College Sex - Philosophy for Everyone: Philosophers With Benefits (32 page)

What gives human beings our special moral status among creatures is our capacity for higher-level experiences and activities. It is the source of human dignity, the basis for morality, and the
sine qua non
of meaning. The cheapening and devaluing of what can and arguably would best be experienced at higher levels – at least if it becomes the norm – degrades those who engage in the lower-level pursuit. (Compare the way in which popular versions of the classics demean both the audience and the arrang- ers.) But suppose one is convinced of this point – that experiences and activities that omit intellect and higher sensibilities are devoid of mean- ing and of less objective value – so usually to be disdained when something better is open to us. Is this any reason to condemn morally or even to avoid absolutely the lower pursuits and forms of experience?

Not by itself, perhaps, but insofar as lower-quality, less meaningful, or meaningless activities corrupt or stunt us, undermining or even destroy- ing our capacity to enjoy the higher forms of human experience, then we have a good reason to eschew them, e.g., if our preferences for the finer and more elevated will not develop otherwise, or if we will lose our pref- erences for them, as drug addicts often do. Meaningless pursuits are sometimes worse than a waste of time and energy, a squandering of potential.They can dull our minds, coarsen our tastes, and make us emo- tionally insensitive, like the animalistic frat boys and callous jocks in Wolfe’s novel. Should we indulge in them beyond a certain point, they can trivialize our lives. Obsessive devotion to making more and more money as an end in itself, acquiring greater and greater fame (or notori- ety), larger and larger muscles, or higher and higher numbers in the com- petition of sexual scoring, ignoring the costs, are common examples of the increasingly quantitative way in which many people, oblivious to quality, spend their lives.While this is not to say that meaningless sorts of game-like endeavors should take up none of our time, at least they should not be predominant, and one ought to avoid them if there is a real chance of our (to use a much-misused word) addiction.

Meaning and Morality

This brings us to the remaining question: Is there a moral reason to prefer, in general, the meaningful things to the relatively meaningless? The phi- losopher John Stuart Mill (1806–73) made a famous argument in chapter II of
Utilitarianism
3
for the rationality of generally preferring higher pleasures over lower ones on the basis of their quality – the argument being that this would be the preference of most if not all competent judges. This could also be interpreted as a case for preferring meaningful experiences over the meaningless, simply as such, in most situations. But the difficulties and shortcomings of Mill’s argument are equally well known. Even assuming that competent judges would have such a preference, why does this give all of us conclusive reason to share their priorities, especially if we are not likely to become competent judges, i.e., higher, more experienced, refined, and sensitive beings ourselves? Granting that higher pleasures will be more satisfying or fulfilling to a higher being, why become one?

And were we to concede that Mill’s idea of happiness, as opposed to mere contentment, represents the best in human life, the utilitarian

standard of morality is not the happiness of the individual but rather the maximization of social utility. Adapting this criterion to present purposes, there is little plausibility in the notion that moral rightness is a function of the amount of meaningful experience that we directly or indirectly bring about in society.

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), the other most influential moral philoso- pher of the modern period, fails in his argument against the moral accept- ability of sexual acts aimed solely at one’s own physical gratification, done outside the context of a loving marriage and without the intent of procrea- tion. The categorical imperative, in its second formulation, forbids acts that do not respect all persons – oneself and others – as ends in themselves, including those that treat humans as mere means to one’s own subjective ends. The very idea that there are moral duties to oneself may strike us as unacceptable, and it is doubtful that sexual acts motivated only by lower pleasure are never autonomously chosen. The assertion that such sexual acts violate the requirement to respect others similarly lacks plausibility in those instances when no one is forced, misled, or in some way emotionally manipulated into becoming a sexual partner. The possibility of giving free and rational consent to a sexual encounter that has physical pleasure as its sole reason must be admitted.
4

But perhaps there is a different way in which sex for physical gratifica- tion alone is disrespectful to self and possibly others as well, a kind of disrespect which has no particular reference to autonomy. Wolfe’s char- acter Charlotte Simmons, a girl from a conservative rural family in the South, is crudely seduced by handsome Hoyt Thorpe; she feels complete shame and humiliation in consequence, a total worthlessness resulting from a failure to live up to her own standards and leading to a serious depression. Arguably, she was manipulated and misled by his false ges- tures of kindness and attention, of love and devotion, thinking he wor- shipped her as if she were the meaning of his life. Suppose, then, that instead she had merely been overtaken by the moment, by physical lust. Would this have been a moral failing on her part, and perhaps his as well? Or would it have been merely imprudent, a case of miscalculation and poor judgment at worst, not to be interpreted in ethical terms? This is how her friend Laurie would see it – in a more positive vein, taking a chance and learning from experience – as opposed to a reason for guilt and remorse, which only serves to amplify the badness of the situation. Attaching a moral meaning to virginity and its loss, another aspect of the religious morality with which she was raised, is at least part of the cause of the problem.

