Generally, Sex Before Marriage is Not Morally Sound

Thank you for the debate. Now, as it is the final round, I’ll follow common etiquette and simply sum up my argument and the debate as I see it. We have both accepted the ethical bindingness of situation ethics. Therefore, the question is whether “Situation Ethics” can condemn generally any act. “In general” is in fact a logical term parallel to ceteris paribus, meaning “all else being equal”, and in layman terms ceteris paribus means ‘in general’[1]. So the question we have been discussing is whether, all else being equal, sex before marriage is permissible. Or, whether there is something inherently bad with sex before marriage. As I have said repeatedly, there are many cases where sex before marriage is a bad idea. What I feel I need to emphasise – my friend keeps missing out this key point – is that there are many cases where sex after marriage is a bad idea. There are many times where in fact charity is a bad idea. However, just like charity, there are many times when sex before marriage is morally acceptable. Love can be permanent or fleeting. Marriage is a way of cementing a permanent love between two individuals and strengthening and officiating the agape they both share for one another. Sex, however, is simply an act that two couples share. It is an act which can be a vehicle to express love, or it can be a vehicle to express pleasure, the latter of which is not wrong in it even then. The constant badgering and narrow-mindedness of some, where ethics becomes wholly about sex, needs to be dismissed. To quote Singer: “[T]he first thing to say about ethics is that it is not a set of prohibitions about sex. Even in the era of AIDS, sex raises no unique moral issues at all. Decisions about sex may involve considerations of honesty, concern for others, prudence, and so on, but there is nothing special about sex in this respect, for the same could be said about driving a car.”[2] Peter Vardy, strong Catholic, similarly claims the same issue in The Puzzle of Sex. I claim my friend has had the same problem: he has become held up with the issue of sex, and I’ll say this because for my friend to be consistent with the dangers of sex, he would have had to extend the claim that “sex before marriage” is just as dangerous as “sex after marriage”. I of course claim this. Marriage is not a magical condom which protects you from disease, pregnancy, falling out with your spouse or any of the problems which divorce leads to. This is evident now we live in a society where more than four in ten married couples are expected to get a divorce[3]. Recession in fact is one of the major reasons people are staying together now. Marriage, it is becoming abundantly clear, is not a protector of agape, but merely a form of expressing it. A unique, valuable form of expressing it, but at the end of the day, it only expresses the value of marriage. Sex itself is one of the most primary acts two people can share. If they lack sexual chemistry, this will impact and exacerbate problems elsewhere in life, causing agape to dwindle and be pulls couples away. Before and after marriage, it can kill a potentially happy life. It can also be what saves it and keeps people together. As long as it is an expression of love, then sex before marriage is perfectly acceptable, and to criticise it as uniquely immoral is simply inaccurate. Thank you. [1] http://plato.stanford.edu... [2] Peter Singer, Practical Ethics [3] http://www.bbc.co.uk...