Different Views on Adultery: Bonnie Steinbock Vs Halwani
Bonnie Steinbock's view on adultery is correct based on the moral principles of a virtuous person and Raja Halwani’s view on adultery based on virtual ethics about someone’s character is wrong based on the moral principles of a virtuous person. While both philosophers' viewpoints on adultery differ, my main purpose is to show the wrongs in Halwani’s argument.
Bonnie Steinbock’s view on adultery is that adultery is an instance of promise-breaking, on the view that marriage involves explicitly and a promise of loyalty, especially in a sexual context. Steinbock believes that cheating on your spouse shows a lack of concern and a willingness to cause pain to your partner. The second position Steinbock takes in is adultery is immoral and that it involves deception which relates to lying about one’s whereabouts. This viewpoint mentions how a pattern of lies will have unchangeable consequences in marriage because lying is a fundamental kind of wrongdoing. In Raja Halwani’s case, he views the act of adultery as not being so bad. Halwani does not see a necessary connection between love and sex. He believes that love and sex can be disconnected, in result making adultery permissible.
When adultery happens a failure to keep a commitment to his/her partner is broken. The trust is broken in the relationship and a person is betrayed and deceived. When a couple comes together and gets married, two people are becoming one. In marriage, two people stand before the pastor and recite promises that are vows which are promises made to one other expressing the love they share. In many religions such as Catholicism and Christianity, sex is believed to be only for marriage. When a vow is broken it is viewed as an unbreakable thing because it causes pain to their partner. The moment the vow is broken it destroys the fabric that was held by the couple when they shared vows. Steinbock states in her essay “In marriage, there are two partners. When one person starts contributing far less than the other person to the marriage, that’s the original infidelity”. This quote helps the reader understand the importance of why adultery is wrong because it indicates that when a person starts contributing less in the relationship that is the start on the downfall. In this case, a failing marriage should end in divorce rather than cheat on the individual as that would be a betrayal to the person who put their trust in their partner.
According to Halwani, adultery occurs in the context of marriage or a love relationship, the basis of which is an emotional commitment. Adultery typically happens in the context of betraying someone’s love. Love and sex are not the same things, and emotional betrayal cannot always be equivalent to sexual betrayal. When sex is connected with love adultery is possible and immoral. Halwani references a case where a married man who lacks sexual activity but believes in sexual fidelity, when the couple has sex the husband does so in a joyless manner. Over time his wife gets sick and has a mastectomy done. After her surgery, the husband neglects her to a point where her presence barely registers. The wife ends up meeting someone who appreciates her talents and is blind to her physical scars. In this case, Halwani viewed the man to be faithless even though his wife may have engaged in a sexual relationship. This viewpoint is based on the husband's lack of ability to give his wife the emotional support she needed.
In Halwani’s case about the wife cheating on the husband, he tried justifying her position on cheating by saying “The husband is the kind of person who is calculative, cold, selfish, and emotionally distant”. The wife suffered from the husband’s increased neglect which made the affair understandable given her need for love and affirmation. A virtuous person in the wife’s position would remain faithful through the disconnect of the husband's emotional and physical detachment. If the wife informed her husband she wants to open marriage and the husband agreed then having sex with another man would have been justified because the trust and honesty in the marriage would still be intake. There is a good reason to believe a virtuous person in the wife’s case would have first looked for ways to reconcile the relationship if it were failing through by considering options like consoling or therapy to try and reconnect the relationship. The wife should have removed herself from engaging in conversations with other men knowing she had feelings for him while being married. This led her to become unfaithful and by doing so she hurt her husband who she once shared a strong connection with. virtuous person, she would have been able to handle any situation with great manners by using a variety of virtues to stir away from harming a loved one and avoid any vice-driven actions. If the options to repair the relationship failed then the wife should have ended the marriage so she can seek a partner who appreciates her.
A virtuous person is someone who lives with high moral standards. An individual who is honest, loyal, respectful, loving, caring, courageous, kind, trustworthy, and much more. Someone who possesses these character traits would typically be an individual who would seek the best for their partner by trying to make them happy and appreciating the sacrifices made throughout the time spent together. A virtuous person would not want their actions to lead to any possibility of violence, suicide, depression, violence, or even murder. This gives good reason to believe adultery should be avoided in a relationship because of the severe effects cheating could potentially cause. People with good morals in a relationship would try to analyze to wrongs in their relationship and put time and energy into their partner to ensure they are doing everything possible to avoid cheating. A good partner would be communicating with their husband/wife about how they feel and speaking about any misunderstandings that may lead them to feel an urge to cheat. This way any unequal partnerships or feelings of neglect will be addressed and dealt with in a way that leaves both individuals happy.
