Sexual Ethics in Islam and in the Western World
Chapter 4: A Critical Examination of The Theoretical Basis of The Proposed New Sexual Freedom
In the preceding chapter, the salient features of the proposed new
sexual morality have been discussed. Now, it is intended to evaluate its
basic principles. These are restated below:
• Personal liberty of every individual should be invariably respected
and protected, provided it does not conflict with that of others. In
other words, an individual's liberty is limited by no other
consideration than the liberty of another individual.
• Human wellbeing lies in their individual nurturing and fulfilment of their inborn aptitudes and desires. If these natural inclinations are interfered with, it will lead to egotism and personality disturbances arising from sexual frustration in particular. And, the natural instincts and desires are bound to go awry, if these are not fulfilled or satisfied.
• Limitations and restraints on the natural instincts and desires of human beings tend to intensify the cravings and inflame the passions. Their uninhibited fulfilment signifies contentment, enabling a person to overcome any excessive preoccupation with a natural urge, such as the sexual one.
The three principles above respectively concern human philosophy,
training and psychology. They are put forward as justification for what
the new moralists consider it to be the correct way, i.e. dispensing
with the conventional morals, restraints and limitations, in order to
ensure individual liberty, to promote, and not to frustrate, sexual
gratification.
First, let us examine the above principles on the basis of statements
and views of the supporters of the proposed new moral system. For, none
of them seem to have fully identified the principles underlying their
contributions to the proposed new morality.
The principle of individual liberty is actually basic to the
sociological realization of human rights. However, those who seek to
promote the new concepts of morality evidently-and wrongly - assume that
personalized sexual freedom has no social implications. This is because
of their obvious assumption that when individuals are free to pursue
their sexual interests, they are expected to observe no more than
privacy, so as not to adversely affect the rights of other persons.
At the same time, they recommend safeguards in the interest of society,
even to the limited extent of assuring paternity and care of children.
According to their proposed new safeguards, a wife is to bear her
husband's child only. Otherwise, she is free to pursue her sexual
motivations, using contraceptives, which not only avoid pregnancy, but
enable her to ignore the time- honoured moral restraints of chastity and
faithfulness, if she so desires.
In the above context, two implications concerning individual freedom
require detailed examination. The first one arises from the
modernistic contention that personal liberty cannot be limited, except
by that of other individuals and the need to respect theirs. The
second implication refers to the claim that sexual relations requiring
the assurance of paternity and filial affinity of a possible child do
not involve any further connection with society, public life and social
prerogatives.
With regard to individual liberty, let us consider the philosophy
behind the same. The essential thing in any individual management of
personal freedom, and in one's entitlement to its protection, is his or
her qualitative need for gradually evolving a harmonious and respectable
manner of progressing one's individual life, towards enhancing the
higher faculties.
Due emphasis on the aforesaid need is noticeably missing in several
Western interpretations or applications of the concept of personal
freedom. In any case, individual freedom should not lead to any sexual
permissiveness, enabling one to pander to lusty impulses and
self-centered desires. For, any misconception of personal freedom cannot
be encouraged, or respected, by those who can (or ought to) realize its
dire consequences.
That personal liberty of any individual, born free with the innate
desires and self will, should be cherished as long as he or she respects
the entitlements of other persons, can be rather very misleading. For,
aside from the need to avoid any self expository interpersonal
conflicts, it is necessary for any society to recognize that the larger
and higher interests of a person himself or herself ought to
conscientiously limit his or her individual freedom.
Any continuing neglect of the aforementioned moral requirement can
further aggravate the harm already done to the very basic concept of
morality and the wrong done to the understanding of personal freedom in
its own name!
Bertrand Russell was once asked as to whether or not he would consider
himself bound to any particular system of morality. He replied in the
affirmative and proceeded to explain his answer by giving a hypothetical
example of how individual morality can be viewed in the social context.
The scenario he mentioned was more or less as follows:
"Supposing Mr. X wants to do something which is useful to himself, but
harmful to his neighbours. Then he carries out his intention,
inconveniencing his neighbours. The latter decide among themselves to
the effect: 'We cannot do something that he cannot take undue advantage
of. A situation like this is rather suggestive of a criminal implication
..."
