, Nathan Mitten (engineer), read and responded to several chapters, and my Byington Scholar at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Jonathan Ogden, tracked down numerous citations and provided useful feedback on several chapters. I also want to thank the many students who over the years have reflected with me on the ideas that are at the heart of this book. Their tough questions have engendered greater clarity and depth.

My thanks to the trustees of Evangelical Theological Seminary for granting a writing leave to concentrate on this work and to my friends and colleagues at Fuller Theological Seminary, who provided rich hospitality for that time away as a scholar in residence. And I express deep appreciation to the encouragement of my new colleagues and friends at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary where I now serve.

INTRODUCTION

What’s at Stake in Sexual Morality?

We live in a sex-crazed world. A day in the life of an American or European can hardly go by without one encountering numerous sexual images, innuendos, or appeals. In marketing clothing, cars, computers, and cameras there is invariably some appeal to our sexual instincts. The nightly fare of family TV is filled with sexual references and implied or fairly explicit sexual acts. Sexual behavior that was hidden in the media closet a decade ago is now quite common. One out of every four Internet hits is pornographic in nature. The expectations for a casual relationship often assume sexual relations. Surely a visitor from another planet would say of this age, Sex is everywhere and always on their minds.

But we are simultaneously a sexually confused society. The same culture that appeals to sex to get us through the day seeks to set limits that frequently appear incongruent to a person bombarded all day by sexual imagery and allusion. The same culture that seems to say anything goes has cracked down rigorously on wayward teachers, priests, and underage provocateurs. Sexual harassment regulations and laws abound, while the surrounding culture displays and glories in sexually provocative images, art, film, and music. Some colleges and universities have even experimented with requiring a written statement of consent between students to have sexual intercourse, at the same time that the university ethos breathes sexual freedom.

In the midst of all this we are a confused culture about the limits, rights, and wrongs of sexual intimacy. As one sociologist put it, Sex causes considerable ambivalence among Americans, religious or otherwise. We esteem it as sacred, forbid it, police it, yet often treat it as if it were profane.1 The mantra, As long as someone doesn’t get hurt, seems rather thin as we seek to make our way as sexual beings. Even a more sophisticated appeal to mutual love is quite shallow and frequently deceptive when considering the results and ramifications of sexual acts. At one level our culture prides itself on being tolerant, open, and progressive. At another level it seeks an almost puritanical restriction on behaviors that are deemed politically incorrect. Thus, "To an extent unparalleled since the early centuries of the Christian era, Christians . . . find themselves living in a sex-oriented— or perhaps more accurately, a sexually disoriented—culture."2

We are confused, I believe, for one simple reason: we have no clear conception of the meaning of sex. Some will of course want to argue that there is no meaning to sex other than what the partners themselves bring to the act. And indeed sex has meant many different things to different people. As Lisa Fullam notes, Sex can be everything from a monetary transaction without emotional meaning, to a profound experience of loving union. . . . Sex can be celebratory or can be solace in sadness. . . . Sex can be tender or violently abusive; it can heal and can deeply wound.3

Thus, it is commonly assumed that we make our meanings, and there are no meanings external to ourselves that can serve as markers, limits, or guides to our sexual behavior. Some theologians and biblical scholars have argued that there is no consistent sexual ethic in the Bible and no clear theological meaning to sex. One well-known biblical scholar wrote, The Bible has no sex ethic. It only knows a communal love ethic, which must be brought to bear on all the sexual mores of a given society in a given period.4

But in contrast to this popular notion, I wish to set forth the thesis that there is inherent meaning to sex. And it is in this meaning that we find designs for our sexual lives. It is in the meaning of sex, or if you will, the theology of sex, that we find our moral markers and limits. It is in discovering this meaning that we learn sexual virtue and joy and the dangers and ultimately the emptiness of sexual vice.

The meaning of sex can in part be discovered by a reading of history and by a study of cultures and human experience throughout history. Millions of married couples through the corridors of time have understood something of what sex was intended to be. It is, to be sure, a partial and fractured rendering of sexual meaning, but God has endowed all humans with some sense of what it means to be human, have bodies, love another, engage in sexual intimacy, marry, have children, and maintain fidelity. Thus, the version of sexual meaning I seek to espouse will have some overlap with other religious and even nonreligious expressions that have existed down through history. At other points it may deviate significantly.

I live and write as a practicing Christian. As a Christian ethicist I will attempt to demonstrate that there are some distinctives granted, by God’s grace, to those who submit themselves to Jesus of Nazareth as Savior and Lord and orient their lives accordingly. God has spoken throughout history, not only in terms of a natural law that all can intuitively know, but more explicitly through the incarnate Word, Christ, and through the written word, the Bible. The Bible comes to us across many centuries, out of varying cultural contexts, and through the lens of diverse writers, but in such a way that God has spoken his word to provide meaning, wholeness, and truthful direction for our lives.

