Year: 2011
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: This chapter is the last and shortest version of a paper that emerged out of testimony and counter-testimony in a court in Colorado in 1995. It omits parts that in the earlier published versions surveyed the false claims made by a learned witness. The chapter begins with a statement of the legal position — standard in 1995/7 throughout Europe — about homosexual conduct (decriminalized but legally discouraged), a position subsequently swept away. It then argues that that position had profound support in the philosophical judgments of Plato, Aristotle, and Musonius Rufus, judgments fully justifiable in view of the basic human good of marriage and the character of the sex act (marital act) that enables spouses to actualize, express, and experience their marriage. Counter-arguments by Koppelman, Macedo, and others are critiqued.
Author: John Finnis
Institutions: Boston College, University of Oxford
Language: English
Topic: Gender and Feminist Studies
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W3022025691