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In Anscombe lecture, Scruton discusses sexuality in academia

Today’s conception of sexuality is flawed in having non-reproductive aims, philosopher and public commentator Roger Scruton said at a lecture on Wednesday.

“[Modern understanding of sexuality] cuts the future generation out of the deal,” he argued, criticizing the liberalization of intimate relations.

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Scruton noted that sex must be more than a physical act.

“If sexual desire was merely a desire for sensation in the private parts … then rape would be as bad as being spat on. It wouldn’t be worse. It’s just being touched in the wrong way at the wrong time by the wrong person,” he said.

But obviously, Scruton said, rape in fact falls in the same category as murder, whereas spitting on someone is merely an act of distaste. Rape’s offensiveness must have be explained by non-physical factors, Scruton continued. He advocated a return to a more conservative sexual ethic.

Scruton joined Baylor philosophy professor John Haldane and University of Chicago philosophy professor Candace Vogler in speaking about the role and meaning of the sexual experience in academia as well as higher education institutions' role as a moral facilitator.

The panel was moderated by politics professor Robert P. George.

George explained that the notion of sexuality in education began with Plato, the founder of higher education, who wondered what to do with students who were attractive. Plato suggested that the art of teaching was itself erotic and required a sublimating of desires to preserve education’s merits.

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Scruton noted that the establishment of the identity of American higher education, including campus life, female and African American professors and diversity among students and faculty, only began after World War II. At that point, many young people were brought together under an institution and expected to get along, with no guidance as to how to handle their sexuality.

Scruton joked that people only discovered sex in 1963. Before, sex had been tightly controlled within the context of marriage, he said.

Agreeing with Scruton, Haldane indicated that the crux of the sexuality and academia issue lay in the notion of “purity of heart.” He discussed the sensitivity of considering higher institutions as moral authorities, contrasting modern academia with early Scottish and English colleges, which consisted of young students under a single master, who would typically be a clergyman.

Haldane noted that he does not believe universities can set a moral standard for individuals, and suggested that people look to others for help in cultivating purity of heart.

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The struggle of modern notions of sexuality lies in the tension between two dimensions of morality, Haldane argued. On one hand there is an aspect of will and morality, but on the other hand, there is perception and reason, resulting in a reconstruction of sexual ethics and the disconnection of sexual ethics from thinking of it in light of reason.

To explain the recent cultural shift, Vogler discussed the evolution of sexuality within higher education. She noted a significant severance in the common sense of morality, between the thought of gender studies and sexuality and human procreation. She suggested that the ramifications of sexual thought depends on what one thinks sex means for humans, specifically whether one tries to separate reproduction and sex.

Vogler added that social justice and the civil rights movement are necessary prerequisites to understanding how academia has gotten to its present point. In the past, when women were absent from academic posts, there was no avenue in which notions of sexuality could grow. But as women entered academia, she said many began to challenge the common sense morality that was prevalent at that time.

The lecture, titled “Sex and the Academy,” took place in McCormick 101 at 4:30 p.m. and was sponsored by the Anscombe Society.