The biblical story includes sexual failure (including some seedy narratives) and sexual faithfulness, and it incorporates commands and principles geared to sexual intimacy. But above all it implicitly provides us with an overarching meaning of sex, which in turn forms the theological bedrock for any commands and principles about physical intimacy. It is in the meaning of sex that we find a framework by which we make sense of our sexuality as human beings. It is in the meaning of sex, drawn implicitly from divine revelation and yet partially known from human experience and history, that we discover a framework for guiding our sexual lives. Thus, to deny that there is sexual meaning, other than the meanings we make, is to lead to the abyss of moral nihilism, in which there is little hope for saying yes or no to the many impulses that surround us in a sex-crazed/confused culture.

Simply put, this book will argue a thesis that goes against the grain of our culture—namely, that sex is a good gift of God with very specific purposes, and those purposes best find their fulfillment in a very specific context—the marriage of a man and a woman. From the standpoint of Christian ethics, I am writing from a worldview paradigm which insists that all ethics ultimately reside in some narrative or worldview. Specifically, I write from an assumption that the biblical story is a story of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. It is in that narrative and the worldview perceptions and commitments of that narrative that we find the meaning of sex and the ethical designs to guide our moral lives. The particular biblical directives then are set against the backdrop of this larger story and its worldview assumptions.

In a society (American) in which over half the population between twenty-five and thirty-nine have cohabited without marriage, and 33 percent of all births are to unmarried women,5 this book may not be popular. But, I have learned long ago not to seek popularity, though I admit to at times being enticed and influenced by it. The issues surrounding sexuality and our sexual drives are far too significant to be driven by either cultural impulses or our hormones. And God knows we struggle with both. All of us struggle to make sense of our sexual beingness and our sexual longings. The temptations are powerful in a world where sexual images and impersonal sexual liaisons are only a computer click away. The allurements send tremors through the core of our being with their potential to wreak havoc in our personal lives and covenants. They are already wreaking havoc in our society.

So I write as more than just an ethicist seeking to provide a respectable book on sexual morality. I write as a seminary president/professor, pastor, husband, father, and citizen who cares deeply about the times in which we find ourselves. I write as a fallible human being trying to make sense of our times and the God who graciously calls us to live in tension with those times. I don’t pretend to have captured nearly all that God intended in the gift of sex, and I certainly don’t pretend to have gotten it all right in my own life. God and providential moral designs far transcend our personal understandings, experiences, and blemishes. But after years of teaching and reading on this subject and counseling with couples both preparing for marriage and trying to salvage a marriage, I want to share what I’ve learned in my own studies, personal journey, and observations of the human sexual drama. Above all I wish to share what I believe God wants us to know, do, and be in our sexual lives; for the meaning of sex is discernable—even to some extent to an unbeliever.6

A Road Map

Part 1 of this book is about frameworks, by which I mean an investigation of the various ways humans have endeavored to make sense of and pattern their sexual lives. Chapter 1 looks at the traditional theories about ethics and what implications they might have for sexual morality. Chapter 2 contends that all ethics are ultimately rooted in some worldview perception, so we take a look at five historic and contemporary worldviews with links to sexual behavior.

Chapter 3 sets forth a Christian worldview, rooted in the Bible, with an exploration of its meaning for sexual intimacy. Above all this chapter seeks to show that sex is a good gift of our Creator, and sexuality is part of being made in the image of God. In chapter 4 I seek to show that all of God’s good gifts have particular purposes, and sex is no exception. This good gift of sexual intimacy is designed for the consummation of marriage, procreation, expression of love, and pleasure. In these purposes we come to know what it means to be in a covenant relationship and live out the fullness of the marriage covenant. The meaning of sex then is found in the Christian worldview assumptions about marriage, the human body, and the purposes of the gift. The meaning finds its fulfillment in the marriage of a man and a woman. But, sex is not the ultimate fulfillment of our lives, and thus life without sexual intimacy and marriage is not a deficient life. Rather, life without intimacy with God in Christ is deficient.

In part 2 I explore the varied issues we face as sexual beings. Chapter 5 explores the ever-challenging issues surrounding premarital sex, examining the kinds of questions that teenagers, college students, young adults, and now older single adults are asking about the freedom and limits of sexual expression. In chapter 6 I examine the ethical issues surrounding sex in marriage, including the significance of sexual behavior for the marital bond, contraception, the limits of friendships, and the breaking and restoring of marriage covenants. Chapter 7 tackles the issue that seems most to vex the contemporary church and society—homosexuality. It will look at distinctions to be made in ethical analysis of this issue, and then examine arguments used to defend homosexual relationships, with responses to them.