One can, however, lower oneself or another person without anyone being “used” in the usual moral sense. It undermines not only self-esteem but also self-respect if we allow ourselves to sink to certain kinds of sex- ual acts with unworthy partners, and it shows a lack of respect for those whom we entice. This need have nothing to do with autonomy; rather, it expresses a lack of respect for humans as capable of higher-quality, more meaningful experiences, and more importantly, may disregard that some people are better than others, or that not just anyone should be given the gift of our physical intimacy, however pleasurable it might be for a time. We need not say that sex of this sort is morally wrong in the sense of being unjust, violating a right, or failing to carry out a duty. But it is a serious failure of character and judgment evincing a lack of concern for excellence and value.

A broader, eudaimonistic (happiness or flourishing) conception of the ethical as found in Aristotle’s (384–322
BC
) theory and Friedrich Nietzsche’s (1844–1900) philosophy of value, in contrast to more Judeo- Christian notions of morality’s object and scope as expressed in either the principle of utility by Mill or the categorical imperative by Kant, allows for a better account of moral reasons for avoiding some kinds of sexual activities and strongly preferring others. This is not about the meaning of “moral reason” so much as what amounts to a rationally compelling reason, one with considerable weight. And what could be a stronger, more important reason than that a kind of activity connects to, or fails to support, or worse, undermines, our pursuit of higher values? The virtues as understood by the Greeks, such as Aristotle, are traits of the body, intellect, or (moral) character that tend, at least under normal conditions, to benefit those who exemplify them. They are among the most excellent things in life, essential to living happily. These excellences relate to higher values – particularly the virtues of mind – and so have aspects of meaning.

Respect and Higher Value

Respect is a matter of how people are regarded or treated by others or by themselves. Self-esteem amounts to confidence based on our accurate judgments about our excellence or worth in various dimensions of comparison (e.g., as professionals, as parents, as friends, as drivers, and many others), including these two forms of respect. When we lose the

respect of others, often our self-respect, and in turn, our self-esteem, suffers. Recall how Charlotte Simmons feels herself worthless after succumbing to Hoyt; though understandable, her loss is out of proportion to what actually happened. Losing the respect or the esteem of ignorant or worthless people is not such a terrible thing unless they have some other ability to harm us. Nevertheless, it is often difficult to ignore, if only because it can lead us to question the accuracy of our own judgments of our worth – is our self- esteem too high or false? – and even the need to respect ourselves. (This is, of course, one of the reasons we need true friends, who can offer us legiti- mate assessments of our good and bad traits and acts, based on their knowledge, shared proper standards, and common basic interests.)

Normally, to degrade, demean, or abuse others, especially in the inti- mate context of sexual relations, is to inflict on them a considerable injury.The degradation of others (including taking advantage of those on their own downward spiral), then, is something we morally ought to avoid out of a respect for their potential as well as a regard for our own dignity. We need not love or befriend or even like or admire others – let alone believe in equality of human potential – to have moral respect.

There is, further, the matter of respecting the higher values themselves, as things we should want to have and to appreciate in ourselves and in our lives. We must not denigrate them as human ideals. Yet we often do so when we reject them in favor of pursuing things that are less valuable and less meaningful. The assumption that there are higher values cannot be justified here, if in fact a defense is either necessary or possible. There is also some room for disagreement about exactly what values are higher and so potentially bestow objective meaning. By and large, however, reflective and intelligent people with experience of life tend to agree, at least when dubious religious or metaphysical convictions do not factor into the discussion.

