Sexual Ethics and the Person

Sexual Ethics and the Person

JPI 570/838
3 Credits

This course will study the personal character and meaning of the body as a foundation for sexual ethics. Starting with the specificity of the moral point of view, the course will develop the main lines of an ethics of sexuality in which the human person as a created whole, corpore et anima unus, is “the subject of his own moral acts” (Veritatis splendor, 48). As John Paul II said, we find in the body “the anticipatory signs, the expression and the promise of the gift of self, in conformity with the wise plan of the Creator” (ibid.). Particular issues will include the ethics of conjugal relations, contraception, homosexuality, and the use of condoms to prevent HIV/AIDS. (JPI 548/748 Fundamental Moral Theology: Freedom and Human Action is highly recommended as a background.)

Selected Texts

Faculty

David S. Crawford portrait

David S. Crawford

Dean
Associate Professor of Moral Theology and Family Law

Dr. Crawford’s teaching spans the areas of moral theology and philosophical ethics, the theological and philosophical anthropology of marriage and family, and legal and political philosophy. His publications address human action, natural law, homosexuality, “gender identity,” and the anthropological implications of modern civil law.

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