In chapter 8 I look at reproductive technologies that enable humans to reproduce without sex. Issues like artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, surrogacy, and reproductive cloning are analyzed with regard to the sexual ethic set forth in part 1. Chapter 9 concludes by exploring how we can live whole and holy lives in a sex-crazed society, in light of the pressures we face and the norms to which we are committed. We will wrestle with how to be salt and light in such a culture.

An author hopes that readers move from cover to cover, devouring the whole. But if you must be selective, chapters 3 and 4 are foundational to the rest of the book. The issues of part 2 are set in the framework of a theology of sex established in those two chapters.

Some Distinctions

As we examine the meaning of sex and the moral issues, it is helpful to make a few distinctions that are important for the subject at hand.

Sex and Sexuality

First is the distinction between sex and sexuality. By sex we mean particular acts of physical intimacy. By sexuality we refer to our maleness and femaleness as human beings. All humans are sexual beings whether or not they engage in acts of sex. We all have a biological gender and then develop a sexual identity integrated with that gender. In a fallen world this sexuality can sometimes be confused and badly broken, but our sexuality is a biological given that ideally and ultimately reflects the image of God in which we are made. Sex, on the other hand, is the act of intimacy reflecting our sexuality.

To put it another way, our sexuality is the form of our bodily or physical being within the world. It certainly encompasses our emotional, social, and spiritual selves, but it is related to the very way in which we as embodied beings exist in relationship to others. As Stanley Grenz puts it, Sexuality comprises all aspects of the human person that are related to existence as male and female. Our sexuality, therefore, is a powerful, deep, and mysterious aspect of our being. It constitutes a fundamental distinction between the two ways of being human (i.e., as male or female).7 Sex, in contrast, is the acting out of our sexuality in physical acts with others, accompanied by emotional and mental states of being.

Judith and Jack Balswick note that there are four dimensions of sexuality. First is natal sex, the biological and physical features that determine whether one is male or female. Second is sexual identity, the essential sexual self-concept of an individual. The third dimension is gender roles, the expectations of a particular culture for males and females. It includes such things as manner of talk, style of dress, expressions, and behavioral expectations. And fourth is sexual orientation, the direction of one’s erotic attractions, which can be to the opposite sex (heterosexual), the same sex (homosexual) or both sexes (bisexual).8

We all experience sexuality; we do not all experience sexual intimacy. While we can never divorce these two dimensions too far, the focus of this book is primarily on sex. Nonetheless, the meaning of sex is ultimately bound up with our sexuality. Conversely, however, our sexuality is not necessarily dependent upon sexual acts.

Ethics and Morality

A second distinction is between ethics and morality. Frequently ethicists make the distinction this way: ethics is the study of normative behavior and character; morality is the behavior itself. Others use ethics to refer to social issues such as economic justice, bioethics, and business ethics, and use morality to refer to personal ethics like sex.

While I generally speak of ethics as a discipline that studies the moral life (behavior and character), I am not going to push the distinction too far. In this book you will find me using the terms interchangeably, thus talking about ethical theories and moral theories as if they are one, and ethical behavior and moral behavior as if they are the same. And it will be clear that I believe that sexual morality is not just a personal issue. It has significant cultural and societal implications.

Normative Analysis and Descriptive Analysis

A third distinction of pertinence for this book is the difference between normative analysis and descriptive analysis. From time to time in the book I will refer to sociological or psychological studies that describe human behavior or cultural patterns. These forms of analysis are not ethics, but descriptive renditions of human behavior relative to sex. Ethical and moral analyses, on the other hand, are normative, or prescriptive, in the sense that they describe what we ought to do and who we ought to be. Ethics provides normative frameworks through which we make judgments and by which we live our lives and forge our character. Ethics embodies a sense of oughtness, a moral ideal that we hold before us.

In this Christian ethics book on sex, I set forth a normative framework. I believe that God has spoken to the sexual dimension of our personal and social lives, and there are legitimate normative claims to which we are called by our Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer. In our culture such claims may seem foreign and irrelevant to those who maintain moral neutrality and tolerance in the realm of sexual behavior. But, neutrality and tolerance are themselves moral claims. They too set forth a sense of oughtness about what we can do with our bodies.

I hope to show that the moral claims of biblical faith make sense for the kind of world we inhabit. In fact, they are the most personally rewarding norms we could ever experience, for they stem not from our finite selves or our sexually confused culture, but from the God who made us sexual beings. God calls us to express our sexuality under the lordship of Christ, for God’s glory, and for the good of self, others, and society.