Making Love Meaningfully

Returning to the central topic of sexuality, we should be able to agree that mere physical pleasure and tension release, though desirable in itself, is not a higher value that can give meaning, nor in general is a display of skill, power, or domination in this context. Procreation could in general give meaning to sexual intercourse, but only if we make optimistic assumptions about the value of our species continuing into the future

and of the life offspring are likely to lead. Sexperimentation might or might not involve higher values, depending on the knowledge one seeks; self-knowledge of a deeper kind could certainly be a higher value. Raising one’s own self-esteem or expressing esteem for another through sexual contact could relate to higher values, since these aims concern self-love and love of another person; it is a matter of the details. Social acceptance or gaining the esteem of others per se is not usually a motive relating to higher values, at least not directly or necessarily. Wolfe’s novel offers painful illustrations of how nothing more than a false, subjective mean- ing could come from what is merely a boost in false self-esteem from hooking up with the “right” partners in the estimation of those with cor- rupt values. Love, provided that it is healthy and grounded in accurate assessment, is not the only value that can give true (objective) meaning to sexual relations, but it is surely the most significant.

Finally, if having meaning in what we do and experience is a matter of leading to and/or expressing higher values, as argued, it should be clear on reflection that it does not depend on human life as a whole having meaning. Parts of a larger whole may be meaningful even though the whole has no meaning itself. This is something to keep in mind when purveyors of religious or “spiritual” (e.g., New Age) or messianic politi- cal doctrines tell us that without belief in their system there is nothing for which to live. At least for the more fortunate among us, there is consider- able meaning to be found in our lives quite apart from any cosmic pur- pose or possible future existence, if we are wise enough not to sacrifice higher values for the lower ones.

NOTES

1. Tom Wolfe,
   Hooking Up
   (New York: Picador, 2001) and
   I Am Charlotte Simmons: A Novel
   (New York: Picador, 2005).
   

2. My account has been influenced by the work of H. P. Grice on meaning, beginning with his seminal article “Meaning,”
   Philosophical Review
   66 (1957): 377–88; also by Robert Nozick’s account of meaning in his books
   Philosophical Explanations
   (New York: Basic Books, 1983) and
   The Examined Life
   (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990).
   

3. John Stuart Mill,
   Utilitarianism
   (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002), p. 6.
   

4. See Kant’s
   Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
   , trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), and
   Lectures on Ethics
   , trans. Peter Heath (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
   

   JOHN DRAEGER
   

   CHAPTER 15
   

   CAN GIRLS GO WILD WITH SELF-RESPECT?
   1
   

   

   Naked Women and Cheering Men
   

   In her recent book
   Female Chauvinist Pigs:Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture
   , Ariel Levy describes the multitude of women willing to bare their breasts, drop their pants, and simulate sex with other women on camera for a “Girls Gone Wild” T-shirt and a few moments of fame.
   2
   One partici- pant explains, “The body is such a beautiful thing
   

   … if a woman’s got a pretty body and she likes her body, let her show it off! It exudes confidence when people wear little clothes.”
   3
   Even so, it seems worth noting that this form of free expression is typically accompanied by shouts of “show your tits,” “show your ass,” and “take it off.” At risk of sounding uptight, I find this behavior trou- bling. Let me be clear. The body
   is
   a beautiful thing, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with nudity (even public nudity). Since women are capable of making their own decisions, they should be allowed to expose themselves to other adults if they like. But going wild for the camera threatens to undercut a woman’s self-respect.
   

   Consider another illustration. Meghan Daum writes that “the raunchy contests and general debauchery [of Spring Break in Cancun] were some- thing that these women had prepared for, almost as though for a final exam.They’d logged hours at the gym, in tanning booths and at body wax salons. They’d saved up money for breast implants and then timed the
   

   surgery so they’d be healed by spring break.”
   4
   Whatever else might be said of them, these women are motivated. They want a particular type of body and the popularity that goes along with it. At one level, it even makes sense. Who doesn’t want to look good in a swimsuit? But while I admire their discipline, I worry that these women lack an important aspect of self-respect. It is unclear, for example, whether they (or the men cheering them on) have thought about whether they ought to endorse social norms that valorize hyper-sexualized debauchery. Moreover, I’m concerned that some of these women derive their sense of self-worth from these displays and as a result they are selling themselves short.
   

   This essay explores several forms of sexual expression and what they might tell us about self-respect in the developing and transitional lives of college students. I should caution, however, that there’s little consensus in the philosophical literature on the nature of self-respect. Robin Dillon, for example, argues:
   

   There’s good reason for the absence of settled opinion about something so widely regarded as morally quite important. For what makes self-respect a theoretically useful concept is also what makes it hard to pin down: it is embedded in a nexus of such profound and profoundly problematic con- cepts as personhood, rights, equality, justice, agency, autonomy, character, integrity, identity, and the good life.
   5
   

   My goal is to motivate the importance of several features of self-respect and use these to help us understand what might be troublesome about young women going wild.
   