* *
Bertrand Russell emphasized reasoning and intellectual judgment in the
above case. Then he pointed out that morality did signify the need to
harmonize the private and public aspects of individual behaviour.
From a practical viewpoint, the aforesaid case of new morality hardly
suggests any Platonic utopia. Russell's interpretation of morality
evidences no precedence of any inexorable values of life over the
intrinsically or potentially baneful things. There is no trace in his
suggestions of anything that makes human beings subject themselves and
their material interests to any higher intellectual or spiritual
considerations.
On the contrary, morals indicative of comprehensive meaning and
significance are termed by him as 'taboos'. The only thing he considers
to be sacred or inviolable is accomplishing one's personal inclinations
and desires without inhibition. The only restraint on any particular
manifestation of individual freewill approved by him is its
compatibility with that of other persons.
Even so, he leaves unanswered the question as to what congenial power or faculty should be instrumental in keeping personal freedom within limits of reason, sanity and decency, and to render it harmonious with that of others.
Nevertheless, Bertrand Russell's scenario mentioned above is useful in
attempting a possible reply to the question of individuals limiting each
other's personal liberty. Accordingly, the scenario can be adapted as
follows:
"Mr. X's neighbours can restrain or stop him from harming their
interest, while serving his own. He is convinced that his neighbours in
their own interest will mutually agree to prevent him. Accordingly, he
is reconciled to the fact of his helplessness to do anything without
coordinating his own interest with that of his neighbours."
The foregoing is illustrative of the sterility of Bertrand Russell's
moral philosophy, based --as it is on the crucial stipulation that an
individual can (or ought to) serve his own interest and, at the same
time, safeguard the rights and interests of the general public. This is
so, considering that no norms of individual and group behaviour can be
identical.
Evidently, certain hypothetical assumptions underlie the new morality
proposed by Russell. For one thing, he implies that individuals and
groups in a society can always manage to employ their benign powers
envisaged under the proposed new morality. Secondly, he assumes that
interpersonal and group unity and consensus are always readily
forthcoming against individual transgressors. Then, he takes it for
granted that an individual, who stands alone and weak, can nevertheless
always decide to initiate any action against something of interest to a
majority.
However, individual and collective powers of thinking and action can
vary. People adversely affected by an individual transgression are
seldom prepared to achieve unanimity and unity. Furthermore, one does
not always decide to act against any majority interest, especially
without confidence in one's own strength.
The ethics proposed by Bertrand Russell may be cogent enough to be
recommended to any weak members of a society. For, the weak may be
readily cowed down by sheer force of the strong and influential whose
rights they may dutifully respect. However, when it comes to, actually
preventing any transgression by the strong and powerful-, against the
weak, the proposed ethics will probably fail to take effect.
For, the strong may well gang up against the weak. They may stifle any
rare protest, or overwhelm any sign of resistance, from among the weak.
What is worse, the strong can always say that their behavioural
philosophy is not against the new ethics as recommended! In actual
practice, they can even deem it unnecessary to harmonize their personal
interests with those of the others.
Accordingly, Russell's moral philosophy may be construed as one of the
most effective means of perpetuating the dictatorial concept of might
is right. No doubt, Bertrand Russell devoted his active life towards
advocating the cause of freedom, while defending the rights of the weak.
Yet, ironically enough, his moral philosophy tended to consolidate
vested interests and dictatorial tendencies in a society. This type of
contradiction is often discernible in Western philosophizing, so that it
would appear that what is preached is intended to be different from what
is practised.
The second implication concerns marriage and family living, in that
their private and public (or social) aspects are to be determined. No
doubt, individual happiness and mutual enjoyment of life are sought by
persons intending to marry.
Now, two questions arise as to how best to serve and enhance a couple's
interest towards achieving and maintaining a happily married life.
Firstly, one may ask as to whether or not any enjoyment of life is best
accomplished within the privacy of a family itself? Alternatively,
should any pursuit of sex oriented happiness be extended beyond the
privacy of family living to public gatherings, including places of work,
social encounters, downtown entertainment areas and the milieu outside a
family, where people usually seek to accomplish sensuous or sensual
pleasures?
