Anscombe and Sexual Ethics

Abstract Anscombe’s views on sexual ethics have been widely criticised. The goal of this chapter is to think about what she might have said instead, if we take some of these criticisms seriously. So far as Anscombe was Catholic there is not much room for her to have thought anything else than she did about homosexuality and contraception, which are the chapter’s main focus, but her faith was not blind, and she offered reasoned defences of her sexual morals. To the extent that her defence of these positions fails, then, she ought to have had other options available to her. The chapter first reviews her positions, the defence she offers of them, and the criticisms that have been aimed at them. It then evaluates the strongest of these criticisms and considers what plausible positions are left to those who would follow Anscombe as far as reason allows. These positions include that of D. H. Lawrence, whose position is not wholly different from the view that Anscombe favours. If we are not prepared to go as far from Christianity as Lawrence, then we might prefer the rhetorically gentler version of Catholic teaching offered by Pope Francis and Father James Martin, SJ. Or, of course, we might prefer something much more liberal or, like Anscombe’s view, more conservative. The main concern of this chapter, though, is to bring out possible shortcomings in Anscombe’s position and to look for possible alternatives that are not too distant from hers.