What’s Changed? What’s at Stake?

Some Christians are prone to think that the sexual issues confronting us today are relatively new. They long for the good old days when sexual morality was intact, and we knew and did what was morally right. But sexual immorality is as old as humanity itself. A cursory reading of the book of Genesis reminds us that ever since the fall of the human race into sin, sexual temptations and immorality have been around.

When we go back to the early part of American history, we find that sexual behavior was not as idyllic as we might think. In one study of church records in eighteenth-century Massachusetts, a historian found that of two hundred weddings performed over a fifteen-year period, sixty-six of the couples confessed to fornication, having sex before marriage. A few years later in a two-year period, nine of sixteen couples in that church had confessed to fornication, and because pregnancy was the primary impetus for confession, we can only assume that the numbers were likely higher.9 So, sexual immorality is not just an issue for our time.

But clearly today something has changed that makes the task of sexual ethics more intense and the challenge of living sexually whole lives more difficult. Two things in particular have changed that bring with them significant challenges.

First, there has been a modification of thinking. Even if one-third or more of the brides who came to the altar in eighteenth-century Massachusetts were pregnant, the man and woman knew they had transgressed a moral norm. People engaged in sex outside of the bonds of marriage, but they did so knowing they had broken not just a societal norm, but an ethical norm. Guilt was sure to follow. Today that has changed. By and large society has come to view sexual intimacy as ethically separated from marriage. Though historically people engaged in all manner of sexual deviations from a Christian ethics perspective, they understood that sex was to be intimately bound to a covenant of marriage between a man and a woman. That norm has now broken down and places immense pressure on the traditional position of the church and the lives of broken individuals.

But there is a second thing that has changed—sex has become an industry. By this I do not mean the age-old profession of prostitution, but rather that sexuality and sexual imagery is used to sell products, enhance Nielson ratings on TV, sell movies and books, achieve a certain image in sports or entertainment, and provide people with products and symbols that lead them to believe they are sexually normal and sound. With the pornography industry now being the largest single source of Internet monetary exchange, the industry of sex has become a powerful force in shaping sexual consciousness. One needs only to understand the economics of eroticism to realize why teenagers are among the most manipulated groups in society today. It is enormously profitable for the media to provide sexually titillating and erotically suggestive messages to a large group of voracious consumers whose hormones are raging.10

All of this means that we are bombarded with sexual images and appeals in ways that earlier generations did not experience. This phenomenon not only affects our thinking but also presents us with sexual stimulations that make sanctified sex difficult.

These changes engender a state in which we are more confused than ever about the meaning of sex and thus frequently respond with incoherence to the various issues that confront us, especially in Western societies. N. T. Wright, an Anglican bishop in England, notes that in our relentless quest for pleasure, we use sex to dull the pain from loss, evil, and change. As a result we lack a clear moral framework for facing the issues. He writes:

Having decreed that almost all sexual activity is good and right and commendable, we are all the more shrill about the one remaining taboo, pedophilia. It is as though all the moral indignation which ought to be spread more evenly and thoughtfully across many other spheres of activity has all been funneled on to this one crime. Child abuse is of course stomach-turningly disgusting, but I believe we should beware of the unthinking moralism which is so eager to condemn it simply because we hate the thought of it rather than on properly thought-out grounds. . . . Lashing out at something you simply know by intuition is wrong may be better than tolerating it. But it is hardly the way to build a stable moral society.11

These two changes (that is, in thinking and sex becoming an industry) mean that we are in a new situation as we deal with a very old ethical issue. And what is at stake in all of this? Sex, contrary to the popular sentiment, is not just a private matter. Sexual behavior and thinking affects our character, relationships, the way we have children and socialize them, and the very contours of culture itself. Humans through the centuries have frequently understood this, even when their sexual ethic was either limited in understanding or flawed. Sex is not just about what two people do alone. It impacts societal institutions and cultural norms and expectations.

All societies have had some interest in limiting sexual behavior even if their norms were wide of the mark of Christian ethics. They knew intuitively what we have now forgotten, that sex is a powerful force in life that can shatter dreams, destroy families, kill people, and break cultures apart. But it can also be a good and beautiful ingredient in building happy marriages, stable homes, secure individuals, and virtuous communities.

This book is intended to help us understand the difference between these two effects—harm and enrichment. And what is at stake is the integrity of our personal being, the hope of our marriages, the well-being of our children, the authenticity of the church, and the fabric of society.

