| dc.description.abstract | This dissertation aims to revive a traditional application of the Principle of Double Effect (PDE) to sexual acts and use that application to explain important distinctions in contemporary sexual ethics made by Aristotelean-Thomist natural law theory. Traditionally, the PDE requires that, to be permissible, an act producing both a good effect and bad effect must meet four conditions: it must not be wrong relative to natural law, the bad effect it produces must be indirect, the good effect and bad effect must result from the same act, and the good effect must be unachievable but for the tolerance of the bad effect. Traditional applications of the PDE to sexual acts evaluate the good effect of procreation and unity against the bad effect of sexual pleasure in isolation from procreation and unity. To explain this traditional application, this dissertation first discusses different formulations of the PDE and contextualizes its sexual application within the manuals of moral theology developed between the Council of Trent (1545– 1563) and Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). It then applies this formulation contemporarily to two arguments and a set of cases found in the context of natural law theory: the Contralife Argument, the Sterility Objection, and a set of cases concerning hysterectomy considered by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2018 and 1993. According to the Contralife Argument, if natural law theory prohibits contraception as a way to prevent pregnancy, then it should also prohibit Natural Family Planning (NFP), purposefully having intercourse only during infertile periods as a way to prevent pregnancy. According to the Sterility Objection, if natural law theory permits sterile opposite-sex marriage, then it should also permit same-sex marriage, which is also sterile. According to a responsum issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2018, the hysterectomy of a uterus which cannot bring a fetus to term is not an act of sterilization. The permissibility of NFP, sterile opposite-sex intercourse, and the hysterectomy of a uterus incapable of bringing a fetus to term can all be defended within the Aristotelean-Thomist tradition because they meet the conditions of a sexual application of the PDE. Correspondingly, the impermissibility of contraception, same-sex intercourse, and hysterectomies causing direct sterilization can all be explained by their failure to meet the conditions of the PDE. | |