   Self-Respect and Self-Conscious Reflection
   

   Thomas Hill captures one powerful argument for the importance of self- respect.
   6
   He argues that our value as persons is grounded in our ability to organize our lives in meaningful ways. A person should be allowed to decide whether to go to school, join the army, start a family, or spend her nights hooking up with random strangers. Our worth as persons stems from our ability to give our lives some shape and direction. There is something intuitively troubling about a person not recognizing this fact. Hill illustrates with reference to a deferential housewife willing to acqui- esce to her husband’s every wish. As Hill describes her:
   

   She buys the clothes
   he
   prefers, invites the guests
   he
   wants to entertain, and makes love whenever
   he
   is in the mood. She willingly moves to a new city in order for him to have a more attractive job, counting her own friend- ships and geographical preferences insignificant by comparison. She does not simply defer to her husband in certain spheres as a trade-off for his deference in other spheres. On the contrary, she tends not to form her own interests, values, and ideals; and, when she does, she counts them as less important than her husband’s.
   7
   

   Hill is careful to distinguish between a woman who self-consciously decides to stay with a domineering man (say, because she calculates that life will be better for her children if she does) from someone who always defers to her husband without knowing why or because she’s internalized a set of values that diminishes the status of women. Hill’s deferential housewife falls into the latter category. She is not utterly unreflective. She has given thought to how best to prepare the food her husband likes, satisfy him sexually, and raise their children according to his standards. As Hill describes the case, however, the deferential housewife does not have values, interests, and ideals of her own. She has not considered, for example, how to construct a relationship that satisfies her sexual needs or even whether a healthy sexual life is something that she ought to want. More generally, she lacks self-respect because she does not recognize her ability to organize her life and make it meaningful.
   

   We can glean the following lessons from Hill’s account. First, if a person is to acknowledge her worth as a person, then she must seek to organize her life in meaningful ways. Second, self-respect requires reflecting on one’s life in a way that allows one to take ownership over one’s “values, interests, and ideals.”This is more than mere practical reasoning concern- ing how to obtain what she thinks she wants, but it also requires reflecting upon whether these are things that she ought to want. Hill’s deferential housewife fails to meet these conditions, perhaps because women’s lives have historically been scripted in such a way that becoming subservient to men may seem like a foregone conclusion. A woman may decide to devote her life to her family and she may even choose to favor her husband’s sexual interests over her own, but if she is to have self-respect, then she must take ownership over these “values, interests, and ideals” through self- conscious reflection. Harry Frankfurt sums up the challenge this way:
   

   Taking ourselves seriously means that we are not prepared to accept our- selves just as we come.We want our thoughts, our feelings, our choices, and our behavior to make sense. We are not satisfied to think that our ideas are
   

   formed haphazardly, or that our actions are driven by transient and opaque impulses or mindless decisions.We need to direct ourselves – or at any rate
   believe
   that we are directing ourselves – in thoughtful conformity to stable and appropriate norms. We want to get things right.
   8
   

   Taking ourselves seriously (or having respect for our self-worth) requires not simply doing what others are doing because they are doing it or living according to whatever values are in the air because they happen to be in the air. A self-respecting person should be able to look in the mirror and say, “This is not just some life that I happen to be living, it is
   my
   life.” People aren’t expected to start from scratch. It is quite natural that they will draw on an existing stock of norms. However, a person’s life is made meaningful when she decides whether or not to endorse these values as her own and incorporate them into her own self-conception.
   

   Reasons and Self-Conceptions
   

   College is typically seen as a time for soul searching and forming one’s own identity. Students come to campus already shaped by their upbringing. Their choices in fashion and music, for example, are informed by their background. Yet, becoming one’s own person requires crafting one’s own sense of style. Coming from a “buttoned up” family with restrictive views about nudity may explain why someone is reluctant to go skinny dipping in a lake, but students need not continue to share their parents’ values. Upon reflection, a student may decide that there’s nothing wrong with ditching her clothes and swimming out to the middle of the lake by moonlight. Her parents would disapprove, but it might nonetheless be fun, refreshing, and even liberating. In forming her own self-conception, she ought to decide for herself whether this is something that she ought to do. Not every action can or should be meticulously considered, but a person should take owner- ship of her life by reflecting on what she values and why.
   