PART 1

FRAME WORKS

1

ETHICAL THEORIES AND SEX

When asked about sexual patterns among friends, one teenager said, Now that it’s easy to get sex outside of relationships, guys don’t need relationships.1 In such a setting, ethical theory is likely the furthest thing from a young person’s mind. Indeed, whenever people of any age engage in sexual activity, they rarely think explicitly about ethical theories to guide them. Most act in accordance with cultural mores (traditions passed on from the culture) or simply according to feelings, which frequently are driven by their hormones. For those who do take stock of what they ought to do with their sexual impulses, they are frequently guided by moral regulations that are merely accepted as true and right. They ask few questions as to why they are right or good.

But those who want to be ethical in behavior and character do well to raise some foundational questions. What makes my actions good or bad? What are the standards I should use for determining my moral judgments? And, from where should I derive such moral guidance? Such questions push us beyond cultural mores or hormones to ethical theories and foundations. This is true for any sphere of activity in life whether business, medicine, politics, community involvements, or sexual activity.

Historically there have been many theories of ethics—the study of the right, good, just, and virtuous in human action and character. These theories have been applied to a wide variety of issues faced by individuals and society. But the primary theories or foundations for ethics can be broken down to essentially three main categories: consequentialist ethics, principle ethics, and character or virtue ethics. This chapter explores each of these families of theories as applied to sexual behavior. I will not attempt an exhaustive overview of each theory or the thinkers who have used these paradigms for addressing sexual issues. Rather I will take a selective sampling of both Christian and secular thinkers who have utilized these approaches in making moral judgments relative to sex. Some of the thinkers are ethicists, others are not.

My goal is to see if the ethical theories can provide help in finding our way in the contemporary moral maze. Do these theories resonate with human experience and the wisdom of time? Are these theories consistent and coherent? How do they match up to biblical teachings and a Christian understanding of reality? What are the implications for sexual behavior today? In the end I will suggest that the three families of theories each contain some rich insights, but also some significant problems for grounding and guiding our moral lives. Thus, in subsequent chapters I will suggest that we move in some different directions to find a framework for our sexual lives and the issues we face in our time.

Consequentialist Theories and Sex

Many people make moral judgments on the basis of the consequences that accrue from their actions. Ethics, in this understanding, is not an attempt to find universal principles or virtues, but rather the attempt to calculate the results of one’s behavior. Here there is no inherent right or wrong, for morality is grounded in and determined purely by weighing the consequences of actions.

Of course immediately questions emerge. What sorts of consequences are we examining, and consequences for whom? As to the sorts of consequences, most ethical theorists in this family of ethics say that the primary results revolve around happiness or pleasure, because these are among the things that people pursue as ends in themselves. This is a natural pursuit for humanity and is thus deemed an amoral criterion for judging morality, not dependent upon any religious or philosophical framework. There have been some moral thinkers who do suggest other kinds of consequences, but all agree that moral judgments are made on the basis of results. Thus, the morality of any sexual act is determined entirely by what flows from it.

And as to the question, consequences for whom? we get two primary responses. Some argue that morality comes from the results that follow the individual moral actor, and this theory is usually called ethical egoism. Others, and clearly the majority of consequentialist thinkers, argue that it’s the consequences for all who are impacted by the action. This is generally called utilitarianism, and its mantra is, The greatest good for the greatest number of people. Both forms of consequences have been frequently employed, either implicitly or explicitly, for judging and guiding sexual behaviors.

Ethical Egoism

Although ethical egoism has not been a dominant ethical theory, it has been a significant popular impetus in the way people live their lives. Many humans pursue life and morals, including sexual morality, on the basis of what will bring them the greatest amount of pleasure and happiness. Their jobs, relationships, politics, and inward character are also shaped by such pursuits.

Ethical egoism as a theory has a long history going back to Epicurus, the ancient Greek philosopher. Epicurus (341–270 BC) was a hedonist who believed that pleasure was the highest good of an individual and the primary factor in our moral actions. He wrote, For it is to obtain this end that we always act, namely, to avoid pain and fear. . . . And for this cause we call pleasure the beginning and end of the blessed life.2 His hedonistic ethic was not an unbridled pursuit of pleasure at any cost, but rather a moderate hedonism which sought to curb any excessive actions that lacked self-restraint.

In modern times ethical egoism has found its way into the writings of various thinkers. Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) was not known as an explicit ethical egoist in his philosophical writings, but when he dealt with sex he reflected this approach. Russell was a controversial British philosopher, mathematician, and social activist who came from a prominent family who for generations had espoused radical political and social causes that raised the ire of many. For example, his father was an atheist who had readily agreed to his wife’s affair with their children’s tutor. Bertrand Russell