Sexual Ethics: Celibacy

Maybe by discussing the ethics of celibacy I’m being too contrarian. Unlike all previous topics, this hasn’t received too much bad press — the only exceptions being discussions of celibacy for Catholic clergy. But the arguments against it hold no water. Most are either from disgust or something silly like “it goes against nature” which is used to argue against anything from homosexuality to prescription drugs. There are however 2 harm arguments that are more interesting.

The first is the idea that you could be harming society by refusing to reproduce. “If everyone were celibate humanity would end”, the argument says, “so it’s immoral”. But if 99% of people are celibate but most have babies through IVF (or a fancier future technology) it would be fine. It’s also silly because it can be used to refute any form of sex that’s not penetrative heterosexual unprotected sex — and then we’re back to theocracy.

But even without IVF, there are other objections. This argument is based on Kant’s categorical imperative which says you should only do things you’d be happy to be universal laws (ie. applicable for everyone). Which is useful for many situations. But if you follow it strictly, you cannot become a baker, since if everyone was a baker, society would collapse. Human interaction is often about breaking symmetry. Sexuality seems more like choosing a career (with everyone finding their taste/niches) than laws against violence (for which niches aren’t possible so Kant’s maxim would apply).

The second argument: celibates can develop neuroses that may influence them to hurt others. The classic example is priest pedophilia (of course it’s not limited to Catholicism or Christianity). If this were true then celibacy might be wrong in the way we consider drink driving wrong: you’re putting yourself in a situation that greatly increases your chance of harming others. But the problem is this requires a very sophisticated risk assessment that we haven’t done. Many people tout media images, but it’s always a good idea to avoid any hysteria (inc. anti-church hysteria). 4% of US Catholic priests were accused. But if the US has 39 million abuse survivors, then as much as 10% of the general population might have committed child sexual abuse. Which makes sense since most of it is against family members in the home setting, which priests don’t have access to.

Just like social conservative arguments against necrophilia don’t stack up, neither do social liberal arguments against celibacy. Having said that, there’s absolutely no reason to hold celibacy up as an ideal. Which we still do to an extent. The classic saint of urban mythology is Mother Teresa, her celibacy certainly helping her status as righteous. (Of course she was anything but.) Plus actual celibacy is rarer than we might think, whether in cavorting Tibetan monks or Vatican orgies by Pope Alexander VI. OK, that last one is very questionable and not too relevant — but still interesting…