| In this dissertation I offer an ethical analysis of Thomas Aquinas and the virtue of temperance as it relates to sexual virtue. I advance the thesis that there are no justifiable reasons to sustain the procreative norm. Rather, I argue that we can rightly conceive of sexual virtue when moral agents in character friendships direct sexual desire activity towards relational intimacy and selective acts of procreation. I do so by drawing on the moral theory of Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica and building on his articulation of the virtue of temperance. While other ethicists and theologians have argued against the procreative norm, none have done so (to date) within an ethic of virtue. The moral theory of Thomas Aquinas is helpful for contemporary sexual ethics, as it draws on sources that both conservatives and liberals use in their own thinking: scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. Thus, I suggest that when conservatives and liberals engage in a virtue ethics approach to sexual ethics, we can work on the questions together in a way that our usual partisan positioning keeps us from doing. |
