Question This question is about the moral obligation involved in a loving relationship. Assuming one has been in a loving relationship for a long period of time, (however, there are no attachments such as children or marriage), is it morally obligatory to tell this loved person if one has flirted/cheated slightly? Thank you.

Accepted:
March 25, 2007

Comments

In what follows, I ignore "flirting," perhaps merely arbitrarily, because flirting is ubiquitous and seems too innocuous for a serious moral investigation; others might well disagree, and I ask them kindly to fill in the lacuna(e) in my reply. (Perhaps this question and its replies can be added to the "Sex" category of the web site.)

I don't know what you mean by "cheated slightly." We could have (there have been) many arguments, philosophical, theological, and polemical, over what counts as "cheating" and what doesn't, and what moral significance cheating of various types or degrees has. If only we could establish a continuum from tiny cheating to huge cheating.... To my ear, "I cheated [but only] slightly" sounds like an excuse someone might use to get off the moral hook (Clinton), hoping for a generous and sympathetic reply from the other person (he in effect got one from Hilary). As an older sister once said to her just-starting-college female sibling (in a full-page advertisement for a cellular service): "No French, No Foul." But you didn't ask about the morality of cheating just a little bit. You asked about the morality of telling it to/concealing it from your Significant Other. Does this mean you assume that the tiny cheatings are morally OK? If they are morally OK, then whether you reveal them might depend only on the beneficial/harmful effects on your S.O. of telling/revealing. However, maybe you do not assume that tiny cheatngs are morally OK. Then one reply is that many relationships assume a policy "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," even about huge cheatings, not only the tiny ones, and this policy has helped marriage survive as a practice or institution for thousands of years. So don't rock the boat, baby. Another reply is: the question is really a more general question in ethics about lying to our intimates or even a more general question about what we owe simpliciter to our intimates, and is not exactly a question about sexual cheating. At least, there are many ways of cheating, being unfaithful, in a relationship, beyond the sexual. And these ways might be more morally significant.