Authentic Morals vs Sexual Assault

For several decades, researchers have been measuring males’ self-reported likelihood to commit rape or other sexual assault if they could get away with it.  Terrifyingly, the numbers are high.  In the 1980s, the numbers were between 30-50%.  Up to half of “normal” college men in America admitted they would commit rape if they could get away with it (Malamuth 1981; Malamuth 1980).  According to a study conducted in 2022, these numbers have held steady (Hahnel-Peeters, Goetz, and Goetz, 2022). 

One psychologist attempts to explain this by reminding us that in men, testosterone is the hormone responsible for both aggression and sexual libido, so there should be a convergence – aggressive sex (Sax, page 123).  This materialist explanation might show that men are especially tempted to violent sexual acts, but it utterly fails to explain why so many men admit they would do such acts if they did not have to face consequences. 

In order to understand this terrible fact, we need to focus on why these men do not do these horrendous crimes.  They do not commit them because they fear the consequences of these actions.  Specifically, external consequences imposed on them from some external source: law and punishment.  These men do not actually admit there is anything morally wrong with these crimes.  The only reason they abstain is because they fear the consequences. 

What this shows is that there is a crisis in how people understand morality.  Fundamentally, people do not know what morality is.  In order to fix the numerous issues in society, we must recover a proper understanding of what it means for an act to be good or bad. 

So, what is morality?  What is moral goodness?  First, we should note that we can only call a thing good or bad in reference to some purpose.  Typically, a “good” cookie is one that tastes good, because the purpose of a cookie is dessert.  But suppose you want to prank your friends and trick them into eating a horrible cookie.  Then you might purposefully make the cookie taste bad, but it will be “good” for its purpose as a prank.  A normal kickoff in football that only went 10 yards would be a very bad kick, but if it is an onside kick, then that would be a good (onside) kick. 

So, a thing is good or bad only in reference to some purpose.  Morality is basically calling acts good or bad in reference to the overall purpose of human life.  A morally good act is one which helps us fulfill our purpose in life – the reason that God made us.  A morally bad act, a sin, is an act that prevents us from fulfilling our reason for being. 

Where does the purpose for life come from?  Contemporary culture tells us that we get to determine each for ourselves.  In a famous supreme court case, Justice Kennedy said, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of life” (Planned Parenthood vs Casey, 851).  This is nonsense. 

When you make something, which comes first: the thing, or the purpose for which you make it?  Of course, it is the purpose for the thing in your mind that comes first.  You only make something for the sake of some purpose.  Then, you design and make the thing according to the purpose you have for it.  If a thing has a purpose, then it has a maker, and the thing’s purpose comes from that maker.  Since we did not create ourselves, we cannot determine our own purpose.  God already did that and designed us accordingly.    

If someone asserts that we have no maker, that God does not exist, that humans are exclusively random products of evolutionary change, then they are saying that we have no purpose – there is nothing we are supposed to be or to do.  If that were true, then morality would not exist at all.  Morality would, at best, be reduced to people’s mere emotions about certain types of acts – many people in society think this. 

But God did create us.  Therefore, we do have a purpose, a reason for living.  And it is our duty and our joy to pursue that purpose.  In this proper understanding of morality, goods acts are those that help us achieve our purpose.  Therefore, good acts are ultimately fulfilling, being moral makes us happy and nothing else can.  On the other hand, morally bad acts (sins) prevent us from achieving our purpose.  They only make us unhappy. 

The reason we should be moral is not to avoid some external punishment that God or the law arbitrarily attaches to certain acts, but because we want to be happy.  Immoral acts have their own punishment built into them and their natural consequences - bad acts make us unhappy.  Good acts, by their very nature, make us happy.  God made us and He wants us to do good things that will make us happy.  Jesus said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). 

The fact that many men admit they would commit horrible deeds (if there were no consequences) shows that they do not understand morality at all.  Those very sins themselves would corrupt someone and make them unhappy.  The reason we attach additional, external punishments to certain acts (the reason we punish children) is to teach.  Adding external punishments to sins helps us learn quicker and with less consequences that sin is bad, and virtue is good.  St. Thomas Aquinas writes that, “The punishments of the present life are medicinal” (Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 39, a. 4, ad 3).  He repeats this several times throughout his writings (ST II-II, q. 99, a. 4; q. 108, a. 1, 3-4). 

Society desperately needs to recover the proper meaning of morality or else it will not even know why people should not rape, and the only incentive it will be able to give people to avoid heinous crimes is the threat of punishment.