   While college is a time for self-creation, it is also often seen as an oppor- tunity to drink one’s self silly. At many schools, a student’s BAC (blood alcohol content) is at least as important as her GPA. Students have been known to spend a good deal of time thinking about what sort of alcohol to buy, how to pay for it, and what sort of drink will give the biggest buzz in the shortest amount of time and at the lowest cost. Many students also hope for the notoriety that comes from being able to drink their friends
   

   under the table. To be successful, students will need to consider how best to achieve this goal. However, this form of reflection differs from consider- ing whether being the last drunk standing is actually worth striving for.
   

   Given that binge drinking has historically been part and parcel of the college experience, many students may not think to question the wisdom of this activity. As we’ve seen, however, a self-respecting person does not mindlessly internalize existing norms, but reflects upon whether they are worth endorsing. Such a person might consider the various pitfalls asso- ciated with binge drinking. These could range from the embarrassment that comes from finding drunken pictures floating in cyberspace to the much more serious dangers of drunk driving.There is nothing inherently wrong with drinking and surely people can learn to drink responsibly. Far from haphazardly internalizing a collegiate norm, a self-reflective student might consider how drinking figures into his life and conclude that drinking is worth doing while remaining mindful of both the dan- gers and the need to carefully balance his drinking with his other pur- suits. This discussion points to a third feature of self-respect, namely, responsiveness to reasons. In deciding which values to endorse and which actions to pursue, he will weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each. When the evidence is in, he will evaluate his behavior accordingly.
   

   Standards and the Freedom to be Foolish
   

   Not everyone will consider the consequences of their actions or listen to the reasons favoring one course of action over another.There’s even something perversely admirable about a person willing to do anything on a dare (e.g., chugging all of last night’s half-empty beer cups, running completely naked across a football field, or performing sexual favors for the next person com- ing through a door). While different people will draw different lines in dif- ferent places, we should be concerned about a person who is unwilling to draw any lines at all. It seems unlikely that such a person has developed a consistent set of values or core sense of self. Like Hill’s deferential house- wife, she seems willing to take her direction from others.The self-respecting person, by contrast, has given some thought to the course of her life and the values that underwrite its meaning.When a particular course of action con- flicts with one of her core values, she is prepared to say, “There are just some things that I won’t do.”
   9
   This discussion points to a fourth feature of self-respect, namely, forming and adhering to one’s personal standards.
   

   In “Self-Respect Reconsidered,” Hill argues that even a self-reflective person can lose his self-respect if he fails to maintain high standards.
   10
   He illustrates this point with reference to a waitress willing to become a pros- titute in order to pursue other ends. Unlike the deferential housewife, the waitress-turned-prostitute reflects on and organizes the details of her life, but Hill suggests that she lacks self-respect because she’s sold herself short. She may be attempting to make the best of a bad situation. Because of enormous debt or her desire to succeed in school, she may decide to accept pay for sex. In deciding to lower her standards, however, she also accepts a situation in which she risks serious bodily injury, risks damaging her future sexual relationships, and allows her body to be seen as a mere tool for male sexual gratification.There may be nothing inherently wrong with prostitution. The waitress-turned-prostitute may have reflectively considered whether this is something that she ought to want, but Hill believes that she has mistakenly allowed her standards to fall too low.
   

   Consider another illustration. Imagine a young college freshman com- ing to campus full of enthusiasm. He wants to set the world on fire or at least to learn a language, travel the world, write a novel, and find the time to prepare for medical school with the eventual goal of caring for the urban poor. It is probably the case that his goals are a bit lofty and unlikely to be fulfilled in four years. Upon reflection, he may decide to change his views and lower his standards in light of the need to find part-time employment and succeed in the rigors of college life. He hasn’t sold himself short. Rather, he has revised his expectations in light of the available evidence. He need not give up his other goals, but he may decide that preparing for medical school is his top priority and consequently devotes himself to spending time in the library. Now suppose that our aspiring medical stu- dent decides to take a break from his studies to spend some time drinking with his friends. This is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. But if he starts drinking the night before a big exam, then we might begin to question his judgment or perhaps his commitment to his studies. After a semester or two of falling grades, we can imagine a close friend pulling him aside to say, “I remember when you were a freshman. All you talked about was going to medical school. Your teachers said you were really talented, but now you never go to class. What do you think you’re doing?”