Question You are a single male, a highly attractive female asks you to engage in a sexual relationship with her. However, they are already in a long-term, albeit unstable relationship. Do you accept or decline the offer? I have declined on the basis that should I accept there is a likelihood that the pleasure I would gain is less than the suffering I would cause to their partner (who I do not know) and there is a possibility I am being used to hurt their partner. From canvasing the opinion of my friends I am almost unique in my decision. Am I wrong or do I just need better friends?

Accepted:
April 4, 2013

Comments

Curious whether your friends accept the empirical part of your reasoning, about the likelihood of gained pleasure/suffering. Assuming that they do then this issue nicely seems to come down to the classic debate between utilitarian and deontological ethics, it seems. Others are much more expert than I on these matters, but you seem to be using basic utilitarian reasoning -- see what maximizes happiness/pleasure (or minimizes unhappiness etc), and then that's the right thing. But of course the other way to look at hte situation is this: the female in question (one presumes) is adult, mature, etc., and capable of making her own autonomous decisions. To respect her as such is to recognize that, in effect, if it's okay with her then it could be okay with you. What you are considering is the harm you're doing to her pre-existing partner -- but then a separate argument needs to be made perhaps that YOU have any obligation to that partner if she does not. (By the way: is or was her view that the partner was okay with her dalliance, or not okay? if the former then there seems to be no problem here, but the case is more interesting if the latter.) ... Anyway there may well be purely self-interested motives in play on your part here: even if you decide it's morally acceptable to accept her proposition, who would want to get themselves in the middle of such a mess? ....

great question --

ap

I have a somewhat different take than my co-panelist.

Yes: we can tag the sorts of reasons you're offering as Utilitarian, though I'm not sure that adds a lot. I'd ask a different question: are they the sorts of considerations a morally conscientious person might care about? Seems to me they are, and that seems even clearer when we put them in a plain-spoken way: you're worried that you'll hurt someone else. And you're not sure that whatever pleasure you get out of the arrangement makes up for the hurt. Whether that settles the matter or not, if your friends don't think that's relevant than maybe you do need better friends!

We could ask whether you have an obligation to the woman's partner, but I worry that the retreat to polysyllaby hides the more basic point: how your behavior affects this man is morally relevant. The old-fashioned question "How would you feel if you were in his shoes?" is a perfectly good way to see that.

I'm not about to offer concrete advice about this case; there's way too much I don't know. But the question you're asking suggests to me that you're a decent guy.

However, I do agree with my colleague that, moral questions aside, this smells like a mess. That might be enough to settle the question by itself.