Islam has recommended that a couple's mutual enjoyment be confined to
the privacy of their family living, so that they remain fully oriented
towards each other. Islam has determined that any sexoriented pursuit
of happiness and enjoyment in public is to be avoided. Accordingly, any
vicarious satisfactions derived from a sexually permissive society,
including female exhibitionism in public are not allowed in Islam.
Western societies, which seem to fascinate some among us in more or
less a blind manner, evidently favour the alternative proposition in the
second question above. They have shifted the focus of attention to sex
from the privacy of family living to its vicarious satisfaction in
public. They do pay dearly for this moral lapse. Some of their thinkers
express concern about deteriorating individual and societal morality in
a sex- obsessed milieu. They are also stunned when they find how some
communist societies have successfully taken sex off the public arena,
saving the youth in the process.
Life's enjoyment cannot be equated with lustful or sensual living.
Individual happiness does not lie in maximizing the pleasures of
eating, sleeping and sex. On the other hand, one may suppose that human
propensity to enjoy sex- like pleasures, and conversely suffer
dissatisfaction, can be as instinctively limited as that of animals.
However, this assumption can be wrong, since human seeking of
physiological contentment is susceptible to be carried beyond married
life and family living to the society at large.
However, persons of opposite sex whose souls, rather than bodies, have
attracted each other can indeed be sincere in their mutual affection,
after they agree to become husband and wife. Their marital happiness can
extend beyond' the passionate youth to mutually cherished companionship
towards even ripe old age.
Likewise, it is conceivable that a man used to the most intimate and
satisfying relationship with his legitimate and faithful wife can indeed
discriminate against any animal- like pleasures of the body, such as
obtainable from a prostitute: Accordingly, one would not like to deflect
in the least from what is most desirable and wholesome to what is
sensuously pleasurable and conveniently transient.
Clearly, it is very essential that activities involving human sexuality
are limited to couples, who are married, and to the privacy of their
family living. For this purpose, it is necessary to safeguard the
functional integrity and mutual compatibility of a family and its social
milieu.
Marriage and family living are very significant functional aspects of a
society. They are responsible institutional aspects for the benefit of
the posterity. Family upbringing of children determines the quality of
successive generations. In this context, individual and mutual
capabilities of husbands and wives, towards appropriately raising
children, are crucial factors. At the same time, a father's concern for
his offspring is bound to be conducive to a positive upbringing of the
latter.
Human congeniality, in both individual and social contexts, is best
developed in a harmonious family atmosphere. A child's exuberant spirit
and natural temperament is substantially conditioned and trained by the
parents.
When appealing to the good sense and common interest of two persons, we
invoke their affinity with the community they may belong to, or the
possibility of their regarding each other like two brothers. For that
matter, we may even emphasize the brotherhood of mankind. The mutual
devotion and faithfulness of pious mumineen (believers) is compared in
the Holy Qur'an with the sincere regards that brothers have for each
other.
إِنَّمَا الْمُؤْمِنُونَ إِخْوَةٌ
“Indeed the Believers are but a single Brotherhood:” (Sura al-Hujarat, 49: 10)
Brotherhood among human beings does not come merely from any blood
relationship or racial affinity. When we speak of brotherhood of man,
what we signify is that the congeniality of two brothers in a family can
well be reflected among individuals in a society. If brotherliness and
affection which can be imbibed in a family are eliminated, it is
doubtful if people can really show genuine consideration for each
other.
They say that in Europe there is considerable sense of justice, but
fellow-feeling is very limited. Even real brothers, as well as fathers
and sons, evidence very little affection for each other. This is quite
in contrast to the general run of people and families in the East.
Why, it is so? The answer revolves around the fact that human love and
sympathy are qualities which are attributable to a wholesome upbringing
of children by really affectionate and united families.
Evidently, families in Europe no longer are able effectively to cherish these qualities. The solidarity between husbands and wives, often noticeable in the East, is frequently missing in the West. A significant reason can be the fact that Westerners have come to believe in sex without love or inhibition. Sexual experimentation and diversification do not allow any specific interpersonal love to develop. They tend to be indiscriminate in seeking sexual enjoyment