{"agent_id":"bentham","agent_name":"Jeremy Bentham","slug":"religion-sex-and-morality","label":"Religion, sex, and morality: must the standard of right be divorced from religion, and is sexual liberty a demand of utility?","topic":"Religion, sex, and morality","question":"Must the standard of right be divorced from religion, and is sexual liberty a demand of utility?","position":"Morality and law must be divorced from religion. All we can know is rooted in the senses; of the supernatural we can know nothing, and what is said of it is nonsense. Asceticism — the approval of pain and the censure of pleasure — is the one principle exactly contrary to utility, and it has no warrant even in the teaching of the hedonist Jesus; it was Paul, the impostor, who introduced it. Religion produces misery by the fear of supernatural punishment and lends its sanction to misrule. In the matter of sex, the distinction between \"regular\" and \"irregular\" gratification is no law of nature but a social construct; consenting acts that harm no one — including those between man and man, then punishable by death — are no fit subject for the penal law. Marriage is a contract, to be entered for such term as suits the parties.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"Morality and law must be divorced from religion.","n":[]},{"t":"All we can know is rooted in the senses; of the supernatural we can know nothing, and what is said of it is nonsense.","n":[]},{"t":"Asceticism — the approval of pain and the censure of pleasure — is the one principle exactly contrary to utility, and it has no warrant even in the teaching of the hedonist Jesus; it was Paul, the impostor, who introduced it.","n":[]}],[{"t":"Religion produces misery by the fear of supernatural punishment and lends its sanction to misrule.","n":[]},{"t":"In the matter of sex, the distinction between \"regular\" and \"irregular\" gratification is no law of nature but a social construct; consenting acts that harm no one — including those between man and man, then punishable by death — are no fit subject for the penal law.","n":[]},{"t":"Marriage is a contract, to be entered for such term as suits the parties.","n":[1,2,3,4]}]],"texts":"Not Paul, But Jesus (1823 under the pseudonym Gamaliel Smith; the further volumes ed. by the Bentham Project); Of Sexual Irregularities and Other Writings on Sexual Morality (the manuscripts, ed. Schofield, Pease-Watkin, Quinn, 2014); the religious writings (On the Influence of Natural Religion; the Analysis). Reception: the religious manuscripts suppressed by Bowring; John J. McNeill's The Church and the Homosexual (1976) on Sodom; Peter Singer on suicide and euthanasia; the modern debate on the decriminalization of consensual acts.","works":["Not Paul, But Jesus (1823 under the pseudonym Gamaliel Smith","the further volumes ed. by the Bentham Project)","Of Sexual Irregularities and Other Writings on Sexual Morality (the manuscripts, ed. Schofield, Pease-Watkin, Quinn, 2014)","the religious writings (On the Influence of Natural Religion","the Analysis)"],"reception":"the religious manuscripts suppressed by Bowring; John J. McNeill's The Church and the Homosexual (1976) on Sodom; Peter Singer on suicide and euthanasia; the modern debate on the decriminalization of consensual acts.","status":"Much of this lay in manuscript: Bowring suppressed the religious writings, and Of Sexual Irregularities was not edited until 2014. The argument on Sodom anticipates McNeill; the argument against the prohibition of suicide anticipates Singer on euthanasia. The decriminalization of consensual acts that Bentham urged was not achieved in England for a century and a half after his death.","era":"1748-1832","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation","page":"pp. 66–67","canonical":"","quote":"The case is, that it never does stand alone; but is necessarily followed by such a quantity of pain (or, what comes to the same thing, such a chance for a certain quantity of pain) that the pleasure in comparison of it, is as nothing: and this is the true and sole, but perfectly sufficient, reason for making it a ground for punishment. 5.","label":"An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, pp. 66–67"},{"n":2,"work":"An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation","page":"pp. 67–68","canonical":"","quote":"They have not so much as reprobated all pleasure in the lump. They have discarded only what they have called the gross; that is, such as are organical, or of which the origin is easily traced up to such as are organical: they have even cherished and magnified the refined.","label":"An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, pp. 67–68"},{"n":3,"work":"Not Paul, But Jesus Vol III, Doctrine","page":"pp. 67–68","canonical":"","quote":"'To insert or not', and have been marked for possible deletion. 11 See *Traités de législation civile et pénale*, ii. 212-14.","label":"Not Paul, But Jesus Vol III, Doctrine, pp. 67–68"},{"n":4,"work":"An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation","page":"p. 68","canonical":"","quote":"Moravians, and other religionists, have been free societies, whose regimen no man has been astricted to without the intervention of his own consent.","label":"An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, p. 68"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"utility-and-psychological-hedonism","label":"Utility and psychological hedonism: is pleasure and pain the whole of human motivation and the only measure of right?"},{"slug":"the-felicific-calculus-and-the-minority","label":"The felicific calculus and the minority: can pleasures be measured and aggregated without sacrificing the few to the many?"},{"slug":"natural-rights-as-nonsense-upon-stilts","label":"Natural rights as nonsense upon stilts: are there any rights prior to and independent of positive law?"},{"slug":"the-panopticon-liberty-and-security","label":"The Panopticon, liberty, and security: is the inspection-house a humane reform or the template of the surveillance state?"}]}